SEEZORAM
| Lehite PN | 1. | Member of GADIANTON BAND, elected chief judge ca. 26 BC (Helaman 9:23, 26, 27) |
Etymology
If the initial see- of SEEZORAM is a phonetic variant of the HEBREW independent demonstrative pronoun ze,[1] meaning “this, these, such a one, he of,”[2] then this personal name may be etymologized as “he of ZORAM,” perhaps analogically related to ze sînay, “He of Sinai” (Judges 5:5)[3] and ZENEPHI, “he of NEPHI.” If this etymology is correct, then the name may be related to the Book of Mormon name, CEZORAM,[4] but not ZERAM, ESROM, ZEEZROM, or EZROM (an amount of silver) since the later four appellatives do not allow for a long /o/ or /u/ vowel between the sibilants z/s and the liquid /r/. (For more detailed information on each of these names, see the individual entries.) If SEEZORAM is not derived from ZORAM, then it would seem reasonable to group SEEZORAM, CEZORAM, ZORAM, and possibly (if see- is not a prefix) ZERAM, ESROM, ZEEZROM, and EZROM, together because of the possible common consonants zrm or srm. See ZORAM and ZERAM for etymological possibilities.
Note that SEEZORAM’s brother’s name, SEANTUM, according to the Deseret Alphabet spelling also begins with the sound, /i:/. SEEZORAM could possibly be from szr, though the combination of two initial sibilants is a very unusual in West Semitic.
Unlikely is a derivation from the EGYPTIAN PN Zoser/Zeser (LID, 30) because the consonants do not easily correspond.
Also possible, though unlikely because it would mix languages, is that see is EGYPTIAN s3, prefix for “son” (JAT).
Cf. Book of Mormon ZORAM, ZEEZROM, CEZORAM, EZROM/EZRUM, ESROM, SEANTUM, et al.
See also Seezoram Variants
Variants
Deseret Alphabet: 𐐝𐐀𐐞𐐄𐐡𐐊𐐣 (siːzoʊrʌm)
Notes
- ↑ The HEBREW particle is a variant of the common West Semitic deictic particle *zu, represented by d in Ugaritic, d in Aramaic, and ḏū in Arabic.
- ↑ The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. The Ugaritic cognate means “which, that, of” (Ugaritic Textbook 382).
- ↑ See The Jewish Study Bible, Tanakh Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), translation, “Before the Lord, Him of Sinai” and Psalm 68:8. For this deictic particle and its use in PNs, see the following: W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, 1st ed., 199, and Albright, "The Song of Deborah in the Light of Archaeology," BASOR 62 (Apr 1936): 30, citing H. Grimme; Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, 310-316, zy used to introduce relatives; B. Porten, Aramaic Documents from Egypt (Winona Lake, IN, Eisenbrauns, 2002), 109-122, for examples of the genitive particle zi; Edward Lipiński, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 326, observes that ze is the oblique form of the archaic nominative zu; cf. also Du Shara “The One of the Shara Mountains (Qos, the primary deity of the Nabateans),” in Justin Kelley, “Toward a New Synthesis of the God of Edom and Yahweh," Antiguo Oriente 7 (2009):260-261, and n. 27; Lihyanite D-ʿmn, D-rḥmh, D-mslmh, D-blʼ, and Thamudic Dû-baraq “The One of Lightning,” in A. R. Al-Ansary, “Lihyanite Personal Names: A Comparative Study,” ALUOS, 7 (1969-73):6,8,10,12-13.
- ↑ It should be noted that the Deseret Alphabet spelling of Seezoram and Cezoram are identical, indicating that the second half of the 19th century, there was no distinction in pronunciation between the two names.
