ARABIC-L:LING: Zalama Discussion

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 05 Mar 1999
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: Root is ZLM
2) Subject: No Need for Metathesis!
3) Subject: On Zalamah: Errata

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1)
Date: 05 Mar 1999
From: Ernest McCarus <enm at umich.edu>
Subject: Root is ZLM

In rural (Druze) Lebanese dialect zalami is the only word for "man",
equivalent to rijjeel in urban Lebanese and other dialects.  In the plural
it means also may mean "retainer", as in zilimtu 'his henchmen'.

The root is ZLM.

A. Barthelmy in his Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais, which covers Greater
Syria, lists zalame - zlaam as "homme, individu; pieton; homme viril". For
its etymology he says it is borrowed from Bedouin Arabic, giving the
literary Arabic form zalamatu- "apparence, silhouette d'homme".  He adds:
compare it to (Literary Arabic) thalamu- (th = theta) "silhouette d'homme"
and Hebrew shelem "image, spectre" (p. 318).

Lane in his Lexicon (p. 1247) lists the verb zalama - yazlumu 'to cut off
(nose, etc.)' and gives the noun zalam - 'azlaam 'arrow without a head and
without feathers'.  He does not give the meaning "man" for it.

Ernest N. McCarus

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2)
Date: 05 Mar 1999
From: Muhammad Deeb <mdeeb at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: No Need for Metathesis!

On "Zalama(h)":  No Need for Metathesis!

	Colleagues Neal Kaloupek, David Wilson, Robert Langer & George N.
Hallak are to be thanked for raising and discussing the word "zalama(h)."
Responses so far tend to see the word as a metathetic form of "zamiil."
Metathesis here would mean letter transposition of the root from "zamal" to
"zalam," not the total reversal evident in the Standard Arabic "zawj" and
the spoken Egyptian "guuz."

	On close examination, however, the word as it stands is a bona fide
Arabic word, and does exist in the Arabic lexicon with different vowelings:
("zulmah," "zulamah, "zalmah" & "zalamah"), the latter being a precursor of
present pronunciation.  While the handy little dictionary *Al-Fraa'id
'd-Durriyyah* has for "zalamah" the meaning of "exterior appearance,"
*Lisaan 'l- at Arab* defines it as "slave."

	The term, which owes it meaning to the shape of the arrow ("zalam;"
plu. "azlaam"), was then used generally in the sense of appearance and - by
extension - silhouette, much like, say, "shakhS," "hay'ah"  & "sawaad" (=
person; figure; shape; appearance, &ct.).  It is worth noting that the
Egyptian and Sudanese dialects use "gada@" and "zuul" (classical Arabic:
"qadha@" & "zawl" = well-built youth; phantom) as counterparts to "zalama(h)
in the Syro-Lebanese & Palestinian dialects.  (Cf. the Umayyad poet
Al-AkhTal's combination of the two terms "qadha@" & zalamah" in the
adjectival phrase: "al-azlam al-qadha@").

	A. Barthelemy in his *Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais: Dialectes de
Syrie: Alep, Damas, Liban, Jerusalem,* (Paris, 1936), confirms my position
and maintains that the word is borrowed from a Bedouin usage in the sense of
"apparence, silhouette d'homme."  He too compares the term to the Hebrew
"shelem" for "image, spectre."

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

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3)
Date: 05 Mar 1999
From: Muhammad Deeb <mdeeb at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: On Zalamah: Errata

On Zalamah: Errata

	In my previous post on the subject, I suggested that:  (a) the
colloquial Egyptian "gada@" comes from the classical Arabic "qadha@" and (b)
that the Umayyad poet Al-AkhTal used the adjectival combination "al-azlam
al-qadha at ."  Please read the classical word as "jadha@" and Al-AkhTal's
combination, accordingly, as "al-azlam al-jadha at ."

	Thank you for bearing with me.

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

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End of Arabic-L: 05 Mar 1999