From ‘flaying’, ‘Ascension’ and ‘red garden-beet’ to ‘wolves’ and ‘sweet dishes’: The Stunning Semantic Variety in the Arabic Root SLQ as a Touchstone for Arabic Etymologists

Abstract

The following article can serve as yet another report from the workshop of an Etymological Dictionary of Arabic (EtymArab).1 Work on a ‘zero version’ of such a dictionary has seen (slow but) steady progress since several years now. Taking the root √SLQ as an example, this contribution gives an idea about the high potential of such a project, but also shows its clear actual limits. The enormous spectrum of semantic values covered by √SLQ—one may distinguish more than thirty meanings that, at first sight, do not seem related to each other—provides a fine illustration of the complex composition of the modern as well as the classical lexicon. The current state of affairs in Arabic etymology allows us, to a certain degree, to ‘sort out things’ and bring some order into this confusing complexity. In many cases, however, research also remains ‘hanging in the air’.