Directly comparable to Mhr. wīṣel ‘to manage; to help’ and Jib. éṣel ‘to manage to shoulder a burden (physically or psychologically)’. Further perspective of this proto-MSA isogloss is somewhat ambiguous (cf. SED I No. 289).

Since the Mehri and Jibbali verbs also mean ‘to come, to arrive’, they cannot be separated from Arb. wṣl ‘to arrive, to come, to attain’, Sab. h-wṣl ‘to proceed, to arrive; to join, to adhere (intransitive)’, Min. wṣl ‘se rendre à, arriver à tel endroit’, probably also Hbr. ˀṣl (nip.) ‘to be linked with’ (with ˀ instead of w/y). The hypothetic underlying meaning shift ‘to come’ > ‘to come to help’ is quite feasible. Note that the meaning ‘assistance, cooperation’ has been tentatively postulated for Sab. ṣlt in SD 164.

An alternative source for the meaning ‘to help’ in MSA can be seen in such meanings of Arb. wṣl as ‘to behave with goodness and affection, to have a close, loving communion with somebody’, presumably from ‘to be attached, joined to somebody’, as well as in Arb. ṣilat- ‘a gift for which no compensation is to be made, a free gift, a gratuity’ (Lane 3055), Sab. ṣlt ‘gift’ (SD 164), Qat. wṣl ‘offering’ (LIQ 54).

Of interest are, finally, the PCS anatomic term *waṣil- ‘joint, articulation (of the humerus)’. In view of the steady connection between the meanings ‘elbow’ and ‘to support, to help’ in Semitic (Maizel 1983:218–219), an eventual connection between them and the MSA verb under review is possible.

At any rate (contra LS 70), the Soqotri verb is certainly unrelated to Hbr. nṣl (hip.) ‘to save’, which is a secondary semantic derivation from ‘to pull out, to remove, to withdraw’.

• Mhr. wīṣəl to manage; to help
• Jib. éṣəl to manage to shoulder a burden (physically or psychologically