# Parrot ببغاء



## Cilquiestsuens

*Moderator note:*
*This discussion started in the Indo-Iranian forum and was moved here to keep the original thread on topic.*



Faylasoof said:


> No PG, it is not from Arabic! In Arabic a parrot isببغاء_ babghaa'_.


In Arabic it is actually* babbagha'* with a shadda on the second b... It is simply one of my favorite words in the language !!


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## Faylasoof

Cilquiestsuens said:


> In Arabic it is actually*  babbagha'* with a shadda on the second b... It is simply one of my favorite words in the language !!



No sir! Not necessarily so in MSA according to Hans Wehr and Al-Mawrid - both trustworthy lexicons of standard Arabic. Wehr gives _babbagha*a*'_ only _within brackets_, but without the _shaddah_ as _the main form_. Al-Mawrid shows only the _non-shaddah_ form. Most other dictionaries also give it as below:

ببغا_ babghaa_ (sing.), بَبغاوات babghaawaat (plural).

Unless you are talking of a dialect of Arabic Cilqui.May be some dialects use the form with the shaddah as the norm.


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## Cilquiestsuens

I beg to differ.... I don't think this is dialect... You find a great number of references with the shadda.. such as this one and they rather belong to Classical Arabic... Now, we'd better shift this thread to the Arabic section if we want to have an answer (my guess = both are Classical Arabic), but check out the amazing destiny of this word:

This Arabic word is said to be the etymology of the Spanish : papagayo (=parrot) and Italian pappagallo (=parrot) what is interesting here is the geminate in Italian which hints at a geminate in the original.

And it made the English word popinjay.... Check it out here.

Now, funnily enough, the first link above says this word was borrowed into Arabic from 'some Indian dialects' (it's a well known fact, Indians just have dialects, no languages.... huh ) and the last link says it comes from Persian *babgha* ?????

Now the pronounciation *babbagha'* I've heard it with levantine speakers (Lebanon) speaking MSA... It doesn't mean this is dialect... I've never heard *babgha'* though...


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## Faylasoof

I don’t wish to sound abrupt or anything, but this has little to do with PG’s original question. Is our word for parrot (طوطا) of Arabic origin? The answer is in the negative as I say above. The shaddah is not really relevant here although it'll be good to know for academic reasons if it was used so once. In MSA the non-shaddah form predominates, as I imply above. All the modern lexicons  I've seen lack a shaddah in this word.

I grant you that the references you give use a shaddah and they are "classical" - though sometimes even in classical texts you can see words from dialects! I’m not suggesting that this is dialect. Just that two or three examples are not statistically significant.


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## Masjeen

*خليفةٌ في قفص بين وصيف وبغا *** يقولُ ما قالا لهُ كما تقول الببغا*​ 
*850s AD*

see here in this poetry
if we didn't put a shadda it Wouldn't be a poetry
MORE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arood​


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## Faylasoof

Thanks Masjeen for responding! 

I see! But was it always like this? I mean generally speaking in prose and poetry? 

*Perhaps both with and without shaddah were used depending.*

In modern lexicons of MSA that I have looked at so far it is like this:

*Wehr:*
*babghaa2 **(*though Wehr mentions* in brackets ba*_*bbaghaa2*_too*).* 

*Al-Mawrid:*
*ba**b**ghaa2*

*Doniach (English-Arabic):*
*ba**b**ghaa2*

*Wortabat:*
*ba**b**ghaa2** & ba**bb**aghaa2*

*So I guess both are correct!*

*How do you pronounce it in your dialect? *


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## Masjeen

*well in dialect we  pronounce it as bagbaga2*


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## Faylasoof

OK thanks Masjeen! So that is yet another variation!

It would be nice to know how it is pronounced in other dialects.


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## Masjeen

Faylasoof said:


> OK thanks Masjeen! So that is yet another variation!
> 
> It would be nice to know how it is pronounced in other dialects.


 
*ببغان  (Levant)*​


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## Cilquiestsuens

Thanks all for your replies. The original question was however on the common pronounciation of this word in MSA...


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## cherine

Cilquiestsuens said:


> The original question was however on the common pronounciation of this word in MSA...


With all respect to the resources cited by Faylasoof, I have to say that I never heard babghaa2. It's always with a doubled "b": ba*bb*aghaa2. 
I'm not saying that the other pronunciation is not correct, just saying what I know to be the common or usual pronunciation.



Faylasoof said:


> It would be nice to know how it is pronounced in other dialects.


In Egyptian Arabic it's different from fuS7a; it's baghbaghaan بغبغان . The Egyptian pronunciation of the غ is "lighter"(?) than the one in fuS7a مُرَقَّقة not مفخَّمة . 
There's a famous song of the Algerian singer Warda وردة called أنا عندي بغبان you can search for it to hear how it's pronounced.


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## WadiH

I've never heard it without a _shadda_ either.

Perhaps the references mentioned by Faylasoof were trying to shoehorn it into a more typical Arabic pattern such as فعْلاء.


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## WadiH

Faylasoof said:


> OK thanks Masjeen! So that is yet another variation!
> 
> It would be nice to know how it is pronounced in other dialects.



ببّغا
*bab*bagha


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## Faylasoof

Thank you Cherine, Wadi Hanifa and all others who participated.



Wadi Hanifa said:


> I've never heard it without a _shadda_ either.
> 
> Perhaps the references mentioned by Faylasoof were trying to shoehorn it into a more typical Arabic pattern such as فعْلاء.


 
That may well be the case. But given Al-Jahiz's work (quoted below) this _may _have happened long ago.

Although I never believe at once all that I read and hear, some things do leave me puzzled. The fus7a word for parrot is just the latest! 

When reliable (or should we say supposedly reliable) lexicons might present inaccurate or partially accurate information then I do start to worry. 

However, there was another reason why I thought we could try clear up this spelling. 

On and off I’ve been reading al-Jahiz’s (الجاحظ) very interesting book *كتاب الحيوان*. In volume 2 (out of 4) you read this:


والفيل عجيب ظريف، ولكنه قَبيحٌ مَسيخ، وهو في ذلك بهيٌّ نبيلٌ، والعين لا تكرهه، والخنزير قبيح مَسيخ، والعين تكرهه، والقرد قَبيحٌ مليح. وعند البَبْغاء والمُكَّاء والعندليب وابن تَمْرة مع صغر أجْرامها ولَطافة شُخوصها، وضَعْف أسْرِها، من المعرفة والكَيس والفِطنة والخُبث ما ليسَ عند الزَّرافة والطاووس والببغاء عجيب الأمر، ويقولون: عندليب وعندبيل، وهو من أصغر الطير.​ 

I see this same spelling in my printed copy and the two I downloaded. This is fus7a. Of course I haven't seen the original. Thatwould be even better. 

So perhaps it is OK to spell both ways; with or without the shaddah. Al-Jahiz seems to have used the latter. But whether this was prevalent at his time and in and around Basra (where he lived) is something I have no idea about.


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## Xence

Faylasoof said:


> So perhaps it is OK to spell both ways; with or without the shaddah.


Yes, both are right, and I remember having read it without a shadda in many ancient texts.
Besides, al-Qamus Al-MuHiT seems to privilege _babghaa2_:



> البَبْغاءُ، وقد تُشَدَّدُ الباء الثانيةُ: طائرٌ أخْضَرُ، ولَقَبُ أبِي الفَرَجِ عبدِ الواحدِ بنِ نَصْرٍ المَخْزومِيِّ الشاعِرِ، لُقِّبَ لِلُثْغَتِه


 
***


> It would be nice to know how it is pronounced in other dialects.


In Algerian, it's بَبّغايو _babbaghaayu(u)._


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## Faylasoof

Thanks Xence for both the Algerian Arabic pronunciation and esp. for the Al-MuHiit reference. I was going to look up al-Munjid but this is even better! 

So we can now consider the fus7a issue settled.


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## Andrew___

May I ask how we pronounce ببغاء in Standard Arabic?

Is it babghaa' or bab*a*ghaa'?

(Also, I was surprised when I heard an Egyptian pronounce it baghbagha in colloquial ).

Thanks,
Andrew

*Moderator note:*
*I merged this new thread to the existing one to avoid repetitions. *


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## elroy

I pronounce it "babbaghaa2" (بَبَّغَاء).


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## ayed

Andrew___ said:


> May I ask how we pronounce ببغاء in Standard Arabic?
> 
> Is it babghaa' or babbaghaa'?
> 
> (Also, I was surprised when I heard an Egyptian pronounce it baghbagha in colloquial ).
> 
> Thanks,
> Andrew


See my correction in red.Both are correct.


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## elroy

Wadi Hanifa said:


> ببّغا
> *bab*bagha


 Same in Palestinian.


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## Schem

We pronounce it bubbagha. Dhamma in the beginning (possibly as a result of hypercorrection) and no long vowels.


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## elroy

Schem said:


> possibly as a result of hypercorrection


 Could you elaborate on this?


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## WadiH

Schem said:


> (possibly as a result of hypercorrection)



I think it's probably influenced by the way the 'b' is pronounced in this dialect, where it has a 'bigger'/'emphatic' (maybe aspirated?) sound, hence _yibah > yuBah, al-3beed > al-3uBeed / al-3uBayd_, etc.).


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## Schem

Wadi Hanifa said:


> I think it's probably influenced by the way the 'b' is pronounced in this dialect, where it has a 'bigger'/'emphatic' (maybe aspirated?) sound, hence _yibah > yuBah, al-3beed > al-3uBeed / al-3uBayd_, etc.).



Emphatic beth is fully realized in Gassim (I though that was the case for all Najd?). Unaizah houses two families of the name العْبِيد and they're pronounced differently according to the quality of the letter and following vowel. The distinction is established and marked when reciting name lists, for example.


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