Arabic-L:More on Medjoul

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 21 Dec 2000
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: More on Medjoul

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1)
Date: 21 Dec 2000
From:  alhawar at american.edu
Subject: More on Medjoul

 wondered about the word "medjool" myself.  I would start with USDA
sources to find out how this name
came about, since they seem to have been directly involved in importing
offshoot of the plant from
Morocco in the first quarter of the century.

However, if the name comes from the Arabic, the orignal spelling might be
"majdool" (the root consonants
being j.d.l.) that might have undergone metathesis due to predictable
Anglicized borrowing effect. If that's the case,
then there could be several possibilities that I can think of.  First, most
Arabic dictionaries, including
al-Qaamuus, Lisaan al-9arab, and al-MukhaSSaS (the last one is a thesaurus
that contains a whole chapter on dates),
contain an entry for "jadaalah" ("jadaal" pl.) that is when "balaH" (an
early phase of the date synonymous to
"HiSrim" = when the grapes are still sour)"turn green and get rounded
before they harden."

Another possibility is interesting if you consider the process of growing
"medjool" dates.  The English sources that
I have checked refer to the "thinning process" where many srands are
removed from the flower bunch centers to allow
room for growth and extra exposure to the sun.  In this sense, perhaps
"majdool" would mean "braided" referrring to the
process or to the resulting shape of the bunch.

A third possibility is that "majdool" or "majdul" refers to a name of a
place.  There is an area carrying this name in
the Sahara in Lybia, but I don't know if one exists in Morocco.

I hope this gives you enough leads to verify the true source you are
looking for.

Mohammad T. Alhawary

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End of Arabic-L: 21 Dec 2000