borrowing pronouns

[Robert Whiting]

On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>Robert Whiting wrote:

>> It might be useful for a start to note that <'usta:dh> is a
>> non-native word in Arabic (according to Lane's dictionary; oops,
>> argument from authority -- well perhaps you can tell us from your
>> own knowledge why the word violates Arabic phonotactics) and that
>> the same word exists in Persian (<'usta:d>).

> IT is most likely Turkic, yes Turkic. Look at internal evidence;
> Us (top of, above), UstUn (superior, above others), oz (to surpass,
> to overtake, to be above others), ozghun (someone who is excessive),
> usta (an expert in something), ustalik (expertise).

Ah, yes, Turkic.  Sorry, Mark, but Turkish slipped my mind.  But
if a word appears in both Arabic and Persian then it is usually a
pretty safe bet that it appears in Turkish also (unless it has
be purged as a foreign word).  Sure enough the word is there:
Ustat 'Meister', 'meisterhaft'; Ustadane 'meisterhaft' (all I
have at home is a Turkish-German dictionary published in 1931).
Ustaz is given as a variant of Ustat and is presumably based on
the Arabic pronunciation (/dh/ realized as [z]).  Leaving Spanish
usted out of the picture for the moment, we now have what is
obviously the same word in three languages belonging to three
different families.  The question would seem to be, which
language is it native to?  Or did it originally come from yet
another language?

Now Turkic would seem to have a good claim because of Turkish
usta 'Meister', 'Handwerksmeister'; ustalIk 'Meister-Sein',
'Geschicklichkeit eines Meisters'; and ustalIklI 'meisterhaft',
and because of Ust 'Oberseite', 'Oberflache'; UstUn 'ueber',
'ueberlegen'; UstUne 'auf ihn, sie, es'.  The only problem would
seem to be the variation between u- and U- (U for u with
dieresis, I for undotted i) in usta and Ustat (and of course the
occurrence of U and a together in Ustat, Ustaz, and Ustadane)
which someone with more knowledge of Turkish than I have will
have to explain.

My lack of knowledge doubtless is the basis of the fact that I
find Mark's lexical information somewhat confusing.  My
dictionary gives Us (Mark: 'top of, above') as 'Grundlage',
'Basis' while Ust (not given by Mark) seems to correspond to the
meaning he gives for Us.  And my dictionary does not give oz or
ozghun at all so I suppose that they belong to a different branch
of Turkic.  I am surprised, though, that Mark did not come up
with Ustat (Ustaz) and Ustadane, but perhaps these have been
expunged from the language as being seen as having been borrowed
from Persian or Arabic.  But since Mark knows more about Turkish
and Turkic than I ever will, I expect that there is a simple
explanation.  It does, however, reinforce the point about doing
comparisons with only a dictionary and a very limited knowledge
of the language involved.  And I have a question of Mark:  Is
the term Ustat used an an honorific in Turkish as 'usta:dh is
generally in Arabic?

Coming back to Spanish usted, since we can be fairly sure that
the word 'usta:dh is not native to Arabic, and since Arabic is the
only one of the three languages where we have noted it to have
been in close contact with Spanish, the question becomes whether
the word could have come into Arabic early enough for it to be
passed on to Spanish before the end of the 15th century.  Or is
the question whether 'usta:dh didn't come into Arabic from
Spanish usted and then pass to Persian and Turkish?

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi