I see.  Thanks for the supporting evidence.
What if it was the other way round: LXM as beat, from the fact the bread dough 
was beaten through kneading.  In other words, LXM as fight being younger, 
derivative branch.

Jonathan
On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:00 PM, Isaac Fried wrote:

> It is not very clear to me what are the "cognate languages" you mention, but 
> it obvious from the HB that the Hebrew לחם LEXEM refers to solid food in 
> general. For societies of growers (or gatherers) that rely mainly on wheat 
> products, their staple food LEXEM came to represent what we call today bread. 
> As pointed out here, for meat eating societies, LEXEM came to denote meat, as 
> in Arabic. 
> 
> It is interesting that in Arabic bread, or bread making, is from the root 
> XBZ, which I think, is a variant of KABA$, 'pressed', or GABA$, 'solidify', 
> so that your idea about LAXAM being 'compressed', is plausible.
> 
> I think that XALAM, 'realize, form, imagine', is related.
> 
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
> 
> On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:16 PM, Jonathan Mohler wrote:
> 
>> Not really sure where you're going with that, other than that linguistically 
>> one is a metathesis of the other.  But as John Leake pointed out to me, my 
>> theory doesn't hold, since LXM is bread in all the cognate languages.
>> On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:14 PM, Isaac Fried wrote:
>> 
>>> In other words, you are saying that לחם LAXAM is a variant of הלם HALAM, 
>>> but what about חלם XALAM, 'dream, reverie'?
>>> 
>>> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>>> 
>>> On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:42 PM, Jonathan Mohler wrote:
>>> 
>>>> My theory is that there is only one root, להם.  This original root is "to 
>>>> beat," hence "to fight." The idea of beating dough or kneading leads to 
>>>> the noun, lechem, bread.
>>> 
>> 
> 

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