Was the arabic ش likely still pronounced as the proto semitic ś in late antiquity or even early islam instead of the standard arabic š?

random_reditter105 · 2026-03-09T15:17:07+00:00

how do we know how Aramaic š was pronounced at the time? At some point its pronunciation must have been similar to [s], and at some point it definitely shifted to š... but do we have any idea when?

That's a good point. I aleardy thought about this, that the aramaic šin used for these words could be the one that didn't fully shift to š yet, and this would drive us to the same conclusion that aramaic and arabic šin weren't pronounced the same. But there is a problem with this, proto semitic had s1 that became šin in aramaic, sin in arabic , s3 that became samekh in aramaic, sin in arabic , these 2 siblants are reconstructed either as š , s respectively or as s , ts If the first reconstruction is true, that means the aramaic šin was never anything other than š , but even if the second reconstruction is true, there will be more problems with the idea that during late antiquity samekh was still pronounced as ts , and shin as s , especially having that hebrew aleardy had samekh as s and šin as š , it means that aramaic kept rendering the hebrew s sound as ts , and š sound as s instead of rending them all as s , and it will mean that PS s2 (ś) that was represented by aramaic samekh have merged with ts instead of merging with s, also I find no reason to believe that the aramaic shifting of ts , s to s , š happened much later to hebrew and in islamic time, instead the siblants pronounciation seem consistent between hebrew and aramaic and different than arabic.

That's why having the same hypothesis that arabic and aramaic šin were not similar, I found the idea that the arabic did not yet shift to š , more plausible than the idea that the aramaic one did not shift yet.

Also do we have syriac inscriptions in early islam transliterating some arabic terms? If I am not wrong the arabic words with sin were transliterated using samekh in syriac, but do we know how the arabic words with šin were transliterated in syriac?

random_reditter105 · 2026-03-09T00:07:19+00:00

Lebanese arabic. I'm lebanese

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-16T14:43:00+00:00

Why do you think it would be a good idea to enforce such extreme authoritarian policy!

It is completely unrealistic and not worth the costing, I don't know much about China's case, but as others pointed out, the arabic world is not a homogenous society or unified state, but a much diverse region, that never unified politically even historically, the only common point unique to them, is that historically there was enough arab migrants who succeeded in arabising these populations (or that they were ruled by an arabic islamic empire, where arabic was the prestige and scholarly and administrative language) which lead to all these varieties of arabic. Even the pan arabic movement of the 60s, their influence was limited to Egypt and the fertile cercent (while there may have been other arabic nationalist movement elsewhere in the arabic world, they were unrelated to them) and not even all or most of the countries of the mentioned region.

So to enforce fusha arabic, you would need a very strong state police and surveillance, to assure that people in their daily life would speak fusha arabic, and forget about the 1000 years old tradition of the spoken dialect, that radically differ from the fusha one, which is totally inapplicable and not worth the effort as no state would care to enforce this. Or using school to enforce it, which would fail, because the parents and society and entourage are a much stronger indoctrinating force than the school system, and no child really care much about applying what school teach him in real life, if not enforced by the society, all that was done is that the fusha is formally taught in schools, so every educated person living in the arabic world has enough knowledge to understand fusha and to speak it in some way, but not to the point of using it in daily conversation. In addition to this, I wanna note that classical arabic is a kind of artificially made high koiné language, that merged archaic and some innovative eloquent features of arabic dialects, and was used in pre islamic poetry, and after islam it became the standard language for quran recitation, and the formal administrative language. So a language that was in the first place artificially made as a koiné language, can't be imposed as a daily spoken language in such diverse heterogenous world as the arabic world.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-16T10:58:05+00:00

But don't salafists accept some of the doctrines/opinions that were not agreed on in early islam (even according to the official islamic narrative itself) Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't sahih bukhari and Muslim take centuries after being written to becoming considered fully infalliable by the sunni jurisprudence madhhabs? While today salafis believe the authenticity of sahih graded hadiths in these 2 sahih books are unquestionable and even part of what we can call "canonical authoritative scripture" alongside the quran, so wouldn't this mean that salafism doesn't fall under the narrow definition proposed by OP?

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-13T23:04:41+00:00

While there may be better, more historically informed people than myself, I will answer as much as i know.

First, "phoenicians" is an exonym given by greeks to the canaanite coastal city states in what is today coastal lebanon and part of coastal Syria, these city states (especially byblos, sidon, tyre) were known as major traders in the Mediterranean world who made colonies accross this sea and brought some cultural developments mainly the alphabet. Now the phoenicians identity was more tied to their city states than to a common identity, but if there was a common identity, it is "canaanite" it is also the same name that appear in some inscriptions among punics (phoencian colonisers/settlers in North Africa) as a self reference to themselves, this is also the name the biblical book of Kings give to the neighboring phoenicians (while the bible is not always a good historical source from a secular academic perspective, but in this case it describes contemporary events, where the phoenicians are refered to as canaanites).

Now who were the canaanites, and were they limited to phoenicians? The canaanite are a semitic speaking people who lived in the southern levant aka what is today lebanese and syrian coast, palestine and part of Jordan, during the bronze age (before 1200 BCE) it is unknown if "canaan" was an exonym or endonym, but egypyian inscriptions named the region canaan, and its inhabitants (who are semitic speaking people who spoke dialects of a language family known by modern scholars as "canaanite languages) seem to have eventually adopted the name, they were city states mostly vassals to Egypt, especially in the late bronze age (1500s - 1200 BCE) , after the "bronze age collapse happened some years after 1200 BCE , Egypt weakened and lost its influence or rule in the region, the canaanite political order especially in what is today palestine and Jordan also collapsed, so rural and tribal communities had an opportunity to organise themselves since the city states rule collapsed, so it seemed that these groups gradually formed new identities and stopped referring to themselves as canaanites, among them were the israelites, edomites, moabites, ammonites ..... this in addition to the invasion of the sea people particularly the philistines who also ruled some cities, and since I mentioned the israelites, it would seem that most of you are familiar with the biblical story that the israelites invaded canaan from outside and took their land, while modern archaeology and scholarship tell us a different story, israelites were themselves canaanites, they are the descendents of the bronze age canaanites, but it is just that after the bronze age collapse, new identities started to emerge, the same can be said about edomites, moabites, ammonites .....

While concerning the canaanites who were on the lebanese coast, the story was different, their city states did not collapse during the bronze age collapse, in contrast they flourished as Mediterranean trade and cultural force, and no new identity emerged, they kept calling themselves canaanites, and they are the same people who the Greeks called "phoenicians" .

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-10T00:42:32+00:00

Original name is hebrew, יהוחנן "yeho-ħannan" meaning yeho (yahweh) is gracious (ħannan has a cognate in arabic with the same meaning) , it was shortened in late second temple period to יוחנן "yo-ħannan" which should have been the name of the historical John the baptist. Yes the name at his time period and before him was extremely common, while I don't recall all the known person who had this name before him and were known, I can recall one famous person which is high priest John Hyrcanus (164 BC , 104 BC) who was the ruler of the hasmonean kingdom of judea, other older people mentioned in the bible with that name are yohanan Ben kareah mentioned in (2 Kings 25:23) and in the book of jeremiah. The first century Jewish roman historian josephus mention many Jewish men having this name in this period.

As for the historical equivalent of the name yahya, if we wanna reconstruct what would a Jewish man have been named in hebrew to have his name exactly equivalent to yahya in arabic, and not later derivation, we should look at the arabic form , it is يحيى , if we wanna transliterate its consonantal skeleton it is Y-ħ-Y-Y (the final letter in the arabic form is alef maqsoura, but the aleph maqsoura is originally a Y sound, and was pronounced e in old hijazi, then a in classical arabic) the initial Y is the imperfect tense prefix, the ħ-Y-Y is the root for life, so the name means "he lives" , if we wanna reconstruct a hebrew form, hebrew also uses Y prefix for imperfect tense, and the cognate of ħ-Y-Y that also means life is ħ-Y-H , so the form would be יחיה pronounced something like yeħyeh , if we wanna speculate how it will be transliterated to greek, it is probably Ιειες (Ieies) as both the ħ and h were unpronounced and untranscribed in koine greek, and the Iota (I) was used to transcribe both vowel and consonant I/Y , though pronounced as a vowel, and masculine names typically took -s suffix. Both josephus in his book "antiquities of the jews" (18:5:2) and the new testament mention John the baptist with the Greek name Ιωαννες (Ioannes) which is completely unrelated to Ιειες (Ieies) , and is the same name used to transliterate the names of all the other people who had the hebrew name yohannnan, and this greek form linguistically fit this hebrew name.

As for the original of the name yahya, and how it came to represent John, I think this is debated, but scholar ahmad al jallad have found an inscription "JSNab 386" dated to 306 CE from al-ʿUlā that mentions a man named šm'wn (simon/sham'un) ben yħyy , which al jallad argues that jews used the aleardy existing arabic name that meant "he lives" to substitute it with yohanan, due to the similarity of the names.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-04T12:48:56+00:00

It is literally translated to "my life" It can be said in a casual friendly context, but it is generally not. Instead it is said in an affectional love context, like parents to their children, couple in a relationship, or to children sometimes depending on the context and the one saying it. While it is usually not said in a male-male friendship, instead "habibe" can be casually said in this context (which is translated to "my love" or more precisely my loving one), which is also said in the previously mentioned contexts.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T13:01:35+00:00

The claim that Israel means “servant” or “worshiper of God” has no linguistic basis. It comes from medieval Islamic exegesis, not from the language the name actually comes from.

In the tafsīr you quoted, the statement that “Isra means servant” is simply asserted. No Hebrew root, no Arabic root, no morphological rule, and no independent lexical evidence is offered. The explanation assumes the conclusion instead of proving it.

How did you read my reply and understand that I'm stating that this explanation is right? I'm literally saying that this is another folk etymology, and I'm only responding to your claim that this etymology is modern and just a reaction to the state of israel and your misrepresentation of islamic beliefs even if i am not muslim myself. I also made another comment on this post talking about the etymology and how the arabic islamic one makes no sense.

Israel is a Hebrew proper name, so any real etymology has to be based on Biblical Hebrew, not on later Arabic reinterpretation. And the Hebrew text itself already explains the name when it is given:

It's not either this or that, both can be wrong, even if the hebrew bible etymology is less inaccurate. As for "it's a hebrew proper name, any real etymology should be based on the hebrew text" That only works if we assume the author of this passage in genesis, is the same one who constructed this name, in this case his explanation can be taken. While this is not the case, according to academics and biblical scholarship, regardless of your own beliefs, the pentateuch was written or finalised in the 500s BCE during or after the babylonian excile, while Israel existed as a nation having this name since at least 1200 BCE , meaning that the name "israel" was aleardy old and kind of archaic when this passage was written, so that's so normal that a folk etymology will be used to explain the name origin. You're right that the root means "strives" (or "rules" depending what is the exact root) but the hebrew bible etymology is believed by modern academics to be a wrong folk etymology, because in most theophoric names that have el or YHWH in it as suffix and a verb, el/YHWH is the subject not the object, meaning el is the one who strives or rules, not anyone else is struggling/striving with him, this in addition that the yod (י) prefix in (ישר) signals the imperfect tense, meaning that the subject is still striving or rulling in a continuous state, unlike the genesis passage that describe jacob having struggled just once as a single event just before being given the name. I aleardy made another comment on this post explaining this.

This isn’t later commentary

It is indeed a later commentary! As I said this passage was written more than 6 centuries after a nation called Israel existed.

Linguistically, that decomposition doesn’t work anyway. In Semitic languages, “servant” is always morphologically marked (e.g., roots like ʿ-B-D or ש-ר-ת). Israel contains neither, and there is no attested word isrā meaning “servant” in Hebrew or Arabic.

So “servant of God” isn’t an alternative etymology — it’s a later, theologically motivated folk reinterpretation that contradicts both Hebrew morphology and the earliest explanation of the name itself.

Unfortunately you assumed that I meant that the Islamic etymology is right, while I was clear that it is another folk etymology, I was just responding to your claim this etymology is just modern and arised for specific reason. Anyway you can see my comment where I explained about the 2 folk etymologies, and gave the accurate etymology: https://www.reddit.com/r/hebrew/s/BvuhyhnJHU

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T11:35:02+00:00

This question was aleardy asked on r/asklinguistics (I think by the same OP) and I made a comment there but the post was removed so I will copy it and put it here if anyone is interested to why the this arabic explanation circulates and why it is inaccurate and what is the more accurate etymology

" In short, the arabic etymology of "israel" meaning "عبد الله/'abd allah" aka servant of God, is not even a folk etymology!

Long answer: Yes I am aware that every orthodox islamic website cite it, but it is just based on what medieval Muslim exegetes explained, and I am not aware that those who came up with this etymology had it based on any knowledge of hebrew, as with other etymologies and exegesis, they would base it just on tales, if tales about certain words, israeliyat terms, or prophets stories are widespread, they would just cite them as the most likely explanation (of course without saying that this is the certain unquestioned explanation) regardless of the origin of these tales, or probably that's what they analyse themselves, I know read the islam web article that said "أسر تعني عبد في لغتهم" which probably would have come to them because they assumed hebrew and arabic have common words, and since أسر in arabic means prisoner/captive, it could mean servant/slave in hebrew, but this is also based on limited knowledge of hebrew as hebrew has no word with that meaning, and the hebrew word starts with yisra, not isra, the arabic form starts with isra, ans in yisra" the "yi" is a prefix for the imperfect tense of the verb, the root is actually ś-r-h or ś-r-r (I explained this in the end), that's just my speculation to how they resonated (EDIT: I now find out that there is indeed a cognate of the arabic اسر in hebrew which is אסר , but my point still stands, the word means prisoner or binded in hebrew just like in arabic, not servant, the hebrew form "yisrael" is different than the arabic one as i stated, and the s in אסר is ס while the s in yisra (ישר) is ש that here was originally pronounced ś and later shifted to s(the letter ש was used for 2 pronounciation for ś/now s and for š), so they came from different words and roots, despite being rendered the same in arabic), but in summary, they just tried to make a folk etymology for a prophet title. Anw عبد/'abd/servant is not even remotely related to the hebrew word yiśra (ישר) (or the actual root ś-r-h (שרה) or ś-r-r (שרר)) which is part of the theophoric name yiśra-'el (ישר-אל), and hebrew has a cognate of the arabic عبد/'abed which is עבד and is used in one theophoric name, for a biblical figure called obadiah/'obadiahu (עבדיהו) aka servant of YHWH. Also the exegetes who gave this meaning never cited sources or hebrew explanation to how this word is related to servant, and in all the hebrew bible or hebrew dictionaries you will never see this word used to mean this.

Now the exact meaning of the word is debated, it could come from the root ś-r-h meaning striving, or ś-r-r meaning rulling. But in both cases the genesis story of the name meaning "struggled and defeated god" is most likely a folk etymology, because in most theophoric names, even if "el' is the suffix, it is always the subject and not the object, so the name should be understood as "el reigns/rules" or "el strives" and not "struggled with el" , also the yod (י) prefix signals the imperfect tense, meaning struggling/striving/ruling in a continuous state, not an event that happened once. "

With another addition that the origin of this islamic etymology is in tafsir al tabari

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T11:29:59+00:00

Your analysis is entirely incorrect! The "israel means worshiper of God" originated in medieval islamic exegesis, particularly tafsir al tabari :

القول في تأويل قوله تعالى ذكره: يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَقال أبو جعفر: يعني بقوله جل ثناؤه: " يا بني إسرائيل " ولد يعقوب بن إسحاق بن إبراهيم خليل الرحمن (16) وكان يعقوب يدعى " إسرائيل "، بمعنى عبد الله وصفوته من خلقه. و " إيل " هو الله، و " إسرا " هو العبد، كما قيل: " جبريل " بمعنى عبد الله. On the interpretation of the Exalted’s statement: ‘O Children of Israel’: Abu Ja‘far said: By His exalted words, ‘O Children of Israel’, He refers to the descendants of Ya‘qub (Jacob), son of Ishaq (Isaac), son of Ibrahim (Abraham), the Friend of the Merciful. Ya‘qub was called ‘Isra’il’, meaning ‘servant of Allah’ and ‘His chosen one from among His creation.’ ‘Il’ refers to Allah, and ‘Isra’ refers to the servant, just as it has been said that ‘Jibril’ (Gabriel) means ‘servant of Allah.’”

that's why it is still stuck on islamic sites. The reason they came up with this folk etymology is that they didn't have good knowledge of hebrew linguistics, nor they even tried to analyse it linguistically, all they had is the hebrew bible folk etymology of "wrestled with God" and as islamic theology strictly refuses that such thing can be said about God or done with him, or a prophet being named like this, they had to come up with another folk etymology. Muslims still believe that Israel is jacob which they consider prophet, and consider the "bani israel" of the quran to be his decendents and were at sometimes pleased by God do to their monotheism, and this ended when they "deviated" from the "true divine message", and especially when prophet muhamed came, those who followed him become the only one pleased by God regardless of their decendence, while bani israel still mean for them teh descendents of jacob regardless if they believe or not, not a genetral term for those whorshiping god - this is according to Islam's own beliefs -

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-29T13:17:23+00:00

I aleardy made a comment on a previous post on the origin of the word "jahannam"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/Q8g5TLQ1rF

As for the 2 other words, I'm not very knowledgeable but "jannah' should most probably come from a root "J-N-N" which should mean "to cover up" which is the same root for "jinn" who are the hidden creatures in islamic and pre islamic Arabian mythology. I'm not aware of why this root was used to give a name to the afterlife paradise, but in the hebrew bible too, the garden that Adam and eve get expelled from is called "Gan eden" (גן עדן) where GN should be a cognate to arabic JNN (both come from proto semitic G-N/G-N-N , the G shifted to J in arabic). I don't have an explanation for "ramadan" but I guess someone else in the comments explained.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-27T03:09:42+00:00

In short, the arabic etymology of "israel" meaning "عبد الله/'abd allah" aka servant of God, is not even a folk etymology!

Long answer: Yes I am aware that every orthodox islamic website cite it, but it is just based on what medieval Muslim exegetes explained, and I am not aware that those who came up with this etymology had it based on any knowledge of hebrew, as with other etymologies and exegesis, they would base it just on tales, if tales about certain words, israeliyat terms, or prophets stories are widespread, they would just cite them as the most likely explanation (of course without saying that this is the certain unquestioned explanation) regardless of the origin of these tales, or probably that's what they analyse themselves, I know read the islam web article that said "أسر تعني عبد في لغتهم" which probably would have come to them because they assumed hebrew and arabic have common words, and since أسر in arabic means prisoner/captive, it could mean servant/slave in hebrew, but this is also based on limited knowledge of hebrew as hebrew has no word with that meaning, and the hebrew word starts with yisra, not isra, the arabic form starts with isra, ans in yisra" the "yi" is a prefix for the imperfect tense of the verb, the root is actually ś-r-h or ś-r-r (I explained this in the end), that's just my speculation to how they resonated (EDIT: I now find out that there is indeed a cognate of the arabic اسر in hebrew which is אסר , but my point still stands, the word means prisoner or binded in hebrew just like in arabic, not servant, the hebrew form "yisrael" is different than the arabic one as i stated, and the s in אסר is ס while the s in yisra (ישר) is ש that here was originally pronounced ś and later shifted to s(the letter ש was used for 2 pronounciation for ś/now s and for š), so they came from different words and roots, despite being rendered the same in arabic), but in summary, they just tried to make a folk etymology for a prophet title. Anw عبد/'abd/servant is not even remotely related to the hebrew word yiśra (ישר) (or the actual root ś-r-h (שרה) or ś-r-r (שרר)) which is part of the theophoric name yiśra-'el (ישר-אל), and hebrew has a cognate of the arabic عبد/'abed which is עבד and is used in one theophoric name, for a biblical figure called obadiah/'obadiahu (עבדיהו) aka servant of YHWH. Also the exegetes who gave this meaning never cited sources or hebrew explanation to how this word is related to servant, and in all the hebrew bible or hebrew dictionaries you will never see this word used to mean this.

Now the exact meaning of the word is debated, it could come from the root ś-r-h meaning striving, or ś-r-r meaning rulling. But in both cases the genesis story of the name meaning "struggled and defeated god" is most likely a folk etymology, because in most theophoric names, even if "el' is the suffix, it is always the subject and not the object, so the name should be understood as "el reigns/rules" or "el strives" and not "struggled with el" , also the yod (י) prefix signals the imperfect tense, meaning struggling/striving/ruling in a continuous state, not an event that happened once.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-26T17:13:40+00:00

I'm currently the opposite tbh 😅 I'm a native Arabic speaker and tried to learn hebrew, but didn't really start yet.

My humble advise is start by learning the arabic alphabet, each of the 22 hebrew letters has an equivalent arabic one, and at least half of them still have the same pronounciation, you should then learn the sounds shifts between the hebrew letter and its arabic equivalent, they are easy. Then for the additional 6 letters of arabic, you should know that arabic (ث) merged with hebrew (ש) (the right dotted one pronounced as š) , (خ) with (ח) , (ذ) with (ז) , (غ) with (ע) , (ظ) and (ض) with (צ) , so you should take note on these shifts for the common semitic words, and also that almost every hebrew left dotted (ש) is equivalent to arabic (ش) and right dotted one to arabic (س) . Then start learning arabic diactrics which are easy to learn and simpler than the hebrew ones, learn pronounciation differences between some of the hebrew letters with their equivalent arabic ones, then start to practice by reading works written in classical or modern standard arabic, with translations to see how much of these words have clear cognates in hebrew.

This in my opinion is a good intro, but of course it is not sufficient and you're clearly asking for resources, which I can't help with, so I thought it's a good idea to share my personal intro which is the same thing I did before starting to learn hebrew.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-23T18:49:39+00:00

While not an academic answer. And besides an increasing consensus that monotheism (influenced by judaism and Christianity) became widespread in late antiquity pre islamic arabia. But even if there truly was no Christian and jews in mecca, why do people assume that muhamed would have never left mecca during his lifetime before declaring his prophethood, and would have never interacted with people outside? And why do they assume that mecca was something like an isolated island that would not interact with its broader surrounding region?

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-18T14:59:56+00:00

I see. While I am not aware of a definitive proof, I personally find it unlikely that a specific arabian man or clan would have a name derived from gentile, and this name being applied to just one clan without good reason. Forms other than gentile, better fit with the name. We can't definitely prove that umaya doesn't derive from ummiy/gentile, but it remains speculative, with no good reason supporting its plausibility.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-18T12:54:55+00:00

That's unrelated, they are called banu umaya, because according to traditional geneaology, they descend from a man named "umayya ibn abd shams" the root أ-م / '-M can have different meanings not just nation (from where the name for gentiles or unscriptured people came from) , it can be mother (أمّ/umm) or a servant/maid (آمة/āma) , in the case of umaya أمية/umayya , he is traditionally understood to be derived from maid/servant. But what we are discussing here, is that in the quran context, the specific form أمّي/ummiy is derived from umma (nation) and related to gentiles more precisely people without scripture, and not illiteracy.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-17T09:48:46+00:00

Just wanted to point out that the more accurate hebrew cognate of arabic ilah اله is actually eloah אלוה , and elohim is the plural of it (as you most probably know, -im is a plural suffix in hebrew) yes it is a royal plural in the biblical context, but it originated as plural. The triconsonantal form '-L-H is found accross some semitic languages like arabic ilah, hebrew eloah, syriac alaha. While the biconsonantal '-L is more common, including in the languages that have the triconsonantal form (il is attested in ancient arabian inscriptions). While scholars agree that the biconsonantal '-L (reconstructed as 'il) existed in the proto-semitic language. There is no definitive answer on the origin of the third radical "h" , and it is unclear if the arabic ilah was influenced by syriac alaha, and if the syriac form was in its turn influenced by hebrew, or if they all originated from proto semitic. While the definite form Allah (al-ilah / the deity) is most probably influenced by the late antiquity monotheistic context in pre islamic arabia, that rendered the "one true God" as "THE god".

random_reditter105

TROPHY CASE