Meanwhile, why would we think that mabbūl is a loan? Is it attested in Akkadian?

😀

I wondered about both of these.

We have kufr as ‘pitch’ in Arabic, and no clear cognates in Aramaic aside from in later Jewish Aramaic (and/or in connection with Genesis). Does this have to be a loan?

The main one was below.

He spoke about the loanwords somewhere else, not sure exactly where now.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bBR...

Are you able to send me a pdf? (Have emailed you just now.)

Thanks.

Do you have a sense of how exceptional it is? Checking a few at random, I have דְּבֵלָה yielding דְּבֶלֶת תְּאֵנִים, and שְׂרֵפָה yielding שְׂרֵפַת הַפָּרָה.

Yes, I’ve often suspected that. Those three root consonants seem particularly conducive to metathesis. I have no idea why.

Probably true. But I still quite like it.

Ah yes, true.

If I heard this word, I’d have no idea what it meant.

Oh, I see. Sorry, I misread your message.

That’s just the vowel, right? i.e., ma-.

This reminds me of a paper I recently read about Chadic (iirc) diminutives formed via reduplication, which are typically used by mothers speaking to their children but not otherwise.