A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA
I make myself a dwelling (1cs tG-stem middle-reflexive denominative of √NWY)
- Reading
- ʾatainawaya
- Confidence
- Confirmed
- Root
- *nwy ‘pasture land, grazing place’ 1, ‘abode…’
- Kind
- Verbal
- Language
- Semitic
- Rank
- #2 of the top 100
Compared forms
- Hebrewנָוֶהnāwehnāweh (נָוֶה) ‘comely habitation, pasture’ (Exod 15:13, Ps 23:2 [nĕʾōt, pl. construct], Isa 33:20, Jer 25:30); nāʾwāh (נָאוָה) ‘comely’ (Song 1:5); √n-w-y ‘to dwell, settle’
- Amoritenawûmnawûm ‘steppe; encampment (man and beast)’ (Huffmon, APNM 237); nawijum ‘nomadic encampment’ (Gelb, AS 21)
- Akkadiannamûnamû A (nawû) ‘pasture land … and its population and flocks; outlying area around a city’ (CAD N/1, 249–51)
- Arabicنوىnawānawā (نوى) ‘to intend, set out for’; nawan, an-nawā (النَّوَى) ‘the abode, the place one sets out for’
- Greekναόςnaosναός (naos) ‘temple’ < *nawos, same √n-w-y (Bernal 1987, Rendsburg 1989); cf. Exod 15:13 nəwēh qodšekhā ‘Thy holy shrine’
Attestations11 cited
- IO Za 23DA-TA-I-*301-WA-JA JA-DI-KI-TU JA-SA-SA-RA-[ME] [U-NA-KA-NA]-SI I-PI-NA-MAI make myself a dwelling
- IO Za 3A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA AUI make myself a dwelling
- IO Za 7A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA JA-TI-*321[I make myself a dwelling
- KO Za 13DA-TA-I-*301-WA-JAI make myself a dwelling
- TL Za 13DA-TA-I-*301-WA-JA O-SU-QA-REI make myself a dwelling
- PK Za 12A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA A-DI-KI-TE-[I make myself a dwelling
- SY Za 13DA-TA-I-*301-WA-JA I-DA-MI JAI make myself a dwelling
- SY Za 23DA-TA-I-*301-WA-JA JA-SU-MA-TU-OLIV 1I make myself a dwelling
Commentary
The verb that opens the libation formula: eleven attestations at five peak sanctuaries, Iouktas, Kophinas, Troullos, Palaikastro and Syme. A- is the 1cs prefix, -TA- the tG prefix, I an epenthetic i, and *301-WA-JA (*301 = na) the root √n-w-y: /ʾatainawaya/ ‘I make myself a dwelling’, denominative from nāweh ‘abode’, as hitnabbēʾ ‘make oneself a prophet’ from nābîʾ (di Mino, Ya Diktu). The tG is the stem of what the worshipper does to herself before the deity. Hebrew keeps it only in relics such as tirgaltî (Hos 11:3; Hutton and Marzouk 2012), Moabite has Gt wʾltḥm ‘and I fought’ (KAI 181:11, 15), and the act matches the Hitpaʿel wāʾetnappal lipnê YHWH ‘and I prostrated myself before YHWH’ (Deut 9:18), the same frame. A-TA-I- puts the -t- before the root, as Hebrew Hitpaʿel, Arabic Form V ta-faʿʿala and Geʿez tä-qätlä do; Akkadian infixes it (Gt). Exod 15:2 zeh ʾēlî wə-ʾanwēhû is 1cs √n-w-y with the deity as object, and Targum Onkelos renders it wə-ʾebnē lēh maqdəšā ‘I will build Him a sanctuary’. Rival sense ‘glorify him’, beside wa-ʾărōməmennhû: HALOT files it under II נוה, and the Peshitta and Palestinian Targumim read ‘praise’. Hebrew nāweh joins divine habitation to pasture (Exod 15:13; Ps 23:2; Isa 33:20; Jer 25:30; Ezek 34:14), and Amorite nawûm is ‘steppe; encampment (man and beast)’ (Huffmon 1965, 237). Same paradigm: Palaikastro A-TA-I-*301-WA-E (PK Za 11a), which weakens JA to E as A-SA-SA-RA-ME and A-DI-KI-TE-TE do there, and JA-TA-I-*301-U-JA (AP Za 1, 3ms). A-TA-I-*301-DE-KA and TA-NA-I-*301-(U-)TI(-NU) share the frame but are √ʿ-n-y ‘answer’ (di Mino, Ya Diktu). The root noun *301-WA nawā ‘dwelling’ stands on IO Za 4. Rival: Davis’s functional gloss ‘gives’ (Davis 2026, in Salgarella and Petrakis eds., The Wor(l)ds of Linear A, 43–60). See TA-NA-RA-TE-U-TI-NU, the closing petition.