WH 172

Siglum: WH 172
Transliteration: l kmd bn s²{k}r bn [n]ṣrʾl bn zbdy w wgd ʾṯr kmd f ngʿ
Translation: By Kmd son of {S²kr} son of {Nṣrʾl} son of Zbdy and he found the inscription of Kmd and suffered

Interpretation

Commentary: There are two possible etymologies for ngʿ. The first connects it with Ethiopic, nagwʿa 'shout, be broken, break' and Hebrew, nāgaʿ 'touch, hurt', which has a niphal form, meaning 'to be stricken, defeated in battle', and a puʿal, meaning 'to be stricken by diseases' (BDB, p.619). The second connects it with Arabic waǧiʿa 'suffer pain, agony (physical and emotional)'. The verb naǧaʿa in Arabic means 'to be useful', which hardly fits this context. Van den Branden (al-Machriq 63 [1969], p.738, n.1) interprets ngʿ as the VII form, the n-stem, of waǧaʿa. WH point out that there are no I-w n-stem verbs in Arabic and claim that the same is probably true for Safaitic. There is, in fact, no reason to assume that this restriction held in Safaitic, as I-w n-stem verbs are common elsewhere in Semitic, including many Arabic dialects. In fact, the n-stem of the verb wgʿ fits nicely in the context of this inscription. The proto-Central Semitic form would have been *nawgaʿa (cf. Hb. nōlaḏ 'was born' < *nawlada), which would appear in Safaitic orthography as ngʿ.

Winnett, F.V. & Harding, G.L. Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns. (Near and Middle East Series, 9). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.