Arabic-L:LING:macabre etymology responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 14 Sep 2000
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1) Subject: macabre etymology response
2) Subject: macabre etymology response
3) Subject: macabre etymology response
4) Subject: macabre etymology response
5) Subject: macabre etymology response
6) Subject: macabre etymology response
7) Subject: macabre etymology response

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1)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: Waheed Samy <wasamy at umich.edu>
Subject: macabre etymology response

I don't have concrete evidence, but I remember a claim that macabre comes
from maQaabir (graves, grave site).
Waheed

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2)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: "Munther A. Younes" <may2 at cornell.edu>
Subject: macabre etymology response

	This word (macabre) has intrigued me for some time. I think it must
have its origins in the Arabic word "maqaabir" (graveyards). The similarity
(in sound/spelling and meaning) between the Arabic and the English is too
strong to be coincidental. I checked a number of English dictionaries, but
none of them show any connection with Arabic.

	Munther Younes
	Cornell University

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3)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: Muhammad Deeb <mdeeb at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: macabre etymology response

	The assumption that "macabre" is related to Arabic "maqaabir"
(graves; graveyard) is no more than folk etymology, very likely made
plausible by the tonal and thematic similarities between the two words.
"Macabre", adopted as an _adjective_ from French in mid-19th century,
comes from _danse macabre_, "macabre" being a scribal error for the Early
Modern French adjectival phrase: "danse macabre" (avec un accent aigu).

	This in turn was a translation of medieval Latin _chorea
Machabaeorum_ (= dance of the Maccabees), which is said to be a reference
to a stylized representation of the slaughter of the Maccabees (a Jewish
dynasty in biblical times) in a medieval miracle play.

							M. Deeb

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4)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: jolandaguardi <jolandaguardi at iol.it>
Subject: macabre etymology response

The word macabre comes from the french macabre which etymology is not
certain; some propose from the arabic maqabir or from the hebrew maqaber (H.
Sperber The etymology aof macabre in Studia Philologica et Litteraria in
Honorem
L. Spitzer, Bonn 1958, pp. 391-401) or, in alternative, from the Bible
(from the
nickname Giuda Maccabeo).
Jolanda Guardi

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5)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: djust at netvision.net.il
Subject: macabre etymology response

If my memory hasn't gone completely:

Barbara Tuchman, in her long section on the danse macabre in A
Distant Mirror, makes it clear that we're dealing in the realm of
guesswork.  However, she tends to the popular theory that it comes
from the Hebrew meqaber, the present active participle of a word
meaning "to bury".  You'll find it under "qiber" in the dictionary.
Again, if I remember my numbers right, the form corresponds to form
II in Arabic, i.e., that with the middle consonant geminate.

I don't know how reliable she is on these things.

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6)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: Jim Rader <jrader at Merriam-Webster.com>
Subject: macabre etymology response

There is a considerable body of literature on the etymology of
French <macabre>.  Even a brief sketch of the convoluted history
of this word and the many etymological hypotheses it has evoked
would be out of place on an Arabic list. But suffice it to say that
attempts made in the 19th century or earlier to link the word with
Arabic <maqa:bir>, plural of <maqbar(a)>, "tomb, graveyard, etc."
or with Syriac <meqabbere^y>, "gravediggers," are now generally
thought by Romance specialists to be poorly founded.  Maybe
Arabists think differently.

A good digest of <macabre> etymologies can be found under the
entry for the word in the multivolume monolingual French dictionary
_TrÈsor de la langue franÁaise_, on the reference shelves of most
academic libraries in the U.S. and Europe.

Jim Rader
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7)
Date: 14 Sep 2000
From: Dil Parkinson <dil at byu.edu>
Subject: macabre etymology response

The OED guesses that the origin is with the Maccabees (I quote):

"The etymology of the word is obscure; so far as its form is concerned it
might be a popular corruption of OF. Macabé = Maccabæus
(an example of ŒJudas Macabré¹ has been found), and in the 15th c. the
ŒDance of Death¹ was called chorea Machabæorum in Latin (Du Cange cites a
Besançon document of
1453), and Makkabeusdans in Du. M. Gaston Paris, however, thinks Macabré
may have been the name of the artist who painted the picture which
suggested the first poem on
the subject.] "

Dil

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End of Arabic-L: 14 Sep 2000