Uncle Sam: Semitic or Semantics?

IThe hook00:00

• Uncle Sam is Samuel Wilson, a meat packer in Troy, New York, who stamped his barrels U.S. in the war of 1812, and the soldiers said the initials stood for him. America’s face has a Hebrew name: Shəmūʾēl, “the name of God,” or “God has heard.”
• Semitic is a word coined in 1781 by a German scholar, from Shem, Noah’s son — and Shem means name. Semantics is Greek, from sēma, the sign. So the question in the title is not a joke: the family of languages is named for the name, and the study of meaning is named for the sign, and both are S-M.
• “We are all indigenous.” The textbooks named their three great families after the three sons of one man — Semitic, Hamitic, Japhetic. The family tree of languages was drawn as one family before it was drawn as several. This episode is the one that says so.

IIThe sound01:00

• S is the hiss; M is the lips closed on a hum. Breath, then the seal with the voice still running: the sum, the whole gathered and held, the same. Rule III — the front of the mouth and the lips.
• The trades (Rule IV): S ~ Z ~ SH (shēm · ism; shamayim · samāʾ), S = H (Greek homos, same — homogeneous, homily — is Latin similis and English same, with the Greek H for S), M ~ N (Hebrew -īm, Arabic -īn). The Throat: the teeth and the lips.

IIIThe same and the sum01:40

• Proto-Indo-European *sem-, one: English same, some, seem, seemly (fitting — the same), seam (where two become one), similar, simple (one fold), single, simultaneous, assemble, ensemble, semblance; Latin semel (once), simul, similis, simplex; Greek homos, homou, hama (together), heis / hen (one); Sanskrit sama (same, even), sam- (together — samādhi, union; saṃgha, the assembly; saṃsāra, the going-together-round; samāja, the gathering — Hindi samāj, society), Sāma-Veda (the chants). Latin summus, summa: sum, summit, consummate; and sēmi-, half — Greek hēmi-, Sanskrit sāmi- (Rule VI: the sum and the half are one skeleton).
• Urdu samajh, understanding: Sanskrit saṃjñā, “knowing together” — the same sam- with the root of know, gnosis, cognition. To understand is to put together, in Lahore as in Latin (com-prehendere, to take together).
• Samosa: Persian sanbosag, the three-cornered pastry; Arabic sambūsak; Hindi and Urdu samosa — the same thing folded, the assembled dish.

IVThe name and the sign02:50

• Hebrew shēm, the name: Shem (Genesis 5:32); Shəmūʾēl (Samuel); Shimʿōn (Simeon, Simon — “heard”); Shimshōn (Samson — “little sun,” shemesh); HaShem, “the Name,” the Jewish way of saying God. Genesis 11:4 — the builders of Babel say “let us make a shēm for ourselves”: the tower was built to make a name, and the season is named for the tower.
• Arabic ism, the name — and the two schools of Arabic grammar disagreed about its root: the Basrans derived it from s-m-w, height, samāʾ, the sky (the name is what is raised up); the Kufans from w-s-m, the mark, wasm (the name is the sign). Both answers are S-M, and the second one is semantics. Bismillāh, “in the name of God,” the first words of every chapter but one. Al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā, the beautiful names.
• Greek sēma, the sign, the tomb-marker; sēmantikos; sēmeion — semantics, semaphore, semiotics. Latin signum by the same sense. English name and Sanskrit nāman and Latin nōmen — N-M, the M ~ N trade of the same skeleton.

VThe sky and the hearing04:10

• Arabic samāʾ, the sky, the heights; Hebrew shāmayim, the heavens; Akkadian šamû; Ugaritic šmm. Arabic shams, the sun; Hebrew shemesh; Akkadian Shamash, the sun god; Shams-i Tabrīzī, Rumi’s sun.
• Arabic samiʿa, to hear; samāʿ, the hearing — and the Sufi listening ceremony, Turkish sema, the whirling; as-Samīʿ, the All-Hearing, one of the names; Ismāʿīl, Ishmael — “God hears”; Sāmiʿ, Samīʿa. Hebrew shāmaʿ: Shemaʿ Yisrāʾēl, “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4), the sentence a Jew says last; Shimʿōn, Simon Peter, the one who heard. The name is what is heard: ism and samiʿa meet in Ismāʿīl.
• Akan sunsum: the spirit, the part of a person that gives character and is passed from the father — the self that is the same across a life. The host’s own bank: the word that closes the map from the west.
• Sumayya: the first martyr of Islam, Sumayya bint Khayyāṭ; the name is the diminutive of samāʾ, the little sky, the exalted one. Sāmī, Sāmiya, Samīr (the companion of the night talk, samar), Samīra, Samīna, Samad (aṣ-Ṣamad, the Eternal Refuge, 112:2). Sámi, the people of Lapland — “we are all indigenous.” Samoa, Samarkand, Samaria and the Samaritan (Shōmrōn, the watch-hill — sh-m-r, to keep). Semiramis. Simba, the Swahili lion.

VIThe same and the opposite05:40

• Rule VI. Sum is the whole and semi is the half. Same is all and some is part. Shēm is the good name and shame (Old English scamu) is its loss; a sham is a false name. Samāʾ is the sky and Sheʾōl was the pit. Assemble and dissemble. The root of the same holds its own difference — which is what the whole season has been saying.

VIIThe Sam tab’s words06:10

• These stand on the Sam tab of The Descent for this episode, each with its dictionary line, the case to come: as-Samīʿ, the All-Hearing, one of the ninety-nine names, from s-m-ʿ, with samiʿa, to hear, and Ismāʿīl, Ismail and Ishmael, God hears; al-ʿAẓīm, the Magnificent, one of the ninety-nine names, from ʿ-ẓ-m, to be great; aṣ-Ṣamad, the Eternal Refuge, one of the ninety-nine names, from ṣ-m-d, ṣamada, to turn to, which stands on the mother tab too; Shem and Semitic, Schlözer’s coinage; semantic, from the Greek sign; ism and bi-smi llāh; samāʾ, the sky; same, some and seem; samurai, the one who served; sesame, from the Semitic oil plant; sashimi; Urdu samundar, the sea, which stands on the door and water tabs too; Sanskrit sama; samosa, the folded pastry, Persian sanbosa; sarcasm, the tearing of flesh, which stands on the soar tab too; Spanish desamor, the loss of love, which stands on the daisy tab too; museum, the seat of the Muses, and Spanish mismo, the same, which stand on the muse tab too; the physician’s tenesmus, which stands on the ten, nose and muse tabs too; Tasman, whose island stands on the daisy and man tabs too; bosom, which stands on the best tab too; and Arabic and Urdu jism, the body, which stands on the jazz tab too; qasam, the oath, and kismat, the lot dealt, which stand on the shook tab too, kismat on the mother tab as well; hazmat, which stands on the mother and host tabs too; wisām, the badge, the name Wissam, which stands on the water tab too; Newsom, the surname from the new houses, which stands on the nose and water tabs too; simulation, sum and summa, the likeness and the total, simulation on the ten tab too; dim sum, the touch of the heart, which stands on the atom and muse tabs too; Samīr and Sumayya, the names; Sammy and single, which stands on the sun tab too; symbol, the sign, Greek sýmbolon, the token, which stands on the ball tab too; Arabic and Urdu nasīm, the breeze, the name Naseem or Nasim, which stands on the nose tab too; jasmine, the flower, Persian yāsaman, Arabic yāsamīn, and the names Jasmine, Yasmin, Yasmeen and Jazmin, which stand on the jazz and man tabs too; Greek kósmos, order, the ordered world, and cosmos, the universe, which stand on the jazz and muse tabs too; the physician’s botulism, the poisoning named for the sausage, Latin botulus, which stands on the water, tell and lesson tabs too; mechanism, the way a thing works, from Greek mēkhanḗ, the contrivance, which stands on the nose, magic and gene tabs too; racemic, of the two mirror forms of a compound in equal parts, first said of the acid got from the grape, Latin racēmus, the cluster of grapes, which stands on the rice and magic tabs too; schism, the split, Greek skhísma, from skhízein, to split, which stands on the shook and kiss tabs too; Urdu Kashmīr, Kashmir, the valley of the Himalaya, and cashmere, the fine wool of its goats, which stand on the kiss tab too; dismay, to take away the courage, and the loss of it, Anglo-Norman desmaier, from a popular Latin *exmagāre, to take away the power, which stands on the may and daisy tabs too; Zamzam or Zam Zam, the well within the Sacred Mosque at Mecca, by tradition sprung for Hājar and Ismāʿīl, which stands on the muse tab too; Persian and Urdu zamīn, commonly zameen, the earth, the ground, the land, which stands on the man tab too; the name Samīn or Sameen, which this show reads as Arabic thamīn, precious, said samīn in Persian and Urdu, beside Arabic samīn, fat, rich, which stands on the man tab too; seminal, of the seed, Latin sēmen, the seed, and the physician’s semen, which stand on the man tab too, seminal on the nail tab as well; smile, to turn up the corners of the mouth, of Scandinavian origin, and small, little, Old English smæl, which stand on the mill tab too; Arabic ṣawm, the fast, Urdu ṣaum, commonly sawm, which stand on the beam tab too, ṣawm and sawm on the sieve tab as well; and Arabic mawsim, the season, the time of the yearly fair and pilgrimage, Urdu mausam, the season and the weather, which stand on the mob and muse tabs too, mawsim on the best tab as well. The script gives each its line and says which are the dictionary’s and which are the show’s.

VIIIScripture and the close11:40

• Genesis 2:19–20 — Adam names the animals; Genesis 11:1–9 — one language, one speech; “let us make a name”; “its name was called Babel.” Qur’an 2:31 — wa-ʿallama Ādama l-asmāʾa kullahā, “and He taught Adam the names, all of them.” The first thing the first human was given was the names. Deuteronomy 6:4 (the Shemaʿ). Qur’an 112 (al-Ikhlāṣ: aṣ-Ṣamad). Qur’an 49:13 — “We made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another.”
• Close: the season began with the story you were told — that the family stops at Rome — and it ends with the name. God taught Adam the names; the builders of Babel wanted one; the textbooks named the families after one man’s sons; and the American everyman is a Hebrew boy called God has heard. One God, one tongue, and the same word for same in every mouth on earth. Sam.

IXSources12:40