Re: Sisters of kaana...asbaHaa, adHaa, zalla, amsaa, baataa

Dr. Jam****d Ibrahim wrote:

>  May be it meant originally "he was ill when it was morning". The
> existence of different words like:
>  ?aSbaHa, Ghada:, ?DHa:, ?amsa:
> might show the original literal meaning was in mind and sup****t your
> idea. But this is the literal meaning and very unlikely that the words
> were used literally for a long time after they had been coined. As you
> may know times of the day are used not only lierally "congruently" but
> mostly metaphorically. This is how language works. It might have meant:
> he was ill as day or dawn broke.

Dear Dr. Jam****d Ibrahim.

I am sorry to be splitting hairs but, unfortunately, I am one of those
people who attempt to get to the bottom of something which "bugs" them.

I have interest in languages in general and in Persian and Arabic in
particular. In an Arabic grammar book published in Pakistan
(explanations were in Urdu), the impression I got from the Urdu
translation of a sentence like...

aSbaHaa Zaid(un) mariiDan

is something like...

Zaid was ill (at some time in the past) and come morning, he was still
ill.

I know this is not a very good English sentence, but this is what I
have taken the meaning to be.

I don't know if your and Mr. Yousaf Gursey's mother tongue is Arabic,
but I was curious how an Arab mind perceives this sentence.

Naseer