@@ Sweet Persian - "LOVE" is of Persian origin @@
Arash
August 31, 2005
Lovely word
By Guive Mirfendereski
Next time when I say “I love you” to an English-speaking person I will do so with the
reminder that the word “love” is of Persian origin.
Father used to say that summer for him began when I arrived in Tehran for the
holidays, the start of which for me was signified by heading to the Caspian littoral.
A big part of the sojourn on the Caspian was Radio Darya, a funky summer-time radio
station with a limited geographical reach but a satisfying and nourishing fare of
demonic domestic and foreign music and satanic on-air pleasantries -- sheer
entertainment.
O, who could not fall in love while listening to the epic struggles of Zangalou, the
fisherman of Khazar Sea! I know I did. Or not to seek shelter in the promise of a
youngster’s roadside cry otaq khali, literally a spare room let to an itinerant.
Naturally, the start of autumn coincided with the muting of Radio Darya and for
father it meant my departure overseas back to school. In another time longer ago
still the start of autumn was more than just an equinox, it heralded the first day of
the school year. And one would not take inventory of the preceding summer vacation
until the composition teacher demanded an essay on one’s summer doings. For the habit
formed decades ago, I now ask again “What did you do during summer vacation?”
This summer, I ceased becoming and experienced for the first time the very essence of
just being -- unfettered by parental expectations and professional requirements, I do
only what I please. Where there is no kind treatment I withdraw my affection without
reserve. I owe nobody any more. The kindnesses I have received I have repaid in
spades.
This summer, I learned that burning bridges at times is even better than building
them. There is a certain freedom that comes from feeling utter and desperate
disconnection; it promotes self-reliance and growth in a different direction. Will
one ever learn to climb up but for experiencing an un-scalable ravine or
insurmountable monolith? Would one forge ahead in the face of defeat if retreat were
more inviting?
This summer, I learned about love. My friend Maziar Shirazi wrote a piece (Love in
Persian http://www.iranian.com/Shirazi/2005/August/Love/index.html) and in it he
queried if there was in Persian an equivalent of the word “love” as used in the “I
love you” phrase of the English-speaking world. Of love, a little later.
Maziar’s name epitomizes Iranity: Maziar [Maz/Muz for mountain + yar] is northern for
the more familiar name Kuhyar, a name whose form Kuhi is current among boys in the
Mazandaran region.
This summer, I realized something about Shiraz as well. The grape "Syrah" was in all
probability brought to France from Shiraz and renamed in order not to give up its
place of origin to competitors. A while back an Australian vineyard produced a wine
from syrah grapes and called it Shiraz.
According to http://www.winepros.org , “although cultivated since antiquity,
competing claims to the origin of this variety gave credit to it either being
transplanted from Persia, near the similarly-titled city of Shiraz or to being a
native plant of France. Starting in 1998, combined research of the University of
California at Davis and the French National Agronomy Archives in Montpellier proved
syrah is indeed indigenous to France. DNA profiling proved syrah to be a genetic
cross of two relatively obscure varieties, mondeuse blanc and dureza”.
Bull, I say. Enough of this self-serving French crap. Awaken the DNA of dureza and
watch Hafiz dance. Did not the Faranghi take from the Persian the fruit and word
lemon (limu)?
This summer, I learned about the origin of the word “love”. It is an Indo-Iranian
word. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word "love" is derived
more immediately from Old English "lufu", "luvu", or "lubu", which derived from
"luba" of Old High German. The "luba" of Old High German derived from "leubh",
"lubet", and "libet" of Sanskrit and Old Aryan, meaning “pleasing”.
The word "leubh" gave rise to "lubido" in Old Aryan, which meant "libido", desire.
I would think that in Old Persian "luvu" or "lubu" would have existed as a word for
love or desire.
In the Slavic language of southern Russia, which was influenced by the Median and
Scythian (Saka) languages, the word for love is "lubov".
The word "lobat" in contemporary Farsi applies to a beautiful woman and, despite the
Arabicization of its orthography, could have derived from "libet" of Old Aryan/Old
Persian.
I wonder also if the word "lavat" (love between two men, sodomy) too belongs to this
group of Sanskrit/Old Aryan "leubh" family of words.
The etymological significance of “love” is not found entirely between the hard cover
of a dictionary. To discern the meaning of the utterance “I love you”, one must look
under the covers, where one whispers this and other sweet-nothings into the ears of
one’s object of seduction. I doubt very much if the prevailing equivalent practice
among the Farsi speakers is anything other than “dousat daram”. Any term of
endearment derived from the word "eshq", "mehr" or "hab" while etymologically correct
is not current in ordinary practice. Matters not that the noun "doust" itself means
friend in the vernacular.
Therefore, next time when I say “I love you” to an English-speaking person I will do
so with the reminder that the word “love” is of Persian origin.
This summer, I realized also that the word "wadi" in Arabic is Persian in origin. It
derived from "abadi", which in Persian means a place that has water, a prerequisite
to the establishment of a settlement. The “w” in "wadi" is the Arabization of the
sound “v” of Old Persian, before it became “b” in Middle Persian. Come to think of
it, I think the word "balad", which means town or settlement in Arabic is the same as
"vlad" in Russian, raising the probability that "balad" derived from "vlad" and this
latter was an Iranian word, as Russian is an Indo-European language.
This summer, I deciphered finally the etymological origin of the names "Abu Musa" and
"Seyri" islands in the Persian Gulf. "Seyri" (often written incorrectly as Sirri or
Serri or Seri) is located 39 kilometers west of Abu Musa.
"Seyr Bu Nuair" is 80 kilometers northeast of Abu Dhabi and "Seyr Bani Yas" is 160
kilometers southwest of Abu Dhabi.
The prefix "seyr" or "sir" in the island names Seyr Bani Yas (now only called Yas)
and Seyr Abu Nuair signifies a gathering place of the particular tribal entity,
particularly in connection with the pearl fisheries.
The most plausible explanation for the name of Seyri Island is that it is a relic of
a proto-toponym Seyr-e Bu Sur. It would have belonged to the family of names Seyr
Bani Yas and Seyr Bu Nuair and would have referred to the place of congregation of
tribal group (Bu Sur) at sea.
In Persian, the word "seyr", including its derivative "seyr-gah", embodies the notion
of excursion. In Arabic and Persian, the word "seyr" signifies also a marine or
aquatic place of gathering.
The tribal entity responsible for the proto-toponym (Seyr Bu Sur) was the "Suran",
who inhabited the island as fishermen and pearl divers. The village inhabited by
divers (Balad Ghawawis) at the turn of the 20th obtained its drinking water from a
single well called Bu Sur. The name Bu Sur entered the European cartography in the
latter part of the 1700s, before which Seyri Island was referred to as "Tavem". In
1772 Carsten Niebuhr, who traveled in the Persian Gulf in 1764, reported the name as
Schech Sure (Shaikh Suri) and Surde (Sur-deh, Sur village). Rigobert Bonne’s Carte d
l’Arabie, du Golfe Persique et de la Mer Rouge (ca. 1780) gave the island name as Le
Sur. The English records called it Surdy before settling on Sirri; the Iranians
adapted the name as Serri, pronounced in the same manner as the word for secret, and
Sorri.
The occurrence of Seyr Bani Yas, Seyr Bu Nuair and Seyr Bu Sur implies that the name
of Abu Musa Island derived from the proto-toponym Seyr Bu Musa. Referred to in the
maps of the early 1700s as Maloro, Niebuhr reported the name as Bumose and in
Rigobert Bonne’s Carte de l’Arabie, du Golfe Persique et de la Mer Rouge (ca. 1780)
the name appeared as Abamausa, while in another edition of the same map it was given
as Adamusa. The English records referred to it as Bomosa until the adoption of Bu
Musa. The rare appearance of the Turkic prefix ada (meaning “island”) is interesting
in that in Turkic practice ada is used as suffix, like in Buyuk-Ada off Istanbul,
Uzun-Ada off Baku or arguably Ashur-Ada in southeastern Caspian Sea.
There is no shortage of the locative prefix abu in and around the Persian Gulf. In
Arabic and Farsi, the prefix "abu" (variations: "aba" and "abi") attached to a
masculine proper name connotes a relation (nisba) in the same sense as the prefix
"ibn" or "bin". Among the Persian speakers, the prefix "abu" is often contracted as
"bu". This and a few remaining shreds of evidence suggest that Abu Musa was probably
a clan belonging to the "Maraziq" tribe of the Iranian coast.
The Maraziq of the Persian coast were principally in Mughu, Lingeh and Bostaneh,
while on the Arabian littoral they were found predominantly in Ajman and Oman. The
adjectival form of Maraziq is Mazruqi. The Mazruqi region on the Persian coast
referred to a part of the maritime Lar District, to which belonged Seyri Island. The
Maraziq competed with the Qasemi of Lingeh over Greater Farur, Seyri and Abu Musa
islands and in 1788-89 the Persian governor of the Jahangireh District mediated the
differences among them.
The inhabitants of Seyri Island at the turn of the 20th century included the Abu
Dastur from the Persian coast and they would have originated from Dastur on the
Persian coast, which, according to Lorimer, was situated 60 kilometers southeast of
"Nayband" and 16 kilometers west of "Shivuh" on the "Shibkuh" coast. If Abu Musa were
a Mazruqi or another clan is not indicated. In general, the Arabs of the Persian
littoral from Kangun to Bandar Abbas who did not belong to any well-known Arab tribe
were called "Fawars", an example of which were the Abu Dastur on Seyri.
The Abu Dastur also dove for pearls in the waters near "Dalmah", an island 40
kilometers northwest of Jabal Dhanna off Abu Dhabi. One of the pearl banks 6
kilometers southwest of the island was still called Abu Dastur at the turn of the
20th century. Another pearl bank, located 15 kilometers to the southeast of the
island, was called Hawad Bin-Musammih. This latter is the only confirmation of the
existence of Bu Musa as a tribal entity with sufficient context to be related to Abu
Musa Island. The name Musammih may have derived from one who was a Musaqqam, which in
the pearl trade referred to one who financed a pearling fleet.
It was not unusual to find a pearl bank named for a distant origin. At the turn of
the 20th century, the pearl bank known as Dhahr-al-Yas off Dalmah Island lay 53
kilometers west of Yas Island itself. The Abu Dastur pearl bank at Dalmah was more
than 155 kilometers from Seyri itself; the pearl bank named Hawad Bin-Musammih
therefore could be related to the clan so named from an island like Abu Musa 180
kilometers away.
This summer, I discovered also that etymology is the devil’s playground, where peaks
of sublime and valleys of ridiculousness punctuate a landscape that is riddled with
doubts. Nowhere was this better in view than in the tongue-in-cheek query of this
site’s esteemed editor that I look into the etymological origin of the word “doul”.
He had heard on a NPR radio program on 4th of July that the word “doodle” in “Yankee
Doodle Dandy” originally meant penis. “Could doodle be related to the Persian
doudoul?” In Farsi, the word "doudoul" is the endearing and diminutive form of
"doul", a boy’s penis. While many an Iranian mother validates the worth of her son in
the saying "doudoul-tala" (golden penis, literally), the Dehkhoda lexicon gives the
meaning of "doul" and "doudoul" as the boy’s shame (sharm).
Notwithstanding the tantalizing proximity of doul to tool (which the English for the
Persian alat) there is no etymological connection between doudoul and doodle. The
origin of doodle as used in Yankee Doodle Dandy is rather obscure, as is by the way
the origin of Yankee and dandy. On the one hand it is said that doodle is a variation
or accompaniment of tootle, which referred to sounding a wind instrument. If blowing
pipes, windbags, or trumpets is your thing, maybe here is an attenuated link worth
cherishing. In another meaning doodle shows up as naďve, stupid, noodle. Naturally,
the limp inherent in the noodle offers some reference to a softheaded imbecile like
the Yankee Doodle Dandy!
According to Dehkhoda’s lexicon, in Farsi, "bouboul" is a synonym for "doudoul" and I
think the synonym offers the explanation for the origin of "doudoul" itself. The
Farsi "bouboul" probably derives from the Arabic "boul", which means urine. My
favorite explanation of the term "doudoul" however is in the Farsi word "bandoul",
which refers to a limp and short string hanging off the storage compartment of a
mill; upon pulling it, the door opens and the content pours out.
This summer, I revisited the origin of Kishm (Qeshm) Island. Before the arrival of
the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf in 1500s, it was known in Persian and Arabic as
the island of Ibn Kawan or “long island”. The Portuguese re-named it after its
produce of "kishmish" (raisin), which they wrote in the form of Queixime. Eventually,
the Portuguese name became Qeshm in Persian and Arabic!
The islands off the Oman coast, which the Arabs call Salama and her two daughters,
the Portuguese re-named Quoins, because they looked like the coin (wedge) that was
used to hold in place the cranked up guns on board a ship. The Persian-Shihuh
inhabitants of Kumzar, who inhabited these islands, called Great Quoin and Little
Quoin as Mumar and Didamar, respectively, which meant “mother” and “daughter” islands
in Kumzari. Didamar had another name, "Shanaku", in which ku was mountain and shana
may have referred to a floating or swimming rock. The island between the two Quoins
was known as "Fanaku", in which "Fana" could have meant perdition, an apt adjective
for a rock situated in a tricky navigation channel covered often in mist. But then
who is to say that fana was not a corruption of "pana", a haven-rock for the
shipwrecked!
This summer, I revisited the origin of the place-name Basidu on the westernmost
extremity of Kishm Island. The British used to call it Bassadore before settling on
Basidu, after the Moslem African practice of adding the sound “u” to a name as the
sign of affection (for example, Mamadu, for Mohammad). Bassadore was probably the
corruption of the name of the local settlement that was Bandar Singau, which was a
corruption of Bandar Sagalou, which signified the rocky (sangalou) nature of the port
(bandar), literally meaning Rockport.
This summer, I figured out what I did for a living, finally. I arrived at this moment
of self-realization when trying to come up with an adequate answer for the mundane
question “occupation” on a questionnaire entitled “Biographical Data: Scholars in
Iranian Studies and related Fields”. I wrote in “Lawyer, Essayist, Artisan, Analyst
and Interpreter.” Then I realized it is not at all about what I do for a living, but
rather how I live. However, with the start of another school year, I still ask if I
am not quite done, yet?
This summer, during one of my solitary drives to Cape Cod, I came upon WOCN 104 FM. I
heard the announcer say “This is Ocean 104” and I experienced Radio Darya all over
again.
* Guive Mirfendereski is VP and GC at Virtual Telemetry Corporation since 2004 and is
the artisan doing business as Guy vanDeresk (http://www.trapworks.com). Born in
Tehran in 1952, he is a graduate of Georgetown University's College of Arts and
Sciences (BA), Tufts University's Fletcher School (PhD, MALD, MA) and Boston College
Law School (JD). He is the author of "A Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312240058).
http://www.iranian.com/mirfendereski.html