Aloha,

The word ABRACADABRA is definitely installed all over our popular culture--
used as an emblem of magic and magicality. As well as an emblem of 
preposterous
or misleading belief. In addition, folks name business enterprises and 
processes
with it, probably to suggest magic results more than preposterous ones.

I'm somewhat curious about the notions that the word originated in Aramaic
as opposed to Hebrew (members of the Semitic language family). Does this
somehow bear on the transmission of magical practices? (Let me confess that
I've mostly taken the word as it's used in popoculture.)

Not too long ago, I ran across a little article that summarized recent 
historical
linguistic research and thinking (which, because it was a casual little 
article,
I didn't save and can't find now) about the persistence of a few 
frequently used
and important words (on the order of I/me, mother, go, see, eat, and 
such like)
across a number of European languages from much earlier than previously 
thought.
10-15 thousand years ago. Way back Proto-Indo-European.

I wondered if any magic words might have originated in our very early 
days and
persisted in our language families. I imagined that it would be, for 
instance, really
cool if some magic word had its roots in some Paleolithic or Mesolithic 
language.
and had persisted.

I found this at the Proto-Indo-European Dictionary Translator (and I 
don't think
MAGIC originated way, way, way back, PIE-=wise.)

English: magic   Indo-European: qdnos, soito

http://indo-european.info/dictionary-translator/

Musing Magic Words & Human Origins! Rose,

Pitch-A-Babba-Dabra