ARABIC-L: LING: zaka:t and sha:wirma responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 15 Apr 1999
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1) Subject:  zaka:t (same entry) & sha:wurma (Turkish)
2) Subject: sha:wirma (cevirme) & zaka:t (no neat solution)
3) Subject: Shah-warma = the king of meat
4) Subject: Shawarma is Turkish

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 15 Apr 1999
From: Muhammad Deeb <mdeeb at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject:  zaka:t (same entry) & sha:wurma (Turkish)

(1) Zaka:h / zaka:t:

	*** "Zakaah" ("zaka:h") & "zakaat" are one and the same entry.  The
first is so pronounced in a pausal reading; the second, in either the
construct form, i.e., as first part of a genitive construction, or when it
is fully voweled.  Your observation that "zaka:h" should be at the head of
the entry rather than "zaka:t," which is contrary to the Hans Wehr system,
is more appropriate.  I would imagine Hans Wehr is following the Levantine
tradition of rendering the feminine suffix ("taa' marbuuTah / tied taa'")
into a taa', irrespective of its parsing, or position in given parlance.
Conversely, Egyptian & Sudanese pronunciation of the word in question is
"zaka:h," and of the Arabic daily, published in London, "Al-Haya:t."  Your
perceptive observation and a few other flaws in Hans Wehr, should be taken
into consideration in issuing updated and properly edited of this otherwise
indispensable dictionary.


(2) Etymology of Shawirmah:

	*** Because of its twin spellings (the first syllable being
variously short and long), this word is cross-referenced twice in Hans Wehr,
but without any etymological gloss, save its currency in Syria!  I, too,
this "oversight" surprising.  "Shawirmah" / "shaawirmah" ("sha:wirmah") is
of Turkish origin ("cevirme,"with a cedilla under letter "c.")

							M. Deeb

-------------------------------------
Department of Comparative Literature,
University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada T6G 2E6

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2)
Date: 15 Apr 1999
From: Michael Fishbein <FISHBEIN at humnet.ucla.edu>
Subject: sha:wirma (cevirme) & zaka:t (no neat solution)

Dear Mr. Rader,

I think I can help with the etymology of sha:wirma or sha:wurma. The word
is not
listed by Wehr under an Arabic root because it is a loan-word from Turkish.
The New
Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary (1968) gives the following:

cevirme (begins with c-cedilla): lamb, etc., roasted on the spit.

The word is derived from the Turkish verb cevirmek (again, beginning with
c-cedilla,
pronounced like English ch): to turn, turn round; to rotate, spin; to roast
on the
spit.

So the etymology of shawarma (or however it is most commonly spelled in
English)
should be given as: "from Arabic sha:wurma or sha:wirma, from Turkish
cevirme" (c-
cedilla).

By the way, the word now used in Turkey for this style of roasted meat is not
cevirme, but doner kebap (o-umlaut), meaning "rotating kabob," from another
verb
meaning "to rotate." So, although the Arabic is derived from Turkish, it is
not
derived from the current Turkish word.

As for the problem of zaka:t or zaka:h, they are the same word. There
really is no
neat solution. Ordinarily, Arabic nouns are cited in their so-called pausal
forms,
that is, without the desinential endings that mark case. In effect, one is
citing the
stem of the word (as one does in citing Sanskrit nouns). In most Arabic
words, the
pausal form coincides with the stem, since in pause short vowels and final
n are
suppressed. The exception to this is nouns ending in the grammatical marker
-(a)t-
(the feminine marker, but it also has other functions). The pausal form of
such words
ends in -(a)h, not the expected -(a)t. Thus, the pausal form of zaka:t- is
zaka:h,
while the context form would be zaka:t- plus desinential ending, e.g.
zaka:tum,
zaka:tim, zaka:tam, for the nominative, genitive, and accusative respectively.

Another factor to consider is ordinary modern pronunciation. Most speakers
of modern
Arabic use zaka:t (with the t) as the spoken form of the word in all
occurrences.
This means that they treat words ending in -a:t/-a:h differently from words
ending in
-at/ah, where -at is preserved as the construct form, while -a(h) is
preserved as the
absolute form.

I suppose that to be consistent, one should cite zaka:h, if one cites words
like
madrasa(h), ka'ba(h), su:ra(h) in their pausal form. However, zaka:t (and
sala:t, dot
under the s) better reflect the typical pronunciation among Arabic speakers
today.
Furthermore, the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, uses salat (dot under
the s and
macron over the a) and zakat (macron over the a) for spelling and
alphabetizing the
words. So I think that salat and zakat would be preferable in your
etymology. It is
always safe to go with the Encyclopaedia of Islam.


********************
Michael Fishbein
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511

(310) 206-2229 (office, 389A Kinsey Hall))
(310) 206-6456 (fax)
fishbein at humnet.ucla.edu
********************

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3)
Date: 15 Apr 1999
From: "Chouairi, R. MR           DFL" <GR6548 at exmail.usma.army.mil>
Subject: Shah-warma = the king of meat

Friend
Shah-warma, means the king of meat.  It is not an Arabic word, although in
Levantine cooking Awarma is meat cooked in fat to be eaten mostly in winter.

I hope that helped you.
				Rajaa Chouairi
				  Abou Fouad

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4)
Date: 15 Apr 1999
From: Haidar Moukdad <moukdad at GSLIS.Lan.McGill.CA>
Subject: Shawarma is Turkish

The word Shawarma is Turkish, as is the the case with many food item
names in the Middle East. That's why you can not find a root for this
word. Other examples are for Shish Tawuq (Grilled chicken) and Yabraq
(stuffed vine
leaves).

Haidar Moukdad
McGill University

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End of Arabic-L: 15 Apr 1999