Interesting, but Ilan makes out like these, plus "Eden", are the only Sumerian words in the language, whereas I have read (in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, IIRC) that other Sumerian-derived words include אֲנָךְ from _naga_ (tin in Sumerian, lead in Hebrwe), גַן (garden), אִכָּר (farmer) from _engar_, כִּסֵּא (chair) from _guza_, מַלָּח (sailor) from malaḥ, שִיר (song) from _sir_, תֵּל (tel) from _dul_, תֹּמֵר (palm-tree) from _nimbar_, and _tifsar_ (scribe) from _dubsar_; plus of course the personal pronouns חידקל (Tigris) from _Idiglat_, פְּרָת (Euphrates) from Buranum, and תַּמוּז (the month Tammuz, originally an Akkadian god) from Dumuzi.
The Hertz chumash says that גֵט derived, via an Aramaic word for a legal document, from a Sumerian word for a cuneiform tablet.
Finally, the name of the month ניסן derives according to Wikipedia from Sumerian _Nisag_, meaning "first fruits".
Hi, I am a native Persian speaker and I have to say, I find your blog simply amazing.
A question: One of the words used in Persian for castle is Qal'e (kuf aleph lamed ayin heh) which I guss is arabic. Can it be of the same root as heichal, that is derived from Sumerian gal?
(In northern Iran, the dialects of the region beside the Caspian sea have the same word pronounced as 'Kola'.)
The correct Akkadian form is arad ekalli, wherein as you said, (w)arad is "slave" and ekalli is "of the palace" (the final -i vowel is the genitive case marker). The original spelling ארדיכל is found in several manuscripts of Talmudic literature.
Wondering: the word ‘adar’ is found as a compound word ‘ Adrammelech’ meaning: ‘splendor of the King’ (Isaiah 37:38), when pointed as ‘adir’ can mean ‘Excellency’. Moreover, the zimra Adir Hu alludes to the building of the Temple. So this novice would like to know if there is any connection to the modern Hebrew word for ‘architect’--inasmuch as he would, potentially, be a builder of the palace of majesty?
The Arabic Haykal according to Lisan Al-Arab means "every thing big." What comes to mind nowadays in association with Haykal is 1- Haykal Sulaiman = Solomon Haykal = The Kotel. 2- Haykal Athmi (bony Haykal) = skeleton (of a person).
The ruins in Baalbek, Lebanon, are called Haykal Baalbek. Haykal = house of idols.
Church = kaneesah in Arabic.
I would like to know where the aspiration comes from when egal becomes _H_ekhal. Why an h- at the beginning? It looks like Akkadian doesn't have it, but other Semitic languages do.
The heh at the beginning is a complicated problem. When words are borrowed from one language to another, they sometimes take on spontaneous changes for no apparent reason. For example, the Arabic word for "a person" is 'insaan starting with an aleph (equivalent to Hebrew 'enosh, Aramaic 'inaash). In Kurdish and Neo-Aramaic it appears as `insaan with an `ayin, even though neither Kurdish nor many Neo-Aramaic dialects have an `ayin in native (non-loan) words.
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