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From Siwa to Goulmima: A Date Palm Lexicon

  Some time ago, while I was working on a previous blog entry devoted to date palm tree cultivation in Goulmima (from a text in the A. Roux archives) , I leafed through a number of dictionaries, looking for words relating to said tree. I found little that was specific to the date palm, compared to the doum palm ( Hyphaene thebaica ). Benamara’s Figuig dictionary could have offered more, but without knowing tifiyyeyt lexicon, I had no entry points. As for Amaniss’s unpublished dictionary, there is some date palm vocabulary, with some overlap with Goulmima’s, but sometimes with a different realization. I initially decided to build a spreadsheet, using the ar.wikipedia page for “ نخلة التمر ” as a source vocabulary list, search through Chafik, and map onto the bilingual list the vocabulary of my home region. Unfortunately, in Chafik, I found more doum than Phoenix dactylifera . The same goes for the IRCAM dictionary, as well.   With the recent publication of Valentina Schiattarella

Izli n Goethe [Tasuɣlt]

 
From Book 3, Chapter 1, of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters, here is the first stanza. Given that I have very little German, I used Richard Wellish's English translation as an aide, along with a few dictionaries.

            Is tssnd tamazirt nna-g ittfsu usmmam

            Isufu wurġ n zznbuɛ g uslls n walatn

            Immctg uzuzwu ddaw tzgzwi n ignwan

            Sbddn taġzi ur rgigiyn iskwla n igrsl d uqumam

            Is tti tssnd bahra?

                                 Din! Din

            As riġ a(d) nddu, nkkin d kyyin, a yasmun.


The original:   

            Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
            Im dunklen Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
            Ein samfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
            Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,
            Kennst du es Wohl?
                            Dahin! Dahin
            Möcht' ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

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