--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "The Egyptian Chronicles"
<The_Egyptian_Chronicles@...> wrote:
>
> [HTML deleted. - Brian]
>
> Ishinan wrote : Etymology of Bitumen "the Arabic word btm for
bitumen appears to be a straightforward candidate, pointing to a
definite Semitic source for the word."
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Arnaud responded :
> LOL ! The root btm is an obvious recent loanword from French, that
has less than a half century of existence in Arabic. It's not even
listed in LArousse Dictionnaire an-nasil de l'arabe. You advised to
look in Lisan al Arab in a previous mail, So why don't you go get
B_t_m in Lisan ! B_t_m is described as being j_b_l : a mountain !!
Arabic native word for bitumen is zift. Your Beat-Ruhlen score : 9 / 10.
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Ishinan's comments:
>
> If you think you can debate by rambling nonsense, then here is an
appropriate challenge thrown at you. Below is the following entry of
the Lisan Vol. I, pp 227 along the English translation .
>
> See the Lisan al-`Arab's entry in Arabic along the English
translation at the bottom of the page :
>
> http://www.theegyptianchronicles.com/ANEW/DRW.html
>
>
> Just to let you know, I shared (off the list) the pertaining JPEG
with members who are speakers of Arabic for arbitration. I would hope
you have the common sense to admit how wrong you can be. Another
response in (regular format) is also sent to the list.
>
> BTW the C. Ar. :btm is written with the letter t, an emphatic Arabic
letter Ta', a fact you seem to be confused about and is why you are
in error. If you had properly read my original article and viewed the
pertaining JPEG, you would have saved yourself this embarrassment.
>
>
> Furthermore, unlike you, I am not LOL. Rather It pains me to say: I
am really embarrassed for you.
>
> For your own information, the native word in Arabic actually has
many synonyms in Classical Arabic which you seem to be ignorant of.
>
> For example, a synonym to bitumen which was directly borrowed into
Old French is catran c. 1195. I am referring to the French goudron
from Arabic qutran! ( see below , Empr. à l'ar. qat?ra?n, qit?ra?n «
goudron ). The Classical Arabic word is half a millennium earlier
than the Old French or the Medieval Latin catarannus (ca 1040) .
>
>
> Quoted for your edification from the French source: "Centre
National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales:
>
> Étymol. et Hist. 1. Ca 1195 catran « produit visqueux obtenu par
distillation » (Ambroise, Guerre sainte, 3865 ds T.-L.); 1309 goutren
(E. de Freville, Mém. sur le comm. mar. de Rouen, t. 2, p. 98 cité par
R. Arveiller ds Fr. mod. t. 25, p. 307, s.v. brai); 1611 gouderon (Du
Bartas, 2e semaine, Jonas, p. 398 ds Hug.); 1647 goudron (P. Parfouru,
Dépenses de P. Botherel, p. 33 : goudron pour recalfeutrer le
basteau); 2. 1745 méd. eau de goudron (D.R. Boullier, Recherches sur
les vertus de l'eau de goudron [...] trad. de l'angl. du Dr G.
Berkeley, Amsterdam ds Cioranescu 18e, no 13471), v. eau goudronnée,
s.v. goudronner; 3. 1801 « goudron de houille » (Crèvecour, Voyage, t.
3, p. 54 : goudron de charbon de terre); 1803 goudron minéral
(Boiste); 4. 1832 goudron minéral « sorte de bitume ou d'asphalte »
(Raymond). Empr. à l'ar. qat?ra?n, qit?ra?n « goudron ». Cf. lat.
médiév. catarannus (ca 1040, Eugesippe ds Du Cange), catranum
(1160-70, Jean de Wurtzbourg ds Mittellat. W.). La forme avec gou-
initial s'explique difficilement, peut-être par l'infl. de goutte (cf.
Sain. Autour Sources, p. 290); pour les diverses formes prises par le
mot, v. FEW t. 19, pp. 90-91. V. aussi S. Sguaitamatti-Bassi, Les
empr. dir. faits par le fr. à l'ar. jusqu'à la fin du xiiie s., Zurich
1974, pp. 84-90.
>
Ernout-Meillet:
bitu:men, -inis (i: dans Cyp. Gall., Gen.254,394) n.: bitume. L'app,
Probi, GLK IV 199,17, condamne une forme butumen non autrement
attestée; les gloses ont des graphies 'betumen' et 'uitumen'; cette
dernière devait correspondre à une prononciation réelle; car les
grammairiens enseignent que le mot doit être écrit par un b. M.L.1138;
irl. bitomain. Dérivés: bitu:mineus; bitu:mino:sus; bitu:mino:, -a:s;
bitu:mina:lis.
Si l'on admet que le mot est emprunté à 1'osco-ombrien, on pourrait
peut-être rapprocher la consonne initiale de skr. játu "gomme", v.
angl. cwidu "résine", v.h.a. quiti "glu, mastic". Mais l'i resterait
inexpliqué .
Etant donné que, en Gaule, le bitume est retiré du bouleau, cf.
Plin.16,75 bitumen ex ea (sc. arbore betulla) Galliae excoquunt, on
peut se demander si le mot n'est pas emprunté à la Gaule. Bitumus,
Bitumo, Bitumus,-a, Bituollus sont des noms celtiques. D'autre part
bitu:men rappelle pour la forme titumen "armoise" mot gaulois dans
Pseudo-Apulée 10,18. - Alu:men, qui est joint à bitu:men par Vitruvo
4,6,1 et 8,2,8, a peut-être la même origine.
From the Yahoo group Austronesian
message 1159, Jean-Paul G. POTET
"
"Could _katir_ (hut k`it) be the basis for Malay _getah_? Edward
Schafer, in his article "Rosewood, Dragon's Blood and Lac" (1957: 133)
saw a connection between Malay _getah_ and the Mandarin word he
transcribes as "chieh." The resin Chau Ju-kuah mentions came from "the
Zang countries," so could not have been the substitute resins." Celia
EHRLICH, LEBANON
[Arabic transcription : ²alif, ba:², ta:², þa:², ji:m, Ha:², xa:²,
da:l, ða:l, ra:², zi:n / zai, si:n, §i:n, Sa:d, Da:d, Ta:², Ða:²,
³ain, Gain, fa:², qa:f, ka:f, la:m, mi:m, nu:n, ha:², wau, ya:²; (t) =
ta:² marbu:Ta(t); (y) = ya:² maqsu:ra(t).]
First of all _katir_ does not exist in Arabic with the meaning you give.
What I found instead in my dictionaries is
1) Arab. _kaþi:ra:²_ "cedar gum"
In Malay it would become *_katir_ or *_kasir_.
2) Arab. _qaTr_ "incense from aloeswood"
In Malay it would become *_katar_.
3) Arab. _quTr_ "aloeswood burnt to perfume clothes"
In Malay it would become *_kutur_.
Pronounced in Egyptian Arabic (2) and (3) become:
4) Arab. _²aTr_ "incense from aloeswood"
In Malay it would become *_atar_.
_Atar_ "perfume does exist in Malay, but it comes from Arab. _³aTar_
"fragrance, perfume"
3) Arab. _²uTr_ "aloeswood burnt to perfume clothes"
In Malay it would become *_utur_.
Mal. _getah_ "sap, resin" > _getah rasamala_ "Linquidambar orientalis
Mill." (Labrousse 1984) is akin to Tag. _gatá²_ "coconut milk", that
belongs to a set the other members of which are Tag. _gátas_ "milk"
and Tag. _katás_ "sap; juice". The Tag. root theme is _*ta-_;
naturally enough it also occurs in Tag. _dagtá²_ "sap, resin".
Comparing what I have found in Arabic with what I have found in Malay
and Tagalog, I do not think Arab. _kaþi:ra:²_ and Mal. _getah_ are
related. :-)
...
P.S. 1. In Mal. _getah rasamala_ the second item looks very much like
Arab. _ra:s al ma:l_ "head of the possessions > best of the
possessions > top possession", cf. _ra:s al Ha:nu:t_ "head of the shop
> a mixture of spices commonly sold by Arab food stores".
"
message 1259, Celia Ehrlich
"
The name Phoenician probably means "red-garment men." Casson discusses
the word's origin in The Ancient Mariners(1989: 62), saying most
linguists think the Greeks took the name from 'phoinos' meaning "dark
red," not from a word for "sea." Red dye from a _Dracaena_ tree that
grows in Socotra was marketed from the Hadramaut in the time of the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, the first century A.D. People tend to
speak only of the Murex purple, but the _Dracaena_ was an important
dye-source at that time. Socotra, the island not the name, according
to Schoff (1912: 135), could be the Egyptians' "Pa-anch,"
equivalent to Virgil's "Panchaia," home of the phoenix bird in legend.
Resin from this tree, known as "dragon's blood," was a profitable
export, controlled by a sheik on the Hadramaut. The Phoenicians
themselves may have sailed no further towards India, but Socotra was a
meeting place. The native resin-gatherers spoke a language related to
Berber when I. H. Balfour rediscovered the _Dracaena_ tree in
1880. We know that Berber-speaking people in the Canary Islands, the
now extinct Guanche, used resin from a closely related species of
_Dracaena_ for embalming. A Phoenician king, Juba II, supposedly sent
Berber-speaking people out to the Canary Islands after his father lost
a Punic War (Ehret 2002: 223). The Arab name for the resin was said to
be "katir," about which I have enquired before. The native Berber
name for it (as Balfour spelled it) was "edah"(1883: xxxvii), but
linguists now render this name as "emzoloh," with another name for the
prepared bark, 'iy`diha', and another for the cooked, processed resin,
^Rda^ or ^RdEHa+^ (Morris 2003).
Jean-Paul Potet replied to a query of mine about a possible
relationship between the word katir and Malay getah, saying the two
are unlikely to be related. I accept this and postpone any further
query about a possible relationship between "katir" and a Chinese word
for the resin-bearing tree itself. I do think it likely that
Phoenicians carried "dragon's blood" as a trade item and that they
introduced _Dracaena draco_ to the Canary Islands. This does not imply
any direct contact between Austronesians and Arabs at the time of the
Periplus; linguists may be able to discover evidence for it, however.
I am thinking of botanical experiments that might clear up some of the
questions. Translations of plant names are always problematical, I find.
"
message 1262, Jean-Paul G. POTET
"
Just a little reminder:
the Arabic term is not katir, but _kathi:ra:?_ (with TH as in Eng.
thick) "cedar's resin"
On the other hand there is _qaTur_ "incense made from aloeswood", and
A _quTr_ "aloeswood burnt to perfume clothes", but, as everybody can
see, the vocalic melodies are quite different.
"
And btw Sw kåda "resin"
Torsten