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February 6, 2009
Friday Culture Word: ks/cup
Here's another list of languages and words. This time all the words mean cup.
Sumerian: kuzi
Akkadian: kāsu
Ugaritic: ks
Aramaic: כָּסָא
Arabic: ىاس
Hebrew: כֹּוס
Mankowski, 63, also cites an Egyptian reflex, ku=ti2 (following Hoch's system). Without doing more work than I care to do right now and without having ready access to Hock's work, I can't convince myself of the exact form of the Egyptian word. I'm not questioning Mankowski or Hock; I just haven't checked it.
Nearly all dialects of Aramaic, from Imperial Aramaic to Syriac, have this word. Sometimes Akkadian kāsu denotes a unit of measure. ks(t) also seems to be a specific unit of measure in KTU 4.710:13. As I have discussed elsewhere, this text is written in the short cuneiform alphabet and may not be in the most common Ugaritic dialect. Of course, the common Ugaritic dialect does have ks also.
As Mankowski, 63, notes, from time to time scholars have suggested various borrowing pathways but none of these suggests is very convincing. The Sumerian may even be a reflex of the Akkadian rather than the other way around.
Reference:
Mankowski, Paul V., Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew, Harvard Semitic Studies, 47, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2000
Posted by Duane Smith at February 6, 2009 8:38 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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Comments
This is too interesting a word - something special about it in Psalm 23. Cup - also Owl - the shape of the head I suspect.
Posted by: Bob MacDonald at February 6, 2009 9:12 PM
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