# مَلِك



## Ali Smith

Hi,

Does anyone know why there is a كسرة on the second letter of the Arabic word مَلِك 'king'? It wasn't there in the proto-Semitic form, *malk-.

Thanks!


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## bearded

Hi
I am not a specialist, but I would say the ''i'' is there by analogy with Arabic present participes:
malik = the dominating man, the dominant.


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## Ali Smith

Thanks, but the active participle would have a long “a” sound too.


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## Abaye

Ali Smith said:


> It wasn't there in the proto-Semitic form, *malk-.


Assyrian has both _malku_ and _maliku_.


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## analeeh

I think it might be a borrowing from some other Semitic language. Hebrew, for example, has _melech _if I remember correctly.

Edit: It might also mimic the_ fa3il_ adjective form, although not sure why it would follow an adjective pattern.


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## berndf

analeeh said:


> I think it might be a borrowing from some other Semitic language. Hebrew, for example, has _melech _if I remember correctly.


The most likely candidate of a inner-Semitic loan would be from Aramaic and there it is _malkā_.


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## Abaye

berndf said:


> The most likely candidate of a inner-Semitic loan would be from Aramaic and there it is _malkā_.


Or _məlik_ / _məlika_

Hebrew _melek_ (modern: _melech_) is not a good candidate, it's a regular shift from _*malk_.


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## berndf

Abaye said:


> Or _məlik_ / _məlika_


Do you think loans from Judeo-Aramaic are likely? I thought the main transfer route was via Nabatean Aramaic. Of are you suggesting the variant is not confined to Judeo-Aramaic?


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## Abaye

berndf said:


> Do you think loans from Judeo-Aramaic are likely? I thought the main transfer route was via Nabatean Aramaic. Of are you suggesting the variant is not confined to Judeo-Aramaic?


I don't think that the form with "i" is confined to Judeo-Aramaic, why would Jews insert this "i". Need to find a lexical entry for this, of course. (Added) see here "Mandean _mlik_".

We see the "i" form in Arabic, Assyrian, Aramaic, therefore an alternative Proto-Semitic form _malik_ is not unthinkable of.

See also this comment


> Reconstruction Proto-Semitic/malk-  Sometimes reconstructed as *malik- to account for the Arabic form, which is otherwise irregular or due to borrowing.


And also in the same link:


> (perhaps borrowed from Aramaic) Arabic: مَلِك‎ (_malik_)


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## berndf

So you are saying, the variant with /i/ has probably always existed and it may well be inherited and not borrowed. Right?


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## fdb

The pattern faʿil does occur with some primary nouns in Arabic, but they are rare. At the moment I can only think of kabid (but also kabd) “liver”. In Akkadian there is both malku and maliku, but the former is very much more frequent. I do not see hard evidence for *malik in Aramaic. The Mandaic mlyk is the absolute/construct state, just like Syriac mleḵ, with the usual segolisation (or whatever you want to call it). For this reason, Arabic malik can not very well be a loan from Aramaic.


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## WadiH

What does "segolisation" mean?

_mlk _appears in Sabaic inscriptions from Yemen. I think that needs to be accounted for in this discussion as well.


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## fdb

Basically, I mean the way that Aramaic and Hebrew do not tolerate final consonant clusters, but break them up with a secondary vowel. Thus, malk, if it does not have any suffix, becomes mεlεḵ in Hebrew and mleḵ in Aramaic.


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## berndf

Wadi Hanifa said:


> What does "segolisation" mean?


The name comes from the two short ε in words like


fdb said:


> mεlεḵ


The Hebrew name of that vowel is סֶגּוֹל‎ (sεgōl).


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## Abaye

fdb said:


> At the moment I can only think of kabid (but also kabd) “liver”


The Hebrew word is _kabed_ (eg Exodus 29:13, Mishnah Trumot 10:11), not segolite and therefore it is equivalent to Arabic _kabid_.

So a "qatil" pattern was productive in both languages, and yet Hebrew (like most Semitic languages) preferred PS _malk_ while Arabic preferred _malik_ (assuming such PS word has existed). If borrowing from Aramaic is excluded, and borrowing from Akkadian or any other language is unlikely, two possible answers are: either unrelated development of _malik_ from _malk _in several languages (but then: why _malk_ and not other "qatl" words), or a peculiar development in which the less frequent PS _malik_ won the popularity battle against _malk_ in ancient Arabic.

Note: using q-t-l letters to denote the 3 radicals of noun patterns is (afaik) a medieval habit of Arabic grammarian that was adopted by Hebrew grammarians and is being used (at least in Hebrew) until today.


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## WadiH

fdb said:


> The pattern faʿil does occur with some primary nouns in Arabic, but they are rare. At the moment I can only think of kabid (but also kabd) “liver”.



_Lisaan Al-'Arab _also gives فخذ _fakhidh, _كرش _karish _and _كذب kadhib_.  There is also لَبِنة _labinah _(plural/collective noun لَبِن). In all of these the second vowel (i) may be elided for 'ease' تخفيف, whether in Classical or vernacular Arabic.  So seems to me that _malik _is more conservative/archaic and _malk._


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## Ghabi

fdb said:


> The pattern faʿil does occur with some primary nouns in Arabic, but they are rare. At the moment I can only think of kabid (but also kabd) “liver”.


For what it's worth, there's a section about this elision (not just -i-, but also -u-, at the second vowel position, not just for nouns but also for verbs) in Sibawayhi: §475 (هذا باب ما يسكَّن استخفافًا وهو في الاصل عندهم متحرّك etc).


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## Ali Smith

Abaye said:


> Assyrian has both _malku_ and _maliku_.


Yes, Wolfram von Soden gives both forms in _Akkadisches Handwörterbuch_.


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## Ectab

I think PS malk (king, ruler) created a triconsonantal root in Arabic with the meaning of "to rule, to dominate, to be commanding" (and also "to own, to have, to possess") which created the adjective "malik" which meant "dominant" and then, as ancient Bedouin Arabs didn't have kings, the noun malk fell out of use but the adjective malik survived. But as the Bedouin Arabs were interacting with other Semitic people in Yemen and the Levant, they needed a word for king to refer to kings of those nations. So they noted the similarity between Arabic malik "dominant" and let's say Aramaic malkaa (king), so they nominalized the adjective "malik" to translate the Aramaic word.

This is similar to using تقنية from the Arabic root t-q-n (to be skillful, to master) for English (from Greek) "technique".
Or مكينة from root m-k-n for "machine".


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## jimquk

Any connection with maal meaning property, wealth?


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## WadiH

Ectab said:


> I think PS malk (king, ruler) created a triconsonantal root in Arabic with the meaning of "to rule, to dominate, to be commanding" (and also "to own, to have, to possess") which created the adjective "malik" which meant "dominant" and then, as ancient Bedouin Arabs didn't have kings, the noun malk fell out of use but the adjective malik survived. But as the Bedouin Arabs were interacting with other Semitic people in Yemen and the Levant, they needed a word for king to refer to kings of those nations. So they noted the similarity between Arabic malik "dominant" and let's say Aramaic malkaa (king), so they nominalized the adjective "malik" to translate the Aramaic word.
> 
> This is similar to using تقنية from the Arabic root t-q-n (to be skillful, to master) for English (from Greek) "technique".
> Or مكينة from root m-k-n for "machine".



Why would "ancient Bedouin Arabs" be any less familiar with the concept of kings than other Semitic-speaking peoples?  Arabic was always one of the languages of Syria-Mesopotamia and not all Arabs were bedouins.  Why did the Sabaic language have the word 'mlk' for 'king' but not Arabic?  This explanation seems far-fetched.


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## Ectab

jimquk said:


> Any connection with maal meaning property, wealth?


No. Maal is from maa+li+(pronoun\noun) literally "that which is for, of, belongs to...". Like: maa-li-ya > that which belongs to me > my property.
And then the pronoun\noun was omitted and maa-li became one word with the meaning of property, wealth, money...

malk\malik on the other hand is from Proto-Semitic.


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## Ectab

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Why would "ancient Bedouin Arabs" be any less familiar with the concept of kings than other Semitic-speaking peoples?  Arabic was always one of the languages of Syria-Mesopotamia and not all Arabs were bedouins.  Why did the Sabaic language have the word 'mlk' for 'king' but not Arabic?  This explanation seems far-fetched.


The standard Arabic language, like Classical Arabic and it's descendant MSA, is developed from the Arabic dialects that were spoken by the Bedouin Arabs of the 7 century in Hejaz (and Najd?). It is true that there were Arabs in Mesopotamia and Syria, but their dialects\languages are unrelated to Classical Arabic.

Just think of Ancient Greek and its many and various dialects, but Classical Greek, Koine Greek, modern Greek dialects and Modern Standard Greek are all derived from the Attic dialect of Ancient Greek.

Also, the Arabs didn't always inhabit Syria and Mesopotamia, they only migrated there first in the first millennium BC (Probably after the decline of the Assyrian and later the Achaemenid empires) and another time after the Arab conquer of Syria and Iraq after the rise of Islam.


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## WadiH

The battle of Qarqar is the first mention of "Arabs" and it was during the peak of the Assyrian empire (9th century BC).  Maybe that's when the Arabs arrived in the region, but the Arameans are only attested a couple of centuries earlier than that.  Anyway we're getting into pre-history of Arabic and Aramaic where any guess is as good as another, but doesn't seem like the concept of a 'king' would be any more novel to speakers of Arabic than speakers of Aramaic.

Your explanation is plausible of course but I feel it rests on a few conceits and stereotypes, e.g. Arabs = Bedouins, Peninsula is isolated from its surroundings, bedouins are simpletons who can't possible be expected to know what a king is, etc.  It's also not the most parsimonious explanation and assumes that Arabic always used 'm-l-k' in the sense of ownership or possession, but are we sure this is the case? Isn't it also possible that 'm-l-k' in the sense of private property came later than 'm-l-k' as rulership, being linked to the development of Islamic law?


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## Ectab

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Arabs = Bedouins


I should have said "Arab Bedouins" rather than "Bedouin Arabs".


Wadi Hanifa said:


> Peninsula is isolated from its surroundings


That wasn't what I meant. I meant that the word for king was not used by certain dialects of Arabic that didn't use it.
So when a language doesn't use a word anymore, the word would be lost (unless it survives in preserved literature).
So some ancient Arabs like the 9 century BC's Qedarites had kings, and other Arabs had kings. But the Arabic language of Hejaz (Mecca and Medina) didn't have kings for hundreds of years if not at all, so the word for king "malk" was lost from their Arabic dialect before it was reformed from the adjective "malik" (dominant).

Of course, this was my own theory. I didn't say "it must be the case". I just suggested that that was one of the possibilities of why there is an "i" in "malik".


Wadi Hanifa said:


> bedouins are simpletons who can't possible be expected to know what a king is


It is not about knowing what a king is or isn't. It is about whether a word is used in communicating (in daily life) or not.
Arabic languages has many words not found in other languages (including Semitics) because these languages don't use them.


Wadi Hanifa said:


> assumes that Arabic always used 'm-l-k' in the sense of ownership or possession, but are we sure this is the case? Isn't it also possible that 'm-l-k' in the sense of private property came later than 'm-l-k' as rulership, being linked to the development of Islamic law?


I stated that Arabic uses the root m-l-k for the sense of dominating or having authority and control, I then added the sense of possession and ownership in parenthesis to encompass all of its modern meanings.


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