TA-NU-NI-KI-NA
chant a dirge!
- Reading
- tannî qînâ
- Confidence
- Speculative
- Kind
- Ritual
- Language
- Semitic
- Rank
- —
Compared forms
- HebrewPiʿel √t-n-yPiʿel √t-n-y ‘recount, recite’ (Judg 5:11; 11:40), including a proposed association with repetition in antiphonal performance (HALOT, 1759–60)
- Ugaritic𐎘𐎐𐎊ṯnyṯny ‘to repeat, reiterate; to echo’ (CUC)
- AramaicJewish Aramaic tny ‘repeat; narrate’ (HALOT, 1598)
- Northwest SemiticHebrew qînâHebrew qînâ ‘funeral song, dirge’; Syriac qintā ‘hymn, lament’ (HALOT, 1097)
Attestations1 cited
Commentary
PL Zf 1, a silver pin from a funerary context: … TA-NU-NI-KI-NA · NI-NU-NI …. tannî qînâ ‘chant a dirge!’: tannî, the 2fs Piʿel imperative of √t-n-y ‘recount, recite’ (Judg 5:11; HALOT 1759), and qînâ ‘funeral song, dirge’ (HALOT 1097). TA-NU-NI keeps the doubled middle radical with a dead vowel in NU; KI-NA writes qînâ without the vowel length or the final h. The same Piʿel is the women’s yearly rite for Jephthah’s daughter, lətannôt (Judg 11:40; HALOT 1759). The votive texts join words without a divider, as U-NA-KA-NA-SI wannā kanāsī and JA-PA-RA-JA-SE yapʾara yāṣē (SY Za 9). Weak point: one attestation. See TI-NU-JA.