As rightly seen by Leslau (LS 297), the basic meaning of PWS *ˁgm is ‘to block, to stop’, preserved in Soqotri and represented elsewhere by Arb. ˁǯm IV ‘to lock a door’, Mhr. ˁatgem ‘to be blocked’, Jib. ˁógúm ‘to block’. For the (diachronically) derived meaning ‘to be dumb’ cf. Arb. ˁǯm ‘to have an impediment in one’s speech’, Mhr. ˀáygem ‘to be dumb’, Jib. ˁégem ‘to be dumb’. Traditionally, Hbr. ˁgm ‘to be sad’ and JPA ˁgm ‘to grieve’ are further compared, but they are hard to separate from Akk. agāmu ‘to be angry’, semantically rather remote from ‘to (be) block(ed)’.

• Mhr. ˀáygəm to be dumb; (Gt) to be blocked
• Jib. ˁégəm to be dumb; (D) to block