E 0561          MANGERE

The Old English word " mangere " is of Germanic origin .

H 0579            ר כ מ

Concept of root : selling

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ר כ מ

makhar

to sell

Related English words

Old English mangere

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ר כ מ

makhar

to sell

m . kh . r

Old English

mangere

salesman

m . ng . r

Middle Dutch

maggher,

manger

maggher, manger

salesman

m . gh . r

Old High German

manger

salesman

m . ng . r

 

 

Proto-Semitic *MAKAR --- *MĂG-ER Proto-Germanic

 

 

In Old English " mangere " we read an N, that in Hebrew " makhar " is not present. But in Middle Dutch we find, besides " manger ", like Old English " mangere " , also an older not yet nasalized version : " maggher " that is very much like the Hebrew word .

 

Therefore this seemed to be one of those cases in which Middle Dutch supplies us the key to a similarity with common origin between Germanic and Hebrew. There is also a nasalized version "mangher" that is found in some other tongues as well, such as Middle High German "manger" and Old English "mangere", shown above.

 

Then a problem arises because the final "R" in the Germanic words is in fact a suffix that indicates the person who acts according to the root, in the case the "man who sells". And the basic verb can be found in Germanic as shown in the Note on Proto-Germanic. So we will see that the similarity really may be limited to the first two consonants, unless the unproven case of two " R "s, one of the root and one of the suffix, melting together.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. This root is found in Aramaic and Syriac " מ כ ר , mekhar", but with the somewhat strayed off meaning of "he bought a wife, married". Ugaritic uses this root to say "tradesman", practically like the Germanic words. This is also the case with "Akkadian tamkaru = tradesman", in which the initial T is a prefix for the forming of this noun. The root probably was in use in Proto-Semitic with the same "commercial" meaning : "* מ כ ר , M K R".

     

    The second consonant " K " in Hebrew and Aramaic in the basic form is pronounced " KH ", but in Akkadian and Ugaritic not. So we have no indications that this change may have begun already in Proto-Semitic. IIn the comparison an original " K " is to be maintained.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. Nasalization is very frequent in front of "G" and "K" in Germanic tongues. Besides the nouns for "salesman", mentioned in the table, there are also verbs. Old Norse gives a good picture with "manga = to trade, buy, sell" and "mangari = small trader, pedlar". Old English besides "mangere = salesman" has "mangung = trade, business". Middle Dutch that has "manger = salesman", seems to have lost the verb that expressed the action, but maintained an iterative "mangelen = to exchange, trade". Proto-Germanic probably had as root : "*M Ă NG-" and perhaps still the older "*M Ă G-.

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. We are without indications of cognates in other groups of Indo-European languages, outside Germanic. The comparison remains between Semitic and Germanic, a frequent phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 28/01/2013 at 14.51.05