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

On Sat, 20 May 2006 Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> Quoting Jrg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>:
>
> > Hallo!
> >
> > On Fri, 19 May 2006 13:05:44 -0400, "Mark J. Reed" wrote:
> >
> > > On 5/19/06, Roger Mills <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm not overly familiar with Arabic naming, but suspect this is
> > > > incorrectly
> > > > put together.... Abdul means 'slave of...' and is usually
> followed by a
> > > > word
> > > > _without_ the definite article al-
> > >
> > >
> > > IIRC, that's because the -ul in Abdul is already the definite article.
> >
> > Exactly.  _Abdul Alhazred_ would be 'Servant of the the (sic!) Hazred',
> > whatever a "Hazred" may be.  But _Abdul Haszed_ wouldn't be a
> valid Arabic
> > name either, beacuse _Abd_ is only used with one of the
> traditional 99 Names
> > of God, of which _Al Hazred_ (if that makes sense in Arabic at
> all) is none.
> > I'd guess that forming "Abdul"-type names with anything else than one
> > of the 99 Names of God would be considered blasphemous by many.
> > For a list and explanations, see:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Names_of_God
>
> Not to be ungrateful or anything, but I already knew it's not a
> correct Arabic
> name. What I was asking for was if one could concoct a plausible
> Arabic name
> that might have been mutated to "Abdul Alhazred" in European tradition.
>
> Arabic translations of Lovecraft apparently call him "Abdullah
> Alh.az.red",
> where the dots should go under the preceding characters.
>
>                                                              Andreas
Hi Andreas,

I only have the smallest of Arabic dictionaries.
Although there are quite a few quadriliteral Arabic
roots, none of them come close to any of:
 "hzrd"
 "h.zrd"
 "hz.rd"
 "hzrd."
or any of the other possible quadriliterals with
similar transliterations.  (I'm using your dot con-
vention for simplicity.)

But doesn't this name sort of suggest "hazard",
ie chance? Also, what happens if we suppose
there to have been an undoing of a supposed
but false assimilation? Eg, either the h or the d
may have been added in the mistaken belief that
it *should* be there, but had become silent.
So I looked for any trilteral root in:
 "zrd"
 "zrd."
 "z.rd"
 "z.rd."
but found none; then for:
 "hzr"
 "hz.r"
 "h.zr"
 "h.z.r"
then finally for:
 "`zr"
 "`z.r"
None of these gave anything useful.

But I did find:
 "`Dr" to excuse
which *might* have a derived form like:
 "`aDri"  (but I couldn't find one)
which one could imagine mutating thus:
 "`aDri" >  "`azri" >  "azri" >  "hazri" ...
 ... > "hazri:d";
or
 "`aDira"  (which exists: he excused)
which one could imagine mutating thus:
 "`aDira" >  "`azira" >  "azira" >  "azri" ...
 ... >  "hazri" > "hazri:d".

(I'm assuming above that the "e" in "hazred"
stands for "i:".  Of course, it might be simply
schwa "@", in which case why not:
 "azira" > "azra" > "azr@" > "hazr@" ?)

For comparison, when Malays borrowed
many Arabic words containing D, they
generally replaced it with z.  eg
 "Dikr" (Ar.) - remembrance > "zikir" (Ml.)

So, I suggest that "al-hazred" may be
explained as any of:

 A.  An Arabic root "`Dr", to excuse, giving
rise to an (unattested) form "`aDri" (the
excused, the forgiven, the pardoned);

 OR

 B. An Arabic root "`Dr", to excuse, giving
rise to the attested form "`aDira" (he
excuses);

 OR

C. A non-Arabic quadriliteral root "hazard"
(or similar), meaning "chance", borrowed and
Arabised, perhaps as "hazrada" he chanced,
he hazarded, he wagered; whence imperfect
"hazrida" he chances, he hazards, he wagers;
and presumably "al-hazri:d" the chancer (!),
the gambler, the risktaker;

- mutating after borrowing to the form
"hazr" + "i:|@" + "d" or "hazred".

So "abdul-hazred" on these readings might be
the servant of the gambler, or of the risktaker,
or of the forgiven.

If he was supposed to be a bad bloke (and I
seem to recall that he was), then he might be
any servant of the devil, Iblis, the greatest risk-
taker of them all ... so he could be a jinn, an afrit,
or even (like Lucifer himself), a fallen angel.

Any use?

Regards,
Yahya

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