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BRIEF NOTES
A Loanword in Egyptian
In Pap. Anast. IV, the text, which deals with the sufferings of
the army-officer, contains a word, which seems not yet to have
been recognized as a loanword. "We read (see Moller, Hierat.
Lesestiicke, Heft 2, p. 41, line 2) :
Brugsch, Worterbuch, translates 'er wird, als Knabe, herbeige-
fiihrt, urn in die Caserne gesteckt zu werden.' That is,
takapu = 'Kaserne, Soldaten-Hiitte. ' This is simply a guess
from the context.
Takapu is a loanword from Assyrian zaqapu 'to erect, put
up,' Hebrew t|pf 'lift up, comfort.' In Assyrian zaqapu means
also 'to plant'; kiru zaqpu, 'hortus'; zeru zaqpu, 'a planted
field.' Takapu in Egyptian came to mean 'educational insti-
tution, Pflanzschule, seminarium.' The root tip? is also con-
tained in the word < =^ f 7 $' %,J K c ~=' (Anast. IV).
Brugsch WB. 'Schule, in welcher die Pferde dressiert werden,
Beitschule. Coptisch ANJHB, M AN£HBE, AN£HB, AN£HBE
schola. '
H. F. Lutz
University of Pennsylvania
The Hebrew word for 'to sew'
The following remark about the etymology of the Hebrew
word 15n 'to sew' was suggested to me when I noticed an
interesting airaf Aeyojacvov in Egyptian. In W. Spiegelberg,
Hieratic Ostraca and Papyri found by J. E. Quibell in the
Ramesseum, 1895-6, pi. XVII, No. 132, a small hieratic text is
published, a note scribbled on a piece of limestone. It reads:
'Let there be made ten ma-ti-pu-{i)ra-ti with their ten '-ga-
na{?)-i{?)-ti.' On the reading of the latter extremely uncer-
72 Brief Notes
tain, word see below. The first of these two words, which by their
vocalized spelling betray themselves as loanwords from the
Old-Canaanitish tongue, invites, however, an easy etymology,
especially on account of its determinative 'copper, metal,'
namely from Hebrew IDJl . ' to sew. ' It seems, therefore, that
we have here a word *matpart, or *metport, in Biblical Hebrew,
i. e. * mSJIJ? or more probably PPSrip 'sewing instrument,
needle.' If some object of leather belonged to each of these
needles, we might guess that this object was a small leather case
and that the needles were of larger size, perhaps for leather
work, like shoemaker's punchers. So the etymology proposed
has at least great probability, and we may ascribe to the Old-
Canaanitish language the word matpart for the time soon after
1300 B. C. This observation leads to a more important ques-
tion, namely how the root "ISn. occurring only in Hebrew, is to
be connected with other Semitic roots. The above example
shows that the Canaanites possessed the singular word in its
later form by about 1300 B. C. The Coptic tor(e)p 'to sew,'
however, leads us in the right direction. This form is decidedly
older than the later Hebrew form, although the latter already
appears in the fragment discussed above. It is evidently acci-
dental that trp has not yet been found in hieroglyphic form.
Being clearly the earlier form of the word it must have pene-
trated into Egyptian a couple of centuries before the nominal
formation matport. In the other Semitic languages 'to sew, to
mend' is N3~) (Arabic and Ethiopic) ; in the North Semitic
languages (Hebrew, Phoenician, Syrian, Assyrian) this root has
assumed the more specialized meaning 'to heal,' originally 'to
sew up a wound. ' Evidently * £pi"l as preserved in Coptic torp
and Kfll come from the same root. The Canaanitish language
has developed a new triliteral verb from the relative * Kfl")J"l
in which the reflexive prefix evidently expressed reciprocity,
like English 'together,' since sewing generally requires two
objects. That reflexive must have been very frequent ; possibly
the causative-reflexive formation * NiD"tf"1N or * KfiinrT was one
of the reasons why the reflexive t- was understood as a part of
the root.
H. F. Lutz
University of Pennsylvania
