Arabic-L:LING:Cross-gender usages

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 15 Feb 2001
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Cross-gender usages
2) Subject: Cross-gender usages

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1)
Date: 15 Feb 2001
From: alhawar at american.edu
Subject: Cross-gender usages

     >In good old Classical Arabic, typically female functions
>are expressed by masculine nouns:  Ha:mil  =  pregnant;  Ha:'iD  =
>menstruating;  9aju:z  =  beyond childbearing age;  9a:hir  =
>harlot;  9a:qir  =  barren; na:hid  =  large breasted; and, conversely, an
>eminent geneologist
>is  nassa:batun;  a Caliph is  khali:fatun.  God is referred to in
>the Qur'an as  9alla:m, even though  9alla:matun  would make
>Her  {Him??} much smarter [cf.  Zamachshari ad loc].

Of course, these forms include the subclass of "crypto-feminine" (in
Whorf's terminology)nouns, e.g., ka?as, ?arD, samaa?, not to mention
that for their intended connotations they don't have a masculine
counterpart for obvious reasons.

However, I beg to differ with the 9allaam and 9allaamah distinction.

Al-Jawhari (a lexicographer) suggests that 9allaamah connotes
"shrewdness" in which case it would not be appropriate to be a divine
attribute in Islamic tradition.  However, Ibn Jinni (a grammarian),
suggests the feminine affix is attached for emphasis purposes to
indicate that the person (man or woman) has attained the full
scope/highest level of knowledge "balagha l-ghaayata wa n-nihaayah."
 If anything, Ibn Jinni's (and that of Al-Jawhari) answer suggests to
me that language will be sexist when we want it to be.

Mohammad T. Alhawary  

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2)
Date: 15 Feb 2001
From: "Schub, Michael" <michael.schub at trincoll.edu>
Subject: Cross-gender usages

  Also, naturally enough[?!],  "the two female ones"  =  al-unthaya:ni =
"testicles."  Go figure.

                                        Mike Schub

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End of Arabic-L: 15 Feb 2001