# مونوغرافية المقدس [...] ودراسة آليات اشتغال الكتابة



## César Lasso

Hello!

I'm volunteering to help a Spanish library specialized in Andalusian and Arabic books. I'm in the heart of al-Andalus, bi-madeenati QurTuba!!!

Could you please help me with the translation of the following title?

Mūnūghrāfiyyat al-muqaddas bi-madīnati Miknās : Muqāraba li-ȥāhira al-awliyā fī tağliyati-hā al-thaqafiyya wa-l-adabiyya wa-dirāsat alyāq ishtighāl al-kitāba

Of course, I transliterated the title (for the book record) and there could be a mistake in my transliteration (especially in my transliteration of "alyāq"). It was really written as follows:

آلياق

(please don't laugh at my attempt of a Spanish translation. In English, it would be something as the following):

A Monography of the Holy in the City of Meknes : An approach to the group of holy men in its cultural and literary aspects, and a study on (???) the use of writing.
_
Sa-ashkurukum 3alà ayyi musaa3ada!

_


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## AndyRoo

César Lasso said:


> آلياق



Are you sure of this word? Could it be آليات (mechanisms)?


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## إسكندراني

No it's ألياق, as in the accepted practices or professional standards or conventions.
And اشتغال الكتابة is the profession of writing.
i'm not sure what مقاربة لظاهر الأولياء means but can ask someone who might know better than me.


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## César Lasso

Thanks a lot for that and any possible further help!


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## AndyRoo

I found this on Google books:
مونوغرافية المقدس بمدينة مكناس: مقاربة لظاهرة الأولياء في تجلياتها الثقافية والأدبية ودراسة آليلت اشتغال الكتابة
I think there is a typo and آليلت should be آليات


I'd change the transliteration to make it more standard:


César Lasso said:


> Mūnūghrāfiyyat al-muqaddas bi-madīnati Miknās : Muqāraba li-ȥāhira ẓāhira al-awliyā' fī tağliyati tajalliyyāti-hā al-thaqafiyya wa-l-adabiyya wa-dirāsat alyāq 'ālīyāt ishtighāl al-kitāba


I'd make some changes to the translation:


César Lasso said:


> A Monography of the Holy in the City of Meknes : An approach to the group phenomenon of holy men in its cultural and literary aspects manifestations, and a study of the mechanisms of the use of writing.


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## fdb

al-muqaddas = the shrine. Otherwise, thumbs up to Andy's version.


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## akhooha

Just a small note:  standard transliteration in use by USA libraries is slightly different:
Mūnūghrāfiyat  al-muqaddas bi-madīnat Maknās : muqārabah li-ẓāhirat al-awliyāʾ fī  tajalliyātihā al-thaqāfīyah wa-al-adabīyah wa-dirāsat āliyāt ishtighāl  al-kitābah /


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## GoldBug

Mūnūghrāfiyat ?

Is this plural?

In any case, the English translation is incorrect (I also think the Arabic is incorrect most likely because the author has mixed up 2 English terms and then "made up" or "coined" a new Arabic word).

The correct English word is MONOGRAPH which  is a specialist work of writing on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, usually by a single author.  This must be the word the author really meant to use.

MONOGRAPHY is a drawing, a representation by lines without color - an outline drawing.  (The use of MONOGRAPHY for MONOGRAPH used to be acceptable, but this meaning has long been obsolete).

What the Arabic for both of these terms is, I don't know. But can it really be Mūnūghrāfiyat ??


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## AndyRoo

GoldBug said:


> Mūnūghrāfiyat ?
> 
> Is this plural?



No - it's singular: مونوغرافية


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## César Lasso

AndyRoo said:


> I found this on Google books:
> مونوغرافية المقدس بمدينة مكناس: مقاربة لظاهرة الأولياء في تجلياتها الثقافية والأدبية ودراسة آليلت اشتغال الكتابة



Yes! That was exactly the title I saw!

Thank you for that:

Muqāraba li-ȥāhira ẓāhira

That ẓ is exactly the character I could not find. Could you please send me the capital letter so I can also copy & paste it in future occasions?

tağliyati tajalliyyāti

I'll have to check tomorrow if there was an alif I missed (tajliyya or tajalliyyât).

I forgot to tell you that I'm trying to use the transliteration of the Spanish Academy of Arabists, which is quite similar to the English system of transliteration except for slight differences. J corresponds to kh, so we need something like ğ for ğeem. And we Spaniards never transliterate "madinah". Tâ' marbooTa is omitted or -t if having a dependant word:

al-madīna

but:

madīnat al-Qāhira

Thank you all for your help!


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## AndyRoo

César Lasso said:


> That ẓ is exactly the character I could not find. Could you please send me the capital letter so I can also copy & paste it in future occasions?



Yes: Here is the capital: Ẓ  It's interesting you capitalize the transliteration (I haven't seen that done before).


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## إسكندراني

Maybe it is just آلية? The ta2 marbutah is written in a funny way in magharibi script.


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## Bakr

مونوغرافية المقدس بمدينة مكناس: مقاربة لظاهرة الأولياء في تجلياتها الثقافية والأدبية ودراسة آليات اشتغال الكتابة

He is using the French term "monographie":

Étude détaillée sur un sujet précis et limité ou sur un personnage.

cf.http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/monographie


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## fdb

César Lasso said:


> Y
> 
> That ẓ is exactly the character I could not find. Could you please send me the capital letter so I can also copy & paste it in future occasions?



ẓ is in Unicode in the “Latin extended additional” subset, as are the other characters that you need for transliterated Arabic.


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## akhooha

fdb said:


> ẓ is in Unicode in the “Latin extended additional” subset, as are the other characters that you need for transliterated Arabic.


Just curious --- Where does one find this “Latin extended additional” subset?
When I had a Mac, there was a font that included macrons on top and dots below, but nothing (that I know of) on a PC.
Also the "Character Map" on Windows PC has all sorts of variations --- all, that is, except for dots below.
I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know how to access this “Latin extended additional” subset.  Thank you.


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## fdb

It is available with fonts such as Times New Roman. Go to Insert > Symbols > then scroll down.


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## akhooha

I'm assuming from your instructions you're referring to MS Word.  Maybe I'm blind (or it's because I've got Word 2002 on this computer), but I've scrolled all the way down and have seen no letters at all with dots underneath them...(I've tried with Times New Roman, Arial, Lucida Sans Unicode, and a number of others, but with no luck...


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## Bakr

Ẓ 
Choose a font, Tahoma works for me 
and type: 1E92  in the Character code box.

For more:

http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/unicode.php/unicode.php?block=1E00


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## AndyRoo

akhooha said:


> I'm assuming from your instructions you're referring to MS Word.  Maybe I'm blind (or it's because I've got Word 2002 on this computer), but I've scrolled all the way down and have seen no letters at all with dots underneath them...(I've tried with Times New Roman, Arial, Lucida Sans Unicode, and a number of others, but with no luck...



This might help - if you have an old windows machine you need to install the universal font manually.


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## akhooha

Bakr said:


> Ẓ
> Choose a font, Tahoma works for me
> and type: 1E92  in the Character code box.
> 
> For more:
> 
> http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/unicode.php/unicode.php?block=1E00


  Thank you, Bakr.
I have also found a very handy virtual keyboard that offers all the symbols necessary to write (and here's an example) al-ḥurūf alʿarabīyyah  in Roman transliteration.  You can use your actual keyboard (with shortcuts like  z=  will give you ẓ and a= gives you ā.  The only characters you have to mouse-click to use are hamza ʾ   and ʿain ʿ. You type out your text, then just copy and paste.
It's at:
http://www.lexilogos.com/clavier/arabe_latin.htm


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## Bakr

It's very useful, thank you akhooha.


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## César Lasso

AndyRoo said:


> Yes: Here is the capital: Ẓ It's interesting you capitalize the transliteration (I haven't seen that done before).



Well, I see that transliterations from Arabic into Latin script capitalize less... But having a 5-year-BA in Linguistics, I cannot possibly imagine why you should capitalize "Morocco" and then transliterate "al-maghrib" - to me, it should be "al-Maghrib".

In Spain, there is a scholar "understanding" or "agreement" to refer to the former Islamic "Portugal+Spain" as "al-*A*ndalus" or "al-*Á*ndalus". You can also see "Al-Andalus" or "Al Andalus" (which are definitely incorrect unless starting sentence or after fullstop).

That is the reason why I needed available the capital Ẓ.

Thanks a lot for your help, friends


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## Bakr

About: The holy المقدس
The author is talking about مفهوم المقدس 
I think of "The notion of the sacred".


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## AndyRoo

César Lasso said:


> Well, I see that transliterations from Arabic into Latin script capitalize less... But having a 5-year-BA in Linguistics, I cannot possibly imagine why you should capitalize "Morocco" and then transliterate "al-maghrib" - to me, it should be "al-Maghrib".
> 
> In Spain, there is a scholar "understanding" or "agreement" to refer to the former Islamic "Portugal+Spain" as "al-*A*ndalus" or "al-*Á*ndalus". You can also see "Al-Andalus" or "Al Andalus" (which are definitely incorrect unless starting sentence or after fullstop).
> 
> That is the reason why I needed available the capital Ẓ.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your help, friends



Oh, You're right - I can see now they use capitals all the time in bibliographies/references etc. Never noticed before.


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## César Lasso

Bakr said:


> About: The holy المقدس
> The author is talking about مفهوم المقدس
> I think of "The notion of the sacred".



Thank you, Bakr.


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