shahbaz

[Allen Maberry]

Shahbaz is a Persian word that literaly means "royal falcon" (sh[macron]ah=royal, b[macron]az=falcon). In Ottoman Turkish it can also have the meaning "a champion" or "a rough daredevil; a bully", but that's probably not what is intended in this case.

I don't think the word is possible in Hebrew except as a loan word, and I have no idea where a plural form "shahbazim" would come from. I believe the Persian plural is "shahbazan" (with macrons over all the "a"s) since "-[macron]an" is the usual plural for animate objects.

allen
maberry at myuw.net

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Matthew Gordon wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      shahbaz
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In a story about nursing home reform on NPR this morning they profiled a
> home called the Green House Project. A nurse's aid in this facility is known
> as a "shahbaz," a term apparently coined by them - I think they explained
> the need for a whole new term to describe their new approach to elder care.
>
> On the website for the Green House Project you can read "The legend of the
> Shahbaz" which is a story written to explain the term. For those fans of
> Cliff's Notes among you: Shahbaz was the name of some falcon who originally
> served a bad king and eventually became filled with compassion and had to
> help the downtrodden. It's a delightfully elaborate backstory to support
> this term. But, I wondered whether the word is completely made up or just a
> borrowing (the legend doesn't say). If it's a borrowing, I'm thinking it
> might be Hebrew since the plural is Shahbazim. Anyone recognize it?
>
> Link for the Project: http://thegreenhouseproject.com/concept.html
>