Re: Abdul Alhazred: Let's retroconlang the Mad Arab!

i've seen it suggested that the name "should" be Abd al-Azrad, "slave
of the devourer", from zarada, to devour.  not speaking any arabic, i
cannot vouch for this in any way, but i've seen it suggested, at least.
kit

On May 19, 2006, at 11:25 AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> I've recently taken an interest in H. P. Lovecraft's work, which as
> presumably
> most here know, contains various alien words and phrases that one
> might try to
> parse into correspondence with the given translation, as has indeed
> been
> previously attempted on this list.
>
> I had something a bit different in mind, however. A recurring name
> in Lovecraft
> is that of Abdul Alhazred, the "Mad Arab" who wrote the infamous
> _Necronomicon_. The name, deriving from Lovecraft's youthful
> infatuation with
> the Arabian Nights, isn't a "real" Arabic name, but a made-up
> Arabic-sounding
> one. Now, my idea was, could someone familiar with Arabic suggest a
> plausible
> early-medieval Arabic name that might without too great distortion
> have been
> mutated into "Abdul Alhazred" in  European tradition?
>                                                           Andreas

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