John Leake wrote: The same misleading potential is true of cognates: the likelihood is that choosing a meaning of an Arabic cognate from a list of meanings in a lexicon without seeing where the word is used in context in the language is fraught with danger. If, for example, we didn!t know the word מדינה in Hebrew, would Arabic /madīna/ be helpful? Historically in Arabic it doesn't really mean 'city', which would be our natural - and misleading - choice, but without an etymological dictionary (and none exists that I know of) it's hard to unravel the meaning of such a word in terms of its meaning in a given period. It's worth reading Janes Barr's _Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament_, where he examines the pros and cons in some detail.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Ishinan: Dear John, you said: Historically in Arabic (Arabic /madīna) it doesn't really mean 'city'. I hope you are not insinuating that Arabic 'madiynah' is from the trilateral root dyn. Are you? Actually, Arabic 'madiynah' is from a quite different trilateral root which is 'mdn' meaning to dwell/to settle (*see definition below). The cardinal mistake often made, is to confuse it with B. Hebrew 'mdiynah', root of dyn' (as in Ezr 2:1) which is a cognate with Arabic 'dyn'. Ishinan Ishibashi *See Lisan al-Arab مدن (لسان العرب) مَدَنَ بالمكان: أَقام به، فِعْلٌ مُمات، ومنه المَدِينة، وهي فَعِيلة Versus والدَّيَّانُ: القَهَّارُ، والقاضي، والحاكِمُ
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