emirati

[Herb Stahlke]

Ben,

I have no doubt that you are right that the term is native Arabic, not a
loanword.  However, the OED at least leaves open the possibility that the
English word "emirate" would have been reanalyzed by English speakers on the
analogy of "professorate" and "episcopate."  It is this, I think that led
both Mark and me to see "Emirati" as an odd form, he initially as a typo for
"emeriti" and I as an English derived noun with an Arabic suffix turning up
as the name citizens of an Arabic-speaking nation call themselves.   We were
both on the wrong track, but I'm still inclined to think it's been
reanalyzed in English.

Herb

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 8:56 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: emirati
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 7:22 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >  On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 5:18 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
> bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> >  > I believe the Arabic term for someone from the Emirates is
> >  > <imaaraati>, which is <imaara(t)> 'emirate' + the <-i> "nisba"
> suffix.
> >  > So you could view "emirati" as an imprecise transliteration of that
> on
> >  > the model of "emirate". Or perhaps it originated as more of an expat
> >  > mishearing/misparsing.
> >
> >  So is <imaaraati> native Arabic or borrowed from English "Emirati"?  If
> it's
> >  native Arabic, then "Emirate" looks like a reanalysis using the English
> >  suffix -ate, or is it, and this seems less likely, a calque?
>
> AFAIK it's native Arabic, formed regularly from the root <?mr>, which
> gives sing. <imaara(t)>, pl. <imaraat> [where (t) is the fem. ending
> "ta' marbuta"], and then it becomes a demonym by application of the
> nisba suffix <-i>. I think the similarity to the Latinate "-ate" of
> "emirate" is purely coincidental. No need to posit a reanalysis -- cf.
> "sultanate", "caliphate", "palatinate", etc.
>
>  --Ben Zimmer
>
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