ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2322 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2322 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 8 Jun 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether or is an appropriate Arabic name for a 15th century female Turkish nomad. You also asked for information about the name or , which you believed to be the Arabic word for "jewel". Here is what we have found. We have found very little information about period Turkish names and even less about names used by the nomadic Turkic tribes. We have found only a handful of names used by period Turkish women; you can find that list in one of our reports: http://www.s-gabriel.org/2204 This list and other information tells us that the Turks used at least some Arabic names, so it is plausible that any common Arabic name was available in late-period Turkish. However, we have very little information about Turkish women's surnames. We do not know whether an Arabic epithet is appropriate for the culture you want to re-create. is a period Arabic feminine name, but better transliterations of it into our alphabet are and [1]. We suspect it was originally coined from the nickname "the raisin" [4]. We don't know how common it was, so we can't assess how likely it was to have been adopted into Turkish. There is a modern Arabic feminine name , derived from the identical Arabic word for "jewels" [2]. We have not found evidence that it was used earlier. The related masculine name is recorded in medieval Andalusia [3], so it is not impossible that the standard femininized form was in use, too; but without a period example, we can't recommend it as good re-creation. The feminine Arabic adjective meaning "clumsy" is ; is a plausible name for an Arabic woman in our period. It would have been pronounced \zah-BEE-bahth-thah-QEE-lah\ [5]. We've used \Q\ here to represent a \K\ sound pronounced further back in the throat. We did not find an Arabic word that means "large footed". No doubt they had a way to say that, but we haven't found it and we don't know if it would have been used as an epithet in a woman's name. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Pedro de Alcazar, Talan Gwynek, Da'ud ibn Auda, Juliana de Luna, Sion Andreas, and Alan Fairfax. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 8 Jun 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Arabic Naming Practices and Names List," _Compleat Anachronist_ #51, "The Islamic World" (Milpitas: SCA, Inc, Autumn 1990; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/daud/arabic-naming/ [2] Hanks, Patrick, and Flavia Hodges, _A Dictionary of First Names_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 1990), Supplement 1 'Common Names in the Arabic World', by Mona Baker. [3] Juliana de Luna, "Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 2001). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/andalusia/ [4] Schimmel, Annemarie, _Islamic Names_ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), p.52. [5] The Arabic word "the" is normally pronounced \`ahl\, with a glottal stop at the beginning and an \l\ sound at the end. The glottal stop (which is the sound in the middle of ) is not pronounced when it follows a vowel; in that case, the two words run together. In some cases, the \l\ is changed to match the following consonant; here, it becomes \th\. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Arval, 18 Jun 2001: The client didn't understand the explanation of the pronunciations. We sent her this clarification: > Thank you so much for your help. I just want to check on the > pronunciation. Is the (al) not voiced, or is this a typo? I would > have thought it would be \zah-BEE-bah-al-thah-QEE-lah\. This point was explained in footnote [5] (see above). Thus, in this case, \ahl\ become \ahth\ and then merges with the last syllable of . Your given name on its own is \zah-BEE-bah\, and your byname is \ath-thah-QEE-lah\; but when they're put together, they become \zah-BEE-bahth-thah-QEE-lah\. I hope that's clearer. Sorry for the confusion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Arval, 2 Jul 2001: The byname is incorrectly translated; it means "heavy, fat, thick". See report 2349 for details and the correct byname, "clumsy, awkward".