# Arabic "Mikail" ~ "Michael"



## Phosphorus

Greetings,

I want to know if Arabic "میکائیل", equivalent of "Michael", is a genuine word or it is actually a Hebrew loan which is Arabized (I am not sure perhaps through a "kh" > "k" shift)?

Allegedly Michael in Hebrew means "Who is like God" (it is controversially discussed over here: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2075060&highlight=michael+etymology), but it does not mention whether "Mikail" is just a cognate of "Michael" or a Hebrew loan.

Thanks in advance.


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## fdb

The angels Gabriel and Michael are mentioned in Qurʼān 2:98 . The Qurʼānic rasm ميكىل (for which the canonic reading is mīkāl) is a fairly straightforward transliteration of the Hebrew spelling מִיכָאֵל (mykʼl, vocalised mīḵāʼēl), with undotted yāʼ for intervocalic aleph. This is an example of transliterating the Hebrew script rather than transcribing the pronunciation.


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## Phosphorus

Many thanks for your reply professor. So as I get it Michael's name is not simply copied but it is actually taken over from Hebrew.


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## berndf

Phosphorus said:


> Many thanks for your reply professor. So as I get it Michael's name is not simply copied but it is actually taken over from Hebrew.


What he says is that the (one and only) occurrence in the Qur'an is most likely a mere transliteration from Hebrew/Aramaic. I think he's right; otherwise the "wrong" pronunciation
مِيكَالَ​(_mīkāl(a)_) with a long "a" but no glottal stop would be difficult to understand.


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## Phosphorus

Yes it is a verse that recommends to avoid enmity with Michael (along with some others). I am not sure but based on the Quranic orthography, I feel like they may actually pronounce it as "Miikaal"! Indeed I am not well conversed with Arabic pronunciations though.

I do not speculate that they may have kind of standardized its spelling during the Uthmanic era in accordance with Aramaic (or Hebrew) perhaps! So maybe the pronunciation "Mikail" is later emerged on the pattern of "جبریل".

<..>


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## fdb

وَجِبْرِيلَ وَمِيكَــىٰـلَ
is how it looks in the received orthography. The second name is recited as /miikaala/. The undoted yaa' is in effect silent.


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## Phosphorus

Thank you professor. I was not sure about the recitation. In current Arabic, contrary to Quran, they use میکائیل and pronounce it as: /miikaaiil". Where does this difference originate from? Am I correct with attributing it to "Jbriil" or Muslims have later developed "Mikail" on the pattern of Hebrew "Miikhaael"?


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## berndf

fdb said:


> is how it looks in the received orthography.


Yes. What I have quoted above is a kind of phonetic respelling used to clarify ambiguous original spellings. It indeed means /mi:ka:la/. Sorry, if this caused confusion.


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## rayloom

I don't think it's a transliteration or pronunciation error. If it were, the Hebrew alef would've been rendered as an alif in Arabic.

And it seems that the name Mikal does occur in Syriac, written as both ܡܝܟܐܠ _mykal  and_ ܡܝܟܝܠ _mykyl_ according to A Jeffery's "The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an", p.275. (I'm assuming the /a/ served as a mater lectionis)
Also it seems Ethiopic (which?), in addition to Arabic and Syriac, pronounced the name as Mikal. Well depends on whether I understood Horovitz' statement correctly: "Die arabische Wiedergabe des Namens, [...], stellt sich als Angleichung von Mīkāēl (so auch syrische und äthiopische) an die arabische Bildung mifʻāl, von _wakala_ aus gebildet, dar" (from Koranische Untersuchungen, p.143)
Maybe berndf or fdb can confirm what I understood.

As for how the name is realised in Arabic:
You have the form Mikal which was already discussed, and Mika'il. Both of which are used by muslims to refer the the Archangel Michael.
Then you have ميخايل Mikhail and ميخائيل Mikha'il, quite common in the Christian Arab community. Occurs also as a personal name.
Of course you also have the personal name ميشيل Michel, taken from French I guess.

Note: In all cases, the ultimate origin of the name is Hebrew. It's a compound name: mi "who"+ ka "like" + il "God".
mi is cognate to Arabic man. ka is the same in both Arabic and Hebrew. Il very rarely occurs in Classical Arabic in reference to God. It's usually Ilah for god, and Allah for God. The Hebrew cognate to Ilah would be Eloah. So even for argument's sake, it can't be Arabic.


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## fdb

Horovitz wrote a lot of strange things in his (rather old) book. Among them, the claim that Arabic mīkāl represents a reinterpretation Hebrew/Aramaic mīḵāʼēl as Arabic *miwkāl > mīkāl, from the verb wakala. Perhaps there is a better explanation.


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## Phosphorus

rayloom said:


> And it seems that the name Mikal does occur in Syriac, written as both ܡܝܟܐܠ _mykal  and_ ܡܝܟܝܠ _mykyl_ according to A Jeffery's "The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an", p.275. (I'm assuming the /a/ served as a mater lectionis)



Thanks for your contribution. The indication to the Syriac cognate is interesting. But any idea that how come "Mikal" becomes also "Mikail"?


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## Abu Rashid

Phosphorus said:


> I want to know if Arabic "میکائیل", equivalent of "Michael", is a genuine word


 
What exactly is a "genuine" word? Do you perhaps mean native?



Phosphorus said:


> or it is actually a Hebrew loan which is Arabized (I am not sure perhaps through a "kh" > "k" shift)?



The shift actually occurred in Hebrew, not Arabic. Hebrew k -> kh.

<..>


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## berndf

rayloom said:


> And it seems that the name Mikal does occur in Syriac, written as both ܡܝܟܐܠ _mykal  and_ ܡܝܟܝܠ _mykyl_ according to A Jeffery's "The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an", p.275. (I'm assuming the /a/ served as a mater lectionis).


The "normal" Syriac spelling is ܡܝܟܐܝܠ (MYK'YL). I doubt that ܐ in the spelling ܡܝܟܐܠ is a mater lectionis; in some versions of the Peshitta, spelling and vocalization is as in Hebrew, i.e. the Aleph is a consonant (here, Num 13:13; it is not the angel Michael but another bearer of that name but that shouldn't matter). But a misinterpretation as mater lectionis might have motivated the Qu'ranic _miikaal_.

In other versions here, you find yet another spelling ܡܠܟܝܠ (MLKYL) for Num 13:13 in Syriac and the Hebrew spelling in Palestinian Aramaic. In the NT, Rev. 12:7, you find the "normal" ܡܝܟܼܐܝܠ  (MYK'YL) in Syriac there.

Do you think that the Syriac variants with -YL at the end and without Aleph might explain the Qu'ranic spelling with ی‎ rather than ا‎‎?


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## origumi

berndf said:


> in some versions of the Peshitta, spelling and vocalization is as in Hebrew, i.e. the Aleph is a consonant (here, Num 13:13)


As far as I know, this part of the Peshitta (the Pentateuch) and specifically the verse you quote, is the Unkalos translation, maybe with minor differences. This translation is (1) influenced by Hebrew, and (2) was intended to be read by Jews. Therefore it seems that names follow the Hebrew source in regard to spelling and pronunciation (similarly to what we see also in the LXX) and not necessarily the Aramaic variant.


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## fdb

origumi said:


> As far as I know, this part of the Peshitta (the Pentateuch) and specifically the verse you quote, is the Unkalos translation, maybe with minor differences.



I am afraid this is totally wrong. It is easy enough to compare the two versions of the Pentateuch (they are printed side by side in the Paris and London polyglots). It is possible that the Syriac version of the Pentateuch used an older Jewish Targum (not that of pseudo-Onqelos), but this is the subject of much debate among specialists.


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## fdb

berndf said:


> In the NT, Rev. 12:7, you find the "normal" ܡܝܟܼܐܝܠ  (MYK'YL) in Syriac there.



The only occurrences of the name Michael in the New Testament are in Jude and Revelation. Both of these books were still missing from the canon at the time when the Pšīttā was produced. The versions found in the printed versions of the Syriac Bible are in fact modern translations. The spellings and vocalisations found there have thus no authority for classical Syriac.

But that is not really the issue here. The authentic Syriac spellings (in the Old Testament Pšīttā) represent mīḵāʼēl (as in Hebrew) or possibly mīḵāyēl. The letter ālef is normally used as a mater lectionis for ā only in word-final position.


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## origumi

fdb said:


> I am afraid this is totally wrong. It is easy enough to compare the two versions of the Pentateuch (they are printed side by side in the Paris and London polyglots). It is possible that the Syriac version of the Pentateuch used an older Jewish Targum (not that of pseudo-Onqelos), but this is the subject of much debate among specialists.


Numbers 13 (the whole chapter, maybe the whole book) in http://www.peshitta.org/ that berndf linked to (see there under Trilinear Targums) is identical almost word by word to the Unkalos translation. So maybe this text in http://www.peshitta.org/ is not THE Peshitta but only a reference to the Jewish source.

---

Added: you can see the Unqalos (Onqelos) text, bilingual Hebrew and Aramaic, here: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/u/up0404.htm (Numbers 13).


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## fdb

origumi said:


> Numbers 13 (the whole chapter, maybe the whole book) in http://www.peshitta.org/ that berndf linked to (see there under Trilinear Targums) is identical almost word by word to the Unkalos translation



I looked at this link. The texts there are the Hebrew MT and Onqelos. This has nothing to do with Pshitta. But i have to say that it does not actually make this clear on the site.


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## fdb

PS. You might want to look at the interesting book by M.P. Weitzman, _The Syriac version of the Old Testament_, Cambridge 1999.


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## Phosphorus

Abu Rashid said:


> What exactly is a "genuine" word? Do you perhaps mean native?


I exactly mean "genuine word". In the language, which you have expressed as your native language, "genuine word" is synonymous with "original word".


Abu Rashid said:


> The shift actually occurred in Hebrew, not Arabic. Hebrew k -> kh.


Thanks for your answer.

<..>


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## berndf

fdb said:


> ...or possibly mīḵāyēl.


That makes sense. It seems this name still exists among Syriac Christians. Can someone confirm this?


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## fdb

berndf said:


> That makes sense. It seems this name still exists among Syriac Christians. Can someone confirm this?



Indeed, it is very common.


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## Phosphorus

A Persian user has cited that allegedly "Mikal" is considered to be of Syriac origin: Muller, in SBAW , Berlin, 1904 , Salemann Manichaeische studien, Page. 351.

He also claims that someone named "Schulthess" has even believed "جبرئیل" to be of Syriac origin (since it purportedly occurs also in a Syriac dialect among Palestinian Christians): Schulthess , Lex , Page : 34.


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## origumi

Hadith, Sunan Abu-Dawud, _Dialects and Readings of the Qur'an (Kitab Al-Huruf Wa Al-Qira'at_, 3987 (I hope it's the correct notation):


> Narrated  AbuSa'id al-Khudri: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) related a  tradition in which he mentioned the words "Jibril and Mikal" and he  pronounced them "Jibra'ila wa Mika'ila."


Arabic: http://www.sunnah.com/abudawud/32/30
English: http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=30&translator=3&start=19&number=3987


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## Phosphorus

A noteworthy citation. But I am afraid the tradition is not archaeologically authentic, compared to Quran itself. Namely Quran is said to have been written down as the prophet was relating. So it is safest to hold that he has actually pronounced somethings such as "Miikaal" and they have recorded "میکال".

Otherwise I wonder if this controversial "ا" is kind of a mater lectionis they have developed during the Uthamnic caliphate?!


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## rayloom

berndf said:


> Do you think that the Syriac variants with -YL at the end and without Aleph might explain the Qu'ranic spelling with ی‎ rather than ا‎‎?



Yes I think so.

To add, many biblical figure names occuring in the Quran differ significantly from their original realization in Hebrew (Horovitz lists a number of such names which differ from the Hebrew originals). And most can't be explained by transliteration errors from Hebrew or even Syriac. Some names might even suggest a Greco-Latin influence (Jonah (Yonah) --> Yūnus). Some names witness a neutralization or an Arabization into pre-existing Arabic morphologies: John (Yohanan) --> Yahya (also appearing as such in Ancient North Arabian Christian inscriptions), which also pretty much precludes older attempts to show that it was a transliteration error from Syriac يحنى, which without the dots would look like ىحىى. Meaning basically that يحيى and يحنى have the same undotted form.

Also from a cultural point of view:
Many, if not most, of those figures were already known in Arabia within Christian and Jewish communities, which weren't small in number by the way:
You have the 2 kingdoms in the Levant and Mesopotamia, the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, who were Christian. The Arabic script likely developed in the Lakhmid courts in Pre-Islamic times.
A trade route connecting Southern Arabia (Jewish in faith for the most part) to the Levant (Christian), passing through Mecca and Medina (Yathrib).
Large tribes and tribal confederations in Arabia were already Christian: Taghlib, Hanifa, Iyad, Tayy. There were Jews in Medina. 
Arabians weren't all pagans, and pagan communities weren't that secluded.



Phosphorus said:


> A noteworthy citation. But I am afraid the tradition is not archaeologically authentic, compared to Quran itself. Namely Quran is said to have been written down as the prophet was relating. So it is safest to hold that he has actually pronounced somethings such as "Miikaal" and they have recorded "میکال".
> 
> Otherwise I wonder if this controversial "ا" is kind of a mater lectionis they have developed during the Uthamnic caliphate?!



Just a small correction first, the Uthmanic rasm of the Quran has nothing to do with the Uthmanic (Ottoman) caliphate. It refers to the Uthmanic codex, a unified orthography of the Quran commisioned by the 3rd Caliph Uthman bin Affan about 20 years after the death of Muhammad.

For that matter also, it's important to know that the Uthmanic codex also for the most part reflects a certain unified reading tradition of the Quran. Other reading traditions and codices reflecting varieties in the Quran and its reading were burnt. However, early grammatical and Islamic sources and Hadiths (as the one mentioned by Origumi) still guard the varying traditions of reading the Quran. These shed some light on the linguistic situation of Classical Arabic at the time. And their importance can't be easily disregarded. Especially when it comes to phonology.
Some of the variations represent dialectal features or variants. Such as eliding the hamza's or different assimilations (or assimilation rules), varying allophones of the /r/ and long /a/, differing pronunciations of some words.


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## Phosphorus

rayloom said:


> Yes I think so.
> 
> To add, many biblical figure names occuring in the Quran differ significantly from their original realization in Hebrew (Horovitz lists a number of such names which differ from the Hebrew originals). And most can't be explained by transliteration errors from Hebrew or even Syriac. Some names might even suggest a Greco-Latin influence (Jonah (Yonah) --> Yūnus). Some names witness a neutralization or an Arabization into pre-existing Arabic morphologies: John (Yohanan) --> Yahya (also appearing as such in *Ancient North Arabian Christian inscriptions*), which also pretty much precludes older attempts to show that it was a transliteration error from Syriac يحنى, which without the dots would look like ىحىى. Meaning basically that يحيى and يحنى have the same undotted form.
> 
> Also from a cultural point of view:
> Many, if not most, of those figures were already known in Arabia within Christian and Jewish communities, which weren't small in number by the way:
> You have the 2 kingdoms in the Levant and Mesopotamia, the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, who were Christian. The Arabic script likely developed in the Lakhmid courts in Pre-Islamic times.
> A trade route connecting Southern Arabia (Jewish in faith for the most part) to the Levant (Christian), passing through Mecca and Medina (Yathrib).
> Large tribes and tribal confederations in Arabia were already Christian: Taghlib, Hanifa, Iyad, Tayy. There were Jews in Medina.
> Arabians weren't all pagans, and pagan communities weren't that secluded.



Yes pre-Islamic Arabs were indeed familiar with religious Abrahamic concepts and figures. Even one can safely hold that some of them in Mecca, Muhammad's tribe in particular, considered themselves descendants of Abraham's son, Ishmael.

I wonder is Michael's name attested in the Ancient North Arabian Christian inscriptions that you mentioned? These alleged inscriptions, with respect to the aforesaid case of "Ya7yaa", appear to have many in common with Quran.

Also if I am not mistaken I have recently read somewhere that early Arabic scripts, exactly in Mecca, had no hamza. If this happens to be correct, then can I assume that since they no "ئ" and "ی" could easily be mistaken with "y" then in order to write down a supposedly "Miikaael*" they preferred to record it as "میکاِل" with "ِ" ?! I think when you exclude the /'el/ part from the Hebrew names, there remain "Myka-" and "Gbry-" which could be somehow rendered in Arabic as "-ميكَا" (pronounced similar to "میکه"?) and "-جبرِ" respectively. Now if you want to add /'el/ to them and you do not have any "ئ", so you can only record it through "ل ِ ". For the first case, "Myka-", it is possible to simply attach /'el/, while in the second case, "Gbry-", there would be two "ِ" and this is impossible thus they have added "ی" after the "ِ" in order to avoid further confusion and the results were "ميكَاِل" and "جبرِیل". I am only well-versed with Perso-Arabic and Kurdo-Arabic scripts and do not know how much this interpretation would fit in the context of Semitic scripts.

By the way is Modern Hebrew "אֵ" equal to Arabic "ئ"?




rayloom said:


> Just a small correction first, the Uthmanic rasm of the Quran has nothing to do with the Uthmanic (Ottoman) caliphate. It refers to the Uthmanic codex, a unified orthography of the Quran commisioned by the 3rd Caliph Uthman bin Affan about 20 years after the death of Muhammad.



It was indeed my bad. I should had written "Uthman's caliphate", rather than "Uthmanic caliphate" (which misled you to perceive that I mean something like the caliphate of Al-i Othman).



rayloom said:


> For that matter also, it's important to know that the Uthmanic codex also for the most part reflects a certain unified reading tradition of the Quran. Other reading traditions and codices reflecting varieties in the Quran and its reading were burnt. However, early grammatical and Islamic sources and Hadiths (as the one mentioned by Origumi) still guard the varying traditions of reading the Quran. These shed some light on the linguistic situation of Classical Arabic at the time. And their importance can't be easily disregarded. Especially when it comes to phonology.
> Some of the variations represent dialectal features or variants. Such as eliding the hamza's or different assimilations (or assimilation rules), varying allophones of the /r/ and long /a/, differing pronunciations of some words.



Thanks for your explanations. If I am not mistaken they found some material pretaining to the pre-Uthmanic era in Yemen in the last century and a study regarding them is recently published by tow American scholars (of Iranian origin I presume).

So does here lie any possiblity for Quranic "ا" to be read "-aye-" (kind of a mater lecitonis) after all?


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## Phosphorus

Phosphorus said:


> rendered in Arabic as "-ميكَا" (pronounced similar to "میکه"?) and "_-جبرِ_" respectively. Now if you want to add /'el/ to them and you do not have any "ئ", so you can only record it through "ل ِ ". For the first case, "Myka-", it is possible to simply attach /'el/, while in the second case, "Gbry-", there would be two "ِ" and this is impossible thus they have added "ی" after the "ِ" in order to avoid further confusion and the results were "ميكَاِل" and "جبرِیل".



Or maybe Arabic "جبرِی" ~ "my force" may explain it, on both orthographic and semantic parts, better than "جبرِ"!


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## Abu Rashid

Phosphorus said:


> I exactly mean "genuine word". In the language, which you have expressed as your native language, "genuine word" is synonymous with "original word".



We do not use either of these terms in English. We say native vs. loan. Not genuine, nor original.



Phosphorus said:


> Thanks for your answer.



You're most welcome.

<..>


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## berndf

Phosphorus said:


> By the way is Modern Hebrew "אֵ" equal to Arabic "ئ"?


The main sign, Aleph, is a glottal stop. Though it genetically corresponds to the Arabic Alif, in function it corresponds to the Arabic Hamza. The two dots are a diacritical mark indicating a long "e". The typical Arabic rendering is ئي as in صموئيل (_Samuel_, Hebrew שְׁמוּאֵל).

In many names ending in אֵל where where the preceding consonant carries a null vowel, the Aleph is often mute and the long "e" moves to the preceding consonant, as in יְחֶזְקֵאל (_Yəḥezqel =_ _Ezekiel_) and דָּנִיֵּאל (_Daniyyel = __Daniel_).


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## Phosphorus

Abu Rashid said:


> _We do not use either of these terms in English_. We say native vs. loan. Not genuine, nor original.



This is not true. See below:

"In Mongolian loanwords in the Kazakh and Karakalpak written languages _š_- became _s_-, as also in *genuine Turkish words* (_sïltaw _ “cause,” _sïba_-  “to smear”;  these words entered Kazakh and Karakalpak during the  Yuan/Elḵan period or only shortly afterwards, but not later than the  9th/15th century;  Kirghiz still has _šïltō_, _šïba_-)."

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/central-asia-xiv

"Seeking _a _*genuine Basque word* for 'write' to replace the various Romance loans, 
he came across the archaic word iraatsi 'carve', and 264 Lexicon."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Oi...wAA#v=onepage&q=a genuine basque word&f=false

"DOES A LANGUAGE LOSE  WORDS?  The answer to this question is not simple. The clearest  instance is where a word is borrowed from another language and the  *original word *is then lost."

http://www.uni-due.de/SHE/SHE_Change_Semantic.htm


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## Phosphorus

berndf said:


> The main sign, Aleph, is a glottal stop. Though it genetically corresponds to the Arabic Alif, in function it corresponds to the Arabic Hamza. The two dots are a diacritical mark indicating a long "e". The typical Arabic rendering is ئي as in صموئيل (_Samuel_, Hebrew שְׁמוּאֵל).
> 
> In many names ending in אֵל where where the preceding consonant carries a null vowel, the Aleph is often mute and the long "e" moves to the preceding consonant, as in יְחֶזְקֵאל (_Yəḥezqel =_ _Ezekiel_) and דָּנִיֵּאל (_Daniyyel = __Daniel_).



I see. Thanks for your explanations.


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## Phosphorus

Comparing the original Hebrew forms with their Quranic counterparts leads to surprising result in this case:

יִשְׂרָ*אֵל* : إِسْرَ‌ا*ئِيلَ* : Israel

מִיכָ*אֵל* : مِيكَا*ل* : Michael

גַּבְרִי*אֵל* : جِبْرِ‌*يل* : Gabriel

The Hebrew forms are regular in terms of rendering /'el/, while their Arabic counterparts fail to represent such similar regularity. By the way I wonder there is also a let's say "a'el" element in the name "Israel", but in Quran it is, as opposed to "Michael", well rendered with "ائیل"! Can one infer that the original Arabic pronunciations for these words in the advent of Muhammad were as follows: Miikaa'el, Jabrii'el, but Israa'iil?!


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## berndf

Phosphorus said:


> גַּבְרִי*אֵל* : جِبْرِ‌*يل* : Gabriel
> 
> Can one infer that the original Arabic pronunciations for these words in the advent of Muhammad were as follows: ..., *Jabrii'el*, but ...?!


I'd say _Gibriil > Jibriil_.


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## origumi

Phosphorus said:


> Can one infer that the original Arabic pronunciations for these words in the advent of Muhammad were as follows: Miikaa'el, Jabrii'el, but Israa'iil?!


I assumed through this discussion that the problem with -el is that Quran-time Arabic didn't have the "e" sound and therefore is had to be changed to "i" as in Jibriil or dropped as in Mikal. If this is the case, Miikaa'el and Jabrii'el are improbable, unless one assumes that "e" did exist in Mohammed's dialect.


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## Phosphorus

berndf said:


> I'd say _Gibriil > Jibriil_.



Why Jibriil? Is "Gibriil" attested in another Semitic speech-perhaps Syriac (Aramaic)?


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## Phosphorus

origumi said:


> I assumed through this discussion that the problem with -el is that Quran-time Arabic didn't have the "e" sound and therefore is had to be changed to "i" as in Jibriil or dropped as in Mikal. If this is the case, Miikaa'el and Jabrii'el are improbable, unless one assumes that "e" did exist in Mohammed's dialect.



As I remember I have read that they did not have "hamza" in Meccan Arabic by the time of Muhammad. So I believe they had to indeed render it with "kasrah"-which leads the supposed pronunciations such as "Miikaa'el*" and "Jabrii'el*" to be respectively transcribed as "mykal" and "jbryl" in Quran.

And for similar forms such as اسرائیل or اسمعیل I presume these might be earlier loans in fact which had already pronunciations such as "Israa'iil" (instead of "Israa'el") and "Ismaa3iil" (instead of "Ismaa3el") during Muhammad's time and this is perhaps why one may suggest that they, without hamzah (actually there no hamzah is required in case of Arabic Ishmael), are to be rendered as follows: اسرایل and اسمعیل (the first which further becomes اسرائیل by addition of "hamzah" to the standard Arabic orthography and most likely Muslims by that time could not decide what are the precise pronunciations of میکال and جبریل, so that they leave them in their original forms in the Quranic orthography-in order to avoid distorting the original holy words!).

Later on "Miikaa'el*" and "Jabrii'el*" develop, most likely influenced by the Arabic counterparts for Ishamel and Israel, into "Miikaa'iil" and "Jabre'iil" (also "Jabraa'iil" perhaps on the pattern of "Miikaa'iil") which are shown in current orthography as "میکائیل" and "جبرائیل" (or as in Perso-Arabic form "جبرئیل")


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## Phosphorus

berndf said:


> I'd say _Gibriil > Jibriil_.



If you do suggest it due to the Quranic orthography, I assume the current Quranic spellings pertain to the let's say post-hamzah period: when Muslims could decide to add hamzah to the names such as Israa'iil, but in cases of "میکال" and "جبریل" they could not make such a decision for sure.

I wonder does anybody know since when they have used hamzah in standard Quranic orthography?


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## Phosphorus

fdb said:


> وَجِبْرِيلَ وَمِيكَــىٰـلَ
> is how it looks in the received orthography. The second name is recited as /miikaala/. The undoted yaa' is in effect silent.



In the current Qurans "Michael" appears to be written down as "میکَالَ". Is مِيكَــىٰـلَ orthographically equal to the former form I mentioned?


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## fdb

The form that I cited (مِيكَــىٰـلَ) is the "standard Uthmanic" orthography. In some printed Qur'ans the orthography has been modernised to میکَالَ. The reading (mīkāla) is the same in both cases.

I should think that the Qur’an rasm مىكىل (unpointed in the ancient manuscripts) definitely implies a reading /mīkāʼīl/ (with the standard Qur’anic conventions: defective spelling of non-final ā, and yāʼ for intervocalic hamza). If I am not mistaken, /mīkāʼīl/ is in fact recorded as a variant reading (qirāʼa). The “standard” reading /mīkāl/ remains something of a mystery, but it can be justified by interpreting the second ـىـ as ʼalif maqṣūra, as in تورىة, pronounced /tawrāt-/ ‘Thora’.


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## Phosphorus

Thanks for your explanation professor.

I unfortunately could not find any online sources to access Quran in the standard Uthmanic orthography. So would you please check the standard Uthmanic spelling for modern "اسرائیل"? And in case the Uthmanic rasm has actually "hamzah", how would they write down "israa'iil" in an orthography without hamzah: اسرىٰیـل ?!


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## fdb

The rasm is اسرىل. The pointing is إِسْرَٰءِيل.


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## fdb

The official Egyptian edition of the Qur’an from the 1930s retains the traditional orthography of the “Uthmanic” rasm unaltered, but adds vowel signs, hamzas, shadda, pause markings etc. This very carefully produced edition has been pasted into a number of internet sites, e.g. quran.com.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> The official Egyptian edition of the Qur’an from the 1930s retains the traditional orthography of the “Uthmanic” rasm unaltered, but adds vowel signs, hamzas, shadda, pause markings etc. This very carefully produced edition has been pasted into a number of internet sites, e.g. quran.com.


And it includes the "dagger alif" diacritic on top of the undotted yaa which I understand as meaning that the yaa should be understood as a alif maqsura.


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## Phosphorus

fdb said:


> The rasm is اسرىل. The pointing is إِسْرَٰءِيل.





fdb said:


> The official Egyptian edition of the Qur’an from the 1930s retains the traditional orthography of the “Uthmanic” rasm unaltered, but adds vowel signs, hamzas, shadda, pause markings etc. This very carefully produced edition has been pasted into a number of internet sites, e.g. quran.com.



Many thanks professor. So, in accordance with the original rasm of "اسرىل", Quranic "Mykal" is supposed to be originally pronounced "Miikaa'iil"-as you earlier suggested.

By the way do you know from when on the pointing, specially "hamzah", are added to Quran? I presume it was for sure not during the Uthman's caliphate?


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## fdb

Without getting too involved in the “theological” side of it all, let us merely say that there is no documentary evidence that the orthography of the Qur’an was fixed at the time of Uthman. The ancient fragments of Qur’an manuscripts discovered some years ago in San’a are for the most part written with just the bare rasm, with occasional dots to distinguish the ambiguous consonants and very few vowel signs etc. The other symbols (hamza, shadda etc.) were added in the course of time, but the exact chronology has not as yet been established. The phonological theory underlying the punctuation is however fully described in the _Kitāb_ of Sībawayhi (Sēbōy) (died around 797).


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## Phosphorus

I see. Thank you professor.


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## rayloom

Phosphorus said:


> As I remember I have read that they did not have "hamza" in Meccan Arabic by the time of Muhammad. So I believe they had to indeed render it with "kasrah"-which leads the supposed pronunciations such as "Miikaa'el*" and "Jabrii'el*" to be respectively transcribed as "mykal" and "jbryl" in Quran.





Phosphorus said:


> I wonder does anybody know since when they have used hamzah in standard Quranic orthography?





berndf said:


> And it includes the "dagger alif" diacritic on top of the undotted yaa which I understand as meaning that the yaa should be understood as a alif maqsura.





Phosphorus said:


> Many thanks professor. So, in accordance with the original rasm of "اسرىل", Quranic "Mykal" is supposed to be originally pronounced "Miikaa'iil"-as you earlier suggested.
> 
> By the way do you know from when on the pointing, specially "hamzah", are added to Quran? I presume it was for sure not during the Uthman's caliphate?



The first writing of the hamza is attributed to Al-Khalil Al-Farahidi, so that puts it in the beginning of the Abbasid period (in the 8th century AD).

As for Meccan speech, it's not that they didn't have the hamza, the hamza was elided (not completely though) in medial positions and dropped in final positions. Putting it into context, the name Israel إسرائيل would be pronounced Israayiil. It's also one of the reasons why the hamza in Arabic comes in multiple shapes, and if you notice, the shape of the medial hamza is that of the glide consonant produced from eliding that hamza:
saa'il سائل --> elided would be saayil
ra'uuf رؤوف --> elided would be rawuuf
Of course for a fatHa, the hamza is on an alif, and the hamza in Meccan speech would've been even less elided (so to speak).

Back to the names discussed:
Their actual orthography in the Quran neither shows the hamza nor the long vowels. A glide consonant followed by a long vowel of a similar quality isn't shown Quranic script:
رؤوف ra'uuf is written روف
بئيس ba'iis is written بىس 
So إسرائيل for example is written اسرىل with the ىـ referring probably to the hamza (elided shape) + the long vowel of similar quality (as in the previous examples). The long alif isn't marked in the script either, but added using a dagger alif following the raa (not above the yaa). Also the hamza marking was added later before the ىـ. Rendering it as إسرءيل (with the dagger alif which doesn't seem to appear correctly unfortunately) so as not to change the Uthmanic orthography (you can see it written here).

When it comes to مىكىل we can't determine from the script only how it is pronounced. But it conforms to the Quranic orthography which we see with إسرائيل for example (إسرائيل occurring around 40 times with the same orthography اسرىل).

Online copies of the Quran are written in Standard Arabic to facilitate search functions, but you can still find online Qurans in the Quranic script such as Quran.com (mentioned earlier by fdb).


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## Phosphorus

Thank you indeed. Useful information Rayloom.


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