Yes. "Istihdam" comes from the Arabic action noun "istixdàm" (استخدام). If it's a verb in Turkish, then it comes from a noun in Arabic. The Arabic verb the noun is derived from is "istaxdama" (استخدم). The latter is derived from the lexical root XDM which also gave "xadama" (خدم) (to serve), "xádim" (servant) (خادم), and "xidma" (service, favor) (خدمة).


In Algerian Arabic, "xdem" has a slightly different meaning. It means "to work". "Xeddam" means "worker" and "xedma" means "work, job." Classical Arabic uses the root ƐML to derive the words related to professional work: "ɛamala" (عمل) (to work), "ɛamal" (عمل) (work, job), "ɛámil" (عامل) (worker, factor). We even have "maɛmal" (معمل) (factory - the English word itself is derived from the Latin verb/word that has the meaning of "to do" - so the Arabic word "maɛmal" literally means "working place/a place where we do things", making it, thus, a semantic borrowing from English).


Tamazight borrowed the verb "xdem" (to work) from North African Arabic. It also borrowed "axeddam" (worker) and "axeddim/lxedma" (work). The verb "xdem" eventually came to mean "to do" even in Northern Amazigh dialects, seriously competing the Pan-Amazigh verb "eg." And with the meaning of "to do", "xdem" also has a factitive form, "ssexdem" which means "to use" and "to employ/to hire." The Classical Arabic verb "istaxdama" has both meanings. However, "ssexdem" isn't a Berberized form of "istaxdama" but an Amazighized form of "xdem." The prefix "s-" of "ssexdem" is Berber and it's use to make a basic/simple verb factitive. For example, "adef" simply means "to enter," but "ssidef" means "to cause to enter, to make sb/sth enter, to get sth into sth else" - Ssadfeɣ takeṛṛust-inu ɣer ugaṛaj - I drive my car into the garage.

In our efforts to modernize Tamazight and decrease the massive (virtually infinite) number of loanwords in it, we're currently using the Tuareg root MHL to derive words related to "work/job." Thus, "mahel" is "to work" (attested in Tuareg), "amahil" means "work" and "amahal" means "worker."

The modern equivalents of "ssexdem" (to hire) are "smahel" (the factitive form of "mahel") and "ssemres" (derived from "tamrest" - job, itself derived from an Arabic root, MRS which gave the Arabic verb "márasa" [مارس] which means "to practise").

Kind of complicated, huh? :-)

Wow, thank you. Have you ever considered collecting such linguistic and etymological information in a book? I think that talent and potential shouldn't be wasted on the temporary comment feed of Tatoeba. :-)

Thank you for your suggestion and encouragement, brother. I'll give it a thought ^^