Re: It may pay off just yet

Barry Garcia wrote:

>Well, on the hints from other people to look at Mozarabic for words from
>Arabic to take into Montreiano, i found on word i like that may be a good
>one to borrow. Instead of say "notiças" for news, i decided to use
>"aubixara" /awbiSara/ which comes from "al bishara". I've been also
>looking at some Kharjahs in order to get more ideas. The one aubixara was
>taken from is thus:
>
>Des kand meu Sidiello bénid
>¡tan bona al-bisara!
>¡Kom raya de sole esid
>en Wad-al-hagara!
>
>When my Cidiello appears
>such good news
>as if a ray of sun appears
>in guadalajara!
And David Peterson wrote:
>but the only word for "news" I ever learned in Arabic was "alkhabr"
[Elxabr].  >I've never heard "al bishara"...

David is right about alkhabr; but I'm also aware of Mozarabic al bishara--
which I think gets Hispanicized to "albricias", possibly archaic-- I recall
the phrase "Dadme albricias, Don .... " from some old poem (El Cid??).

So the question is, is there _any_ Arabic word resembling "bishara", and
what might it mean?

Indonesian, which has borrowed heavily from Arabic as well as Indic/Persian
languages, has _bicara_ [bi'tSara] 'to talk, speak'; _mem/bicara/kan 'to
talk about, discuss'-- and my Old Javanese dictionary marks _wica:ra_ as
"Skt." (that could mean Skt. itself, or any of the Prakrits/Indic langs.
spoken in the early C.E., possibly even Persian).   So an interesting
possibility:  an Indic/Persian  word borrowed into Arabic, thence to
Spain???

A couple other Arabic terms that might be suitable for Montreiano:  habibi
'(my) beloved' found in lots of Kharjas; shukur 'Thank God, thanks be to
God' (that's the Indonesian form, original shukr or somesuch.)

BTW there are several very interesting CDs of Arabo-Hispanic music-- some of
the music is reconstructed or based on modern forms (and frankly, not to my
liking), but the texts are authentic.

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