Re: Hebrew _h'atul_ vs. Arabic _qit't'_ (was Re: THEORY nouns and cases (was: Verbs derived from noun cases))

On 27 April, Danny Wier wrote:

> From: "Steg Belsky" <draqonfayir@...> (to me)
>
> > > I'm looking up _qitt_ 'cat' in the online Arabic dictionary
> > > (http://dictionary.ajeeb.com/); the verb _qatta_ means 'cut' or
> > > 'trim', but
> > > I doubt the words are related, since the word for 'cat' is probably a
> > > loanword from a Nilo-Saharan language (as is English 'cat', French
> > > _chat_,
> > > German _Katz_, Spanish _gato_, Russian _kotec_ etc. etc. etc.).
> > > Incidentally, Muhammad was a cat lover, according to legend.
> >
> > Hmm... that makes me wonder where the Hebrew term, |hhatul|
> > (non-emphatic T), comes from.
>
> חתול might be of Aramaic origin, but I can't find an online Aramaic
> dictionary (just a Peshitta concordance) so I can't say. Or Akkadian
maybe?
> Anyway, I don't think it's related to Arabic قط since the 't' in the
latter
> is emphatic (I forgot to indicate that in my previous post).
    My dictionary doesn't give a derivation, other than to indicate that it
was taken from an ancient source, which it didn't name.
    The Aramaic word is the same as the Hebrew, with an aleph on the end.
( = hhatula).
    There is another sense derived from the root hhet-tav-lamed,
/xitul/. In the Bible, in the book of Ezechiel (chapt. 30, verse 21)
it is found in it's ancient meaning of "bandage". Today, in Israeli
Hebrew, it is used in the sense of "diaper"! (The root apparently means
"to wrap around"  . Whether or not there is a connection to "cat" or
whether the animal's name is derived from another, similar sounding, word,
I don't know.)

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.