Bravo, Will! You have hit on the right original meaning of 'Yamin' which is indeed 'south'. Think of the state of Yemen' and its location in the Arab world. This connotation is preserved in "Teiman' in BH.
To elabortate the point a little -- the word for 'left' in BH is, as we know, 'Smol'. This very word in Arabic, 'Shimal', means North. In Heb. there is a silent Alef after the Mem. In Arabic the Alif serves as the long vowel. These words exist in Semitics from before biblical times. They are attested in the names 'sons of the north' and 'sons of the south' in Akkadian. The Akkadian name of the latter is “Bene-yamina”. Think of Binyamin in the HB. Now consider the location of Binyamin in the northern kingdom of Israel -- this tribe is the southern most. That these terms may indeed have originated in the position of someone who prays to the sun in the morning is a reasonable assumption. Uri Hurwitz At present Wilmington, Vt. I find this association of _jamin_ with "sea-side" phonetically suspect, seeing that ימינ/yamin has no daghesh in the mem, whereas ימ/yam(m) does. The presence of an underlying geminated mem in yam/yamm is corroborated by the Arabic ﻳﻢ/yamm (with a tashdid, corresponding to Hebrew daghesh forte, over the mim). Also, I think it's most natural to orient (note the meaning of the Latin etymon!) oneself by facing in the direction of the rising sun, by which the "right" would be South, though it's certainly possible to consider the direction of the highest point of the sun to be the reference point, in which case the West would be the "right". -- William Parsons _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
