Abnormal Interests

Duane,

I don’t Akkadian but I think you may be wrong on this. Here are two examples:

“In vain you rise early and stay up late (מְאַחֲרֵי), toiling for food to eat-- for he grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:2).

“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late (מְאַחֲרֵי) at night till they are inflamed with wine” (Isaiah 5:11).

It seems to me that מְאַחֲרֵי is related to your Akkadian word.

Claude Mariottini

Interesting point. I'm pretty sure most would think the Hebrew word a cognate rather than a loanword. I know I would. The reason is rather complex but I need to deal with cognates sometime in this series. The short answer has to do with how and when a word came into a language. If a word followed the normal linguistic development of a language, isoglosses with other languages are generally considered cognates. If it came into the language without any signs of an etymology in that language it is generally considered a loan. This is way too simple but I hope you get the idea. But how to tell? That is the hard part.