ARABIC-L: LING: Spanish carrot responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 08 Feb 1999
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: 'sfinna:rya'
2) Subject: "sfinnaarya"
3) Subject: Two versions: sfinnaariya, sinnaariya
4) Subject: Rosner's references (Maimonides)
5) Subject: "f" > "h"

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1)
Date: 08 Feb 1999
From: Hedi Benmustapha <hedi at netway.com>
Subject: 'sfinna:rya'

I think Corominas is right about where the word 'safunarya' came from.
In Tunisian Arabic, we use exactly this same word for carrot, but with   a
slight difference in pronunciation.
 The term used is 'sfinna:rya', pronounced with a stress on the geminated
/n/ and lenghthening of the vowel /a/.
The term could have been brought by the Moors when they came from
Andalousia in the 14th and 15th century, and settled in the northeastern
part of the country.

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2)
Date: 08 Feb 1999
From: Taoufik Ben-Amor <tb46 at columbia.edu>
Subject: "sfinnaarya"

dear Robert,

The word for carrots in Tunisia is "sfinnaarya" and it is in common use
today.

Taoufik ben Amor
Columbia University

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3)
Date: 08 Feb 1999
From: Kahlaoui Noureddine <kahlaoun at ERE.UMontreal.CA>
Subject: Two versions: sfinnaariya, sinnaariya

Tunisian offers two versions of what is 'sanahoria' in spanish:
a. sfinnaariya
b. sinnaariya
the (a) version is more generally used accross tunisia and (b) is assumed
(speaker's intuition) to be a reduction of (a). However, the word
sinnaariya is clearly brought in Tunisia with the spanish reconquesta
while one cannot say the same for sfinnaariya. The reason is that the /f/
truncation is a phonological process that would be carried out by a
speaker of Spanish and never by a speaker of Tunisian who can have words
starting with /sf-/. A word with almost a similar pattern is the tunsian
name for 'artichocke': gannariyya. Another similar word would be
gnaawiyya (a vegetable used in a tunisian meal) 'gombo'. That dish is
also a specialty in Greek cuisine. This may help you searching that way.

sfinnariya may have been used along side sinnariya, one by the conqueror
(be it the arabs or the north africans) and the other by the speaker of
spanish. Given that both the conquerors and the Spanish were present at
the same place later on, the use of both forms may have continued. The
result is an almost free variant in nowadays Tunisian.

It is quite intriguing that some 70 kilometers west of tunisia, the
algerians have yet another word for carrot: zru:diyya. The fact that the
speaker of Tunsisian bears no knowledge of the Arabic jazar is also
intriguing.
This may not answer your question but might shed some light over a
possible "road of carrots",I would say.
More seriously, though, I suspect a Persian/Sanskrit (if not just Greek)
origin given the p
to f change (via the Arab language) and for yet another reason: some
words in Tunisian are of Hindi coinage with no intermediary: the root
'klt' as found in a verb like yeklet 'works hard', the word samsa and
zlaabiya for two kinds of sweets. Indian 'samosa' is not a sweet but hase
the same form and I will check the Hindiequivalent of zlaabiya.
Yet another wild guess would be that Byzantine presence in what is now
Tunisia brought such denominations, that the North african colony used by
the Arabs for conquering Spain took the carrot to Spain and that when
they were sent back home brought it back in two forms.

This probably needs more than mere guessing.

Sincerely,
Noureddine Kahlaoui

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4)
Date: 08 Feb 1999
From: djust at netvision.net.il
Subject: Rosner's references (Maimonides)

There's quite a bit about the question in Rosner's 'translation' of
Maimonides' Glossary of Drug Names, no. 73.  You should look
there and at Rosner's references, but I'll copy the most obviously
relevant points:
Jazar-carrot:
Maimonides: "One calls it in Arabic as-subatiyya..., in Persian
astafilina, in Spanish isfannariyya...."
Rosner: "...whose Spanish name in our times is zanahoria
(derived from isfannariya (sic)).... As to the name astafilina, it is
not Persian but of Greek origin (staphylinos); it is still in use in
Maghrib and Syria in the form istuflin...."
In the absence of better information, let's guess, if Rosner is right
and until told otherwise, that isfannariyya comes from astafilina
somehow through the Greek -> Arabic materia medica.
As to what Maimonides called "Arabic": apparently Mughrabi;
see Rosner xiv-xv.

Thanks,
David.

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5)
Date: 08 Feb 1999
From: Paul Stevens <pstevens at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:  "f" > "h"

In Tunisian Arabic, the word for carrot, as I learned it, is "sfinaaria".
As Spanish "h" (though usually in initial position) is often related to "f"
in other languages (e.g. "Latin "farina" > Spanish "harina"   'flour'),
there may be some relation between "sfinaaria" and "zanahoria").

If there is indeed a relationship, is there evidence for the direction of
the borrowing: Spanish to Arabic? or vice versa?


++++++++++
Paul Stevens
American University in Cairo

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End of Arabic-L: 08 Feb 1999