[Mesorah] Etymology of "sar"

[Mandel, Seth]

In addition, sin and shin are completely different letters in Hebrew, going back to protoSemitic.  According to all evidence, there were originally three separate consonants, but in all surviving languages they were consolidated into two.  The proof that there were three is that we have cognates of many words that show regular correspondences, but only if we posit three separate sounds.

Our alphabet is based on the pronunciation in Northern Israel, where two were both pronounced one way, but not the way of standard Hebrew.  In standard Hebrew, the sin and samekh are pronounced the same, and so you find them mixed often, sometimes even in the T'NaKh.  But in Northern Israel, sin and shin were pronounced the same way, and samekh differently.  When theT'NaKh in Judges 12 says that the people of Efraim in northern Israel pronounced shibboleth as sibboleth, it is probably reflecting this, but it may means that they pronounced words with sin as a shin.

This is what Arabic does.  Words with a shin are pronounced with an /s/ sound; words with sin are pronounced with an /sh/ sound, but this is not that /sh/ and /s/ got reversed, as in the Sabbes Losen of Northern Lita, because words with a samekh are pronounced /s/ in Arabic.  It is just that the three consonants in Arabic were combined differently than in Hebrew.

Since the alphabet was developed in Northern Israel/Phonenicia, it probably means that both shin and sin were pronounced the same, but not samekh.

In any event, there is no way that a root in Hebrew with a sin has any sort of cognate relationship with a root with a shin, and there is no connection between the root srr, used in sar and historer, and the root shlt.


Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org


________________________________
From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> on behalf of Michael Hamm via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2017 8:47 AM
To: Zev Sero
Cc: mesorah at aishdas.org
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Etymology of "sar"

R' Zev Sero:

<<I've always assumed that "sar" is ultimately derived from "Sh-r-t",
because in English it's usually translated as "minister", which means
a servant.  And its usage generally conforms to that meaning.  But I
recently started to question this because of "ki tistorer alenu gam
historer", which seems to be derived from "sar", and uses it not to
represent the sar's inferior relationship to the king, but his
superior relationship to the people.  ("mi samcha le'ish sar veshofet
alenu" doesn't bother me, because there's the explicit reference to
the appointer whose existence is being questioned, and who would be
the sar's superior.)>>

Another where it clearly means superior is "lihyos kol ish sorer
b'veso" (last pasuk in Ester 1)... assuming that;'s the same root...
in which case the root is s.r.r.

I understand that some read "shorer" in that verse.  I don't know what
that's based on.

Kol tuv,

Michael Hamm / מנשה הם
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