Re: Religion-Names in Conlangs. Or At Least in Mine. :)

Steg Belsky wrote:
>
> On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 23:10:42 -0600 Eric Christopherson <eric@...>
> writes:
> >Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> >> >islam:  which do people think, should i derive regularly "muslim"
> >from
> >> >"islam", as _isla:m-tzat_ and _isla:mki_, or adopt the word
> >"muslim" in
> >> >some form?
> >> >(the ":" represent a rising-accent over the previous vowel)
>
> >> Swahili has:
> >> Islamu = Islam
> >> Mwislamu = (a) Muslim <-- mw + islamu
> >> Waislamu = Muslims  <-- wa + islamu
>
> >I've been wondering... does mu- in Arabic mean "one who does
> >[something]?" Besides the word Muslim, I know of the Hispanicized
> >Mude'jar, IIRC meaning "one who stayed."
>
> Probably.  In Hebrew, _m-_ is used for the participle of a few verb
> paradigms -
> mehaleikh = someone who walks around
> mushlam = perfect
> margiz = annoying
>
> So it's reasonable to assume that Arabic does the same thing.
>
> -Stephen (Steg)
The "mu" in Muslim and Steg's mu's are indeed related. But as his
examples show, the prefix is better understood as attributing the
quality or action referred to to some person or object (so "one who does
..." isn't quite right).

Maybe it came up in an earlier message I missed when I was moving
apartment, but in case it didn't: Islam is "submission" (to the will of
Allah"), and Muslim is "one who submits."


        Shaul