It is generally recognized that Italian meschino and French mesquin go back to Arab, miskîn ‘poor, humble, submissive’. To Semitists it is obvious, moreover, that the latter form cannot be a direct, inner-Arabic development from one of the roots which appear as skn. The adjective is found also in Ethiopic and Aramaic (meskîn), and in Hebrew (miskên); now if the Arab, form had been derived from skn ‘dwell, rest’, the Heb. and Aram, cognates would have displayed š (from škn), in accordance with the normal laws of correspondence between the Northwest-Sem. and Arab, sibilants. Since, however, the Heb. and Aram, forms of the adjective in question are written with the samek-sign. ( s , which remains unchanged in the Sem. languages), the word cannot be related to s/škn 'dwell, etc.'; Arab, sakuna 'to be poor' is thus clearly a separate root, in all probability a denominative.
E. A. Speiser (Fri,) studied this question.
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