Hootchee Kootchee!

[muckefuck]

With Umm Atā'ullāh away for an audition, my Middle Eastern dance class featured a guest instructor last night. I'd actually met her once before at the little storefront she runs in Lincoln Square. When she introduced herself as "Tipsuda", I remarked, "There's used to be a Thai restaurant in Hyde Park by that name." "That's me!" she replied, smiling; her parents ran the place until they retired.

She was gentler than Umm Atā'ullāh--our arms were not in agony by the end of the night--and even hungrier for feedback. Previously, we'd had 26 other students; last night, only 6 (midterms?), but they were every bit as closedmouthed. Finally, one girl did ask for instruction in body undulation, which I eventually figured out how to do without wrecking my lumbar.

Tipsuda was pimping all sorts of opportunities for further involvement in Middle Eastern dance and culture generally. At one point, she was fishing for reassurance that we'd keep up our interest and I joked, "We're all going to take Arab names." We laughed, but then she pointed out that her Tunisian husband had rechristened (that's so not the proper word!) all of his Anglo bandmates.

On the way home, I was trying to think up a good Arabic name for myself. I've got a solid Old Testament forename which carries over virtually unchanged, but the nasab thing doesn't work because both my parents' names are hopelessly Germanic. In terms of a kunya, I was thinking of something that foregrounded my language geekery, but Abū'l Alsun ("father of tongues")or Dhū'l Lughāt ("master of languages") sound more than a wee bit pretentious, particularly someone who can't even speak Arabic. I'll leave those for aadroma.

But I did hit upon a kickass nisba. In trying to come up with a gentilic, I thought What about The Missourian? What would that be?al-Misūrāwī? No! al-Musayrī! Formally, this is a dimunitive of al-Misr, which literally means "metropolis" but is a nickname for Cairo and, thus, Egypt. I've always thought "the Midwest's Largest Small Town" was a fitting description of my hometown; "Little Metropolis" is sort of the inverse equivalent. And what's the region just across the river from Mound City, dominated by the largest pyramid north of Mexico, popularly known as...LITTLE EGYPT! Which was also the name of...an exotic dancer! Who got her start in Chicago! It's just too perfect!

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

That IS perfect! Go you!

(she could use a phone call)

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Formally, this is a dimunitive of al-Misr, which literally means "metropolis" but is a nickname for Cairo and, thus, Egypt.

I'd thought that Misr went further back than Cairo. (I'd at least been under the impression that it's cognate with the Hebrew "Eretz Mitzraim", "Land of the Egyptians". Was I misled?)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell through a web search (I'll want to confirm this with real reference works later), the etymon is Ancient Egyptian mďr "wall(ed city)". From this, you get both Ereş Mişrayim ("land of the two walls/walled cities") and al-Mişr. Perhaps "metropolis" was an earlier nickname for Memphis or Alexandria that got transferred to Cairo once its growth took off?

[zompist.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was going to ask about this too. Mizraim appears in Gen. 10:6, so the word definitely doesn't mean Cairo, which wasn't founded till 969. I did a web search myself, which primarily showed that a web search is a lousy tool for Arabic etymology. Among the claims found:

-- misr means 'black' (I think this is a confusion with Egyptian kmt)
-- Al-Misr-Al-Kahira (= Cairo) means 'the victorious city'
-- al-Misr comes "from the Semitic word msrm meaning the 'two (border) regions.'"
-- al-miSr is the definite of the common noun miSr (triptote declention) meaning '(large) frontier garrison town'

Please tell us what the dead trees say!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The first foray was disappointing. We have no etymological dictionaries of Arabic in the Reference Room, just Hebrew and Coptic. I couldn't find a likely entry in the latter (it doesn't help that I can't remember offhand the Coptic reflex of ď); the former lists a form meşer "boundary, confined space", which it claims is cognate to Arabic mişr and Aramaic mişra:, but the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew claims this means primarily "confinement" and goes back to a verbal root ŞRR.

In other words, search inconclusive. I don't really have time to hit the stacks, so I'll just have to comb Gardiner when I get home.