ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2533 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2533 ************************************ 31 Aug 2002 From: SARA LIANA FRIEDEMANN Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether the byname would be appropriate for an Arab horse trader. Here is what we have found: We found two Arabic words for "horse": "stallion" and "mare". [1] The periods in these words represent a dot under the preceding letter. These under-dotted letters stand for Arabic consonants, called emphatic consonants, that have no counterpart in English. The difference is important: using instead of (or vice versa) can completely change the meaning of a word. Unfortunately, the difference between them is hard to explain in writing; if you're interested, we recommend that you consult an Arabic speaker. We haven't found an example of a man identified in period as a horse trader, nor did we find an Arabic word that means "horse trader". However, we have found a number of analogous terms that allow us to make a reasonable guess. The byname of a merchant would be closely related to the name of the product he sold, but not exactly identical. An example of this would be the word for fish. In a byname it would turn from its original form of "fish" to "fishmonger". We found the following examples of occupational bynames used in period Arabic names: [2] al-dajaajii "chicken dealer" al-sarjii, al-sarraaj "saddle-maker" al-'afs.ii "seller of gallnuts" al-'ambarii "seller of ambergris" al-'uudii "seller of odiferous wood" al-abzaari "seller of seeds" al-'assaal, al-'asalii, al-mu'assil "seller of honey" al-aghghaab "dealer in down" al-daqqaaq "seller of flour" al-dhahabii "gold man (gold smith)" In a modern Arabic dictionary, we found several other occupational terms: "archer", "calligrapher", "costumer", and "smith". Each of these terms is related to the word for the object sold or produced, e.g. "bow" and "archer". [3] Modern Arabic is reasonably similar to medieval Arabic, so we believe we can extrapolate this pattern to create a plausible period byname: From "horse" we get "horse-trader". You could incorporate that into your name as it stands, or add the definitive article to get "the horse-trader". You might also wonder why we've changed the first vowel in from to in suggesting . In Arabic, meaning is carried by "triliteral roots", usually the three consonantal sounds (in this case, H., S., and N). How one manipulates those roots determines what the eventual meaning of the word is. For example, (with the roots K, T, and B) means "book, that which is written", and kataba> means "he wrote". would be a legitimate word for "scribe". The form changes, but the roots remain the same. Because of this, Arabic has a potential vocabulary of well over a million words. This byname might have been pronounced \ahl-h.ahs.-S.AAHN\. Keep in mind that the pronunciation of the dotted consonants isn't obvious. I hope this letter has been of some help to you. Please write us again if anything has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in writing and researching this letter by Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Sion Andreas, Da'ud ibn Auda, Adelaide de Beaumont, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Iago ab Adam, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Galiana Bellina de Baiona 31 August 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- References: [1] Wehr, Hans, _A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic_, edited by J. Milton Cowan, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976), s.vv. h.is.aan, faras. 2] Goitien, Solomon D, _A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza: Volume III: The Family_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). [3] Wright, William, _A Grammar of the Arabic Language_ (Cambridge University Press, 1967)