Aramaic word for "Red"

[Micah]

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, i am trying to wade through some of the Aramaic scrolls (which i know significantly less about than the Hebrew ones). i found shin-vav-mem-qof-yud-nun as "red." Is this the term used for the "red" heifer, for instance, in the Aramaic Bible?

[Paul Younan]

Hi Micah. In Aramaic the root for red is Simkath-Meem-Qoph. As you know sometimes in the Hebrew/Ashuri script the Sheen is used as a Simkath, where in Estrangelo it's always a Sh.

It sounds like you are reading a plural adjective meaning red, but I'm unsure unless you post the rest of the phrase or the context.

[Micah]

Yes, exactly; describing hair... it occurs to me that it might be referencing the color of the red heifer, which is a brownish red, which would be regionally more common than "red" red. i presume then that this is the same word used for the red heifer.

This reference is from a passage of 4QMess ar, which speaks of the Messiah, or the "Chosen One of God" (Bachir Alaha).

[Paul Younan]

Ok, the root is S-M-Q. The Waw between the 1st and 2nd radical indicates the adjective. The Yodh-Nun suffix is the plural suffix for the 3rd-Person.

[Abu Rashid]

Shlama Paul,

As you know sometimes in the Hebrew/Ashuri script the Sheen is used as a Simkath, where in Estrangelo it's always a Sh.

Rather than being related to which script is being used I think it's more to do with the period of Aramaic development. In earlier times, Aramaic had more consonants, one of them being "Sin", which ended up merging with Samek. Hebrew also ended up undergoing this merger too, but they retained the archaic spelling.

Abu Rashid.