Obama's speech

[Gaudio, Rudolf]

Hi Ron, et al.,

This passage from the Holy Qur'an (49:13) is one of my favorites; it's like a divine exhortation to become an anthropologist!

The Arabic expression translated as "O mankind!" is YAA'AYYUHAA AL-NAASU.  

NAASU is a plural form meaning "people". With the definite article (AL-) it appears often in the Qur'an and is usually rendered as "mankind" in English translations.

The singular form, INS, is translated in my Arabic-English dictionary as "(coll.) man, mankind, human race," but it is not the usual word for "man, male human," which is RIJAALU.  

The word for "(biological) male" is DHAKARU. It appears (in the accusative form DHAKARIN) in the passage translated by President Obama as "We [God] have made you nations and tribes, and male and a female..." (Note: my translation of the Qur'an does not include the indefinite article before "female.")


-Rudi


Rudolf P. Gaudio
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Purchase College, State University of New York
Purchase, New York 10577
rudolf.gaudio at purchase.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group on behalf of Ronald Kephart
Sent: Fri 6/5/2009 1:22 PM
To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: [LINGANTH] Obama's speech
 
Folks,

I have a question. In President Obama's Cairo speech, there is this:

> The Holy Koran tells us:  "O mankind!  We have created you male and a female;
> and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one
> another."
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-U
> niversity-6-04-09/

What is the Arabic word/phrase that translates as ³mankind?² And, is it a
true generic (e.g. Aymara jaqi) or is it a prescribed generic, like English
man/mankind?

Ron