Reconstruction talk:Proto-Semitic/ḏikar-

@Fay Freak, there are many homophonous, unrelated roots in the modern Semitic languages that can be explained through sound changes from PS; if we consider PS as a reconstruction of a real language rather than a projection of our fantasies, we should expect the same conditions to obtain. Schwally's semantic acrobatics are absurd (especially the caprine bit, which is so unmotivated that it astounds me). They get even worse if you accept Huehnergard's reconstruction of the PS semantics of that verb being "invoke" rather than "remember" (evidently guided by the Akkadian usage). I don't even know why you brought up macrocomparativism when the evidence is quite good here (save for the quality of the first vowel). In general, a lot of bad ideas from the 19th century have been dropped along the wayside, and we would be much better off trusting Kogan over Schwally. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Kogan from the Moscow school? No, Schwally’s idea was devised precisely to ward off their macrocomparativism. For if it becomes possible to derive the term for “male” internally then any relating other terms wherever allegedly somehow meaning “male” becomes a bit less likely. Therefore it is important any observation according to which a word’s history may have only started in Proto-Semitic, and does not go back to Proto-Afro-Asiatic or worse. Schwally’s imagination about how the Semitic meaning development went on is not expressed well by him, therefore especially with the caprine bit I untangled it with my own words; what is the issue with rams in particular? You know there is bare sexual imaginery associated with them. Thought it be that the manhood in the sense of a putz/schmuck/schlong may also be derived directly from any word for a male, so the part you find most odd is actually not the heart of the explanation.

The meaning of the verb may well have been “invoke”, “remembering” is “invoking ideas into the mind”; what I actually meant is gedenken, eingedenk sein, und weil das männliche das denkende Geschlecht ist, or because men tend to reflect more long-range, or according to Schwally because in cultic contexts man invokes, this is why “male” is “thinker” or “invoker”, ja thinking itself, der Mann ist das Denken (what are the antonyms of fair sex?). Do you understand it like this? One does not need to go Otto Weininger or be a German to catch on this thought. However I note that it seemed easier in German and as well Semitic than in English. I think the insights are much conditioned by the language one conceptualizes in, and “recollecting” or “invoking” sound in English complicated and technical, therefore in German the same derivation attempt sounds more reasonable while in English it is so klutzy that one splits, even though back in the day the thoughts were klutzy (they were religious much and they couldn’t even write!). What is carnal knowledge anyway? A calque of Hebrew odd in European, another possible strain of thought where man’s boy earns the ذِكْر (ḏikr) of progeny. Isn’t it in Semitic societies to this day also that the males are those who remember and are remembered, the females often even not having a name but being the أُمّ (ʔumm) or أُخْت (ʔuḵt) or someone? (Insert something about the background dasein of women.) The way from the 19th century was a switch in the language of science, and that is why what has been realized in the 19th century appears dropped or obscure or difficult to translate in the 21st. What was actually wrong in the thoughts presented here rather than in the language? Meseems that you judged all in English terms.

I still prefer something in English summarizing some strains of thought, as not everyone can read German and understand Schwally. I expect you can do it less sillily, because I can think it well that the term for “male” is a figurative use of a term for a kind of thinking or ritual particular to males, but terming it well is an art.

Regarding the form, note that at least in Arabic KiLM- variates more or less freely with KaLaM-, e.g. the presented *mVdr- may well be *midr- with Arabic having مَدَر (madar, “clod”) by arbitrary switch, so ذِكْر (ḏikr, “recollection, narration, mentioning, naming”) and ذَكَر (ḏakar, “male”) are like the same form. Fay Freak (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, we have to write an etymology for this term anyway – this is a question somebody asks when more things in the root formula are created –, so I devise something like this:

There are possibilities to relate the term for male to the term *ḏakar- ascribed meanings such as “invoking”, “mentioning”, “naming”, “recollecting, remembering”. Due to the patrilinear understanding of Semitic society, like in Roman society a woman was only considered as part of a man’s household and only derivatively named. History being a history of men, anciently stories men recollected about other men, men were what one remembered, so the term for “invokation” or “naming” of the ancestors could be transferredly understood as the male ancestors or the male progeny that one will be mentioned and remembered by.

Alternatively the original derivation is imagined in a cultic context: Practice of religion was also restricted by gender, hence the verb’s meaning “to invoke” which is judging by Akkadian usage its most commonplace meaning could have motivated a collective noun “invocation” to mean “that invocates”, hence “man”.

– Here leaving out the explanation for the dingus meaning, which due to obvious possibilities in analogy with modern examples can be left to imagination anyway in the best 19th-century fashion. @Metaknowledge. Fay Freak (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Kogan is no Nostraticist; I thought you knew better than to assume that every linguist in Moscow belongs to the Moscow school. But neither do we want to "ward off" external comparison, because we do accept that even if PAA cannot be meaningfully reconstructed, PS is a language with a history that derives from an AA ancestor, and we should not expect to be able to explain every coincidence or homophony. Anyway... your rewritten version is a decided improvement. I would ask for two more changes: direct attribution of the idea to Schwally in the text, so it doesn't seem that we are inventing it, and some weasel words to express the fact that I haven't been able to find any serious modern scholar who agrees. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Good, ”something like this” was what I proposed; I knew that Kogan is better than the Moscow school, but still little likely reconstructions with scantily attested and easily later derived terms recur in his work, recalling {{R:HSED}}, {{R:sla:ESSJa}}, all from Moscow, although I don’t know the causality of such approaches, I just used Moscow school in a broad sense. Then on the other side we have the Leiden school (whatever Wikipedia describes there) prominent in Proto-Semitic studies, we are surrounded!

So of course in such an environment the ambition is aroused to earnestly consider if we also have such a case of later derivation or borrowing. I also see Profes.I., with his usual breadth of vision and Akkadian knowledge, found it also conceivable enough to even posit the same form, although one could make the connection by still formally separating and positing a *ḏikar- and *ḏakar- for the “male” sense and a *ḏikr- for the invocation senses, what I have left to the reader in the above formulation to decide – two options I clarify here.

And so it isn’t crazy in Semitistics to do this connection but generally oriented linguists are not likely to see it in their English world, but—as there is a lot yet to connect what is usually just given unconnected, as well as there is much to untangle that is mingled—there is much surprising “inventing” of course in reconstruction and that only by trying to make clearer what was listed without order and—in this case by Schwally—vaguely suggested! I just was surprised by myself how many common and scatteredly recorded words like إِبِل (ʔibil) I solved by collecting one term *wabal- (“to bear”) eleven weeks ago.

But we can of course let things seem like any scholar could have suggested it. I leave it for this day, maybe I will find more weasel words later so everyone gets his amount of invention.

What does @Roger.M.Williams think of the connections here? Fay Freak (talk) 22:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the use of the cognates of the Arabic root ذ ك ر (ḏ-k-r), but the connection between "memory" (or "mind") and "maleness" has indeed been adduced by Islamic theologians and grammarians. However, the link here is reinforced primarily through appeal to Islamic law and traditions, for example, that the testimony of a woman is less than (roughly half) that of a man, that serious offenses and punishments are not to be justified by female witnesses only (at least in some schools of jurisprudence), that the intellectual capacity of women in general is less than that of a man, that ʿĀʾišah is reported to have forgotten to mention critical information in crucial moments despite being held to be one of the four exceptionally perfect women in Sunni doctrine, and so on. Taking up this framework, the "mention" sense in ذَكَرَ (ḏakara) would be stemming from the "mind" or "memory" sense (comparably to mens and mentio or memor and memoria), while the "penis" sense in ذَكَر (ḏakar) would be derived from the "masculine" and "man(liness)" senses of the same word as would be the "masculinizing" sense of ذَكَّرَ (ḏakkara).

Nonetheless, this relation is confined to Islamic prescriptions and narratives. Aside from superiority of intellect, I highly doubt that all these extensions (especially the one from "memory") happened in all the Semitic languages, let alone an ancestral language. Besides, medieval Arabic etymologies are characteristically shaped after Islamic doctrines (as in deriving إِنْسَان (ʔinsān) from ن س ي (n-s-y) chiefly through the story of Adam's forgetfulness, which his children are said to have inherited). Regardless, I do not recall any connection being made between "invocation" or "naming" and ذ ك ر (ḏ-k-r) by medieval writers (perhaps because these meanings are not very relevant to those interpretations of the Koranic commandments?). Roger.M.Williams (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I haven't thoroughly read through all of this, but on the face of it it's not that difficult and esoteric to unite the two senses: rembering and mentioning have to do with something being "important, eminent", and men could easily be seen as the important and eminent sex. Of course, they might just as well be two roots that have nothing to do with each other. I agree that the folk-etymological musings of religious scholars are irrelevant (not because they were stupid, which they weren't, but because they had no knowledge of comparative linguistics). 90.186.83.39 21:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)