LL-L "Etymology" 2003.11.23 (02) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Etymology

Ron wrote:

"This begs the perhaps naive question if there's a connection with Arabic
دن٠ا _dunyâ_ 'world' ... but that takes us a bit far afield perhaps."

We are racing away from the Lowlands topic again (or should I say 'as
usual'?) but I don't think the question is naive.

The orthodox answer to your question is no, there is no connection between
_diin_ ('religion', etc) and _dunyaa_ ('world'), since one has the
consonantal skeleton D-Y-N and the other D-N-Y.

_dunyaa_ is however usually considered to stem from the verb _dana'a_ ('to
be low'/ 'to be base' / 'to be mean' / 'to be vile' / 'to be despicable' ),
and personally I think a case could be made for linking Semitic roots that
we have already discussed, such as _diin_ (considering the other sense of
'obedience' and 'servility'), and words meaning 'to govern', and the verb
_dana'a_, since obedience and servilty and being governed require one to
abase oneself and to be lowly. Since alif, waaw and yaa' are more or less
interchangeable ( _Huruuf al-'illah_ ) it would only require metathesis to
convert one to the other.

John Duckworth
Preston, Lancashire

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From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2003.11.22 (02) [D/E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Bedankt, beste Ansgar.  Onze geachte
> Nederlandstalige en -kundige vrienden
> kunnen hopelijk verklaren, wat het woord "Medine" en
> de uitdrukking "Mokum
> en Medine" precies aan hen betekenen.
===============
folks,
I don't know much about all these learned things,
there are so many very learned persons knowing all
about this.
But: Mokum was common 'amsterdams'.
Medine was not, was spec. joods/yiddisch.
But -I guess- every amsterdammer occassionally had
heard or read  the expression 'in Mokum and in de
Medine' [as I did]. But never there was a reason to
know exactly what was meant by it. We -I- just
understood it as 'in Mokum and elsewhere'.

vr.gr.
Theo Homan

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From: Stella en Henno <stellahenno at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2003.11.22 (02) [D/E]

> Over het gebruik in het Nederlands kan ik helaas wenig bijdragen.
> Vandaar mijn vraag, omdat ik enkele keren de uitdrukking "Mokum en
> Medine" tegen kwam, en niet zeker wist waar "Medine" precies op sloeg.
> Zou je dus kunnen zeggen dat het gewoon "Stad en Ommeland" betekend, of
> betekend het meer specifiek "Amsterdam en de rest van Nederland"?  En
> heeft "medine" iets denigrerends?
>
> Groetjes
>
> Ansgar
>
[Ron]
> Folks, Ansgar said above that he is not sure about the exact meaning of
> _Medine_ in Dutch (hence his question), has only come across it in the
> expression _Mokum en Medine_ and assumes it means something like "city (=
> Amsterdam?) and surrounding areas," or "town and country (= rural area)"
> (Lowlands Saxon _stad un kuntrey~kuntray_/<Stadt un Kuntree/Kuntrei>
> [_kuntrey/kuntray_ 'country(side)' < French _contrée_).

In "Jofel Jiddisch" there is a small chapter on "mediene"
In Amsterdam it was used for "surrounding country side", in a derogatory
way.
(laatdunkend). It was even used for basically "the whole of the Netherlands
outside Amsterdam" (sort of Amsterdam hubris, I suppose).
(a "medienesjtamper" is a provincial, a "boertje van buten")
Most of the piece is on the origin, which is from "medina" (as already said)
= "staat, land, domein of gewest" with example "medinat Jisraël". There is a
reference to the "Philologos" column in the American paper "The Forward",
where this is derived from "dien" (recht, so "law") (other words of this
root "la-doen" (rechtspreken, to pass law), "dajan"
(rechter, judge), and "beet dien" (rechtbank, court of law).
So mediene was originally "jurisdiction", an area where the same law was
valid.
It is also said that the Arabic city of Medina had this meaning originally.

It then gives some examples with this word, like Columbus' mediene, for
America.

Hope this helped,

Henno Brandsma

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