# Sabbath



## No_C_Nada

_
      Is the word "Sabbath" Hebrew or Aramaic?_


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## Abu Rashid

Why must it be 'or'? Could it not be both? It's also Arabic and Amharic and probably in most other Semitic languages.


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## origumi

The term as used in European languages comes from Hebrew, not Aramaic:



> Sabbath: O.E. sabat "Saturday," observed by the Jews as a day of rest, from L. sabbatum, from Gk. sabbaton, from Heb. shabbath, prop. "day of rest," from shabath "he rested." The Babylonians regarded seventh days as unlucky, and avoided certain activities then; the Jewish observance may have begun as a similar custom. From the seventh day of the week, it began to be applied early 15c. to the first day (Sunday), a change completed during the Reformation. The original meaning is preserved in Sp. Sabado, It. Sabbato, and other languages' names for "Saturday." Hung. szombat, Rumanian simbata, Fr. samedi, Ger. Samstag "Saturday" are from V.L. sambatum, from Gk. *sambaton, a vulgar nasalized variant of sabbaton.


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Sabbath


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## No_C_Nada

origumi said:


> The term as used in European languages comes from Hebrew, not Aramaic:
> 
> 
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Sabbath



_Thank you, origumi.

How did people in Jesus' time (or earlier) say "Sabbath" in Aramaic?


_


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## No_C_Nada

Abu Rashid said:


> Why must it be 'or'? Could it not be both? It's also Arabic and Amharic and probably in most other Semitic languages.



_Thank you, Abu Rashid.

Are you saying, then, that the origin of the word "Sabbath" is Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Amharic and most other Semitic languages?


_


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## ks20495

שבתא (shabta) is the Aramaic word for "the Sabbath." 
(Although I'm sure people in Jesus' time--as throughout Jewish history--would have also used the Hebrew.)


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## ks20495

> Are you saying, then, that the origin of the word "Sabbath" is Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Amharic and most other Semitic languages?



The word is definitely found in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic.

In Hebrew, the root ש-ב-ת means "rest"/"not working". Accordingly, the etymology of "sabbath" in Judaism is God's resting on seventh day of Creation. ("וַיִּשְׁבֹּת בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה" [Genesis 2:2]).


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## origumi

ks20495 said:


> שבתא (shabta) is the Aramaic word for "the Sabbath."


The final -a in Aramaic lost its definite article meaning in many places, maybe due to Akkadian influence, or more precsicely, Aramaic as spoken in formerly Akkadian areas. Therefore the translation of Aramaic שבתא shabta can be simply שבת Sabbath, not השבת The Sabbath.

See for example Unkalos for שמות Exodus 31:15, in which שבת=שבא and שבתון=שבָּתא

וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי *שַׁבַּת* *שַׁבָּתוֹן* => וּבְיוֹמָא שְׁבִיעָאָה *שַׁבָּא* *שַׁבָּתָא*

and a little later השבת=דשבתא, in which the ד (equivalent to Hebrew ש) translates the Hebrew definite article, thus שבת=שבתא:

כָּל-הָעֹשֶׂה מְלָאכָה בְּיוֹם *הַשַּׁבָּת* => כָּל דְּיַעֲבֵיד עֲבִידְתָא בְּיוֹמָא *דְּשַׁבְּתָא*


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## Abu Rashid

No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _Are you  saying, then, that the origin of the word "Sabbath" is Hebrew, Aramaic,  Arabic, Amharic and most other Semitic languages?_


_
_
What I'm saying is it's probably a common Semitic word , which therefore obviously still exists in most modern languages of that family.

It's kind of like asking if the word "water" is American english or British english... it is not specifically either, it belongs to both languages equally.



			
				ks20495 said:
			
		

> The word is definitely found in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic.



The verb in a few different forms also exists in Amharic.


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## No_C_Nada

_
          I do not think they all used it at the same time.  There must be ONE language where it was used first.  

          Following your example, I could say that the word "mama" is Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Latin and many other languages.

         But the word is originally from Latin.


         Then, from your explanations, I gather that the etymology of the word "Sabbath" is Aramaic.

_


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## ks20495

> I do not think they all used it at the same time. There must be ONE language where it was used first.
> 
> Following your example, I could say that the word "mama" is Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Latin and many other languages.
> 
> But the word is originally from Latin.



This is not necessarily the case. Languages from around the world use [m] to indicate "mother". Latin can only be said to have influenced the Romance languages. But, the "ma" in Chinese developed independently of Latin (and perhaps before Latin even existed). Similarly, the Semitic "'-m" (Hebrew: 'em, Arabic: 'umm, Aramaic: 'eem) developed independently (and before Latin existed). 



> Then, from your explanations, I gather that the etymology of the word "Sabbath" is Aramaic.



For sure, the earliest appearance of the word "sabbath" is in the Torah, which was written in Hebrew about 2500 years ago. 

According to Hebrew Wiktionary, researchers believe Hebrew borrowed the word from Akkadian, an earlier Semitic language that went extinct around 2000 years ago. In Akkadian, it apparently meant "the middle day of the month."

Aramaic and Hebrew are about the same age (of course, it's very difficult to pinpoint when a language came into existence). I don't think you could definitively say whether "sabbath" (meaning "day of rest") appeared first in Hebrew or Aramaic.


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## Abu Rashid

No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _I do not think they all used it at the same time.  There must be ONE language where it was used first. _



Why not? why must one of them have used it first? If they are descended from a common ancestor language (proto-Semitic) and the word existed in proto-Semitic, then neither Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic nor amharic used it first. They all inherited it from their ancestor language.

It is akin to saying that if 3 children inherited blue eyes from their mother, which of the children does the blue eyes originate from?



			
				No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _Following  your example, I could say that the word "mama" is Spanish, French,  Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Latin and many other languages._



That's right, you could, and you'd be right. It does belong to all of those languages. Most of the languages you've mentioned are Romance languages, so they obviously inherited it from Latin, but Chinese did not, nor did any of the other hundreds of languages around the world which use some form of 'm' to refer to a mother.

The case here is a little different though, because we know about the Latin ancestry of the Romance languages. We don't actually know what preceded Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic & Amharic. We know that as we look back into their history, they seem to merged and become more alike, but we have absolutely no knowledge or information about their ancestor language, except what we can extrapolate from the current forms of the daughter languages.



			
				No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _
> But the word is originally from Latin._



Right... but they inherited it, they didn't borrow it or take it from Latin. There was no point at which Spanish speakers said "Hey let's start using the Latin word for mum", they were speaking Latin, and it slowly diverged off into Spanish, mama and all the other words were already their words. They've been Spanish, French, Romanian etc. words from the inception of those languages.

Just as s-b-t may well have been a part of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic & Amharic since their earliest possible times, and coudl well have been inherited from a parent language they all shared. In which case discussing whether the word is originally Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic or Amharic is moot.



			
				No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _Then, from your explanations, I gather that the etymology of the word "Sabbath" is Aramaic._



That's a rather long bow to draw. Nowhere did I hint whatsoever that it's originally Aramaic. My position is elucidated above. I think it's fairly likely it might not originate from any of these languages, but was jointly inherited from the parent language.


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## No_C_Nada

_
Thank you, Abu Rashid, for your explanations.

Thank you, ks20495__, for bringing up that both Aramaic and Hebrew came from Akkadian.


_


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## Abu Rashid

No_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _Thank you, Abu Rashid, for your explanations._




You're welcome.



			
				Np_C_Nada said:
			
		

> _Thank you, ks20495__, for bringing up that both Aramaic and Hebrew came from Akkadian._




Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic came from Akkadian. I honestly don't know where on earth you got these ideas from, as nobody in this thread said anything of the kind.


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## origumi

No_C_Nada said:


> _Thank you, ks20495__, for bringing up that both Aramaic and Hebrew came from Akkadian._


You can see the Semitic languages genealogical tree in many places, for example http://atabsh.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/semitic-tree.jpg


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## No_C_Nada

_
                     Thank you, origumi, for bringing the link to the Semitic languages genealogy tree.

                      I can see that Hebrew descended from Canaanite.  Both Canaanite and Aramaic descend from North West Semitic, which descends from Central Semitic and the latter from West Semitic.  I also see that Akkadian descends from East Semitic.  And both W Semitic and E Semitic descend from Proto-Semitic.

                     When you said both Aramaic and Hebrew had Akkadian influence, I deduced that the two former might be descendants from the latter, in the same way that Spanish and Italian have a lot of Latin influence.

_


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## artion

So, do _sabbath_ and _seven_ accidentally sound similar?


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## berndf

We don't know for sure. The roots are different:
s1-b-`: _to swear an oath, seven_
s1-b-t: to rest, Sabbath
It is widely conjectured that Pre-Proto-Semitic had two-consonant roots and the Protosemitic three-consonant roots are differentiations of their two letter proto-roots. So, the roots might be related but we don't know for sure.


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## Aydintashar

artion said:


> So, do _sabbath_ and _seven_ accidentally sound similar?


Maybe accidental. But _sabbath_ and سبعة(Arabic _seven_) might have some relationship. In other words, _sabbath _ may simply mean _seven._


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## Alxmrphi

For some reason (only in passive thought, I guess) I made the connection of '*sab*b*at*h' -> 'sabato' (Italian: Saturday) and thought because they both referred to _days_, there might have been a Latin connection, and some shift from Sunday to Saturday and an origin in Church terms. Thinking about it properly I can see problems, but had no idea it came from Semitic. This thread has enlightened me!


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## berndf

Aydintashar said:


> Maybe accidental. But _sabbath_ and سبعة(Arabic _seven_) might have some relationship. In other words, _sabbath _may simply mean _seven._


In West-Semitic it is not plausible. Loss of the stem consonant ʿaiyin, if the root were s2-b-ʿ wouldn't be explicable.

In Akkadian (_Shabbath _is most likely an Akkadian loan from _Shabattu/Shapattu_) phoneme ʿaiyin was lost (with reflexes on adjacent vowels) but a relation to _sebe_ (_seven_) seems far fetched. A relation to the Proto-Semitic root s2-b-t still seems most likely, though not through Hebrew but through Akkadian.


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## artion

There is a close phonetic and semantic relation between _Sabbath_, _seven_ and resting that cannot be accidental.

The number seven retains the -t- or -d- in many languages: L. septem, Gr. επτά, Sanscr. sapta, in other languages siebend etc.
In  Gr. the word has aspiration which is the equivalent of the initial S or H, so I will transcribe it here as "septa" for those who are not familiar with Greek. Septa has in Gr.  an alternative stem "sev-" which is used in "sevdomeconda" (70), "sevdomos" (7th) and sevdomas (week). 

Now, an interesting one: There is a very ancient Gr. verb εύδω with aspiration  (thus, sevdo) meaning "sleep". It is often found in the composite word καθ-εύδω (lie down to sleep, sleep) as in Homer, Iliad 1.611. (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0073:entry=kaqeu/dw)

So, "seven" and "resting" are very well tied together. Maybe this is why seven is considered lucky and sacred number


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## berndf

In Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic, the words are *not* phonetically close. The exchange of ` and t as third root consonant destroys the similarity. There might have a common ancestor but there we are talking of a *very* different time scale and that is pure speculation. For the meaning of a Biblical term, this is certainly not relevant. The original Akkadian meaning is relevant because it was most likely known by the Authors of the Torah. But in Akkadian there is also no *semantic* similarity because _Shabbattu_ was the 15th day of the month and not the seventh day of the week.


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## Ihsiin

I have come across two explanations for the etymology of Hebrew shabbat, one that it derives from the Hebrew verb shabat, to rest, (that is to say, I native Hebrew derivation) and the other that it comes from Akkadian shapattu, the mid-month day. The presence of both verb and noun in Hebrew draws me slightly to the former, but then I suppose the verb could have been derived from the noun.
Anyway, both of these explanation have been touched upon in this thread, but I was wondering if anyone could elucidate a little on why it could be one or the other.


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## origumi

berndf said:


> But in Akkadian there is also no *semantic* similarity because _Shabbattu_ was the 15th day of the month and not the seventh day of the week.


Some scholars accept (or used to accept) etymological and semantic relation between the Akkadian and Hebrew words. Some tried to explanation the difference in meaning. For example - the day of full moon was dedicated among Akkadians to sacrifices and was bad for starting any new work because it was regarded as unlucky. Later the Akkadians  started treating half-moon days similarly. This leads to weekly cycle of celebration and no work, as in Hebrew Sabbath (what about the 4th week of the month, with no moon at all? hmm). I quote here Prof. Y. Elitzur who quotes others and doesn't sound convinced by the explanation.

http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/tanach/maamarim/milot-2.htm (Hebrew, 2003)


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## Lugubert

Quoting myself from 2006 at
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=227380



> I thought that I was clever when i "realized" that sabbath must have something to do with seven (I had learned German sieben and Arabic sab3).
> 
> Several years later, but still many years ago, I "learned" that shabbath referred to 'rest' and went back to Akkadian times.
> 
> I just took a quick glance at the Internet, and found for example a sumerlogist answering questions:
> 
> 
> 
> Here is an entry in the recent book, A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian: shapattu(m), shabattu "15th day of month" OAkk, Bab., OA [UD.15.KAM]; also "period of 15 days, fortnight"
> 
> 
> 
> This quote doesn't immediately rule out either of 'seven' or 'rest'.
Click to expand...

Same thread


			
				mansio said:
			
		

> According to the Semitic Roots Index Sh-B-T, meaning to stop doing something or to rest, is a Central Semitic root.


The index is preserved  here

Two entries without references:
http://www.lastkingofbabylon.com/glossary.php
SHABAT (Hebrew), SBT or SABATA (Arabic).  In both Arabic and Hebrew it means “rest.”  The word may be etymologically descended from the pan-Semitic SHEBA' (SB') sheba’ (sb’) meaning “seven.”  Thus, in Hebrew usage YOM HA-SHABAT meant both “the seventh day” and “the day of rest.”

Re: Aramaic for Sabbath / Saturday
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.lang/2010-08/msg00435.html
šabâtu in Akkadian means "to cease, to interrupt". in Hebrew שָׁבַת
 šAbat means to "cease, desist, rest", in Arabic سَبَتَ sabata means
 "cease, interrupt, cut off, rest"


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