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E 0534 LICHOMA
The Old English word " lichoma "is of Germanic origin .
H 0546 ם ו
ח
ל
Concept of root : flesh
and body
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Hebrew word
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pronunciation
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English meanings
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ם ו ח ל
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leghum
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flesh,
body
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Related English words
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Old English: lichoma
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Comparison between European words and
Hebrew
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Languages
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Words
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Pronunciation
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English meanings
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Similarity in roots
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Hebrew
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ם ו ח ל
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leghum
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flesh, body
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l . gh . m
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Dutch
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lichaam
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lichaam
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body
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l . gh . m
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Middle Dutch
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lichame, lachame
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lighame,
laghame
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body
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l . gh . m
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Old English
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lichoma
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body
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l . gh . m
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Swedish
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lekamen
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lekamen
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body
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l . k . m
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Proto-Semitic *LAGHAM --- *LIGHĀM Proto-Germanic
Some Germanic languages seem to have forgotten this word. German has , for "dead body, corpse", the word "Leichnam" , synonimous with "Leiche" and seen as a fortuitous alteration of Old High German "lihhamo".
Note:
- English has abolished this word, but Old English was perhaps the nearest to Hebrew, with two versions, "lichoma" with the vowel O where Hebrew has the U, besides "lichama".
Note:
- Hebrew. There seem to be no words in Hebrew that are clearly related to the also old word "leghum", though this should be a past participle of a verb with the three consonants "L GH M". We have seen identical roots in the entries number E 0543 (Hebrew 0543) and LA 1253 (Hebrew 0544), but their meanings are very different. Arabic has a related word for "flesh". Therefore Bethlehem, originally "Beit Leghem", meant "House of Food" and means "House of Bread", whereas the Arabs now believe it says "House of Meat".
Note:
- Proto-Semitic. As already mentioned, there are some similar roots " L GH M" with very different meanings. Such as " to fight, battle", " to eat, bread", "to join together", "flesh, body". We will not try to link them together in some way. Probably they are just similar in sound only. The root of this entry is also found in Arabic "laghm = flesh, meat". Probably it has been present in Proto-Semitic as a root independent from the others with "L GH M" : "*ל ח ם , L GH M".
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Note:
- Proto-Germanic. Some far-fetched explanations have been tried. For example some
suppose that the second part of the Dutch word "lichaam", that is "haam", is considered the same as
the term "haam" meaning "hames", or a collar-harness for a horse. This English word is a
plural of Middle English "hame" that has been loaned from Middle Dutch. This "haam" then
is supposed to be related to "ham", that is English "heam", an old and forgotten word that
indicates the membrane around the womb. Consequently the basic concept of the root of those
words would be "to cover", so that Old English "lichoma, lichama, licam" and Dutch "lichaam" would mean
"cover" of the "lic", that in Old English is "body". But Gothic "leik", Old Saxon "lik" and
Old High German "lih" say "body, flesh" just like Hebrew "leghum" .
This complicated reasoning all sounds rather nice, and is further acclaimed as a poetic
expression: "bodycover" for "body" as a justification. But the similarity with Hebrew is useful
to show us that this supposition is wrong.
With that the second part of the Germanic words for body, like Old English "lichoma", also "lichama", remains uncertain. It certainly is a composed word, of which the first part altready carries the meaning of "body, flesh". The second part confirms or reinforces the message.
One may compare also with the German word " Leichnam = dead body". There is no stable identical form for this suffix, as one finds, "-aam, -oma, -amo, -ame, -ami, -namo, -nam". The "H" that is often seen is part of the words for "flesh, body", not of the suffix. Also for that reason it is uncertain that the suffix would be related to German "Hemd = shirt" , a word that finds its origin in a root meaning "to cover, enwrap". A "body" or "licam" as such is not a cover or wrapping, but a full entity.
If we may consider the forms "-oma" and "-nam, -namo" as exceptional, the suffix is "-ĀM", with still an uncertain meaning. The odd thing is that there is this similarity with Semitic.
Proto-Germanic probably still had "L I H- for the meaning of "flesh, body" , but an extended form with reinforced guttural may have been created already : L I GH Ā M".
Note:
- Indo-European. Information about possible cognates in other groups of Indo-European languages seems not to be available. The comparison remains as so often between Semitic and Germanic.
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| Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 04/11/2012 at 12.37.20 |
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