Wednesday, March 07, 2007

dugma and dogma

Is there a connection between the English word dogma and the Hebrew word dugma דוגמה (earlier דוגמא)- "example, sample"?

Horowitz (page 267) thinks so. He writes about dugma:

דגמה - example, but in English "dogma" an example of faith
Klein however, gives them different etymologies.


Dugma: From Greek deigma (= sample, specimen), from the stem of deikuynai (= to show), which is cognate with Latin dicere ( = to say, tell)

Dogma: Latin dogma, from Greek dogma (= that which one thinks true, opinion, doctrine, decree), from dokein ( = to seem, have the appearance of, think, believe), whence also doxa (opinion, glory)
The English word paradigm is related to dugma as well.

All other sources I've seen agree with Klein - so maybe Horowitz's dugmaot of Hebrew borrowing from Greek shouldn't be viewed as dogma...

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