Talk:Kunya (Arabic)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Arabic names, a WikiProject related to the Arabic names.

It has been rated - on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Asbl's Edits

(transfered from Asbl's talk page)
hi! i saw your edits of the kunya (arabic) article. thank's for the grammar fix, but the list of persons was actually intended for the kunya in general, and not as subsection of the previous part, since the article is not only about palestinian guerilla usage. could you please restore the list as it was? if not, there's other names that should be removed too. abu bakr the caliph didn't get the name while undercover, you know :-) best regards, Arre 04:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no way for me to know what was the original intent of the author who wrote it. I just read the article, and thought that the list should only include names of people who are not actually parents of the children for which the get named after. Otherwise, what would be the point of the list? We already know that "Abu X" means "the father of X", so it seems silly to me to include those names in a list. In my opinion, the list should only inlude names that are an exception to the rule. What do you think? --Asbl 05:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure, I can see why you made that assumption. But I think a) that it would be nice to have a few examples of people on Wikipedia with a kunya (and not necessarily all of them Palestinian), and b) that the article should focus on general usage of the name. The Palestinian part should not dominate the article. So I prefer the way I wrote it, but feel free to do as you wish. It's not important. (The list can't stay as it is now, though.)Arre 05:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
If you would like to do that, you should open up a category called "category:list of people with a kunya", and then go and put that category in all the articles of the people with a kunya. I think that would be a better way to go about it, than to put all those name in the kunya article. --Asbl 05:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I opened up the category for you, and added a couple of people (check out Abu Jihad and Yasser Arafat. The problem I am having is that I cannot control how the names appear, as they depend on how the names are listed in the article. For Example, Khalil al-Wazeer is simply listed as "Abu Jihad". I would prefer to list the person's name and in parenthesis the Kunya.
Have fun going through Wikipedia and finding more people to add to the category. --Asbl 17:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Abu Sayyaf

By the way, I dont think Abu Sayyaf belongs in the list, but I did not remove it because it clearly does not refer to a person who has a son named "Sayyaf". I do not know what to do with it. --Asbl 05:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove it from the list and note it in the text instead. Arre 20:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
In fact, I removed the list altogether. After removing Egyptians and caliphs and Filippino guerillas, there were only two people left anyway. Arre 21:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, one person is Yasser Arafat (Abu Amar). Who is the other person? Why don't you add him (or is it her) to the text too? If I knew, I would have added to the text myself. --Asbl 22:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Um, Abu Nidal I think. Although for what I know, he may have had a son too. There are others as well, but I don't think many are on Wikipedia. And anyway, the text makes the point clear enough Arre 22:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Abu Ammar

It appears that the application of the name "Abu Ammar" to Yasser Arafat is no different than naming the group "Abu Sayyef", so I put them together.
Please Note: the way the article currently reads, the Prophet Muhammad had a companion named Abu Amar, sounds like they were a homosexual couple. I am not Muslim, so I do not know who was Abu Ammar, and I am not sure what was meant by the word "companion" when it was originally written. --Asbl 07:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It is different (and I reverted). Abu Sayyaf is an organization, for one thing. The reason there's a section on the special Palestinian guerilla usage of the kunya, is that there is a special Palestinian guerilla usage of the kunya (as nom de guerre). Arafat's kunya also refer's to a name (Ammar), not an object (sword), and is thus not of the same kind as the Abu Sayyaf's. That he had no son by that name does not change that this is the basic usage of the kunya (but used the Fatah way); the Abu Sayyaf example is of another kind, in which the grammatical construction tries to bring out the inherent qualities of that object or phenomena. Arafat may have liked the connotations of the A-M-R root of the word "Ammar", but that is not the same thing as wanting to emulate the word/object itself. Also, there is no Arabic word "Ammar", just a name.
Neither the Prophet, sala 'alayhu wassalam, nor Abu Bakr, is known to have been gay. You can change that if you like. Arre 09:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
You lost me in you response
  1. How are Abu Sayyef and Abu Amar differ? In both cases, the uses of the Kunya is metaphoric. Why is the fact that one use applies to an organization while the other to a person, have a bearing on the fact that both are used metaphorically, rather than literally? This is why I think they belong together.
  2. What is "the Fatah way"?
  3. What is sala 'alayhu wassalam? I assume that's Arabic for "Peace be upon him"
  4. How did we get to talk about Abu Bakr? You had originally listed him in the article, and then removed him. Is his Kunya metaphoric or literal?
--Asbl 04:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
1. Arafat's kunya was not intended to be metaphoric/poetic in the same way, it was intended as a nom de guerre during his time as an underground leader of Fatah (and then it stuck). It is a normal kunya which means "father of 'Ammar", although 'Ammar - like every Arab name - has some connotations through its root ('AMR). But apart from that, the word 'Ammar has no specific meaning, as far as I know. Abu Sayyaf means "Father of the Sword", and does not imply that this organization is actually the father of someone/thing called "sword", but rather that it is the "master of the sword" or something like that.
2. This usage of the kunya started, I believe, with the early leaders of Fatah.
3. Yep :-)
4. Uh, I should have written "Abu 'Ammar", I guess. As for Abu Bakr, I assume he had a son named Bakr. Arre 01:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Abou ammar:

Abou Ammar (Y.Arafat) was called cause he was civil engineer in profession (arabic: mohandis ammar).

Okay, check the page now! I've introduced that and some more. It would be good if you had a source (an internet link) for it too, so we could post that on the page. All the best, Arre 22:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
A civil engineer in Arabic is "mohandis madani", an architect in Arabic is "mi'mar". Ammar is irrelevant although it shares the same root with mi'mar. It is quite traditional to give certain names a kunnya based on a real person in history. Example, if a man named Mohammed did not have any children it is tradition to call him Abu Qasim or Abu Jassim (depending on local accent) because the prophet Mohammed's kunnya was Abu Al Qasim and vice versa, if his name is Qasim and he did not have any children then his kunnay is Abu Mohammed. Hence came Abu Ammar's kunnya; it is based on Ammar Ibn Yassir the known companion of Mohammed; so men named Ammar that have no children (or no male children) have an informal kunnya of Abu Yasir and men named Yasir that don't have any male children are called Abu Ammar. That's why he chose Ammar, no other reason.
other examples: Hussain (or Hassan in some areas) <-> Ali; Waleed <-> Khalid; Anas <-> Malik; Ibrahim <-> Kahlil; Nu'man <-> Munthir; and so on.
--Maha Odeh 05:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
by the way, I deleted the theory about the engineer thing because it is totally wrong (I'm an architect so I should know what architects are called in Arabic). But I also think the root thing is irrelevant too, if he was going to chose a name based on the meaning then why Ammar? why not Jihad (struggle) since it's closer to reality; or Muntasir (victor) as a hopeful name; or even Salam (peace) as a goal or something? All the above are proper Arabic names with a good meaning. --Maha Odeh 06:02, 17 June 2007 (UTC)