لَيْسَ

لَيْسَ (verb)

Etymology: Uncertain. Traditionally taken to be a contracted pronunciation of either a verb لَيِسَ (layisa), whose ultimate origin is in turn unknown or unexplored, or of لَا (lā, “not”) + an existential أَيْس (ʔays) that has a proposed etymology in Proto-Semitic *ys < *yt. This existential would be a native cognate to Hebrew יֵשׁ (yēš) and Akkadian 𒌇 (išû, “to have or own; to be”, also used copulatively), although Al-Jallad (2018) expresses doubt that it is anything more than a back-formation from the negative, in other words implying that لَا (lā, “not”) + *أَيْس (*ʔays, existential) is just a folk etymology for لَيْسَ (laysa) from which أَيْس (ʔays) was created artificially. Al-Jallad instead proceeds to identify a form of لَيْسَ (laysa) in a Safaitic inscription dated between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, whose form, he says, invalidates the possibility of an origin in a verb لَيِسَ (layisa); he thereby argues that لَيْسَ (laysa) may either be a loan from Neo-Assyrian 𒆷𒀸𒋗 (laššu, “there is not”) or from Taymanitic 𐪁𐪚𐪏 (lys³ /⁠lāʾis, lāyis⁠/, “not existing or being”).