E 0280          EARFOD, ARBED

Old English  aerfod” comes from Old Saxon “arbed”, of Germanic origin

H 0103       ד ב ע

Concept of root : hard labour

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

 ד ב ע

‛avad

to work, labour

Related English words

robot , from Chech

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ד ב ע

‛avad

to work, labour

‛a b d

Old English

earfod

labour

earf d

Old Saxon

arbed

labour

ar b d

English

robot

robot

r . b . t

Dutch

arbeid

arbeid

work, labour

ar b d

German

Arbeit

arbeit

work

ar b t

Russian

работать

rabotatj

to work, labour

ra b t

 

 

Proto-Semitic *‛ABAD --- *ARBED Indo-European

 

 

 

An important aspect in this similarity is the comparison between the Indo-European guttural " R " and the Semitic guttural "Ayin", that is considered indeed as a consonant and that precedes vowels with a stopping sound, before leaving the road free for their pronunciation. The next point is that the second consonant "B", present in Indo-European, in Hebrew is pronounced as "V" when in a single position between vowels as in "‛avad". In the intensive form "ibbèd" it is normally again a " B ". Other Semitic languages maintained the " B ".

 

There has been considerable development and change in the roots of this entry. The Slav words are nearer to Hebrew than the Germanic ones.

 

Russian scholars indeed say that our Russian word "rabóta" first was "raboma", but that this came from a hypothetical Czech "*orbota", related to Old High German "ar(a)beit". Czech in fact has, just like Polish, "robota". Then Russian has the word "rab = slave, servant" with cognates in other languages, like Old Bulgarian "rabj" and modern Bulgarian "rob". Further a hypothetical "Czech "*orbj" comes in, meaning "orphan" ( seen as related to this word) and then also "slave", because "orphans often had to work like slaves, or as slaves: We do not believe this link, but it shows how etymological "reasoning" may err.

 

Hebrew “‛avad” originally was used especially for more heavy labour subject to the will of someone else. This same meaning was also strong in Dutch, in contrast with the verb “werken” = to work. Here the hardly audible guttural “Ayin” in Hebrew can be compared with a non-pronounced guttural “R”. Thus the combination “Ayin-A” is a metathesis of the German and Dutch “AR”, but is nearer the Slavic “RA” of Russian rabotatj.

 

Note:
  • Russian. In the verb “rabotatj” the last part “atj” is a suffix that indicates the infinite form.

 

Note:
  • Chech has the word “robota” that means “compulsory labour”. From this word has come English “robot”. This not very common development is the fruit of a play named “Rossum’s Universal Robots” by the Chech playwright Karel Čapek in 1921.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. Aramaic and Syriac have " ע ב ד, avad = he worked, performed" . Arabic "‛abada = he worked, obeyed, worshipped". Proto-Semitic is indeed considered as having used the same root that is present in Hebrew . It must be noted that in Hebrew as well as in other languages as Ugaritic "‛abad = he worked, served, worshipped" this root , and verb, are also used to express the concept of " to worship (God)". This is culturally identical to Germanic, when people say that they "serve God", "God dienen", "Gott dienen".

     

    Proto-Semitic probably had "*ע ב ד , Ayin, B D "

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. We see five elements :

     

    1. An opening vowel that is nearly always an A, with an EA in Old English and E in Old Norse.

     

    2. Follows a consonant that is always "R".

     

    3.The third element is nearly always a consonant B, with again Old English and Old Norse different with their "F".

     

    4. The in between vowel that follows is EI, sometimes E or I and in Old English O.

     

    5. The closing consonant is often a "D" and basically in German a T, a rather characteristic phenomenon in this language. The conclusion is that Proto-Germanic probably used a word "*AR B E D-".

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. The available sources are Proto-Germanic "ARBED" and Old Church Slavonic "ROBOTA". To this may be added an Armenian word "arbaneak = servant", that uses a very similar root. This makes it probable that the Slavic opening "R + vowel-" is a metathesis of "Vowel + R" as in Germanic. The original vowel should have been " A " as seen in older Slavic word for "servant", besides Russian. This makes it possible to hypothesize an Indo-European "*A R B + vowel + dental". The second vowel can have been an " E " that in several cases produced " EI ". The third consonant, dental, can have been " D " or " T ", but if Proto-Germanic and other Germanic languages have " D ", an original " T " is less probable. So we excuse ourselves if we feel obliged to make a hypothesis for Indo-European similar to Proto-Germanic: "*AR B E D-".

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 28/09/2012 at 15.11.01