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Gentilics and appellatives: notes on Aḥābīš Qurayš

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Wansbrough
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Extract

The role of metaphor in the generation of descriptive terms is a commonplace of lexicography. Agency is usually identified as analogy, and the transfer itself analysed in terms of real or imagined similarity, e.g. ‘goth’ = barbaric, ‘gypsy’ = migrant, ‘vandal’ = destructive. Strictly defined, these exemplify metonymy, a species of metaphor found particularly in toponyms and gentilics. Development of such epithets as'‘arab’, ‘deutsch’ and ‘sūdān’ may be seen as a complementary process, wherein the common attribute is given a specific referent. Thought it is no longer, since Jakobson, deemed quite proper to define metonymy as metaphor, a symbolic and often arbitrary element in the transfer might be thought to justify that interpretation, as for instance in the gentilic Iberian or the appellative Qadariyya. While ultimately of less significance than context, etymology is seldom neglected in such investigations, may, indeed, become a dominant feature, as in the perennial discussion of ḫāpirū: 'ibrī = ‘hebrew’. It is my intention in the following lines to examine the incidence and possible origins of an appellative well known from early Arabic historiography.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1986 , pp. 203 - 210
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1986

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References

1 See J. Wansbrough, ‘Antonomasia: the case for Semitic 'ṯm’, in Figurative language in the Ancient Near East (forthcoming).

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8 ibid., II, 132.

9 ibid., II, 134.

10 ibid., II, 392.

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26 RS 24.247.32 = Ugaritica VII, Paris-Leiden 1981 (1978), 47Google Scholar/48/50; for a similar formula adducing ḫāpirū in the Hittite version of an Akkadian šumma izbu text, cf. M. P. Gray, ‘The Hābirū-Hebrew problem in the light of the source material available at present’, HUCA, 29, 1958, 154.

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34 ibid. 165; Loretz, UF, 8, 1976, 130–1; Gibson, op. cit., p. 66 n. i; cf.p. Grelot, ‘ḤOFŠI (PS. LXXXVIII 6)’, VT, 14, 1964, 256–63.

35 See Lemche, N. P., ‘Ḥofšsī in I Sam. XVII 25’, VT 24, 1974, 373–4Google Scholar; ‘The “Hebrew slave”: comments on the Slave Law Ex. xxi 2–11’, VT, 25, 1975, 129–44; and earlierGoogle Scholar, Pedersen, J., ‘Note on Hebrew Ḥofši’, JPOS, 6, 1926, 103–5Google Scholar; W. F. Albright, ‘Canaanite Ḫapši and Hebrew Ḥofšī again ’, ibid. 106–8.

36 E.g. Lemche, VT, 25, 1975, 144 n. 63: reference to W. von, Soden, ‘Muškēnum und die Mawāli des frǼhen Islam’, ZA, 22 (56), 1964, 133–41Google Scholar; andKienast, B., ‘Zu Muškēnum = Maulā’, BAW 75, 1972, 99–103 (XVIII, RAI, Munich 1970), though neither of these authors deals with the ḫupšu problem.Google Scholar

37 e.g. Gray, art. cit. (supra n. 26); Lemche, art. cit. (supra n. 36); but cf. Vaux, R. de, Le problème des Ḫapiru aprés quinze annés’, JNES, 27, 1968, 221–8, who prefers for ḫāpirū the gentilic option.Google Scholar

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39 Moscati, op. cit., para 8.46 and 59–60; Gordon, op. cit., para. 19. 930 (ḫbṯ), 995 (ḫpṯ), 835 (ḥbš), 888 (ḥpš); Albright, JPOS, 6, 1926, 107 (supra n. 25)

40 e.g. Lane, Lexicon, I, 501; cf. Wright, W., Grammar of the Arabic language, Cambridge, 1955 (1896), I, 207–8, esp. ad fa'il.Google Scholar

41 See Gray, HUCA, 29, 1958 (supra n. 26), 169–73; but cf. Dhorme, P., ‘Les ḫabiru et les hébreux’, JPOS, 4, 1924, 162–8: ḫabiru = ḥābēr.Google Scholar

42 de Vaux, art. cit. (supra n. 37), 226–8; incidentally, in despite of his thesis that Ugaritic is as closely related to (classical) Arabic as it is to Canaanite, I. Al-Yasin, , The lexical relation between Ugaritic and Arabic, New York, (Shelton College), 1952, lists ḫpṯ = ‘freeman/soldier’ under ‘Ugaritic words lacking Arabic cognates’ (119 s.v.).Google Scholar

43 See Wright, Grammar, I, 233–4 and the classical lexica adduced supra n. 18.

44 See references nn. 19–22; the rare occurrence of triptote miṣr = Egypt may be worth at least mention (cf. Wright, Grammar, I, 243).

45 Cf. Gray, art. cit., 163–5; de Vaux, art. cit. 227.

46 See Ward, W. A., ‘Two unrecognized ḪUPŠU -mercenaries in Egyptian texts’, UF, 12, 1980, 441–2, where the Egyptian epithet (examples A-C) seems to be blended with or contaminated by cuneiform ḫupšu; cf. Irvine, JSS, 10, 1965, 182 and references n. 4.Google Scholar

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48 cf. Gray, art. cit., 145 on the Susa text Ha-bi-riki, 160 on the Ugaritic ḫlb 'prm, with the statement 167 that no toponym Ḫabir is attested; it is of course true that aḥābīš is as such not attested as a toponym.