Talk:jkꜣnꜣ

@Fay Freak Hello! Do you have any idea what might be going on with this apparent Ancient Near Eastern Wanderwort? Are all those terms listed in the etymology section really related? Is the direction of borrowing most likely from Semitic? What do scholars on the Semitic side of things think, and is there any academic consensus there? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 06:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: From what I figured, on which I wrote τάγηνον (tágēnon) intentionally vague, it is just not certain where the word is from, not even any borrowing directions save the latest ones (Aramaic→Arabic, which is always a safe bet). You can just presume that the word is not originally Semitic, though I am cautious about East Semitic derivation patterns: as far as I remember, the ending -annum as opposed to -ānum, as exposed on ت ر ج م (t-r-j-m), marks a noun as borrowed. The rest are no scientific explicit markers but likelihoods from experience with the morphologies and materials and semantic fields—which is why Semitists prefer to stay silent, as one is only motivated to tell uncertain stories if one is one of the few who undertakes a dictionary—, and by this token, of the collective circumstances, the admission that vessel names aren’t that well inherited from Proto-Semitic, which was spoken about 4000 BCE, and in the cases where they are inherited they are only for the most important ones in much distorted shape, e.g. إِنَاء (ʔināʔ) and صَحْن (ṣaḥn), but not so specific ones and hardly so peripheral ones—the “frequency” in Semitic should not be overrated; at least for Arabic إِجَّانَة (ʔijjāna) is a word that has succeeded to vanish from collective consciousness as an obscure word of which not much mention is left—, weighs much in combination with barely any grounds for internal connection (to a “root”, and a likely transfix) being discernable.

We just miss some languages, for relevant borrowings of the word took place several thousands of years ago, and such a situation can mean for better attested language groups that we exclude a term from its original vocabulary while owning no source. But apparently readers of Egyptian are less confident than those of Semitic languages about its internal morphology, or the likelihoods as outlined. Having a language group still living and available in its whole extent is an underrated advantage in weeding out the fortuitous items from the core vocabulary.

Maybe try an easier word from Late Antiquity to comfort: إِقْنِيز (ʔiqnīz). You can’t do complete justice to the present one. Fay Freak (talk) 14:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

ἄγγος - Mycenaean pl. a-ke-ha "vessel"? kek. 2A00:20:600E:CFD4:F52C:2AF5:40FD:A9CE 07:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)