Introduction

This word for "moon" is wide spread through Afro-Asiatic and specifically Semitic languages. The one exception is Arabic which uses قمر qamar for moon, instead of the expected *war(i)ḵ. The origin of qamar is unsolved.

Though Arabic may have borrowed the word tārīk: "date, time, time-keeping" from the Safaitic reflex, 𐩥𐩧𐩭 wrḫ: "month", in a morphological form resembling the Arabic form II verbal nouns.

Full Text

• Afro-Asiatic *wrḥ moon

  • Berber

    • Kabyle ayyur moon
    • Tamazight ⵢⵓⵔ yur month
  • Egyptian 𓇋𓂝𓎛𓇺 jꜥḥ-MOON moon

    • Demotic Egyptian

      • Coptic

        • Bohairic Coptic ⲓⲟϩ ioh moon ^[1]
        • Sahidic Coptic ⲟⲟϩ ooh moon
      • Egyptian Arabic أيوحه ʼayūḥah new moon of Ramadan?
    • Egyptian 𓇹𓄟𓋴 jꜥḥ-ms The Moon is Born (personal name)

      • Classical Greek Ἄμασις Ámasis

        • Latin Amāsis
      • Classical Greek Ἄμωσις Ámōsis
      • English Ahomse
    • Egyptian 𓇺𓊵𓏏𓊪 jꜥḥ-ḥtp The Moon is Content (personal name)

      • English Ahhotep
  • Semitic *warḫ

    • Central Semitic

      • Northwest Semitic *y-r-ḥ

        • Aramaic 𐡉𐡓𐡇𐡀 yrḥʾ month
        • Canaanite

          • Hebrew ירח yaréakh moon
          • Phoenician 𐤉𐤓𐤇 yrḥ moon, month

            • Punic 𐤉𐤓𐤇 yrḥ moon, month
    • East Semitic

      • Akkadian 𒌗 (w)arḫu(m) moon, new moon, month

        • Akkadian 𒌗𒀳 (w)araḫ samnu month name, Eighth Month

          • Hebrew מרחשוון markheshván month name

            • Hebrew חשוון kheshván month name, Cheshvan clipping

              • Yiddish חשוון kheshvn Cheshvan
              • English Cheshvan
    • South Semitic

      • Ethiopic

        • Amharic ወር wär month
        • Tigrinya ዋርሒ warḥi moon
        • Tigrinya ወርሒ wärḥi month
      • Old South Arabian 𐩥𐩧𐩭 wrḫ month

        • Old South Arabian *t-wrḫ

          • Arabic تاريخ tārīḵ date, time, history, historical chronicle

            • Hausa tār̃īhī̀ history, biography
            • Malay tarikh historical chronicle, date, year, calendar
            • Persian تاریخ târix history, date

              • Hindi तारीख़ tārīx history, era, epoch, chronicle
            • Swahili tarehe date
            • Ottoman Turkish تاریخ tarih date, history

              • Turkish tarih date, history
      • Modern South Arabian

        • Mehri ورح warḫ month
  • Chadic

    • Hausa watā̀ moon, month

Visual

Collected English words

Ahomse, Ahhotep, Cheshvan

Footnotes

1. ^

   Looking at the Bohairic ⲓⲟϩ ioh: "moon" provokes the interesting question of whether Greek Ἰώ Īṓ could be related. While the moon of Io is named that for largely unrelated reasons, Io—the Horned Virgin—did have lunar associations

   And Ἰώ Īṓ is definitely not originally a Greek name. It could be a name from Egyptian 𓇺 jꜥḥ or Iah through Minoan, as I speculate for Hephaestus and Leo