Words Arabic Took In
dīvān
الدِّيوان
dīwān
Dīwān, the register of soldiers and stipends, is Persian according to Abu 'Ubayda and al-Asma'i; Sibawayh held it Arabic, from dawwana, 'to record'. From Arabic it went on to Europe as Italian dogana and French douane, 'customs'.
- Came
- From Persian
- Original meaning
- register; the office that keeps it
- Meaning in Arabic
- a register of soldiers and stipends; a collection of writings
«الدِّيوانُ بالكسر، قال الأصمعيّ: قال أبو عمرو: و«دَيوان» بالفتح خطأ، ولو جاز ذلك لقلتَ في الجمع «دَيَاوين»، ولا يكون إلّا «دَوَاوين». قال الأصمعيّ: وأصلُه فارسيّ.»
It then went on from Arabic into European languages.
Al-Mawardi tells that Khusraw, watching his clerks calculate, called them dīwāna, 'madmen' (in al-Qalqashandi, Subh al-A'sha 1/124). Encyclopaedia Iranica calls this a folk etymology and traces the word to Old Persian dipi-, 'writing'.
Sibawayh held it Arabic, a fi''āl form of dawwana (Lisan al-'Arab 13/166; Taj al-'Arus 35/35).
English divan, 'sofa', came through Ottoman Turkish, says the American Heritage Dictionary.
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Sources
- الجواليقيّ، المعرّب، تحقيق أحمد شاكر (دار الكتب المصريّة)، ص١٥٤
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب ١٣/١٦٦
- ابن سيده، المحكم ٩/٤٣٥
- الزبيديّ، تاج العروس ٣٥/٣٥
- القلقشنديّ، صبح الأعشى ١/١٢٤
- Treccani, Vocabolario: dogana
- Larousse: douane
- F. de Blois, «DĪVĀN i. The term», Encyclopaedia Iranica
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