From Persian to Arabic

Author(s): M. Sprengling
Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Jul.,
1940), pp. 302-305
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/528879 .
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CRITICALNOTES
FROM PERSIAN TO ARABIC
Honor to whom honor is due. In the first part of the series "From Persian
to Arabic" (AJSL, LVI [April, 1939], 196; reprint, p. 22) the writer presented
a solution, which he had found independently, of the curious Persian fractions
recorded in Bilddhuri's tale of the conversion of the tax records in early Islamic times from Persian to Arabic. The writer at that time knew, though he
did not mention, De Goeje's second unsuccessful attempt at a solution of the
problems published in the notes to Fliigel's edition of the Fihrist. The writer
did not then know of De Goeje's third attempt, really Olshausen's solution
with small but important additions from Arabic orthography by De Goeje.
Recently in looking over once more Houtum-Schindler's valuable article
on the language and customs of the Parsees in Persia in ZDMG, Volume
XXXVI (1882), he found in the same volume (pp. 339-41) De Goeje's Die
persischen Bruchzahlen bei Belddhori. The reading, bist, "twenty," instead of
sas, "six," is there clearly recognized, though neither Olshausen nor De Goeje
gives evidence of having noted the essential difficulty of expressing fractions
smaller than tenths in Arabic.
Olshausen's solution of elements other than bist differs in two particulars
from that offered by the writer. He falls back on a very rare fractional form,
known in Modern Persian only as a dictionary word, and even so in but one
example, dahy5dah, "tenth" (Burhdn-i Qdticu[ed. 1939], p. 622; correctly presented by Vullers, s.v., misunderstood by Steingass, s.v.). In BPhl forms ending in -?ftak,-ifdhak are found in Pahlavi translations of Avestan texts. Forms
for "third, fourth, fifth" occur, classed by Salemann (GIrPhil, Ia, p. 290, ? 68)
as "learned" forms (cf. Bthl., AirWb., cols. 812, 579 f., 844; Vendiddd, ed.
Jamasp, VI, 32, p. 223, 11.8 f.; XVI, 2, p. 537, 11.2 f.; in the Glossary "fifth"
appears to be omitted, but the others are listed on pp. 217 and 65). Against
Olshausen's somewhat complicated attempt to account for the curious Arabic
writing De Goeje then presents the simple solution: transfer the two dots in
the ending from beneath the y over the pointed head to make t, thus producing
for "tenth" dahatah and for "twentieth" bistitah, or -'ftah.
The second major point in which Olshausen and De Goeje differ from the
writer's reading is in the Persian word for "and an indefinite amount, something, a little more." The writer simply accepted De Goeje's Arabic text,
wid or vid, which according to the dictionaries is perfectly feasible in Modern
Persian, though apart from the dictionaries this writer does not know of any
occurrence of the word. For Pahlavi, so far as the writer knows, the word has
302

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CRITICAL NOTES

303

not been found in any other than the Bilddhuri passage. The proposal of Olshausen and De Goeje again involves deletion of the two dots under y and insertion of one dot over the symbol, making it n. This would be a somewhat
extraordinary, but perfectly possible and intelligible, short writing for the
Semitic conjunction w, "and," plus the common Pahlavi and Modern Persian
word and, "so many, an indefinite number, a few, some, a little." Nyberg in
his Glossar (p. 99) reads the first BPhl symbol h, making the word hand,
though the same symbol can stand for Semitic (alif), in Persian words most
often simply the vowel a. The writer does not know Nyberg's reasons for this
reading, which he himself remarks as odd, but does not otherwise explain.
Salemann (op. cit., p. 294, ? 77, f), Horn GdNPEt, No. 116), in Manichaean
Middle Persian Andreas-Henning (MirMan, I, 34 [= 206] and II, 46 [= 337]),
and the new Middle Persian inscription of Kartir found under that of Shahpuhr on the Kaaba of Zoroaster, near the end of line 2, all clearly read 'nd,
i.e., and. Since Persian does not have a glottal stop of anything like the
strength of Arabic Hamzah, a writing wnd for wand is in no wise impossible,
though most unusual.
The rendering of the entire passage in translation is in no wise affected by
these changes in the Persian words written in Arabic letters. This writer is
especially gratified to find that De Goeje's rendering of the text as he finally
saw it agrees fully with his own translation against that of Hitti.
While we are on this subject, another bit of Persian in the Arabic and Turkish world, which has led Professor Hitti astray, must be noted.
In a review of The Bektashi Orderof Dervishes by John Kingsley Birge, in
JAOS, LIX (1939), 522 f., Professor Hitti is inclined to take Dr. Birge's
"style and presentation" severely to task. He charges that "secondary sources
[such as Hasluck, Christianity and Islam .... i are given as reference where
only primary sources are of value." "Secondary sources," when used, as well
they may be, should as a matter of course be mentioned as well as any which
may by others from another point of view be considered "primary." Hasluck's work is a posthumous publication, avowedly incomplete, and defective
in other respects, as a book thus published was bound to be. Yet the bibliographical range and knowledge of the lamented author make it at a number of
points a first-rate source for all but one exactly like him and with the same
extraordinary resources at his command. And why, just because it is in English, should Hasluck be classed as secondary, while, let us say, Ibn Khaldfin
or Ibn al-TiqtaqS are classed as primary?
The reviewer further finds certain spellings of names or words of Arabic
origin "mysterious-looking, curious-looking." The Bektashi were a Turkish
order. Dr. Birge is "a resident of Istanbul" (so Hitti), a manner of writing the
name of that city which to some might look curious. Dr. Birge naturally and
justifiably uses modern Turkish orthography. If that looks curious and mysterious to such as are not well acquainted with it in America, on the other hand

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304

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

some of our "57 varieties" of transliteration may look as curious and be as

mysterious to others.
In closing his review Hitti says: "As for 'the Arabic word ayin meaning
ceremony or rite' (p. 176, n. 2), the nearest guess that the reviewer could make
is that it is the broken plural of dyah." Dr. Birge writes this word in modern
Turkish fashion, which is all right as far as it goes. He is wrong when he calls
it "the Arabic word." The reviewer did not correct this error, wherefore his
"nearest guess" as to derivation is far worse and wider of the mark. This is a
widely and well-known Persian word, as the reviewer might have learned from
his colleague at Princeton, Ernst Herzfeld, who plays with it in his Altpersische
Inschriften, page 213, and elsewhere. For more serious study we can refer to
secondary sources only, whose information is nevertheless very instructive, to
wit, Paul Horn, Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie, page 15, No. 61; H.
Hilbschmann, Persische Studien, page 11, No. 61; Josef Markwart, Ungarische
Jahrbiicher, VII, 89 ff.; H. S. Nyberg, Hilfsbuch des Pehlevi, Volume II,
Glossar, page 3. For those who do not know German well, but do know Latin,
the Perso-Arabic alphabet, Arabic, and Turkish, loannis Augusti Vuller's
Lexicon Persico-Latinum, I, 64, will furnish somewhat more antiquated, but
up to a certain point fairly adequate, information. Less adequate and unfortunately demanding some knowledge of Modern Persian is the Burhdn-i
Qdticu, in the edition recently brought out (I, 48). The same holds true of
Asadi's neupersisches WirterbuchLughat-i Furs, edited by Paul Horn (1897),
text page 110, lines 1 f. For him who knows English and the Arabic alphabet
as used by modern Persians, F. Steingass, A ComprehensivePersian-English
Dictionary, page 134, will be most instructive. Those who know Arabic historical literature very well may, as the reference in Herzfeld (op. cit.) indicates, find the curious word there.
As for Dr. Birge's book as a whole, that is a much more significant and important contribution to our knowledge than the review in JAOS indicates
with chary praise. There are, indeed, in a work so original, written for the
most part in Constantinople, defects and errors, some rather more serious and
farther along in the book than most of those which Professor Hitti points out.
Thus in the title of Wittek's chapter on page 31, note 1, line 4, Zeit should be
inserted after zur. On the same page in footnote 2 the designation of Yaballaha III as a "Turkish Bishop" is very questionable. Positively wrong on
page 49 is the caliphal sobriquet "El-Nasireddin Allah," in Zambaur's Manuel, page 5, rendered "an-N$air lidinillh"; and the same man's name, "Abu
Abbas Ahmet," might at this point have been written somewhat nearer to our
manner, Abfi-l-cAbbasAlhmad. Likewise on the same page the confident identification of Haji Bektash's "Kuluhan" with the Mongol Kuyuk may be
questioned. Why not the Mongol Kuluk a few years later, or even Hulagu,
who knew and conferred with the "Christian Priest" Barhebraeus? Some of
these defects are due to general human frailty. The errors in ayin and in the

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305

CRITICAL NOTES

caliphal name and title are pretty clearly due to defective knowledge of Arabic
on the part of Dr. Birge. Both deficiencies may be forgiven a man who handles
so wide a range of Ottoman Turkish, Albanian, English, French, and German
literature so capably. Dr. Birge's is a book which no one interested in the
Bektashi or Dervish orders in general, in the Ottoman Empire, modern
Turkey, or modern Western Asia-indeed, in the real story of humanity
which is history-can safely pass by unnoticed. His use of all his sources,
including Hasluck, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is so judicious and so apt in most places where they are referred to; his
matter is so well organized, tabled, and indexed; and his presentation is withal
good enough to make his book readable and likable as well as useful.
Since this has become in large part a bibliographical report whose motto is
"Honor to Whom Honor Is Due," we take the liberty of adding here notice of
an excellent little book, which is not really concerned with Persian to Arabic,
but which does deal with affairs in some measure similar and in part in the
same territory as the Bektashi story, and with events which did much to clear
the ground for the Perso-Arabic adventure. Church and State in the Later
Roman Empire: The Religious Policy of Anastasius the First, 1491-518, by
Peter Charanis, has just been issued by the University of Wisconsin Press and
sent to us for notice. It is a little volume of 102 pages, including bibliography
and index, but well worth the $1.50 asked for it. The careful, calculating,
conscientious ruler of a far-flung, variegated empire, torn with religious dissensions, which did not make other governmental problems easier-"a pragmatist whose eyes were fixed upon the actual conditions of the empire" and
who "entertained no grandiose ideas for the restoration of past glories"--is
sketched after diligent search with wide and exact knowledge, with a sure
hand, and the judgment of a mature wisdom not common in doctoral dissertations. Since he has had to deal with Manichaean matters in general and with
Procopius' curious statement about them in particular, the touches of Manicheism in the life and reign of Anastasius I, of the real and of the "name-calling" variety, brought out by Dr. Charanis, were of especial interest to this
writer. Could Dr. Charanis and Dr. Birge, whose Bektashis surely have some
affinities with Manicheism, be induced to follow up this phase of their studies
further, each beginning at his end to meet in the middle?
That should be for both of these promising young historians a highly entertaining exercise of their extraordinary faculties and the rare scope of their
knowledge. It would produce works of great interest and extremely useful for
the advancement of our knowledge of the human story, curious at the best and
still very mysterious to many of us in areas which we would like to know especially well. Both, as they met, would fall well within the range of this little
series "From Persian to Arabic."
M. SPRENGLING
UNIVERSITY

OF CHICAGO

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