"gohr" not in English dictionaries?

[David A. Daniel]

Doesn't look like a "hole, den, lair, burrow" to me, especially when they
say, like, you know, water flows through it, except when it doesn't, and
boats go on it, except when it's dry. Looks like a wadi.
DAD


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Benjamin Zimmer
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 8:56 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "gohr" not in English dictionaries?



This is presumably an Egyptian variant of standard Arabic "juHr",
which Hans Wehr's Arabic-English Dictionary defines as "hole, den,
lair, burrow." The "j" ("jim") of classical Arabic is realized in
Egyptian as /g/.

--Ben Zimmer

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 5:41 PM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
>
>
> Seems to be basically a wadi, maybe regional Sudan/Egypt?, i.e., wadi more
> widely used, wadi catches on, gohr doesn't. I learned my Arabic in
Tunisia,
> and don't recall running into a gohr, only wadis.
> DAD
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of
> Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 5:27 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "gohr" not in English dictionaries? (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---
>
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> Depends.  Do other English speakers returning from Egypt use it?  Or is
> it simply an Egyptian word which Werne (or O'Reilly), having no English
> word which fulfilled its purpose, used a few times?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > Behalf Of Joel S. Berson
> > Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 1:07 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: "gohr" not in English dictionaries?
> >
> > --------
> >
> > Does "gohr" need to be in English dictionaries?
> >
> >  From (via Google Books, full view):
> > Expedition to Discover the Sources of the White Nile, in the Years
> > 1840, 1841: From the German by C.W. O'Reilly
> > By Ferdinand Werne, Charles William O'Reilly
> > Translated by Charles William O'Reilly
> > Published by R. Bentley, 1849
> > Item notes: v. 1
> >
> > Many instances, including:
> >
> > Page 12:  "When they require water for themselves and their cattle,
> > they make in the bed of the Gohr a hole, not very deep, in the sand"
> >
> > Page 59:  "At Gohr et Gash, I had jumped on a dromedary without first
> > embracing him"
> >
> > Page 262:  "... a small, but strongly-flowing river, or an arm of the
> > Nile ; in the latter signification it is called, without any further
> > ceremony, a gohr."
> >
> > Page 272:  "We soon come to a gohr, or canal, apparently feeding the
> > little lake."
> >
> > Joel
> >
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