Gicuale
Gicuale arabice cicada liber de doctrina arabica.
Apparatus:
Gicuale ef | Gicuale uel gituale B | Gituale AC ('c' misread as 't')
Translation:
Gicuale is Arabic for Latin cicada according to the liber de doctrina arabica.
Commentary:
Simon's often quoted source, the Liber de doctrina arabica, has so far not been identified, but cf, what must be a similar glossary/dictionary - Vocabulista - ed. Schiaparelli (1871: 290) [[1]]: ﺟﻘﺎﻟﺔ ﺍﺕ ﻧﺠﻘﻞ ﺟﻘﻠﺖ /ğiqāla ~āt - niğaqqal - ğaqqalt/. ﺟﻘﺎﻟﺔ /ğiqāla/ is also mentioned by Dozy (1877-81: I.202) with reference to Vocabulista.
The expected transcription would be *gic(h)ale; the unetymological 'u' could be the rest of a 'qu', which sometimes stands for Arabic ﻕ /q/, i.e. *giquale.
Latin cicada and a variant cicala, the latter only found in glossaries, is probably an old Mediterranean word to which the Hispano-Arabic form ﺟﻘﺎﻟﺔ /ğiqāla/ is either related or from which it is even ultimately derived. Corominas (1980-91: CE-F.72), s.v. CIGARRA {i.e. Spanish for "cicada"} mentions a Mozarabic čiqâla, which may well be the form portrayed in the Vocabulista, cf. also Catalan cigala. The Arabic word for "cicada" is ﺯﻳﺰ /zīz/.
WilfGunther 16:41, 7 July 2014 (BST)
