Mesopotamian notariqon (1)

Text
Notariqon is a hermeneutic technique which interprets the meanings of words based on its reading of the syllables as acronyms. Such acrophonic neologists commonly choose their phrases in order to create a name paronomastically related to their interests. Notariqon interprets the characters used to spell a word as if they are abbreviations for the whole words. The meaning of the linguistic form is thus understood as equivalent to the meaning of the phrase so produced. The technique is dependent on a type of abbreviation in which an initial syllable stands for a whole word. This method of abbreviation is well known in Sumerian texts from the end of the third millennium in Mesopotamia. In the texts of ancient Ebla certain words, namely numbers, are repeatedly written in a shirt-hand which records only the first syllable. A simple notariqon is used in the cuneiform tablet K 170+, where AN(šamê) is interpreted as ša A.MEŠ(mê) “that of water”, an explanation which finds a counterpart in the interpretation of Hebrew שמים “heaven” as coming from the word שם ‘there’ plus the word ‘water’ מים in the Babylonian Talmud (Hagigah 12a, Gen. Rabbah 4.8). Another simple variety of notariqon is that which breaks the word being interpreted into parts, and then rearranges it in order to make sense of it. The name of the goddess Zarpanītu is expounded in a hymn to the goddess Gula: “Zarpanītu, who like her very name, is the fashioner of seed (bānât zēri)”, i.e. descendants. This understanding of the goddess affected the form of her name - one finds the name form Zērbanītu in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian texts. Notariqon is widely used in the Rabbinic exegesis.

Sources (list of abbreviations)
Babylonian Talmud, Genesis Rabbah 4.8
Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 12a
K 170+

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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