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s m y

18 lemmas · 7 languages
III-weakThird consonant is w or y. The weak consonant often disappears in the perfect (r-m-y → ramā 'threw'). Known as lamed-he in Hebrew, tertiae infirmae.
Themes:heaven·3blue·2
POS shape:verb·9noun·5adj·2name·1prefix·1

This root is attested across 7 Semitic languages in our index. Each section below shows representative lemmas; attested means a Wiktionary editor explicitly tagged the root, inferredmeans we derived it mechanically from the word's consonantal skeleton.

Etymology treehow this root diverged from Proto-Semitic through the family

*s-m-wProto-Semitic
West Semitic
Central Semitic
Northwest Semitic
Canaanite
Hebrewסמי־ס מ יSemi-, half-.
Aramaic
Imperial Aramaicסמיס מ יto be blind
Assyrian NAܣܸܡܹܝܠܹܐܣ ܡ ܝSimele (an Assyrian town in northern Iraq)
Arabic
Arabicسُمِّيس م ي
South Semitic
Ethio-Semitic
Ge'ezሰማይሰ መ የheaven
Amharicሳማס מ יnettle (Urtica simensis)
Tigrinyaሰማይሰ መ የheaven

Branch structure: Huehnergard (2005), Rubin (2010). The reconstructed Proto-Semitic form is computed on the fly from the cognate set's majority reflex pattern.

Imperial Aramaic

arc · 1 lemma

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

aii · 2 lemmas

Hebrew

he · 1 lemma

Arabic

ar · 8 lemmas

Ge'ez

gez · 1 lemma
  • sämaynouninferredWiktionary ↗
    heaven
    From Proto-Semitic *šamāy- (“sky, heaven”).

Amharic

am · 3 lemmas
  • sammanouninferredWiktionary ↗
    nettle (Urtica simensis)
  • sämaynouninferredWiktionary ↗
    heaven
    From Proto-Semitic *šamāy- (“sky, heaven”).
  • sämayawiadjinferredWiktionary ↗
    blue
    From ሰማይ (sämay) + [Term?] (“awi”)

Tigrinya

ti · 2 lemmas
  • sämaynouninferredWiktionary ↗
    heaven
    From Proto-Semitic *šamāy- (“sky, heaven”).
  • sämayawiadjinferredWiktionary ↗
    blue

Related rootsshare 2 of 3 consonants with s-m-y

Compare two languages side-by-side