ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2349 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2349 ************************************ 8 Jul 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us to check the meaning of the Arabic byname that we suggested in our previous report [1], and to consider other possible bynames suggested to you for your 15th century Arabic feminine name that imply clumsiness or bumbling lack of coordination. Here is what we have found. We made a mistake in our previous report: Your friend was right that doesn't really mean "the clumsy"; it means "thick, fat, heavy". Your friend's suggestion is much closer to the meaning you want: "clumsy, awkward". It derives from a verb that means "to break things" [2]. We have not found an example of this word used as a byname, but we believe it is a plausible choice for your persona. It was pronounced \ahl-KHAHR-kah'\, where \KH\ stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German ; and the apostrophe stands for a glottal stop, which is the sound in the middle of the phrase . The \k\ in the last syllable is properly pronounced quite far back in the mouth. The other two bynames you asked about are unlikely to have been used as a part of a person's name in our period which you translated "owner of the toes of the feet of a monkey", and which you translated "owner of two large feet". It's certainly possible that a person might have been described in these ways, but the descriptions used as part of personal names were short, typically single words. We apologize again for the error in our previous report, and 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 Sion Andreas and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 8 Jul 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Academy of Saint Gabriel report 2322 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2322 [2] Wehr, Hans, _A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic_, edited by J. Milton Cowan, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976). It's worth noting that standard literary Arabic has not changed significantly since the writing of the Quraan.