# Etymology and usage of the word/name Adam between/in Arabic & Hebrew



## berndf

*Moderator note: Split from here.
*


Abu Rashid said:


> بني أدم (bani Adam / children of Adam)


Is it actually transparent to (modern)  Arabic speakers that "Adam" itself means "man"?


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## إسكندراني

berndf said:


> Is it actually transparent to (modern)  Arabic speakers that "Adam" itself means "man"?


آدَمِيّ is usually used for 'man' in modern Arabic, with آدم being specific to the first prophet PBUH.
In poetry it can still be used and in context the meaning is clear; يا آدم ~ O human


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> Is it actually transparent to (modern)  Arabic speakers that "Adam" itself means "man"?



Not only is it transparent, but for some it's become second nature to think of it like that, and they don't even realise it's referring to the prophet Adam (pbuh), until it's pointed out to them. I have come across a few Arabs who just thought the term meant "mankind" until someone made the connection for them.

Note: I said "bani Adam" not just "Adam".


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Note: I said "bani Adam" not just "Adam".


Which etymologically means "son of man". My question was if this is transparent to modern speakers. From your answer I gather it hasn't been transparent to you. Thank you for your reply.



إسكندراني said:


> In poetry it can still be used and in context the meaning is clear; يا آدم ~ O human


Thank you, that answers my question.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> Which etymologically means "son of man".



No it doesn't, it means children of Adam (ie. all of humanity).



			
				berndf said:
			
		

> My question was if this is transparent to modern speakers. From your  answer I gather it hasn't been transparent to you. Thank you for your  reply.



I am not a native speaker, so its transparency to me should not be taken as a sign of that. I thought you were asking if all modern speakers would immediately take it to mean "humanity", which I think they do, as I said, some don't even realise that it literally means "children of Adam".


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> No it doesn't, it means children of Adam (ie. all of humanity).


It does, because "Adam" in itself already means "human being". Hence, "bani adam" means "sons/children of man". Sorry for the missing plural "s" in my previous post where I wrote "son of man".


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## cherine

Hi,
Just to confirm:
The word "Adam" alone is only perceived as the first man created by God. The father of all humans.

It's "bani Adam" that is perceived as "human" or "person". And even though the word is plural (sons of Adam) it is used (at least in Egyptian Arabic) for the singular. And it even has its feminine form (bani Adma بني أدمة) : a woman/girl/female, and a plural (bani Admiin) بني أدمين = people, human beings...etc.
But this is only for colloquial. In MSA it's not like this.


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## berndf

Thanks, Cherine. So, it is colloquially declined as if "bani adam" were a single word which suggests the expression is not analysed, as AR explained before. And "adam" alone is only perceived as a proper name and not as a common noun any more, except in poetry as said in #2.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> It does, because "Adam" in itself already means "human being".



No, Adam is the name of a specific human being, who is considered to be the father of all humans. Therefore Bani Adam would mean all humans, ie. all of Adam's descendants.

As for example Bani Israel means Israelites, ie. the descendants of Israel (Jacob). It's sort of like saying the "tribe of such and such", but when it refers to Adam, then the tribe is the entire human race, ie. all humanity.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> No, Adam is the name of a specific human being, who is considered to be the father of all humans. Therefore Bani Adam would mean all humans, ie. all of Adam's descendants.
> 
> As for example Bani Israel means Israelites, ie. the descendants of Israel (Jacob). It's sort of like saying the "tribe of such and such", but when it refers to Adam, then the tribe is the entire human race, ie. all humanity.


I assure you, the proper name "Adam" is derived from a common noun "adam"="human being". My question simply was if modern speakers are aware of this etymological relationship. I was asking out of curiosity because in Hebrew the common noun meaning of "adam" still is very much alive, even in colloquial language and the Hebrew equivalent of "bani adam", "bne Adam", is understood to mean "children of man" in the sense of "children of the first man".


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## إسكندراني

berndf said:


> I assure you, the proper name "Adam" is derived from a common noun "adam"="human being".


It is not perceived as such.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf said:
			
		

> I assure you, the proper name "Adam" is derived from a common noun "adam"="human being".



This may be so in Hebrew, but not in Arabic.

In Hebrew isn't it derived from the word for red or dirt/clay or something? I recall reading something along those lines. The usage for man[kind] would then seem to derive from it being the proper name of the first man I would think.



> the Hebrew equivalent of "bani adam", "bne Adam", is understood to mean  "children of man" in the sense of "children of the first man".


I don't really get the meaning or significance of the explanation as "children of man", it just seems to be redundant to me, especially if you take adam (man) to mean mankind. However when one says bani Adam then it instantly evokes the concept of the entire tribe/family of humanity (for me it did anyway, when I first heard it), referring to every single human being who ever existed (perhaps with the exception of Adam himself, although he is obviously implied anyway).

The term bani <someone>, in Arabic at least, my guess is it's the exact same in Hebrew, refers to a societal structure, usually a tribe or clan, but possibly a nation or even all of humanity, as in this [single] case.


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## berndf

Yes, the root aleph-daleth-mem means "being red". The noun "adam" can be understood as "the one made from red clay". The etymological chain is "the one made from red clay" > "man" > proper name "Adam".


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## Abu Rashid

The etymological chain doesn't seem logical to me. It would make more sense if someone were named Adam for being made from red clay, and because then mankind came to be named after him.

The jump from red clay -> mankind just doesn't seem to fit. However, naming the first man for what he was made from, and then using his name to refer to all mankind makes a lot more sense. Also remember, the first man had to come before mankind, which means it makes even less sense for the first man's name to be derived from the word for mankind.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> However, naming the first man for what he was made from, and then using his name to refer to all mankind makes a lot more sense.


But this is not what happened. The use of "Adam" as a proper name is a later development. Both, the Elohist and he Javist versions of the history of creation used "*ha*adam"="*the* man" first as a common noun and not as a proper name. The word first appears in the Elohist version in Genesis 1.27: "So God created man (=haadam) in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.".
In the Javist version, the word also occurs with the definite article first in Genesis 2.7: "the LORD God formed the man from the  dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,  and the man became a living being.". In Genesis 5, the Elohist starts to use "Adam" first as a name of the species, i.e. of mankind and then as a name for the first man (without definite article).
In Hebrew, the word "adam" has always been used mean "a human being", "a person" but also "mankind", much like "man" in English ("A man has came around the corner" but "Man has conquered space"). Even today, if you buy a bus ticket for "one person" you say "adam echad".


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## Abu Rashid

I really don't think the order in which words appear in the Bible, and the presence of a definite article tells us what derived from what.

My guess is all 3 uses of the word pre-date the earliest manuscripts of Genesis. Like with the other stories about why people were named as they were, it could well be an after thought.


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## berndf

I am not quite sure now any more what we are discussing, how the word has evolved of how it should have evolved. You are trying to fit the meaning of the loaning language into the originating language. If you want to contest what is obvious in the oldest sources we have available, you should give historical reasons for that and not only ones which are based on modern understanding in different languages and cultures.

I am not saying your position is a priori wrong, but I would any kind of evidence that things had developed differently before I start doubting the straight forward reading of the primary source (or: the "most primary" we have).


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## OBrasilo

- berndf: Actually, it seems like Wikipedia proves you wrong, read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam .
In short, it says Adam was originally a personal name, only later adopted to mean all mankind. Apparently its oldest occurrence is in an Assyrian king list, where an Adamu is mentioned.


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## origumi

Adam appears in Genesis mostly as "man" or in general "mankind", but also (less frequently) as Adam, a proper name. See for example Genesis 2:20, 3:17 where it's a name.

There are 4 similar terms (by sound) in Hebrew:

Dam = blood (root dmm דממ) - common to many Semitic languages
Adam = man (root ?dm אדמ)
Adom = red (root ?dm אדמ)
Adama = earth, soil (root ?dm אדמ)

Dam, adam and adama appear frequently one by the other in the initial chapters of Genesis, which seems intentional and yet doesn't prove any etymological relation. Dam/adom (blood/red) are likely to be related, no clear relation between these two and adam (man), adama (earth).

The similarity adam-adama exists also in Latin: homo (man) and homus (earth).

Adam (man/Adam), ben adam (son of man/Adam) and the plural Bnei Adam (sons of man/Adam) mean in Hebrew man (the singular) and men/mankind (the plural). There's no feminine form, yet one can say about a woman "she is a good ben adam" where "son of man/Adam" is undestood as genderless "person".

The Hebrew speaker is aware that adam/Adam is either man/Adam and can tell the difference by context.


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## berndf

OBrasilo said:


> - berndf: Actually, it seems like Wikipedia proves you wrong, read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam .
> In short, it says Adam was originally a personal name, only later adopted to mean all mankind. Apparently its oldest occurrence is in an Assyrian king list, where an Adamu is mentioned.


I agree there are pre-Biblical (the Torah is believed to be written in the 7th century BC though no actual copies from that time remain) accounts of the word/name and they have to be considered. The oldest primary source seems to be the Ugaritic KRT epic (14th century BC) which contains "'ab 'adm" which is rendered "father of man(kind)" by most scholars.

In Sumerian mythology we find the figure of _Adapa_ who is often identified with _Adam_ but primary sources are no older than the Ugaritic ones.


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## Abu Rashid

bernd,

So if you knew the word was used prior to the Tanak, why did you suggest the order in which it appears in the Tanak tells us about its etymology?


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## berndf

Because it is still the oldest source which gives us at least a bid of context. The Ugaritic source is compatible with both interpretations, the mere occurence of the name in a king list tells us nothing about its etymology and the association with the Sumerian legend is speculative and the etymology of the Sumerian name is different: it appearently means "worker" or "slave".


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## jadeite_85

Is the word *adam *related to the greek word *άτομο *or is a mere coincidence that the two words have the same meaning (man, individual)?


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## Ben Jamin

origumi said:
			
		

> The similarity adam-adama exists also in Latin: homo (man) and homus (earth)..


Earth (dirt, not the planet) is *humus* in Latin.


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## origumi

Ben Jamin said:


> Earth (dirt, not the planet) is *humus* in Latin.


I believe it's  humus < *_homus_, as written here for example.


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## berndf

jadeite_85 said:


> Is the word *adam *related to the greek word *άτομο *or is a mere coincidence that the two words have the same meaning (man, individual)?


I wouldn't know how. _ἄτομος _means _indivisible_ from which the meaning _individual _is derived and is derived from the verb _τέμνω _(_cut_) prefixed with the negation partical _ἀν-/ἀ-.
_


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## ancalimon

It means "My progenitor" (atam) (the person from whom every other people are descended from) in Turkish and I guess that is a really nice coincidence.
The other nice coincidence is that "Apa" (Eve) meant "mother". Today it is used as "ebe" meaning "midwife".


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