linguistic miscellany
some random linguistic notes + frequently asked questions
Hi friends,
I’ve got something a little more chatty and informal for you today.
Over the course of this project, I periodically come across random linguistic situations that I think a lot about. Many of these things probably don’t matter terribly much to many readers but because my brain has been rotted by linguistic analysis, I need somewhere to stick them.
My main goal with my linguistic approach in this work is to do what I can to open up readers to the beauty of the Arabic language, primarily, and all the other languages that have been used to discuss the stations, secondarily. The primary languages used are Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit and Chinese, all languages that are notoriously impenetrable for people who did not grow up with them. I have the most education in Arabic (Fusḥa and Shāmi), some familiarity with Koinē Greek and contemporary Mandarin Chinese, and very little knowledge of Classical Sanskrit or contemporary Hindi-Urdu. I do not read or speak any of those languages fluently! I’ll use what I have to help give a leg up to all of the lunar stations girlies, but surely there will be mistakes.
This will be another living document. For now, here are a few miscellaneous linguistic tidbits.
I’ve included some frequently asked questions on my work with the stations, which I’ve summed up below. For their answers, you’ll have to check them out on my blog!
The indicator stars
What does indicator mean? Which stars are associated with which station?
Does each station have One True Indicator star?
A note on numbering
Which station is the first? Why?
How come there are variant numbering systems?
Arabic roots
Why do some people say manzils and others say manāzil?
What does it mean when people refer to an Arabic word’s “root” and what’s so special about them?
The Arabic alphabet and assigning letters to manāzil
How does the Arabic alphabet work?
Why do some people associate different letters with the same station?
A note on transliteration of the stations’ names
Why do I spell the stations’ names in the Latin alphabet the way I do? What are those little apostrophes on certain words for?
Why do the stations have similar but different names in different texts?
Station names in other languages
Why do some people say mansion while I insist on station?
What do people call them in other languages?
Do you have a question that hasn’t been addressed yet? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
Shuly Rose
A deep joy to read. 💛