Etymologically
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קנמון

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Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: qinnāmôn[1]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: qinnā̊mon[2]

Forms

קִנָּמוֹן (qinnāmôn) noun, masculine[1][3] Construct קִנְּמָן־ (Exodus 30:23).[4][5]

Etymology

It is a foreign word that came with the spice, but its source is unknown.[5][6][7] HALOT asks whether it is Indian or Malayan, and BDB reports comparisons with a Malay name of the bark, made by Rödiger and Lewy, which it treats with caution.[4][5] Noonan rejects an East Asian origin: there is no evidence for true cinnamon in the ancient Near East before the late classical period, and the classical writers place cinnamon in the Horn of Africa or southern Arabia, so the word must have come from there with the product, like amomon and cardamom.[7] He also finds no Semitic root ⟨qnm⟩ it could come from, and does not derive it from קָנֶה (qāneh, “reed”), as Gesenius had proposed.[7][8] The same word is Phoenician qnmn.[3]

Ancient Greek κιννάμωμον (kinnámōmon) is from the Semitic word: BDB and Klein take it from Hebrew, Klein with its ending altered after ἄμωμον (ámōmon), while Beekes and Etymonline take it from Phoenician, and Herodotus already called it a Phoenician word.[5][6][9][10][8] Latin cinnamomum is from Greek, and English cinnamon from Latin through Old French.[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

It occurs three times.[1] In the Priestly recipe for the holy anointing oil Moses is to take qinnəmān-beśem, “fragrant cinnamon”, 250 shekels of it (Exodus 30:23).[5][1] The other two uses are love poetry: the adulteress says nap̄tî miškāḇî mōr ʾăhālîm wəqinnāmôn, “I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon” (Proverbs 7:17), and the Song of Songs lists it with nard, saffron and calamus (Song of Songs 4:14).[1]

Semantic evolution

SDBH defines it as a fragrant substance from the inner bark of the cinnamon tree, used for perfume and anointing oil, and HALOT and Holladay identify it as Chinese cinnamon.[11][4][12] Noonan argues instead that the biblical spice was some aromatic cinnamon-like plant of Africa or Arabia, since the ancient descriptions do not fit true cinnamon or cassia.[7] The Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Peshitta and the Targum all keep the word in their own forms.[7] Jewish Aramaic and Syriac have qunnāmā and qinnāmā.[4] Today Modern Hebrew קינמון (kinamón) is the spice and the tree.[3][13]

Timeline

  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – qinnəmān-beśem in the anointing oil (Exodus 30:23, Priestly).[5][1]
  • Poetry – Proverbs 7:17 and Song of Songs 4:14.[1]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek κιννάμωμον (kinnámōmon).[14][1]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – twice in the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls (2Q2, 4Q107).[15][16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. cinnamon, a fragrant bark used as a spice and in perfume and anointing oil.[5][11]

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew קינמון (kinamón)[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  2. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  3. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  7. ^ a b c d e f Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 193
  8. ^ a b Gesenius, Wilhelm (1846), Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, transl. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, London: Samuel Bagster, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  9. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. κιννάμωμον
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. קִנָּמֹון
  12. ^ Holladay, William L. (1971), A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  13. ^ Even-Shoshan, Avraham, Ha-Millon he-ḥadash, revised and adapted for the 21st century, Tel Aviv: Kinneret Zmora-Bitan, p. s.v. קִנָּמוֹן
  14. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  15. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  16. ^ Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss