Re: White Wolf Language-Butchery (was: Chinese/japanese Pronounciation)

Philip Newton wrote:
>Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 19:02:49 +0200
>
>On 1 May 02, at 11:34, Steg Belsky wrote:
>
> > And when it comes to the Ahl-i-Batin from Mage, i have no idea what that
> > medial |-i-| could be...
>
>Looks a bit to me like what happens in Persian or some Afghan
>languages. I'm not sure of the function of that particle, but there are
>words (such as place names e.g. Mazar-i-Sharif) which have -i- or -e-
>in the middle.
>
I'm no indoiranianist, but IIRC it indicates that the first word is owned or
otherwise asociated with the second - _Dasht-e Lot_ it the "desert (dasht)
of salt (lot)", _Mazar-i-Sharif_ is the "mazar of the Sharif" (whatever that
means - some little voice in my head says that _mazar_ means "tomb", but
that may be wrong). It's a sort of negative genitive (marking the ownee
rather than the owner).

                                                 Andreas

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