Samanech

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Samanech arabice co<tu>rnix liber de doctrina arabica.


Apparatus:

Samanech AC | Samanch B f | Sameneg ms. e | e | Samaneh p | Sanauch? j
arabica | greca j


Translation:

Samanech is Arabic for Latin cornix {better coturnix, see Commentary} liber de doctrina arabica.


Commentary:

The word Simon is transcribing is ﺳﻤﺎﻧﻰ /summānā/, here in the pl. ﺳﻤﺎﻧﺎﺕ /summānāt/ meaning "quails". Samanech is corrupted from *Samaneth with 't' misread as 'c'.

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: 120): ﺳﻤﺎﻨﺔ /summāna/ Coturnix [[1]]; (1871: 323): COTURNIX ﺳﻤﺎﻧﻰ ﺍﺕ ﺳﻤﺎﻥ ﺳﻠﻮﻱ /summānā ~āt summān - salwā/ [[2]].

Corriente (1997: 262), s.v. *(SM(N)) has > summān n.un. ah + āt "quail". He remarks that the word is from Pahlavi *>asmān-ag< "from heaven".

The word is also mentioned in Seybold (1900: 141) = book page 115, s.v. cuturnix ﺳﻤﺎﻥ {/summān/} [[3].

Cf. Dozy (1877-81: 687): ﺳﻤﺎﻥ {/summān/} caille, grive {i.e. "quail; thrush"}, nom d.un. ﺓ; quoting i.a. Vocabulista and Glossarium Latino-Arabicum as his sources.

See also Lane (1984: 1432-3).

This same Arabic lemma is also explained in Simon's entry Suman, q.v., where Simon quotes once more sememan from the liber de doctrina arabica.

Obviously Latin coturnix {"quail"} was early on in the transmission corrupted to coturnix = cornix, which means "crow".


Ornithological identification:

The quail species most likely subsumed under ﺳﻤﺎﻥ /summān/ are the "common quail" Coturnix coturnix L. [[4]] and the "African harlequin quail", Coturnix delegorguei Delegorgue, [[5]], [[6]].

The Arabic word for "crow" is ﻏﺮﺍﺏ /ġurāb/, see Gorab.

WilfGunther 18:06, 25 August 2014 (BST)

See also: Suman, Gagila, Ortix

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