# Etymology of the Levantine word "zalame" زلمة



## abu l-bisse

Hi folks,

I am new here and I have a question about the Palestinian word زلمة zalame "man". Where else in the Arabic world is this word or a similiar one in use for "man"?  Does anybody has an idea where it does come from?  It is really astonishing that a word with a feminine ending ist used for "man", isn't it?

Greetings from Germany
abu l-bisse


----------



## WadiH

It's used in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

I believe it comes from the Aramaic _zalamtha_ (زلمثا).


----------



## Masjeen

Wadi Hanifa said:


> It's used in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
> I believe it comes from the Aramaic _zalamtha_ (زلمثا).


 
Wow, as I expected it is Aramaic, we also use it in Kuwait to say males (Racial discrimination Against Women!)


----------



## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> I believe it comes from the Aramaic _zalamtha_ (زلمثا).



I too think it should be Aramaic, because it seems to be only used in the old Aramaic regions, as you wrote.  But the problem is, that in Costaz' Syriac Dictionary the root ZLM exists, but there is no زلمثا. The meanings of the entries in ZLM are: to lead into error, to pervert, to be inflected, deviated, opposite, depraved, obliquity, vowel, depraviation, vice.  Nothing that is connected with "man", hopefully ...


----------



## Ghabi

abu l-bisse said:


> But the problem is, that in Costaz' Syriac Dictionary the root ZLM exists, but there is no زلمثا. The meanings of the entries in ZLM are: to lead into error, to pervert, to be inflected, deviated, opposite, depraved, obliquity, vowel, depraviation, vice.  Nothing that is connected with "man", hopefully ...



Um, but that is the emphatic ظ ...


----------



## abu l-bisse

Ghabi said:


> Um, but that is the emphatic ظ ...


 
No it's the Aramaic root زلم.


----------



## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> I too think it should be Aramaic, because it seems to be only used in the old Aramaic regions, as you wrote.  But the problem is, that in Costaz' Syriac Dictionary the root ZLM exists, but there is no زلمثا. The meanings of the entries in ZLM are: to lead into error, to pervert, to be inflected, deviated, opposite, depraved, obliquity, vowel, depraviation, vice.  Nothing that is connected with "man", hopefully ...



Well there are many varieties of Aramaic as you know.  When listening to audio clips in the Aramaic of southern Syria (Ma'luula and its neighbors), I heard the word زلمثا very frequently.  Upon searching for its meaning, I found that it meant the same as the word زلمة.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS350&q=زلمثا&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Now, it could be that these Aramaic-speakers borrowed it from vernacular Arabic, but that strikes me as unlikely.


----------



## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> When listening to audio clips in the Aramaic of southern Syria (Ma'luula and its neighbors), I heard the word زلمثا very frequently.



You are right, _zalemtha_ ist used in Neo Western Aramaic and means "man". But I can't find an old Aramaic anchestor for this word.  So it should be borrowed from another language, maybe from Arabic?


----------



## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> You are right, _zalemtha_ ist used in Neo Western Aramaic and means "man". But I can't find an old Aramaic anchestor for this word.  So it should be borrowed from another language, maybe from Arabic?



But there is no ancestor for it in Arabic either.  The root زلم gives radically different results in Arabic dictionaries.  If tis was an Arabic word, we would see it surviving somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, or in some other vernacular outside of the zone where Aramaic was spoken.

I'm sure someone has investigated this before.  You might want to look at some scholarly studies on Syrian-type Arabic.


----------



## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> If tis was an Arabic word, we would see it surviving somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, or in some other vernacular outside of the zone where Aramaic was spoken.



Yes, exactly that is our problem.  Therefore I asked about, where it is used.  I hope, we get some more answers.

I just found a hint in Lane's dictionary in the entry زَلَم , which means "an arrow without a head and without feathers". At the end of the article he writes, that the word signifies also "a strong and light or active boy".  This is the first hint, that this word could be Arabic. 

Neo Western Aramaic has a lot of Arabic loans, so _zalemtha_ could also be a loan from Arabic.


----------



## clevermizo

abu l-bisse said:


> Hi folks,
> 
> I am new here and I have a question about the Palestinian word زلمة zalame "man". Where else in the Arabic world is this word or a similiar one in use for "man"?  Does anybody has an idea where it does come from?  It is really astonishing that a word with a feminine ending ist used for "man", isn't it?
> 
> Greetings from Germany
> abu l-bisse



I just wanted to add that usages vary, this may help figure out the original reflex in whatever the parent language was. While in Palestinian dialects _zalame_ is used to mean man in general, in Syrian and Jordanian dialects and probably also Lebanon, this word is more akin to the English "dude" - a slightly informal, or perhaps occasionally impolite usage. These dialects use a word based on رجل or رجّال for "man" in general, as standard Arabic. I wouldn't use _zalame_ in a polite or formal situation I don't think, though in Palestinian this word seems to be pervasive throughout registers.

If the word was originally pejorative (?) perhaps this information might help in the quest for an original root. I wonder what the usage/distribution of the Aramaic _zalemtha_ is.

Also the feminine ending is not strange. First of all, if the parent language is Aramaic and the -e is a realization of the Aramaic emphatic noun state suffix -a, then it's not feminine at all and the written form زلمة is just an artifact of an informal spelling convention. Second even if the parent language is Arabic, we know male names with a ـة suffix like معاوية so having a general word for man with the suffix isn't far-fetched. Also, it doesn't function as a feminine suffix grammatically because it only agrees with masculine verbs and adjectives.


----------



## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> I just wanted to add that usages vary, this may help figure out the original reflex in whatever the parent language was. While in Palestinian dialects _zalame_ is used to mean man in general, in Syrian and Jordanian dialects and probably also Lebanon, this word is more akin to the English "dude" - a slightly informal, or perhaps occasionally impolite usage. These dialects use a word based on رجل or رجّال for "man" in general, as standard Arabic. I wouldn't use _zalame_ in a polite or formal situation I don't think, though in Palestinian this word seems to be pervasive throughout registers.



I've never heard it used perjoratively.  In fact, زلم connotes even more "manliness" than رجل.  I'm reminded of the Lebanese political slogan عندك زلم بتشرب دم.

There is this entry in the Arabic dictionaries that relates to slavery:
وقالوا: هو العبد زُلْماً؛ عن اللحياني، وزُلْمَةً وزُلَمَةً وزَلْمَةً وزَلَمَةً أَي قَدُّه قَدُّ العَبد وحَذْوُهُ حَذوُهُ، وقيل: معناه كأَنه يشبه العبد حتى كأنه هو؛ عن اللحياني، قال: يقال ذلك في النكرة وكذلك في الأَمة، وفي الصحاح: أَي قُدَّ قَدَّ العبد. يقال: هذا العبد زُلْماً يا فتى أَي قَدّاً وحَذْواً، وقيل: معنى كل ذلك حَقّاً.

So, here a زلمة is someone who "looks like a slave," or "acts like a slave," (could it just mean "black-skinned?").  I'm having trouble believing that this is the origin of the word we're discussing.  Seems like an unlikely route for the word to take.  There are words for slave like فتى, صبي, غلام, and جارية that are also used for non-slaves, but these were words that came to be applied to slaves in order to avoid more demeaning words like عبد and أمة, not the other way around.

Could it be from some other Middle Eastern language that used in the area in the past?  Isn't it also possible that the word simply was never recorded in any Aramaic lexicon (there many Arabic words that simply never made it into the Classical lexicons).


----------



## abu l-bisse

clevermizo said:


> If the word was originally pejorative (?) perhaps this information might help in the quest for an original root. I wonder what the usage/distribution of the Aramaic _zalemtha_ is.
> 
> Also the feminine ending is not strange. First of all, if the parent language is Aramaic and the -e is a realization of the Aramaic emphatic noun state suffix -a, then it's not feminine at all and the written form زلمة is just an artifact of an informal spelling convention. Second even if the parent language is Arabic, we know male names with a ـة suffix like معاوية so having a general word for man with the suffix isn't far-fetched. Also, it doesn't function as a feminine suffix grammatically because it only agrees with masculine verbs and adjectives.



_zalame_ is in Palestine the normal word for "man" and is not pejorative.  _zalemtha_ is in Neo Western Aramaic (NWA) also a normal word for "man". NWA is spoken in 3 villages in the Qalamun Mountains (Syria), the most famous is Maalula. The ending _-tha_ is in Aramaic always a femine ending.  There is no anchestor of this word found in any Aramaic dictionary.  But in Arabic there is this entry in Lane's dictionary, which I cited above.  So I think it is Arabic until somebody finds a better explanation. Really strange is, that we can't find a trace of the word outside the zone, where Aramaic was spoken. In Palestinian Arabic there exists another word, that is very masculine, but has a feminine ending: the personal pronoun of the 3rd person Sg. _huwwe_ "he".

Thanks to all for helping!


----------



## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> At the end of the article he writes, that the word signifies also "a strong and light or active boy".  This is the first hint, that this word could be Arabic.



Does Lane provide a source for this by any chance?


----------



## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Does Lane provide a source for this by any chance?



The entry has the mark (TA), what means Taj el-'Aroos (in his writing).

I have some new informations from two Aramaists to whom I wrote.  They both answered immediately that this word can't be Aramaic.  In NWA there are 2 words for "man" in usage:  zalemtha and ghabroona.  The latter one is good old Aramaic.  In Turoyo, which is a Neo Eastern Aramaic language from South East Turkey and which is the most widespread Aramaic language nowadays, they use _zlam_.  Only the dialect of Midyat prefers _gawro_, what has the same root as the NWA word.  

The Kurds in South East Turkey use _zlamé_, but I don't think, that it is an indoeuropean word.

So, everybody in the region seems to use ZLM.


----------



## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> The entry has the mark (TA), what means Taj el-'Aroos (in his writing).



Here it is from TA:
| الزَّلَم بالتَّحْرِيك : الغُلام الشَّدِيد | الخَفِيف ، والجَمْع : أَزْلامٌ ، قال | الشاعِرُ : | % ( بات يُقاسِيها غُلامٌ كالزَّلَمْ % | ليس بِراعِي إبل ولا غَنَمْ )

So, this usage of زلم is meant metaphorically (غلام كالزلم); a boy who is light and quick like an arrow.  If you read on, you'll notice that any woman or man who is tall and thin is called زلم, again like an arrow.

Also, there is no _taa_ at the end of it.  Why would a _taa_ be added to it if the original word did not have it?  It's usually the reverse that happens in vernacular Arabic (a word contains a _taa_ in CA but lacks it in vernacular).



> I have some new informations from two Aramaists to whom I wrote.  They both answered immediately that this word can't be Aramaic.



Interesting.  Did they explain why?


----------



## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Also, there is no _taa_ at the end of it.  Why would a _taa_ be added to it if the original word did not have it?  It's usually the reverse that happens in vernacular Arabic (a word contains a _taa_ in CA but lacks it in vernacular).
> 
> "I have some new informations from two Aramaists
> to whom I wrote. They both answered immediately
> that this word can't be Aramaic."​Interesting.  Did they explain why?



There are only very little Arabic sources before the Koran. Older Arabs, for example the Nabataeans, spoke their mother tongue Arabic in her daily life but wrote Aramaic. So we don‘t know anything about their Arabic but we know very much about Aramaic in former times. We have about 3000 years Aramaic sources from Aramaeens and others.  And in all these extensive Aramaic sources we have no trace of an anchestor of the word _zalama_. The root ZLM is marginal in Aramaic - perhaps a loan at all - and supplies nothing that is connected with "person" or "man". Therefore it can't be from Aramaic origin and it is a loanword in newer Aramaic dialects.

I discussed the problem also with a friend, who is an Arabist, and we are now sure, that _zalame_ is of Arabic origin. In some dialect dictionaries we found the meaning „pedestrian“, for example in Dozy: "_zalama_ la personne; on dit _yā zalama_ quand on adresse la parole à un homme qu’on ne connaît pas et qui est indifférent à celui qui parle; le pl. est _azlām_. L’habitant des villes en Syrie y joint ordinairement l’idée de piéton, et quand il est question de soldats, le pl. _zulm_ signifie l’infanterie ...". See also محيط المحيط the entry تزلّم الفارس اي ترجّل.  So the root ZLM seems to be used in the same meaning like RJL, what means originally „to walk, to go by foot“.  And the word زلم _zalam_ or رجل _rajul / راجل rājil_ and so on was used to address a unknown person which came by foot.  From this appellation of a stranger the meaning "man" is derived.

Why have all known dialect words a feminine ending?  It is ethymologocally not a feminine ending but a Vocativ ending.  You have in Classical Arabic for example يا عجباه \ يا عجبا _yaa ʕajabā(h)_ "oh miracle", يا عمّا _yaa ʕammā_ "uncle!", يا أبتي \ يا أبتَ \ يا أبتا  _yaa abati / abata / abatāh_ "father!".  The Vokativ adds a _-a_ (short), _-ā_ (long) or _-āh_ to the name.  Also a pedestrian _zalam_ was called _yaa zalamā_ "hey, you, who is walking there". Some dialects treat nowadays the ending as if it was a feminine ending by giving her an Imala to _-e_ or _-i_.

There are also other explanations for the feminine ending possible. Note, that there are other words, that have no feminine ending in CA, but in dialects, like _huwwe_ "he".  And there are a lot of words, which are in Palestinian Arabic treatet as Masculina although the have a feminine ending, like: خليفة _xalīfa,_ علّامة _ʕallāma,_ هبيلة _habīla,_ حوسة _ḥōsa,_ خوّيفة _xawwīfa,_ عطيلة _ʕaṭīla._ The feminine ending seems to be here an intensivation and serves as an amplification not as a feminine marker. This could also be the origin of the ending of _zalame,_ but I believe in the Vocative explanation.

That this word is in use only in Northeastern Arabic Dialects is not really a problem. On the other side wie have a widespread use in North Africa of the word _tarrās_ for "man".  The fact that it is only used in Western Arabic is no argument to say, that it is not Arabic.  It is not known in the East, but of course it is Arabic.

I am now away for a week and will not read further comments until next month.

اللّه يحافظكم
أبو البسّة


----------



## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> \In some dialect dictionaries we found the meaning „pedestrian“, for example in Dozy: "_zalama_ la personne; on dit _yā zalama_ quand on adresse la parole à un homme qu’on ne connaît pas et qui est indifférent à celui qui parle; le pl. est _azlām_. L’habitant des villes en Syrie y joint ordinairement l’idée de piéton, et quand il est question de soldats, le pl. _zulm_ signifie l’infanterie ...". See also محيط المحيط the entry تزلّم الفارس اي ترجّل.  So the root ZLM seems to be used in the same meaning like RJL, what means originally „to walk, to go by foot“.  And the word زلم _zalam_ or رجل _rajul / راجل rājil_ and so on was used to address a unknown person which came by foot.  From this appellation of a stranger the meaning "man" is derived.



This is the most promising Arabic etymology I've seen yet for this word.  Thanks.


----------



## BP.

_zalme _probably means boys/men in Pushto as well.


----------



## Meyer Wolfsheim

abu l-bisse said:


> Hi folks,
> 
> I am new here and I have a question about the Palestinian word زلمة zalame "man". Where else in the Arabic world is this word or a similiar one in use for "man"? Does anybody has an idea where it does come from? It is really astonishing that a word with a feminine ending ist used for "man", isn't it?
> 
> Greetings from Germany
> abu l-bisse


 
Keep in mind that grammatical gender is arbitrary.  You should be more than aware of this due to your native language being German; the word for girl being "das Mädchen" is treated as neuter despite the natural gender of the word being feminine.  Languages, often when losing inflections, re-examine words as having a different gender than they once did (as is the case in some romance languages).


----------

