# Akkadian, Canaanite, Ugaritic: Octopus



## thelastchoice

I would like to know what is the word for Octopus in ancient languages such Akkadian, Canaanite, Ugaritic.


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## tFighterPilot

Well, I doubt any of these languages would need a word for it, given that none of these languages were spoken near any ocean.


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## origumi

tFighterPilot said:


> Well, I doubt any of these languages would need a word for it, given that none of these languages were spoken near any ocean.


Most octopuses prefer coastal areas. AFAIK there are plenty of them in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Persian/Arab Gulf, although in both regions modern development hurts them.


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## Abu Rashid

thelastchoice said:


> I would like to know what is the word for Octopus in ancient languages such Akkadian, Canaanite, Ugaritic.



On what basis do you consider these languages ancient? And not other Semitic languages like your own Arabic and also Hebrew? Merely because they died out long ago?

Also Hebrew is in fact a Canaanite dialect.



origumi said:


> Most octopuses prefer coastal areas. AFAIK there are plenty of them in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Persian/Arab Gulf, although in both regions modern development hurts them.



So why do all Semitic languages lack a native term for it?


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## Gavril

I'm not sure if Akkadian had a term for "octopus". However, _octopus_ means "eight-footed", and *samāne **šēpātum *means "eight feet" in Akkadian. I'm not sure how you would create a noun meaning "(the thing with) eight feet", though.

If you want to get creative, you could say "the fish with eight feet", which I think would be *nūn* *samāne **šēpātim* (nūnum "fish" + samāne "eight" + šēpum "foot"), or you could replace the word "foot" with the word for "arm"/"flipper", giving *nūn* *samāne *_*isḫātim*._

In case it doesn't display on your screen, the third letter of _is__ḫum _"arm / flipper" is an "h"-like letter which is thought to have been pronounced like English "h" or Spanish "j".


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## Abu Rashid

Gavril,

I think the question was aimed more at finding out if an originally Semitic word existed for this creature. The Arabic term for it is a borrowing, so I'm guessing the questioner wanted to know what the original Semitic term was, if one existed.

It seems the Hebrew term תמנון (tamanun?) might be Semitic, although it seems it is originally Aramaic, not Hebrew. It looks like a portmanteau of the Aramaic words for eight and fish.


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## Gavril

Abu Rashid said:


> Gavril,
> 
> I think the question was aimed more at finding out if an originally Semitic word existed for this creature. The Arabic term for it is a borrowing, so I'm guessing the questioner wanted to know what the original Semitic term was, if one existed.



The original question was, "I would like to know what is the word for Octopus in ancient languages such Akkadian, Canaanite, Ugaritic." I couldn't find an Akkadian term for "octopus" in the dictionaries I consulted, so I tried to supply one in case none exists yet. 




> It seems the Hebrew term תמנון (tamanun?) might be originally Semitic, although it seems it is probably originally Aramaic, not Hebrew. It seems almost like a portmanteau of the Aramaic words for eight and fish.



Google suggests it's pronounced _tamnun_.


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## amikama

Gavril said:


> Google suggests it's pronounced _tamnun_.


Actually _tmanun _(תְּמָנוּן), at least according to my dictionary. But to my best knowledge this word is modern, not found in ancient Hebrew.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Gavril said:


> I'm not sure if Akkadian had a term for "octopus". However, _octopus_ means "eight-footed", and *samāne **šēpātum *means "eight feet" in Akkadian. I'm not sure how you would create a noun meaning "(the thing with) eight feet", though.
> 
> If you want to get creative, you could say "the fish with eight feet", which I think would be *nūn* *samāne **šēpātim* (nūnum "fish" + samāne "eight" + šēpum "foot"), or you could replace the word "foot" with the word for "arm"/"flipper", giving *nūn* *samāne *_*isḫātim*._
> 
> In case it doesn't display on your screen, the third letter of _is__ḫum _"arm / flipper" is an "h"-like letter which is thought to have been pronounced like English "h" or Spanish "j".






Nice !

I have gone through the 21 volumes of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and ran a search in every volume. Octopus is nowhere to be found. This animal seems to be alien to Mesopotamian culture. It is corroborated by the fact that the animal gets only two mentions in the otherwise quite exhaustive History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, (ed. Billie Jean Collins): 



> pg. 228-9, paper on Syro-Palestinian Art:
> 
> The bestiary of Aegean origin, which is not as common, consists mostly of the octopus and nautilus. It is found almost exclusively on imported artifacts, mainly painted ceramics from Crete or continental Greece found in sites on the coast, for example the octopus rhyton from Ugarit (Yon 1997: no. 37). There is little doubt however that these vases were made to order for the Levantine clientele, who were interested as much in the quality and utility of these vases as in their iconography.



Are we getting a hint here that the name of these creatures might be indeed loans from Aegean cultures in Semitic languages???


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## Abu Rashid

thelastchoice said:


> Are we getting a hint here that the name of these creatures might be indeed loans from Aegean cultures in Semitic languages???



That is true for the Arabic, but the Hebrew (can't verify if it's the same in Aramaic) looks quite Semitic, specifically Aramaic.


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## Cilquiestsuens

If we are to trust the excerpt I quoted above, we might think that there must have been a word for those creatures in Ugaritic ( = proto-Canaanite / Phoenician according to some classifications), whether it was a loan or not. The Aramaic and Hebrew speaking people don't strike me as sea peoples. The only semitic speaking people who have a deep connection with the sea were the Ugaritians or the Phoenicians and yet not as much as for instance the Aegean peoples (Myceaneans, Minoeans).

Is it impossible to ascertain if there actually was an Ancient Aramaic or Hebrew word for those creatures? If we are to believe amikama (post# 8) the word _tmanun_ is a Modern creation in Hebrew??


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## tFighterPilot

The word tmanun indeed comes from Aramaic and is indeed a modern word. As is the case in many modern Hebrew words, it is a weld of two words: tmania+nun.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Yes, thank you.

So: It is a modern word in Hebrew. 

What about Aramaic. Is it a modern word in Aramaic too or an ancient one?


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## tFighterPilot

It does not exist at all in Aramaic, even though the two separate words came from there.


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## Abu Rashid

thelastchoice said:


> there must have been a word for those creatures in Ugaritic ( = proto-Canaanite / Phoenician according to some classifications), whether it was a loan or not.



I very much doubt Ugaritic is considered proto-Canaanite by anyone anymore. All we have left of the Canaanite languages is Hebrew, and it doesn't seem to have any record of a native word. Phoenician is scarcely attested, in fact I think there's more Ugaritic inscriptions in existence than Phoenician ones.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Abu Rashid said:


> I very much doubt Ugaritic is considered proto-Canaanite by anyone anymore. All we have left of the Canaanite languages is Hebrew, and it doesn't seem to have any record of a native word. Phoenician is scarcely attested, in fact I think there's more Ugaritic inscriptions in existence than Phoenician ones.



Indeed many more inscriptions and tablets were found in Ugarit than in Phoenicia or Canaan. Ugarit stands out for its abundant mythological texts, contrasted to the abundance of administrative documents of Ebla for instance.

By the way, I have also checked the Dictionary of Ugaritic by GREGORIO DEL OLMO LETE AND JOAQUÍN SANMARTÍN... No octopus there....


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## Cilquiestsuens

tFighterPilot said:


> It does not exist at all in Aramaic, even though the two separate words came from there.



Thanks.


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## thelastchoice

Thank you all for your rich feedback. Actually I was trying to find out if an originally Semitic word existed for this creature as Abu Rashid mentioned above. It seems that such word did not exist .


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## JAN SHAR

The Phoenicians must have had a word for it because they were seafaring people. Does anyone here know Phoenician?


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