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Classical Arabic word in a poem | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| hoss Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4960 days ago 11 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, German, Arabic (Written), Mandarin Studies: Hindi, Persian, Bengali | Message 1 of 10 27 April 2011 at 1:36am | IP Logged | ||
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In an 11th century poem I encountered a word made of the letters s-b-y-n in
this line: عقائل أرواح الذين سبينهم ******** غوال ولكن عندهن رخائص If anyone has information as to what the word s-b-y-n-h-m means, or what case it is in, what category of word, or its vowelling, I would appreciate a response. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5272 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 2 of 10 27 April 2011 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
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س can be used to denote future tense. So something shall or will happen... هم is usually used at the end of a word to show plurality, such as them. بين means between or among. So this construction could mean "Shall/will be between them" or "shall/will be among them." I can only read 3 of the words written here (i.e ولكنand الذين سبينهم ) so I lack the capacity to read this full sentence, so it could also be a word I'm not familiar with as well.(Arabic doesn't write short vowels and many words are written the same.)
I hope this has helped. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hoss Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4960 days ago 11 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, German, Arabic (Written), Mandarin Studies: Hindi, Persian, Bengali | Message 3 of 10 27 April 2011 at 4:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the response. The confusing part is that I have never
encountered the prefix "sa-" with anything but an imperfect/present tense, so I think it would have to be "sa-yubayyinu". I don't think it is allowed to come before a preposition, like "bayna", either. There is no entry in Lane's Lexicon for s-b-n, which makes me think that it is either a typo or is a very obscure word. This poet seems to get a kick out of using rare words. There are entries in the "Lisan al-Arab" and the "Qamus al-Muhit" describing a type of clothing made of coarse flax apparently from a place in Morocco called Saban. The verb asbana is said to mean to wear a set of clothing for a long time. There is no entry for sabiin, though, in an adjective form like thaqiil from thaqula. I wonder if the nuun before "hum" could signify .... oh man, just got it. The past tense feminine plural of the verb "s-b-y" which means to take captive (of the heart), to reach water by digging, or to carry wine or water to another land. "sabayna", [the women] captivated "hum", their hearts. Wow. Or something completely different. Thanks for the response, definitely not an obvious answer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hoss Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4960 days ago 11 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, German, Arabic (Written), Mandarin Studies: Hindi, Persian, Bengali | Message 4 of 10 27 April 2011 at 4:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I would like to ask a followup question, though:
if the verb "sabaynahum" is past tense, 3rd person, feminine, and plural - then if it is preceded by "al-ladhiina" then does it refer to the women themselves or to the object of the thing they "sabayna"ed? That is, can "arwaaaHu al-ladhiina sabaynahum" mean "the souls of those [women] who took their [masc.] hearts captive" ? Or does it mean "the souls of those [masc] whose hearts [the women] took captive" ? I ask because I know there are different rules for when a verb precedes singular/dual/plural versus when it comes after the verb; I just don't know if this could apply to "al-ladhiina" (which I would guess, if not, would have to be "al-latiina"). Do you see what I'm saying here? Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6650 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 5 of 10 27 April 2011 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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double-post! Edited by apparition on 27 April 2011 at 5:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6650 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 6 of 10 27 April 2011 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the line is saying "wives of the souls that they took captive" meaning the women
who have captivated the men's hearts, are "ghosts, but they have permission" meaning they haunt the men, but the men let them! I don't have enough context to really know what's being said and if this fits or not in the poem's theme, but grammatically, this seems to be one possibility. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hoss Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4960 days ago 11 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, German, Arabic (Written), Mandarin Studies: Hindi, Persian, Bengali | Message 7 of 10 27 April 2011 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, apparition. Let me give the vowelling for the whole line as it is
given in this edition of the book: ˁaqâˀilu, ˀarwâḥu –l-laðîna sabaynahum Ġawâlin, wa-lâkin ˁindahunna raxâˀiṣû I know I should have included the vowelling originally. One edition also has a comma separating the first word in both half-lines (hemistichs). The thing here with the vowelling is that 'souls' is in nominative case, not genitive. Just fyi the first vowel of "al-ladhiina" is eaten by the last vowel of "arwaah", and the last vowel of "raxâˀiṣ" is extended to fit the rhyme. Here is what each word means, and this is with the aid of the context: the finest parts (NOM) - the souls (NOM) - of those (Masc) - they (Fem) took captive the finest parts (GEN) - but - they (Fem) have / when they are possessed by them (Fem) - cheap (Pl.) / soft, tender (Pl. of the body) ALSO, the word "ghawaalin". Is it one of those words that has a double-kasra tanwiin at the end? First of all, what are those words called? Second, is the rule that when it has the article "al-" the tanwiin turns into a long "i"? As in the word for a judge, qaaDin becomes al-qaaDii and also when it is in an iDaafah it becomes, for example, "qaaDii al-madiinah", the town judge. But I have no idea why ghawaalin is the way it is here. Is it nominative? Thanks for the help. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 8 of 10 27 April 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Medieval Arabic isn't exactly my specialty, but if you parse the phrase backwards starting with al-laðîna there needs to be a definite masculine plural noun that precedes it and the only candidate is the ˁaqâˀilu ˀarwâḥin = the finest/very best souls/spirits (idafa). (ˀarwâḥu doesn't make sense unless some other male plural nouns have been mentioned in the preceding line.) Edit: I mixed up the roots. Since the plural of ghoul [gh w l] is "arwaal" not "ghawaal" it cannot be ghouls. Therefore Ghawaal [gh l w] is most likely riches. My second try is therefore: "the finest/very best souls/spirits which were captured/enchanted by riches" Edited by Doitsujin on 27 April 2011 at 8:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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