Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: A problem solved?!?

From:vardi <vardi@...>
Date:Thursday, February 18, 1999, 5:26
Brian Betty wrote:
> > On 2-17-99, Shaul Verdi wrote: "Yeah, there is a root KH - W - L with the > meaning grant, accord, concede. That's almost certainly it! The mystery > is solved. The middle root letter is "w", a "hollow" letter in Arabic > grammatical terms, falling out in many conjugations. So the fact that only > the KH (in Spanish orthography - "j") and the L remain is quite > understandable. [snip] As for Gustavo's comment that the Portuguese > equivalent uses a "sh" (S) sound rather than KH, I guess we must now see > that not as a more faithful rendition of the original Arabic, but rather as > the assimilation of the expression into the (beautiful and gentle, IMHO) > sound patterns typical of Portuguese. >
> Oy, I'll have to argue against this one. Medieval Spanish X and J were /S/ > and /Z/, like in modern Portuguese. So Ojala' would be more likely "in > sha'llaah" with weird initial variations (shift of IN to O) or something > under the abnormal wear and tear of being an expression borrowed from > Arabic. I could see the Arabic in+S >oZ (the nasal voices the S) more > easily than /XWL spontaneously becoming Z-L. >
I see (crushed wimper). I guess if you can mutate the vowel in my name (Vardi > Verdi), then pretty much anything goes :) - so maybe you're right and ojala' does come from inshallah! It's just that the piece John Cowan quoted stated that it came from "an Arabic expression meaning 'May Allah grant that...'" - which pushed me towards the KH - W - L root. Inshallah really means "if Allah wills" - so either the source John quotes wasn't over accurate, or it's a very liberal translation. I do agree that if we accept a pronunciation oSala or OZala, that does make the inshallah origin more probable. I shall never again use "A problem solved" as a subject line in my conlanglist messages. Shaul Vardi
> Or am I smoking crack? Opinions, people? > > BB > > They call me Coffee 'cause I grind so fine. > God was my co-pilot, but we crashed in the Andes and I had to eat him. > Only 320 shopping days left before the end of the world.