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July 25, 2008
Friday Loanword: zakakatu/zakukutu
As was the case with the first post in this series, this post is highly dependent on Mankowski's work. If I don't cite someone else or myself explicitly, assume that what follows is taken on loan from Mankwoski, 52-53.
Akkadian zakakatu as it was normally written, and zakukutu as it is was written on at least one occasion, means "glass" or "glaze" (CAD Z, 15). If it refers to a glaze then it may well have referred to a lapis lazuli like colored glaze. This particular noun is attested in Standard Babylonian and is clearly related to zaku meaning "clear" or "clean" and zūku meaning "clarity" and the verb zakû, "to clarify", "clear of impurities."
With that background, let's take a look at Job 28:17a,
לֹא־יַעַרְכֶנָּה זָהָב וּזְכֹוכִית, Gold and glass/glaze (זְכֹוכִית) cannot equal it.
This is the only place זְכֹוכִית occurs in the Hebrew Bible. Job 28 is a self-contained wisdom poem, in my view, rather awkwardly inserted into the book of Job.
So why is זְכֹוכִית a loanword from Akkadian and not a native Hebrew word when Hebrew has the root זכא in its arsenal? First, there is strong evidence that glass making developed earlier in Mesopotamia than in Palestine. And as Mankowsk, 53 says, "common technical vocabulary may be supposed to have traveled in the direction of the processes, instrumentation, and products to which is was applied." Second, there is rather decisive phonetic evidence that zakakatu/zakukutu was borrowed by Aramaic from the Akkadian. The word in Aramaic (including Syriac) is זגוגיתא. Notice ג where one would expect ך. This likely reflects a late voicing of Akkadian /k/. Based on comparitive phonetics, one would also expect an Aramaic cognate, as opposed to a loan, to be written with ד rather than ז as its first letter. The true cognate root דכא meaning to be "clean" or "clear," exists in Aramaic. But all this also makes it very unlikely that the word זְכֹוכִית came into Hebrew via Aramaic. Rather, it appears that both Hebrew and Aramaic borrowed the noun from Akkadian. Of course, the true Hebrew cognate root, זכא, is well attested, where its verbal and adjectival derivatives are certainly cognates with Akkadian zakû rather than loans into Hebrew.
I note that the root *ZK' may occur as a personal name, זכא, on two seal impressions from Beth-Shemesh (10a:2) and 10b2). It is the same personal name, likely the same person, in both cases. But this personal name is related to the indigenous Hebrew cognate rather than the loanword word from Akkadian.
Reference:
Posted by Duane Smith at July 25, 2008 8:01 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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Comments
Is all the borrowing being done BY the Hebrews?
Is nobody borrowing words or concepts FROM the Hebrews?
Posted by: Edward T. Babinski at August 8, 2008 3:35 PM
Edward,
This is a very interesting question. Yes, there may be a couple of possible examples from pre-Hellenistic times. I may take them up in a later post. Of course, by Hellenistic times quite a number of Hebrew words found there way into Greek. Seemingly older examples in Greek may actually be Phoenician loanwords or even what scholars call "culture" words. It is hard to be sure. There are also many examples of Hebrew words in Aramaic (and the other way around too).
Posted by: Duane at August 8, 2008 4:01 PM
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