E 0455          HOME

The word " home " is of Germanic origin .

H 0142            ם א , ם ע

Concepts of root : the people and their place

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ם א , ם ע

am , om

tribe, nation.

Related English words

home

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ם א , ם ע

‛am , ‛om

tribe, nation

‛a m

English

home

 

home

ho m

Old English

hām

village, hamlet, home, region 

hām

ha m

German

Heim, Heimat

heim, heimat

home

he m

Middle-Dutch

ham, heem

ham, hém,

community,place of the people, motherland

ha m

he m

 

 

Proto-Semitic *‛AM --- *HĒM-, *HĂM- Proto-Germanic

 

 

The fundamental hypothesis for this similarity is that Germanic has used in order to indicate the place where the tribe or people lived , the same root that in Semitic was used for the tribe or people itself. It is still very common in many languages to accommunate these two concepts. "The whole town was out on the streets" means that the people living in the town were on the streets.

 

A comparable phenomenon is seen in the Hebrew word "dor", also mentioned in this list. It means both a "society, community" and the "encampment" where they live. Here we talk about nomads or semi-nomades. In Germanic we find the same root in German "Dorf" and Dutch "dorp" for "village". Old English, a language that liked metathesis, the shifting of letters within a word, had both "dorp" and "drop". See entry E 0265 (Hebrew 0338)

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic supposedly had the same root "* ע ם " found in Hebrew and many other Semitic tongues. It is seen in Phoenician, Moabitic, Aramaic, Syriac, Ugaritic, Arabic and OS Arabic.

     

    In Aramaic, Syriac, Ugaritic and Arabic , as in fact is also the case in Hebrew, there are forms with Aleph instead of Ayin. This makes us see that the stronger "consonant" Ayin may be introduced in words having an initial Aleph, for example to obtain a more emphasized pronunciation that in some cases may be linked indeed to a more emphasized message.

 

Note:
  • Germanic and Hebrew.The above words have their basic common element in the "M" at the end. This M expresses an idea of belonging. Here both tongues have placed the vowel for pronunciation before the consonant M. And both, in their words indicating "origin to which I belong", have made an effort to accentuate that pronunciation. The Semites by beginning their word also with that guttural stop-consonant called Ayin, the Germanics by the guttural expiration "H". This is a more often occurring phenomenon.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew, Old English and Dutch also here are the nearest. Both have the vowel "A" in the accentuated-pronunciation. And Dutch has effectively maintained the original and also Semitic meaning of the "Community of people", living together. It has added the meaning of the place where the people stay together, or even motherland. The other languages have concentrated on the "place" where the people stay, "home".

 

Note:
  • English in this context is seen to have the same vowel "O" that Hebrew uses in the non-accentuated from, the one that begins with the simple "Aleph"-vowel, not with the "Ayin". But Old English has the vowel " A " that is of course seen in numerous names of towns, such as Birmingham.

 

Note:
  • Origin. Our approach to the origin of the word "home" and its sisters obviously means that we cannot subscribe the rather common hypothesis that they would find their origin in a supposed Indo-European root "*kei" meaning "to lie (down)".

 

Note:
  • Dutch. Perhaps we run the risk of annoying the reader when referring once more to our own language, Dutch. But as one can constate many times glossing over our list, Dutch has best conserved old Germanic roots that often are akin to Hebrew. So in this entry. "Heem" as the defined place of origin and protection, is still found in the word "heemraad", which is the title for the governing councils of the famous Dutch polders.

     

    We find it also in the name of towns, such as Arnhem where an important Second World War battle was fought and regretfully lost by the British.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. For the meaning of "home", we find in all Germanic languages an initial consonant "H" and a second consonant "M". The vowel between these two consonant is "AI" in Gothic "haim" and "haims= village" , "A" in Old English "ham" and "O" in English "home". In the other Germanic languages usually one finds either "E" or "EI". Middle Dutch and Dutch have both, but as well "A" in "ham". Old Norse and Norwegian, German and its predecessors have "heim". Old Swedish, Swedish, , Old Saxon ,and Old Frisian all have "E". Old Danish, Danish and Riks-Norwegian have "hjem".

     

    Some scholars suppose a Proto-Germanic "*GH AI M-" or "*GH AI M-Z-". This is obviously based on just Gothic and is unconvincing. The "GH" may have been an old predecessor though, possibly in an intermediate stage, as Semitic also had its particular guttural "Ayin". One notes that also Arabic sometimes has a "GH" wherwe Hebrew uses "Ayin".

     

    This "Ayin" is the opening sound of the name of the sister town of "S-dom" (Sodom) , that was "‛amora", in European translations changed into "Gomorra". The final "Z" in the second hypothesis overlooks the fact that the Gothic "S" is a suffix". And a vowel "AI" would hardly have led to a so generalized adaptation of "EI" and "E" as a vowel. The diphthong "EI" may develop out of "E". So the most probable Proto-Germanic forms remain, with a long vowel "E", "*H Ē M-" and with a short " A " "*H Ă M-"

 

Note:
  • Indo-EuropeanIt has been tried, unsuccesfully, to link Proto-Germanic "*H Ē M-" to Latin "situs = location" and to Old Indian "ktséti = place where one lives" and Sanskrit "kshé = landed property, field, seat of the soul". The idea is that the "KTS" and "KSH" changed into " H ", but that seems very imaginative. Another word that is indicated as possibly related is Russian "семья, syenjya = family". This goes back to an Old Church Slavonic "sĕmija = domestic staff". We must do without a reliable hypothesis for Indo-European. The comparison remains between Semitic and Germanic, as very often is the case.

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 01/10/2012 at 11.14.22