Arabic-L:LING:Etymology Responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Wed 26 Jan 2000
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message to listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
          unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: Etymology Response (ba:baghanu:j)
2) Subject: Etymology Response (ba:baghanu:j and buqsha)

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 26 Jan 2000
From: Humphrey Davies <hdavies at aucegypt.edu>
Subject: Etymology Response

This stab at an etymology for "ba:baghannu:j" is certainly speculative,
but here goes:

As you say, it is a probably a compound, consiting of ba:ba + ghannu:j.
Ba:ba may be taken as the title given to certain Turkish religious
(especially mystic/Sufi) figures (for example the last Bektashi leader
in Cairo, who was known as Ba:ba Sirri).

Ghannu:j is arguably an "intensive adjective" (see Wright's Grammar
I,137D) from the root gh-n-j, which covers a range of meanings involving
sounds and motions indicative of sensual pleasure that go from "feigning
coquetry" (Lane - classical, prob. euphemistically glossed) to "uttering
sounds during sexual intercourse to indicate pleasure and enthusiasm (of
a woman)" (Hinds/Badawi - Egyptian colloquial).

We might therefore gloss Ba:ba ghanu:j as "Ba:ba's all excited" (i.e.,
at the sight, smell, taste whatever of the dish).  In which case - and
this is the really interesting bit - there is a curiously strong
parallel to another, Turkish, eggplant dish, called Imam bayildi "the
Imam swooned". (Unfortunately for these purposes not precisely the same
dish-the latter is braised eggplant stuffed with tomatoes).  Could
present-day ba:baghannu:j of the Levant and Egypt have originated in
Imam bayildi, changing its recipe somewhat as it travelled, and
translating its name?

A last point: ba:baghanu:j, as consumed in Cairo, Lebanon, etc. at
least, is a DIP and not a spread.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Date: 26 Jan 2000
From: Manfred Woidich <m.woidich at hum.uva.nl>
Subject: Etymology Response

Hallo,
for buqsha see P.Behnstedt, Die nordjemenitischen Dialekte. Teil 2: Glossar
Alif - Dal. Wiesbaden 1992, p.99: = 1/40 Maria-Theresien-Taler, from
Persian buqje"Buendel, Lappen".
As to ba:baghanu:j, it should be babaghannu:g in Cairo Arabic, see
Hinds-Badawi 632a. ba:baghannu:j is common in Palestine (as
ba:baghannu:j)and Syria (as abu ghannu:j in Aleppo), see A.Barthelemy,
Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais. Paris 1935, p.585.  The proposed etymology
could be a "Volksetymologie". But with its ending in -u:g / -u:j, the word
looks more like a Persian loan. But on the other hand, there are funny,
sentence-like names for dishes in Near-Eastern languages like the Turkish
imam bayildi "the imam fainted" for a dish with egg-plants, too. That's all
I can say for the moment.
Succes!
Manfred Woidich

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L: 26 Jan 2000