ARABIC-L: LING: Geographical Names Discussion (More)

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Fri 12 Mar 1999
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message to listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
          unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: Iraqi Names
2) Subject: Saudi Names
3) Subject: Egyptian Names
4) Subject: Nisbas & Broken Plurals

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 12 Mar 1999
From: "A. FERHADI" <af3 at is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Iraqi Names

Let me add a few such geographical names from Iraq. Please note that /gh/
represents /ghayn/ as in gharb = west. /@/ is /@yn/ is @asal =honey.

/baghdaadi/ is a male person from Baghdad, pronounced /baghdaad/ and the
plural is /baghaadda/. The middle daal is elided and the remaining daal is
stressed.

As for the city of al-mawSil, locally pronounced as /muuSil/, a male person
from that city is referred to as muSlaawi. The plural is miSaalwa in the
city itself but elsewhere it is often miwaaSla. Whether you metathesize or
not, the vowel immediately following /m/ is more of a schwa than a kasra.
The same is true of the singular  /miSlaawi/ in the ideolect of many.
Incidentally, the famous musicians ziryaab and isHaaq al-muuSilli or
al-mawSilli of medieval times are originally from this city. So is the
famous medieval poet abu tammaam who worked as a 'postman' there. Today,
you see a statue  of the poet greeting you when you enter al-mawSil, from
the east.

Curiously, Kirkuk /karkuuk/ has a Turkish-based suffix nisba in the
singular: karkukli and the plural is karkukliyya. al-mawSil and karkuuk are
in the north.

In the south:

Basrah /baSra/ ----> baSraawi (sg) and baSaarwa (pl)

al- at imaara (ending in taa' marbuuTa) pronounced /@imaara/ or /i at maara/ with
a pronthetic vowel. In both cases, the vowel preceding or following @ is a
schwa  not a kasra. A male person from this city is @maaratli as in mas at uud
il-i at maaratli, the renowned muTrib al-baadiya whose name  is synonymous
with country music. His "soda sh-lahhaani yaa buuya" is still ringing in my
ears! Our friend, Muhammad Jiyad, may want to elaborate on this.

Ahmed Ferhadi
New York University

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Date: 12 Mar 1999
From: Yaser Al-Onaizan <yaser at ISI.EDU>
Subject: Saudi Names

Greetings everyone,

This phenomenon is also evident in Saudi Arabia (where I come from).
Adjective examples: Najdi (pl. Nijada) is a person (people) from najd ( the
central part of Saudi Arabia), Hijazi (pl. Hijz) from the western part
(Hijaz), sharqawi (pl. sharqaweiyeh) from eastern part, and Qassimi (pl.
Qussman) from Qassim region. Examples of adjectives taken from city names:
Braidawi (a person from the city of Buraidah). And Yes there are cities that
do not form these adjectives, for example: for the city of Riyadh, we don't
say Riyadhi (may be because the word already exist and used to refer to an
athlete).

As for family names, the answer is also yes. Here are some examples:
Al-Najdi, al-onaizan (my family name is derived from the city of "Unaizah" in
central Saudi Arabia).

Hope that helps,
Yaser

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yaser M. Al-Onaizan             Home    Tel: (310) 342-9876
Information Sciences Institute          Fax: (310) 822-0751
University of Southern California       E-mail: yaser at isi.edu
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
Date: 12 Mar 1999
From: DWILMSEN at aucegypt.edu
Subject: Egyptian Names

You can see the same sort of thing in Egyptian Arabic:

maSr-i/maSarwa  (alexandrian reference to cairenes)
desuu'i/desai'a  (people of desuuq)
Sa at iid-i/Sa at aida )upper Egyptians)
baHraaw-i/baharwa (lower Egyptians)

the same can apply to family names (in fact desuu'i is a family name)

in a recent soap opera the two main (feuding) families were
@zaiza and sawalmi, presumably from @ziiz and siwailim (which itself
looks like a plural).

david wilmsen
director, arabic and translation studies division
american university in cairo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Date: 12 Mar 1999
From: "Munther A. Younes" <may2 at cornell.edu>
Subject: Nisbas & Broken Plurals

Bob,
	I think that your question touches on nisba adjectives and two
processes of broken plural formation. I'll start with the broken plural
first.
	Based on a limited statistical study of broken plurals in
Palestinian that I have coducted, it appears that the most common broken
plural pattern in this dialect is fa<aalil with its variants
fawaa<il/fa<aawil/fa<aa<il:
	?arnab-?araanib
	masjid-masaajid
	jaami<-jawaami<

As these examples show, the singular source can be a true quadriliteral
(?arnab, xanjar, etc.) or a derived one (with a prefix like miim or a long
vowel like aa).

The taa' marbuuta (pronounced a or i in Palestinian, depending on the
preceding consonant) is used in Levantine dialects (and possibly others) as
a plural marker in certain nouns, all human as far as I know, and generally
referring to professions: Hajjaara or dakkiika "stone-cutters", muHaamiyyi
"lawyers", xayyaali "horsemen", Haraamiyyi "thieves", etc.

Words like rawaabde and talaaHme combine both types of plural the fa<aalil
type and the taa' marbuuta. (The idea of having two levels of plural is
familiar: sayyid/saada-saadaat, shajara/shajar-ashjaar, etc.) However, I
think they are derived from two distinct types of sources:

1. from nisba adjectives, regardless of the number of consonants or vowels
in the source word,
2. from quadriliteral names.

The way to distinguish the two types is to check for a singular
counterpart: rawaabde doesn't have a singular form, while talaaHme
does:talHami. According to this test, rawaabde would be derived directly
from the quadriliteral source and is not the plural of a nisba adjective.

Now, to answer your question, it seems that when a quadriliteral source
exists, then a plural, involving both a fa<aalil process and a taa'
marbuuta is derived. In addition to rawaabe and Taraawne, I can think of
the following based on family names in my village (Barta'a) and neighboring
villages. None of them has a singular.

midlij-madaalji
<abbaas-<abaabsi
saalim-sawaalme
manSuur-manaaSra
naaSir-nawaaSri

To these you can add bajaajli (from btjl which becomes bjjl by
assimilation) and possibly other plurals you mentioned.

Nisba adjectives can be derived from sources with any number of consonants,
and they have singular and plural forms. The ones from quadrilitarl sources
have two plural forms: one with the nisba and the taa' marbuuta and the
other a fa<aalili (fa<aalli by syncope) plural.

Beet laHim: talHami-talHamiyyi, talaaHmi
ilxaliil: xaliili-xaliiliyyi, xalaayli
ghazzi: ghazzaawi, ghazzaawiyyi, ghazaazwi

(I am claiming here that ghazaazwi is derived from ghazzaawi and not from
the tri-consonantal ghazzi directly.)

According to this analysis, words like yaafa, Heefa, ramli and lidd have
too few consonants to have a fa<aalli plural:

Heefa:Heefaawi-Heefaawiyyi
yaafa: yaafaawi-yaafaawiyyi
ramli: ramlaawi-ramlaawiyyi
lidd: liddaawi-liddaawiyyi
(?a)riiHa: riiHaawi-riiHaawiyyi

Words like Ramalla,Tuulkarim, and Nablis have two many elements to have
fa<aalli plural,  but two of them have nisbas, both singular and plural:

raamallaawi-raamallaawiyyi
naabilsi-naabilsiyyi, naawaabilsiyyi. (My plural for this form differs from
Mohammed Mohammed's who has nawaabilsi)
As for Tuulkarim, I haven't heard a nisba form in my dialect or a fa<aalli
plural. (I am familiar with the adjective karmi, but it is not used in my
dialect; people would say those from Tuulkarim or the people of Tuulkarim.)

Munther

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L: 12 Mar 1999