Semitic Words Over Time: Hebrew & Ge'ez

The basic nucleus of human existence in the ancient Near East was not the individual, nor even the family, but rather the tribe or clan... This can be gathered from the fact that the Hebrew term mispahah originally meant clan and later came to mean village as well. The underlying meaning - "the most basic societal unit" - remained unchanged while the actual unit it referred to did change, as the society itself changed from a nomadic (tribe/clan-based) to a sedentary (village-based) existence. (Tarazi, page 1, The Old Testament: An Introduction Volume 3 Psalms & Wisdom)

The same analysis can be applied to the Ge'ez word ሐገር (hager), commonly misspelled አገር (ager). ሐገር meant city and its plural አሕጉር (ahigur) meant cities. Today hager means country and ahigur means continent. Perhaps an increase in geographical knowledge also contributed to this change over time.

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