amurdinnum
Akkadian
Etymology
Unknown. Henry Ludwig Fr. Lutz opted to read the sign 𒄯 with the common value ḫar instead of mur, requiring one occurrence containing mu-ur- as referring to another plant, and deems the remainder to render Arabic *أَخُو أَرْضٍ (*ʔaḵū ʔarḍin, literally “earth brother”).[1] This seems out of question since we realize that the modern value [dˤ], now transcribed superficially similarly ḍ, was in antiquity a voiced alveolar lateral fricative [ɮˤ]. Neither afford مَرْد (mard, “toothbrush-tree fruits”) thorns, as behoves by the Akkadian descriptions, or Arabic in general any transferrable ending. The structure hints to an Anatolian loanword with a privative a.[2]
Pronunciation
- (Old Babylonian) IPA(key): /a.murˈdin.num/
Noun
amurdinnum m (El-Amarna, Standard Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian)
- The meaning of this term is uncertain. Possibilities include:
- Synonym: 𒌑𒄉 (ašāgum)
- a disease of the eyes
Alternative forms
- amurdinnu, murdinnu (Standard Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian)
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References
- ^ Lutz, Henry Ludwig Frederick (1950) “The Name of the Jujube Tree in Babylonia”, in Journal of the American Oriental Society[1], volume 70, number 2, pages 108–109
- ^ Haas, Volkert (2003) Materia Magica et Medica Hethitica. Ein Beitrag zur Heilkunde im Alten Orient (in German), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, , page 244
Further reading
- Thompson, Reginald Campbell (1941) Cyril John Gadd, editor, A Dictionary of Assyrian Botany[2], London: The British Academy, published 1949, page 330
- “amurdinnu”, in The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD)[3], volume 1, A, part 2, Chicago: University of Chicago Oriental Institute, 1968, pages 90b–91a