Re: USAGE Re: Defining words and how they are used

On 6/23/06, Michael Adams <abrigon@...> wrote:
> Islam, Bismallah and Muslim are related.. They all have the SLM
> root.. Only differences is the vowels you use and the other
> modifier constonants? Or am I in error.
You are. "Islam" and "Muslim" are indeed related, but "Bismillah" is
the odd one out. To the best of my knowledge, it breaks down into
morphemes as b.ismi.llah "by (literally, with) the name of God". (The
-i in ismi is a genitive ending IIRC; the root form is simply "ism".
And the A- of Allah drops of because of that preceding vowel sound,
just as happens with the definite article al-, which, I believe, is
historically what is present there: Allah < al-ilah "the god".)

I'm not sure whether "Salaam" (peace) is related to "Islam" and
"Muslim", but it might be.

> While Bismallah is also related to Allah (the Lord?).
Indeed.

> Allah is related to in context to Baal and like. But not sure,
That sounds suspicious to me as well. Allah is from al-ilah, as far as
I know, and I think "ilah" (god) may be cognate to Hebrew "el". But I
think that "baal" (lord, master) is an unrelated root; it's got an
`ayin in it, for starters.

> I know Jahovah or Yahweh are related terms, not sure how exactly,
Both are ways of adding vowels to the known consonant "skeleton" Y-H-W-H.

"Jehovah" uses the vocalisation of "Adonai" (Lord); as far as I know,
this is because the tetragrammaton was usually pronounced "Adonai" in
order to avoid saying the divine name, and that for this reason (to
remind the reader), the vowel points of Adonai were sometimes used
alongside the consonant skeleton of the tetragrammaton. "Yahweh" is
some scholars' idea of the most likely original pronunciation of the
name.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>