Last time we discussed two homographs - words written the same, with different pronunciations. Now I'd like to talk about two roots that are homophones - same pronunciation, but different spelling: mekhir מחיר and mechira מכירה.
Actually, they only appear to have the same pronunciation to those speaking Hebrew influenced by the Ashkenazic tradition, where the letters khet (ח) and chaf (כ) sound the same. In the Sefardic and Yemenite pronunciations, the two letters have distinct sounds. However, since the words have similar meanings - mekhir is "price" and mechira is "sale" - to many Hebrew speakers a common etymology might seem possible. However, as in our previous discussion, the two roots aren't connected.
Klein (and others) note that both have cognates in Akkadian.
This is what he writes about מכר - "to sell" (the root of the word mechira):
Aram.-Syr. מֽכַר (= he married; properly: bought as a wife), Ugar. mkr (= tradesman), Akka. makkūru, namkūru (= possession), tamkaru (= tradesman)
He adds that the Akkadian tamkaru is the source of tagar תגר - a post-biblical word for merchant or trader:
Together with Aram. תַּגָּר, תַּגָּרָא, Syr. תַּגָּרָא, תַּאגָּרָא, Arab. tājir (of s.m.), borrowed from Akka. tamgāru, tamkāru (of s.m.), which itself is traceable to מכר (= to sell)And here is his entry for mekhir:
מְחִיר m.n. price, hire. [Prob. a loan word from Akka. maḫīru (= purchase price), which derives from maḥām (= to receive, get, buy).]
He writes that it is related to the word mohar מוהר - "dowry."
Stahl (in his Arabic Etymological Dictionary) suggests that this Akkadian root is also the source of the Hebrew root מור - "to change", which gives us the words hamara המרה - "exchange" and temura תמורה - "substitution".
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