LA 1259          RONCO

H 0840             ק ו ר

Concept of root :  emptyness

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ק ו ר

roq

empty, leading out

Related English words

none

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

      ק ו ר

roq

empty, leading out 

r (o) q

Italian

ronco

ronco

path that leads out

r (o) nc <

*r (o) c

 

 

Proto-Semitic *ROQ --- *RONC-O Italian Indo-European

 

 

A peculiar case of similarity between Italian and Hebrew, that is hard to explain. The Italian word "ronco" stands for a path that leads out of a village and ends in the woods or fields without further continuation. It leads out to nowhere, nearly like into a void, having no other specific destination but the roughs or free nature. The sometimes given translation of "blind alley" is not right. The word is not found in Latin and remains without any etymological explanation.

 

There is in Italian a second, identical word "ronco", mostly used in the form "roncola", that is a strongly curved cutting instrument for garden or wood work. This second "ronco" is based on a Latin word " runca ". Obviously there is no connection between the two words " ronco " , even if someone has remarked that a path leading out of a village may be curved like a " roncola "

 

Note:
  • Italian "ronco" should be a nasalized version . It anyhow remains without any established or even seriously suspected etymology. It just looks like Hebrew, but has not been loaned from Semitic of course.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew uses this root mostly to express the concept of "emptyness, void". Already in Biblical times it had developed also a newer version of this same root, in which the Waw, " ו " has been substituted by a Yod : " י ", in : " ר י ק, riq ".

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. The combination "ר ק , R Q", either without written vowel or with one of the two mentioned ( W = O or Y = I ) as a root is found in Aramaic "א ר י ק, ariq = he emptied, poured out". Arabic "arāqa = he poured out, shed" and Akkadian "rāqu = to be empty". The original that was probably present in Proto-Semitic is "*ר ו ק , R W Q".

 

 

 

 
"...the town, to which was given the name Babel, because it was there that the Lord confused the language of all the world on the face of which He dispersed them. GENESIS 11,9"
 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 27/11/2012 at 12.53.37