Arabic-L:LING:etymology and emphasis responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 14 Nov 2001
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: :emphasis response
2) Subject: :taawila etymology response
3) Subject: :taawila and emphasis response
4) Subject: :taawila etymology response
5) Subject: :taawila etymology
6) Subject: :emphasis response

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1)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: khorshid <khorshid at aucegypt.edu>
Subject: : emphasis response

When you speak about emphasis you need to make a distinction between Qur'anic
Arabic and non-Qur'anic Arabic. In Qur'anic Arabic emphatic sounds are always
emphatic, whereas unemphatic sounds are always unemphatic. For example, the
"b" in SabaaH must be pronounced unemphatic, unlike colloquial Arabic dialects
(even Modern Standard Arabic MSA is influenced by the dialects). On the other
hand, the unemphatic sounds in colloquial and MSA will be pronouced emphatic
in the neighborhood of emphatic sounds (followed or preceded by emphatic
sounds). The word SabaaH above is one example.

All four examples you gave are special cases (Allaah, maay, baaba & maama).
Some representative examples are
  on "m" maat vs. al-maaDi
  on "b" ba9d vs. ba9D
  on "l" laa9ib vs. Salaah

I would also like to note that some readers of the Qur'an don't stick to the
rule of pronouncing unemphatic sounds unemphatic in all environments. That is,
you can hear the influence of colloquial Arabic in their pronunciation of
unemphatic sounds as emphatic ones in the neighborhood of emphatic sounds. The
same is true with MSA.

Regards

Ahmad Khorshid
Arabic Language Instructor
AUC

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2)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: "Schub, Michael" <michael.schub at trincoll.edu>
Subject: :taawila etymology

  /Taawilah/ is derived directly for Italian "tavola"  [table].
Best wishes,
                                    Mike Schub
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3)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: DLNewman <d.newman at planetinternet.be>
Subject: :emphasis and taawila etymology

Hello,

1. With regard to your question about emphatics, the impact on neighbouring
vowels is in fact the result of assimilation, and a logical 'byproduct' of
the articulatory processes involved in the production of the emphatic
(velarized/pharyngealized) consonants (retracted tongue root, concomitant
pharyngeal constriction, and lateral expansion of the tongue which is
raised - the Arabic grammarian's 'iTbaaq', 'lidding'). Of course, the
perceptual  changes in the vowels reflect the acoustic changes, the most
important of which is that emphatic consonants have a marked impact on the
second formant (F2) of vowels.
  In addition to the dialectal emphatics you have mentioned, many consonants
in colloquial Arabic varieties may in fact be velarized - e.g. /r/ (e.g.
Egyptian Colloquial Arabic /khaMR/, 'time'; cf. minimal pairs like /gaRaSI/,
'bell'-/daras/, 'he studied'), /n/ (e.g. ECA /baTN/, 'belly), as /s/ (e.g.
/kaSSar/, 'he broke') -, particularly of course when they occur next to the
'true' (i.e. primary) emphatics, whose influence may be ambisyllabic (e.g.
ECA /NeTLoB/, 'we ask').
It is interesting to note in this respect, that the great Sibawayhi (who was
the first to refer to emphatic consonants as /muTbaqa/, - 'lidded' - rather
than /mufakhkhama/ - 'thickened') already mentioned an 'alif al-tafkhiim',
which he identified in words like /Salaat/ ('prayers'), adding that this was
a typical feature of Hijazi Arabic.

2. Ultimately, the Arabic /Taw(i)(u)la/ goes back to the Latin 'tabula', but
it entered the language through the Italian 'tavola' (by way of the lingua
franca).

With kind regards,

Daniel Newman

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4)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: Tim Buckwalter <TimBuckwalter at aol.com>
Subject: :taawila etymology

The widely acknowledged etymology of Ta:wila is the Italian "tavola". I don't
know what the oldest recorded use is, but it's listed in Spiro's dictionary
(as "table" and "backgammon"). I found no instance of this word in Lisan
al-Arab or the Hadith corpus, but to my surprise I found a single occurrence
of it in the Arabic Bible (Smith Van Dyke translation?): "wa-nu`idda lahu
fiihaa sariiran wa-Taawilatan wa-kursiyyan..." (2 Kings 4:10). I would have
expected the translators to use the more standard "ma:'ida".

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5)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: dparvaz at unm.edu
Subject: :taawila etymology

>- About the etymology of Cl.Arabic [T'A:wila] / Palestinian [T'A:wle]
>   (table), I would like to know whether it is a coincidence that
>   it is very close to late Latin [t'awula] (classical Latin TABULUM),

This would fit the general pattern of other words for "table" found
in Arabic, such as ['me:za] and  [TAra'bezza].

While we're musing on imported vs. native words for new(?) concepts:
in Persian, the word [kor'si] (clearly related to Arabic ['kursi])
refers to particular kind of seating arrangement, to wit: a low table
is set up with some sort of heating element underneath, The table is
then covered by heavy blankets or carpets. Folks sit on the ground
and cover their legs with the carpet/blankets. Toasty.

Question: is this a semantic narrowing of ['kursi], or is something
like this pre-date the more off-the-ground concept of "chairness" in
the Arabic-speaking world, which was then extended?

Cheers,

Dan.

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5)
Date:  14 Nov 2001
From: Louis Boumans <louis.boumans at freeler.nl>
Subject: :emphasis response

In response to Mathias van den Bossche'squery,

J. Heath argues, quite plausibly, with respect to Spanish and French
loan words in Moroccan Arabic that the vowel quality in the source
language determines the consonant phoneme in the borrowed Arabic
cognate. So an adjacing [A] vowel will often result in loan words
with emphatic or other back consonants like q. Therefore MA /Taksi/
(taxi), /Tabla ~ Tebla/ (table) etc but /tran/ (tren "train"),
/tinis/ etc. This probaly explains CA qaSr < Lat. castrum as well.

J. Heath, ca.1986. Ablaut and Ambiguity
J. Heath. 1989. From Codeswitching to Borrowing

Yours, Louis Boumans

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End of Arabic-L:  14 Nov 2001