Words Arabic Took In
tannūrā
التَّنُّور
tannūr
Tannūr, 'oven': Ibn 'Abbas is reported to have said 'the tannūr is in every tongue, Arabic and foreign'. Ibn Durayd called it Persian; al-Azhari noted that its root t-n-r is otherwise unused in Arabic. It is found in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Middle Persian, and went on to Turkish tandır, French tandour and the Indian tandoor.
- Came
- In many tongues
- Original meaning
- an oven
- Meaning in Arabic
- a clay oven
«ورُوي عن ابن عبّاس أنّه قال: التَّنُّور بكلّ لسانٍ عربيٍّ وعجميّ.»
It then went on from Arabic into European languages.
A Qur'anic word: 'and the oven (tannūr) boiled over'. Scholars differed over Qur'anic words said to be of foreign origin: some denied any non-Arabic word in the Qur'an, others accepted them. Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam reconciled the two: foreign in origin, Arabised by the Arabs, so Arabic now, and 'both parties are right' (al-Mu'arrab, ed. Shakir, p. 5). Abu Hatim said: 'not sound Arabic'.
F. Abdurrahim (al-Mu'arrab, pp. 213–214): Hebrew tannūr, Aramaic and Syriac tannūrā, also in Avestan and Middle Persian; he cites Jeffery reporting Fraenkel's view that Arabic took it from Aramaic.
French has tandour since the 18th century through Turkish, a brazier among Turks and Americans, says Wadghiri (al-'Arabiyyat al-Mughtaribat 2/375); the TLFi states that the Turks took it from Arabic tannūr. Hence also Indian tandoori.
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Sources
- ابن قتيبة، أدب الكاتب ص٤٩٦
- الأزهريّ، تهذيب اللغة ١٤/١٩٢
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب ٤/٩٥
- الجواليقيّ، المعرّب، تحقيق ف. عبد الرحيم، ص٢١٣–٢١٤
- عبد العلي الودغيري، العربيّات المغتربات ٢/٣٧٥
- TLFi (CNRTL): tandour
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