# Etymology of zamân زمان



## PersoLatin

Is zamân زمان Persian or Arabic? If Persian, then is there a PIE cognate for it?
Thank you.


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## origumi

Brown-Driver-Briggs write about the Hebrew equivalent "zman"


> זְמַן noun masculine Daniel 3:7 time (probably loan-word from Old Persian _zrvan, zarvâna_, _time_, _age_, NöM 152 Scheft45; compare Biblical Hebrew (late); and (on change of ν [_b_] to _m_) FräZA iii. 52; Nabataean זמן, Palmyrene (Nabataean) זבן Lzb266; Lzb268 SAC48. 49);


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## CyrusSH

The word seems to be from Parthian *žamān*.

I think it is plural and relates to Persian *dam* which means both "breath" and "moment" from proto-IE **ētm-* (breath): Sanskrit _ātmán_, Dutch _adem_, German _atem_, ...


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## bardistador

Wiktionary has this to say on the matter:

"From Middle Persian ODNA / ẕmʾn’ ‎(zamān) (Manichaean Middle Persian zmʾn ‎(zamān)). Compare Avestan [script needed] ‎(zrvan, zrvāna, “time”), Parthian jmʾn ‎(žamān), and Old Armenian borrowings ժաման ‎(žaman), ժամանակ ‎(žamanak). "

It doesn't go beyond Middle Persian and doesn't list PIE cognates.  That doesn't mean I doubt it - it just means it's unfinished.

I think it is unlikely to be Arabic due to the lack of other words being formed from z-m-n root.   I could be wrong.


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## fdb

The received view is that this is an early Iranian loan word in Aramaic, and hence in Hebrew, Arabic and (from Arabic) in Ethiopic. It occurs in Avestan (zruuan-), but not in Old Persian, so Gesenius-Brown-Driver-Briggs ought to have put an * before the (reconstructed) Old Persian form.


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## origumi

fdb said:


> The received view is that this is an early Iranian loan word in Aramaic, and hence in Hebrew, Arabic and (from Arabic) in Ethiopic.


Can the loss (or addition) of "a" (zman vs. z*a*mān) in Hebrew and in the form zrvan, but not in later(?) Iranian and in Arabic and in Armenian - offer a clue about the time and place of this process?


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## fdb

It occurs in Imperial Aramaic (unvocalised of course), so it presumably comes from the Old Persian of the Achaemenid period.

If we take as point of departure a form akin to the Avestan zruuan- , accusative sing. zruuānəm, we could posit first zr- > ž- , then -w- > -b-  > -m-, and (somewhere along the line) insertion of an epenthetic vowel in the first syllable, giving žabān, žamān, zamān, zaman etc.


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## CyrusSH

Iranian linguists believe that Persian _zaman_ is from a Semitic language but _zaman_ is itself a loanword from Persian _daman_: https://www.vajehyab.com/dehkhoda/زمان

The Persian word for time is just _daman_, like in sepideh-daman (سپیده دمان), and I think it doesn't relate to Avestan _zurvan_.


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## momai

bardistador said:


> I think it is unlikely to be Arabic due to the lack of other words being formed from z-m-n root.   I could be wrong.


zaman period of time
zamaan time,past
zaamana to synchronize
tazaamon synchronization
muzmin chronic
zamani temporal
...
..
.


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## Arabic_Police_999

bardistador said:


> I think it is unlikely to be Arabic due to the lack of other words being formed from z-m-n root.   I could be wrong.


*istazman(*verb) to last for a long period of time
*zamen*(noun): a person who is always sick, or weak due to age
the verb of the above noune is *zamena
zamanaan*: two periods of time
*azmun, azminah, azmaan: *refers to:* 3 to 9 *periods of times


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## bragpipes

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> *istazman(*verb) to last for a long period of time
> *zamen*(noun): a person who is always sick, or weak due to age
> the verb of the above noune is *zamena
> zamanaan*: two periods of time
> *azmun, azminah, azmaan: *refers to:* 3 to 9 *periods of times



Could you explain that last line?  I've never heard it before and I'm not sure I get it.


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## Arabic_Police_999

bragpipes said:


> Could you explain that last line?  I've never heard it before and I'm not sure I get it.


in Arabic for some nouns, there are several type of plurals

singular, dual, 3-9, above 3 and you can count it, above 3 but you cant count it


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## fdb

Momai and Arabic police are both right to point out that it is absolutely not correct to say that the root z-m-n has no derivatives in Arabic. But this does not having any real bearing on the ultimate etymology of zaman / zamān. It is in fact commonplace for Arabic to form denominal verbs and other derivatives from borrowed nouns using regular Arabic patterns. Witness Greek philosophos > Arabic faylasūf, then falāsifa, falsafa, tafalsafa etc etc.


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> It is in fact commonplace for Arabic to form denominal verbs and other derivatives from borrowed nouns using regular Arabic patterns


Agreed, here's a couple more:
Persian andâzé(*اَندازه* to measure/measuring) was Arabized to hendesé (*هندسه*) and mohandes (*مُهندس*) was derived.
Persian ruzi/ruzig (day's earning, of a day) was Arabized to *رزق *and *رازق *was derived.


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## Arabic_Police_999

but these were during the early Islamic period, when Persians were just under Islamic rule, and many governing system were taken and not Arabized,
 untill another caliph came and arabized the whole government, the root exists before Islam itself, plus it's found in many semetic languages, so I don't think it came from persian


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## PersoLatin

If you accept Arabic does apply it's rules to loanwords, then citing those derivative, can not, on their own prove anything.

It might be helpful if someone can show if zamân has equivalent derivatives, say in Hebrew, or other Semitic languages.


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## Arabic_Police_999

PersoLatin said:


> If you accept Arabic does apply it's rules to loanwords, then citing those derivative, can not, *on their own prove anything.*
> 
> It might be helpful if someone can show if zamân *has equivalent derivatives, say in Hebrew, or other Semitic languages.*



1_ (*on their own prove anything.*) thats true, we brought derivatives because it was asked weather Arabic has derivatives or not

2_ some roots are used more than other in these Semitic languages, so that doesn't prove anything either. the existence of a root between several Semitic languages not 1 or 2,or even 3, it's at least 4 as far as my knowledge stretchs, that's why it's probably existed in proto-semetic language

does Persian has derivatives?


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## PersoLatin

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> we brought derivatives because it was asked weather Arabic has derivatives or not


I appreciate that.



PersoLatin said:


> It might be helpful if someone can show if zamân has equivalent derivatives, say in Hebrew, or other Semitic languages.


I said that as I believe it would shed some light on this. If other Semitic languages have similar rules for deriving words, then there must be evidence of those, somewhere, especially if they use it as a verb, like Arabic.



Arabic_Police_999 said:


> some roots are used more than other in these Semitic languages, so that doesn't prove anything either


Indeed, it doesn't. But it's helpful to know for sure.



Arabic_Police_999 said:


> the existence of a root between several Semitic languages not 1 or 2,or even 3, it's at least 4 as far as my knowledge stretchs, that's why it's probably existed in proto-semetic language


Maybe there's another way of looking at this, does anyone know if zamân, in its basic form zman or zmn, represents 'time' in all (not just the four fdb mentioned) Semitic languages? Surely that'll get us closer to the answer.




Arabic_Police_999 said:


> does Persian has derivatives?


Persian has one derivative (that I know of) of zamân *زمان *(time) and that's zamâné *زمانه* (period, era)


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## koukeye

origumi said:


> Can the loss (or addition) of "a" (zman vs. z*a*mān) in Hebrew and in the form zrvan, but not in later(?) Iranian and in Arabic and in Armenian - offer a clue about the time and place of this process?


In Turkey and in the Arab world they use Zaman with a. However, I know some regions in Lebanon where they say "zman" without the a. The dialect in this region is Syriac. I do not know if this could help.


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## Coatdumid

Is the theory that the Semtic words zmn "time" are related to Akkadian _simānu_ of same meaning not widely accepted (or even if it is, is the Akkadian word considered to be borrowed from Indo-Iranian?)? The first consonant in Akkadian is devoiced, but I don't find it hard to imagine that either it was borrowed with a voiced one, or maybe even zmn is the original Proto-Semitic form and Akkadian is the odd one out for devoicing it.


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## fdb

Akkadian simanu has a short vowel in the second syllable. A connection with the words discussed above is difficult phonologically.


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