Palestinians and Philistines

[Michael G. Azar]

Greetings,

I’m looking at the linguistic difference between “Palestinians” and “Philistines.” Arabic translation of Bibles I have on hand use “الفلسطينيين” for the Philistines (the same way modern “Palestinians” is spelled). But this article, for example, sometimes uses “الفلستينيين” to refer to “Philistines.”

My question: is there a consistent spelling change at some point (ط  vs. ت), or has it typically vacillated between the two?  Is one more recent than the other?

Thanks,

--

Michael G. Azar, PhD 

Associate Professor, Graduate Director

Department of Theology/Religious Studies

University of Scranton

[Myriam Wissa]

Hello Michael,

The term Philistines refers to a group of people dating back to the Bronze Age.

From an historical view point the 

 first historical narrative to mention the Philistines " Peleset ", among several groups of seafarers called sea peoples, stems primarily from the Ancient Egyptian sources. 

Ramesses III (second king and pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty), records waves of invasions by seafaring peoples, with the most detailed account being found at his Medinet Habu mortuary temple in Thebes, where he is depicted forcing back the invaders during the “Battle of the Delta” around 1175 BC. The sea peoples listed are as follows: Achaeans" ; "Teresh"; "Tyrrhenians "(Tyrsenoi), known as sailors and pirates from Anatolia, ancestors of the Etruscans; " Luka", coastal people of western Anatolia;  "Sherden" , probably the Sardinians; "Shekelesh", the Sicilian tribe called Siculi; and "Peleset" , generally believed to refer to the Philistines who perhaps came from the Aegean islands and settle in Palestine.

 An inscription on the second pylon of the temple states:“Now the northern countries, which were in their isles, were quivering in their bodies. They penetrated the channels of the Nile’s mouths. Their nostrils have ceased (to function, so that) their desire is [to] breathe the breath. His majesty is gone forth like a whirlwind against them, fighting on the battlefield like a runner. The terror of him has entered in their bodies; (they are) overwhelmed in their places. Their weapons are scattered in the sea.”

The Bible (Joshua 13:3 and 1 Samuel 6:17 )states that the land of the Philistines was in the southwestern Levant comprising the five city-states of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.

All best,

Myriam

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[Stephan Huller]

How does this answer his question?  He knows what the terms mean. He is interested in the Arabic terminology. He's not 5 years old.  He's an associate professor. 

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[Myriam Wissa]

Thank you Stephan.

 This is just a general historical update not necessary known. I believe that sometimes, in order to understand medieval and contemporaneous issues, it is good to trace them back to the older periods.

Very good wishes to you.

Myriam

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[Dimitri Morozov]

Dear Michael,

Sin.Ar.460 (10th c) ed.Marr 78 & Sin.Ar.455 (12th c.) f.140v read فلشتانين for Philistines.

Best wishes,

Dmitry

 

вс, 7 февр. 2021 г. в 02:12, Michael G. Azar <michae...@scranton.edu>:

[Martino Diez]

Dear Michael,

I don’t know if this answers the question, but in al-Makin’s chronicle you have consistently الفلسطينيين for Philistines. However Nicolaus of Aleppo, the famous 17th-century copyist who worked with Pococke and other Arabists, mostly changes it into الفلسطانيين when copying al-Makin’s manuscript for his employers. 

On Nicolaus of Aleppo there is a beautiful study by Hilary Kilpatrick: https://www.academia.edu/29373291/A_GREEK_ORTHODOX_SYRIAN_COPYIST_AND_HIS_LETTERS_TO_POCOCKE_AND_GOLIUS 

It thus seems that at least for him it was important to differentiate between the two terms, which makes indeed sense. But consider that Nicolaus learned Latin (and other languages) when in Europe and this may have oriented his choice.

Best wishes,

Martino

Martino Diez

Associate professor of Arabic

Catholic University of Milan

[Dimitri Morozov]

Dear all,

The name of Palestine was spelled in a book printed in 1849 entitled Risāla ‛umūmiyya, p. 74 as فالستين . It was certainly translated from Greek. Another book printed ca 1930 considered it necessary to add فلسطين كورة بالشام.   

Best wishes,

Dmitry

вс, 7 февр. 2021 г. в 14:06, Martino Diez <md...@fondazioneoasis.org>:

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[Dimitri Morozov]

PS: Gen 10:14 of Today Arabic Version reads فلسطيون

Best wishes,
Dmitry


вс, 7 февр. 2021 г. в 14:06, Martino Diez <md...@fondazioneoasis.org>:
>

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[Yusuf Gürsey]

AS I can answer why the emphatic stop in Filasṭīn فِلَسْطِين

Semitic non-emphatic stops tend to be aspirated, slightly to strongly In Aramaic this tends to be strong and ultimately lead to spirantization post-vocalically and intervocalically. In Arabic I believe less so. At any rate, Arabs in the Pre-Islamic and Early Islami periods borrowed from Greek or Latin through an Aramaic intermediary or those who knew Greek were familiar with Aramaic as well. In the LXX and elsewhere Greek aspirated stops are used to represent non-emphatic Semitic stops without regard to their position that would influence the spirantization from the bgdkpt rules.Similarly Greek aspirated stops were represented by Aramaic / Hebrew non-emphatic stops and Greek non-aspirated stops were represented by Aramaic / Hebrew emphatic stops. As the modern age neared Arabic seems to gradually divorce itself from thai tradition.

Arabic got   فِلَسْطِين from the Roman pronounce

However very early Semtic seems have had to lack this aspiration, as the Greeks adopted Taw to represent non-aspirated Greek Tau and the rendition Παλαιστίνη  

Two relevant linguistics papers are included

Yusuf B Gursey

Dec 11, 2013, 6:54:17 AM







to

Helmut Richter in
<alpine.LNX.2.00.1...@badwlrz-clhri01.ws.lrz.de>, wrote
on 12/11/2013 :

See:

E. Y. KUTSCHER
CONTEMPORARY STUDIES IN NORTH-WESTERN SEMITIC
J Semitic Studies (1965) 10(1): 21-51 doi:10.1093/jss/10.1.21

ALICE FABER
ON THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF HEBREW SPIRANTIZATION
MEDITERRANEAN LANGUAGE REVIEW
VOLUME TWO
1986

[Isa Almisry]

Just a brief (because that is all the time I have at hand now) note: the non-emphatic "t" is recent, and I have seen it only in conjunction with modern European and Zionist sources. The Aramaic and Arabic sources all have emphatic "t," including Saadia Gaon's classic Jewish translation of the Torah. Pre-Ben Yehudah Modern Hebrew used the Biblical Peleshet, with non-emphatic 't." It seems this development is akin to that of the term "Grecian" to distinguish the ancestors from their modern "Greek" progeny.

[Isa Almisry]

The earliest use of a non-emphatic "t" I have seen was in the Ottoman "New Atlas" of 1803, translated from French by a Greek into Ottoman. The spelling فلاستان makes me wonder if some conflation with the Persian suffix ـستان "place/country of" is involved here. The map and a bit of explanation on the toponymy can be seen here:
http://www.midafternoonmap.com/2015/06/the-first-printed-ottoman-map-of.html

[Yusuf Gürsey]

The emphatic ṭ corresponds to the Greek of "Palestine" and the non-emphatic t corresponds to the Hebrew of "Philistine" so such a rendition does have its logic. But it also has to do if you want to make a connection or not between "Palestinians" and "Philistines". Both sides in the present conflict can make political capital by making or not making such a connection. It is in reality however utterly irrelevant to the present issue.

How one should spell "Philistine": in Arabic is ultimately a matter of taste or choice of the translator. I find curiosity value in evaluating the occurances, but there is no deep issue here. 

On Sat, Feb 6, 2021 at 6:12 PM Michael G. Azar <michae...@scranton.edu> wrote: