Re: "standard" Arabic translation of Don Quixote


Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> Marc Adler wrote:
> > Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> > > Nigel Greenwood wrote:
> > > > Marc Adler wrote:
> > > > > Is there a translation of Don Quixote which is considered "standard" in
> > > > > Arabic?
> > > >
> > > > Doesn't Cervantes make it quite clear that his book is in fact a
> > > > translation from an Arabic original by Cide Hamete Benengeli? I think
> > > > Sancho gets the name wrong & calls him "Berenjena".
> > >
> > > it's just a narrative device. the last word apparently refers to an
> > > eggplant.
> >
> > Does "Hamete Benengeli" sound like a plausible Arabic name? There are a
>
> Hamete seems to represent Hami:d or Ha:mid or even Hama:d (with imala,
> as was in Andalusian Arabic). Berengeli seems Old Portuguese beringela
> acc. to OED "brinjal". related to "aubergine" from arabic al-barqu:q
> (which is ultimately from greek and latin, so OED) "plum, apricot" and
> probably influenced by arabic ba:*dh*inja:n "eggplant" (from persian
> ba:dinga:n)

the translation has for Cide Hamete Benengeli (Ch. 8, with footnote)

sayyidi: (si:di:) Ha:mid b(i)n al-'uyyaliyy ('uyyal is vocalized)

Badawi explains that he subscribes to the theory of an orientalist
that engeli comes from a (spanish?) word meaning "stag"(arabic:
'uyyal),
and that refers to ciervo and hence Cervantes.

he mentions that alternatively it refers to "eggplant"


these websites claim that Engeli is for 'inkili:ziyy / ingili:ziyy
i.e. "English" and that the original is not Cervantes but an
Englishman:

http://www.sirbacon.org/links/carrq.html

http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/cervante/csa/articf81/mancing.htm

.