languagehat.com

Having had occasion (in the comments to The Fall of Otrar) to refer to al-Khwarizmi’s nisba, I thought it might be a good idea to provide a reference for those interested in getting a basic idea of how Arabic names work (so that, for instance, they will realize why Gamal Abd al-Nasir should not be abbreviated as “Nasser,” though it’s too late to correct that particular mistake).

Basically, a traditional Arabic name given in full consists of the kunya (‘father/mother of X’), the ism (the actual given name, e.g. Muhammad or Abdullah), the nasab (‘son/daughter of Y’), the nisba (an adjective indicating one’s place of origin, religion, or some other identifier), and one or more laqabs (nicknames to provide further identification), in that order. To use Annemarie Schimmel’s example, the name Abu’l-Mahasin Yusuf ibn Abi Yusuf Ya’qub al-Makki al-Hanbali al-Zayyat means “Yusuf, father of al-Mahasin, son of Abu Yusuf Ya’qub [note that Ya’qub is identified as father of Yusuf], from Mecca, belonging to the Hanbali school of religious jurisprudence, the oilman.” Unfortunately for the outsider, people can be referred to by any part of this string (except, usually, the ism, since given names are too common to be of much use); if there is a conventional name by which the person is traditionally known, it is called the ‘urf (‘custom’). So our friend Yusuf might be generally known as Abu’l-Mahasin or al-Zayyat (the other laqabs being too common themselves to identify him). The great philosopher Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdullah ibn Sina is known as ibn Sina (hence “Avicenna”) or Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Persian he is Bu-Ali Sina). An excellent quick overview (based on Jere L. Bacharach’s A Middle East Studies Handbook) can be found here.

Now, one thing to bear in mind is that the kunya is such a basic element, so popular a means to refer to people, that one is usually given even to people who have no children, or without reference to whatever children they might have. Thus an enemy of the Prophet was known as Abu Lahab ‘father of flame,’ and the ninth-century caliph al-Mamun granted a Christian physician who had treated him successfully the kunya Abu ‘Isa ‘father of Jesus’ (which was quite an honor, and also offensive to some theologians, since Jesus had no human father). Another thing I want to emphasize is that names like Abdullah ‘slave of Allah,’ Abd al-Rahman ‘slave of the Merciful One’ are units; there is no such name as “Abdul,” and the last part should not be snipped off as a separate name—hence my earlier strictures about abbreviating Abd al-Nasir ‘slave of the Victorious One’ as “Nasser.” (In that case, an earlier ism has become a family name; family names, being a recent development in the Arabic world, can come from any of the elements. And I’ll mention here that the Hussein of Saddam Hussein is not a family name but the name of Saddam’s father; the traditional formulation would be Saddam ibn Hussein.)

Names like Jalal and Jamal are modern abbreviations of earlier Jalal-al-din ‘greatness of the faith’ and Jamal-al-din ‘beauty of the faith,’ which were originally honorifics. To quote Annemarie Schimmel,

This type of name has developed out of the official honorary titles, the khitab, which were given to leading men of state and religion to emphasize their rank and dignity. Originally they were composed of an impressive noun plus ad-daula, ‘the state’, which could then be enlarged to ad-daula wa’d-din, like Izz ad-daula wa’d-din, ‘Glory of state and religion’…. After 1200, compounds with ad-din became part and parcel of the name, the person’s qualities or rank notwithstanding.

And while I’m at it, I’d just like to point out another thing that irritates me: Al Sa’ud (the ruling family and eponym of Saudi Arabia) is not “al-Sa’ud”; in this case, al is not the article but a word for ‘family,’ and the a is long. Hence it should be given a capital letter and pronounced with its own stress, and the -l should not be assimilated to the following s- as happens with the article (thus al-Sa’ati ‘the watchmaker’ is pronounced as-Sa’ati; incidentally, the famous name Saatchi is the Turkish equivalent of this).

More detail can be found in this little book (pdf file), Arabic Nomenclature by A.F.L. Beeston (Oxford, 1971), which packs a great deal of information into eight pages. And those who want a wide-ranging survey should find a copy of Annemarie Schimmel’s Islamic Names : An Introduction, a compendious book with only 83 pages of text (plus notes, bibliography, several indexes, and a glossary) from which I have quoted liberally above.

I’ll finish up with a quatrain by al-Khwarizmi, the very man whose nisba set off this whole entry:

What do I care that the Abbasides have thrown open the gates of kunyas and laqabs?
They have conferred honorifics on a man whom their ancestors would not have made doorkeeper of their privy!
This caliph of ours has few dirhams in his hands—
So he lavishes honorifics on people.

Des, over at Desbladet, takes time off from his princessor to deliver the following killing blow:

Monsieur Soutet has published work on languages as diverse as Old French, medieval French, Renaissance French and contemporary French, and it certainly shows.

He’s responding to the following asseveration on the part of the learned M. Soutet:

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From “5 Career Moves Negotiated In The Dark On A Back Step In Northern Europe” (2000):

Pavier

This heavy slab. Our memory,
tone of our plant life trained
to go round it. Beat
it out and we pulse

together, it’s a wonder
we don’t rave daily. Whack!
Whack! go another’s
psychotic dreams, the sad

sky path we all must walk.
Light goes, it does, now, so
stars show, us under them,
breathing, apart, blessed.

Richard Caddel was in a long line of excellent, obscure poets of the northeast of England, the old Northumbria celebrated by his teacher Basil Bunting. I was aware of him because of the Basil Bunting Poetry Centre he helped establish; thanks to wood s lot, I have discovered his own poetry, which I intend to investigate further. Caddel died of leukemia on April 1. From a memoir by Tony Baker:

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I just ran across this delightful title while looking for something else: Dishonest Broker: The Us Rike U Usraek & Palentine.

I think Powell’s needs a proofreader.

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U.S. A species of squash having a scalloped edge. [Alteration of SIMNEL.] 1785 T. JEFFERSON Notes Virginia vi. 68 Cymlings. Cucurbita verrucosa. 1981 Farmstead Mag. Winter 41/1 Common pumpkins are actually a form of the same plant from which has also been developed vegetable marrows, cymlings, or cymlins (also spelled simlins), summer crookneck squashes, and yellow-flowered gourds.

Thus the OED (I’ve selected two of their many quotations); my native dictionaries, Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage, let me down in the matter of this native-born word, which I ran across in the following Lorine Niedecker poem (part of her “Thomas Jefferson” series, presumably based on his writings):

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But it’s not. From Odd things in Pitt’s libraries, this title:

Ashanti Proverbs: The Primitive Ethics of a Savage People translated from the original with grammatical and anthropological notes by R. Sutherland Rattray, published by The Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1916.

Occasionally it’s good to be reminded what the good old days were actually like. I’ve found an online discussion of Rattray and his book:

The unfortunate subtitle which he eventually chose for his collection was The Primitive Ethics of a Savage People. He chose it very much under the influence of Marett, whose special subject was the evolution of ethics out of primitive religion, and it was not meant to sound as derogatory as it does now, but it expresses quite accurately the central purpose of his book.

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[Addendum: This story is, of course, too silly to be fully true. They’re not looking for Klingon interpreters. See actual story here, thanks to notna in the comments. It’s a good story, though.]

[Further addendum: Well, it’s no longer true at all. According to today’s NY Times story “Search for Klingon Interpreter Called Off” [2024: The AP story has disappeared without trace from the NYT website; here’s the WaPo version], Multnomah County has delisted Klingon following the flood of delighted publicity: “‘It was a mistake, and a result of an overzealous attempt to ensure that our safety net systems can respond to all customers and clients,’ Multnomah County chair Diane Linn said in a news release.” Thanks for the tip, Bonnie!]

From SFGate.com:

Star Trek fans fluent in Klingon take note — there’s a job opening in Oregon for you.

The fictional language of the popular TV and movie science fiction series is one of about 55 languages needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.

“We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak,” said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental health clients.

County research has shown that Klingon has gone from being a fictional tongue to what many people — and not just fans — consider a complete language, with its own grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

If a patient speaks only Klingon, the county is obligated to respond with a Klingon interpreter….

I think any comment of mine would be superfluous. (Via Polyglut.)

Stephanie Nilsson, a grad student at Umeå University, describes her theory of how blogs combine aspects of spoken and written forms of communication. Interesting, as is the site in general if the social side of blogging is a subject that matters to you.

I finally got Niedecker‘s Collected Works (Jenny Penberthy’s introduction here, Jane Augustine’s review here), and I’m thrilled: it was one of the biggest gaps in my poetry collection. To celebrate, two poems, the first submitted to Poetry in 1936 and the second submitted to New Directions in 1970, both unsuccessfully (so take heart, rejected poets). Both are simple, rhythmic poems; both are deeply weird and beautiful.

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Tuesday evening I saw a movie from Kazakstan called The Fall of Otrar. I had wanted to see it for some time, since it deals with a time and place of intense interest to me, Central Asia in the early 13th century, at the beginning of Genghis Khan’s conquests. In 1218 most of what’s now northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan was ruled by the Khwarezmshah Muhammad, who had expanded Khwarezm (or Khorezm) from its base south of the Aral Sea into a substantial empire. Then he was foolish enough to provoke Genghis, who at that point simply wanted to trade with him; within a couple of years he was dead and his empire was ravaged by the Mongols in one of the most brutal episodes of world history. This story (summarized nicely here, and there’s an interesting sidelight on clothing here) is the focus of the movie, which personalizes it by focusing on a (presumably invented) Kipchak scout named Unzhu who spends seven years as a commander under Genghis learning everything he can, comes back to Khwarezm to warn the ruler about the Mongol peril, gets tortured as a spy, and escapes; by the time he’s proved right, it’s too late. Anyway, the movie is long and relentlessly violent, but it’s in Kazakh (with bits of Mongol and Chinese), so I considered my time well spent. And let me take this opportunity to remind NYC-area readers that the Films from Along the Silk Road: Central Asian Cinema festival is just under way at Lincoln Center and will be going on all month.

Of course, it would have been nice if Khwarezmian had been spoken at least by the court (many of the underlings and military were Turks by this time, and Kazakh is a reasonable substitute for their dialect), but since it’s been extinct for centuries, I’ll give them a pass on that.