ἀβάθ <Semitic?; Early Byzantine period; Loanword?/Gloss?>
👉 ἀβάθ – ‘teacher’ in the Cypriot dialect (Hsch. α 47); the gloss ἀβάθ· διδάσκαλος. Κύπριοι – “abath: teacher. Cyprians” has been treated as corrupt and emended: 1. ἀβά· ὁ διδάσκαλος. Κύπριοι (W. Gesenius); 2. ἀβάθων· διδάσκαλος. Κύπριοι (K. Latte); 3. ἀβώθ (or ἀβόθ)· διδάσκαλος. Κύπριοι (A. Caquot).
🅔 Perhaps a Semitic loanword, if its interpretation as a word with the basic meaning ‘father’ is correct: cf. Akkadian abu(m), Eblaite a-bù, Ugaritic ảb, Phoenician and Punic ʾb, Biblical Hebrew ʾāḇ, Old and Official Aramaic ʾb, Biblical Aramaic ʾaḇ, Jewish Aramaic ʾāḇ, ʾabbā, ʾebbā, Syriac ʾabbā. In the Semitic languages, the word for ‘father’ is often used as an honorary title, also towards a teacher, e.g. Elisha calls to his teacher Elijah: ʾāḇî, ʾāḇî “My father! My father!” (BH: 2 Reg. 2.12). Concerning the meaning ‘teacher’, cf. Cyrill. α 6: ἀββᾶς: εὐήθης· διδάσκαλος – “abbas: good-hearted; teacher” (for the meaning ‘good-hearted’, cf. Hsch. α 85: ἀβάς· εὐήθης ...), as well as Hsch. gloss. disc. p. VI: ἄβας: σοφιστής – “abas: wise man/expert”. Probably, we should correct ἀβάθ to ἀβάς. If so, we would be dealing rather with a borrowing from Aramaic; the vowel -α- might be the suffix -ā of the emphatic state. According to another explanation, the consonant -θ might come from a plural form, cf. Biblical Hebrew -ôṯ in ʾāḇôṯ ‘fathers’ and Phoenician/Punic -t (phonetically -ōt and -ūt) attested in Punic ʾbtm ‘his ancestors’ (-m is a possessive suffix, 3rd sg. m.); this interpretation requires a conjecture of ἀβώθ or ἀβόθ and supposes a majestic plural (semantically not impossible, but it seems somewhat bizarre and lacks any convincing parallels). Cf. ἀββα, ἀββᾶς, ἄπα.
📖 Data: CAD: I, 67-73; CDA: 3; DCH: I, 91-98; DJBA: 72f.; DJPA: 31f.; DNWSI: 1-3; DUL: 4f.; HALOT: 1f. and 1805f.; PhPD: 26f.; SL: 1. Ref.: cf. Egetmeyer 2010: 52; Hadjioannou 1977: 33; Lewy 1895: 73f.; É. Masson 1967: 71.