# Semitic root/cognates for Aramaic קדישא



## Malki92

Hello, I am looking for the cognates of חברא and קדישא in other Semitic languages. I'd like to know what the Semitic root means for both words and how this root is used to form other words in other Semitic languages. (Specifically I'd be really curious on how the roots Ḥ-B-R and Q-D-Š are defined in Ugaritic and what sort of derivatives they form in that language. But I'm equally as curious as to the usages in other Semitic languages)

*Moderator note: Please respond only for the word  קדישא here. Answer for the word חברא in this thread.*


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## arielipi

Hebrew
<...> קדוש
holy <...>
roots
<...>
ק-ד-ש


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## berndf

For Q-D-Š you find the to-be-expected Arabic cognate Q-D-S, i.e. reflexes of PS *Q-D-S1.


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## fdb

berndf said:


> For Q-D-Š you find the to-be-expected Arabic cognate Q-D-S, i.e. reflexes of PS *Q-D-S1.



True, though the Arabic (and Sabaic) words from the root q-d-s1 are probably all loanwords from Hebrew and Aramaic.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> True, though the Arabic (and Sabaic) words from the root q-d-s1 are probably all loanwords from Hebrew and Aramaic.


Why?


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## fdb

q-d-s1 seems to belong to a specifically North-West Semitic religious vocabulary. In Sabaic the noun qds1 “holiness” and the verb qds1 “to celebrate the liturgy” occur only in inscriptions from the (late) monotheistic period, and are clearly loanwords. Arabic rūḥu l-qudus (thus already in the Qur’an) is Aramaic rūḥā d-qudšā “the spirit of holiness, the holy spirit”. qiddīs means “a Christian saint”, but also “holy”. The verb qaddasa in the sense “celebrate the mass” is a calque on Aramaic, though in the sense “sanctify, bless” it is possibly an Arabic denominal verb.


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## berndf

How do we explain the shift /ʃ/>/s/, if they aren't cognates but loans? Did the loaning happen before the realizations of s1 split or was the etymological correspondence so transparent to speakers at the time that they applied it during loaning? The letter would be rather surprising (trying to imagine English _slut_ would be loaned into German as _Schlutz_).


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## fdb

The shift of š > s is fairly late in Arabic. s regularly stands for š not only in Aramaic loanwords, but also in borrowings from Iranian, e.g. in the royal name Šābuhr > Arabic Sābūr.

There is an article on “sīn and shīn” in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edition), if you have access to it.


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## berndf

Which realization for s1 (š) do we have to assume then and what was the underlying phonemic structure in Arabic of the time? Like in modern Arabic s1/s3 merged (today pronounced /ʃ/, Shiin) and s2 separate (today pronounced /s/, Siin)?


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## fdb

At an early stage North Arabian must have had a three-way distinction between s1 /ʃ/, s2 /ɬ/ (voiceless lateral), and s3 /s/. s1 and s3 merged very early as /s/ س , but s2 ش was possibly still a lateral well into the Islamic period, which later shifted to /ʃ/. This means that at the time when the mass of Aramaic and Iranian words were borrowed into Arabic there was no /ʃ/ in Arabic, so the foreign /ʃ/ was borrowed as /s/.


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## berndf

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense and set a lot of things straight in my mind. So then everything non-ɬ-ish should have become س, i.e. everything, whether etymological s1, s2 or s3 for Hebrew and Aramaic (where [ɬ] was already lost at the time) or s and š for Iranian loans, is that so?

But then your





fdb said:


> The shift of š > s is fairly late in Arabic.


wasn't quite accurately worded. You need no shift within Arabic to explain what happened. Just the fact that lateral s2 was still present explains the shift of /ʃ/ to /s/ during the loaning process -- and not within Arabic. Now my wold is fine again. A shift from /ʃ/ to /s/ *within *Arabic as your original explanation suggested seemed quite odd to me.


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## origumi

Akkadian quddušu =  holy, pure.

Ugaritic qidšu = holy place, chapel, and qad(i)šu = consecrated gift, cultic personnel.

Amharic qeddus = holy, saint, qaddasa = sanctified, made holy (see the exact vowels in the link).


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## ancalimon

For your information: There is also the Turkic word "kut" (blessing~celebration of Tengri). I can not dismiss it.

Turkic K tamga probably is related with the word KUT itself:



I think it's a depiction of a human that has raised his arms in the air. Also is the depiction of a tree branch or a deer antlers.  All of these are related with receiving a blessing from God. It's the depiction of things that are praying to Tengri.


I would also try to link the word with the Gutians which also might link the word to Scythians.

The word Khodai might also be related in my opinion but I can not be sure about the Persian origin for this word. Also the word "God" should also be compared.


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## fdb

fdb said:


> The shift of š > s is fairly late in Arabic.....



Yes, I did give two contradictory explanations. “Fairly late” is intentionally vague. I would imagine that the oldest stratum of Aramaic loanwords in North Arabian might well have participated in the s1 > /s/ shift. But after the completion of that shift Aramaic and Iranian /ʃ/ become /s/ simply because there is at this stage no /ʃ/ in Arabic. Later still (after the s2 > /ʃ/ shift in Arabic) foreign /ʃ/ is represented by Arabic ش , e.g. in _šāh_ “king (in chess)”.

Thanks also to Origumi for reminding us that q-d-š does occur in Akkadian. I do not rule out the possibility that some of the Arabic q-d-s words *might* come from common Semitic, but most of them are so close in form and in meaning (and I mean: specifically Christian/monotheistic meaning) to Aramaic that they are most likely to be borrowings.

The Amharic words are (I think) all religious terms borrowed from Geez, which in turn borrowed them from Aramaic or Arabic. As I mentioned, the root q-d-s1 does not occur at all in South Arabian before the monotheistic period.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> I would imagine that the oldest stratum of Aramaic loanwords in North Arabian might well have participated in the s1 > /s/ shift.


If there ever was one. Many argue today that /s/ is in fact the original pronunciation of s1.


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