labjournals
The editor of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence, Rosemary Archer, mis-transcribed or misspelt every other Arabic proper name or common name. There are hundreds of Arabic words in the Journals, and hundreds of mistakes resulting from Archer not knowing the meaning of the words she was transcribing, and visibly not checking them with an Arabic speaker. The following page is an ongoing attempt at finding these and fixing them.
February 20, 1887, last line on page 185: “Kehileh Taytanyeh [?] fleabitten”, should instead read “Jaytaniyeh”. The former does not exist.
April 2nd, 1881, first line: “Heard of a soda (proved to be known) filly at Ibn Jurnan” should instead read “Heard of a soda (proved to be brown) filly”, The former does not make sense in this context or grammatically. Soda means black, and the filly proved to be a dark brown as the next lines show.
I wonder how many of these difficult entries are due to handwriting problems (“known” for “brown” reasonably is one example). The Blunts named a filly Jemeyza, so Lady Anne was aware of the correct spelling in that case.
Of course, most of these handwriting problems, most letters at stake look at lot alike.
January 6, 1913: “The Prince told me of his horses from Yemen with wonderful hoffas but he is not pleased with them.
Read “hojjas” (arabic certificates of authenthicity) instead of “hoffas”.
May 17, 1014 (on page 363), the long entry on talking with Mutlaq about the ghazu between Mutayr and Qahtan, fourth line:
“.. and what was still more disgraceful of stripping the young daughter of one of the Dushan — Dahmalieh who was in the urfa which they took”
Read “utfa” instead of “urfah”.
The utfa is the wooden structure adorned with ostrich feathers and fixe don top of a camel, in which a young and beautiful Bedouin girl of noble lineage sits and encourages warriors to fight. If the other tribe takes the utfa, or comes close to it, then the tribe is dishonored. Seized otfas are destroyed. Most utfa were destroyed by the time the Wahhabi puritan doctrine of Islam spread in Arabia. The last extant utfaf is that of the Ruwalah.
Towards the middle of the entry: “of Aleybe”. Read instead of “Ateybe” (the tribe).
November 20, 1880, second line, page 117, second line: “Abdallah ibn Theneyyah” read instead “Abdallah ibn Theneyyan”, a scion of a famous Najdi family.
December 10, 1880, page 119: “He is from Jenbo” read instead “Yenbo” a port on the Red Sea north of Jeddah; and “with the various tribes Harb and Enteybeh about Jeddah”, read instead “Eteybeh” which is Ateybeh/Ateybah/Eteybah, etc, the large Bedouin tribe originally from south eastern Hejaz
December 24, 1880
“Wilfrid has met a man who came from Sana and told him that at some distance from Sana in the interior there are the Beni Husayn, Mohammed Bedouins who catch wild horses. They live in the district called Jofr el Yemen and are very ‘adroit’ in riding….”
Instead of “Jofr” el Yemen, read “Jof” el Yemen, the southern al-Jawf/Jauf/Jof in the extreme north of Yemen, as opposed to the northern Jauf.
March 5, 1891
Page 213, line 5: “near hind foot white and a seydl”. Read “and a seyal” instead. A seyal is a blaze in Arabic — a white face marking that extends down from the forehead to the nostrils.
February 6, 1889
“Abu Jamal”, “Abu Jamil”. This is Lady Anne’s donkey at Sheykh Obeyd (sometimes referred to as “Abu”). Read instead “Abu Janub”.
December 4th, 1907, page 324. “Ghania’s long tale about Yemama having passed through several hands..” Read “Ghamri” instead of “Ghania”.
November 7, 1909:
“She and Battla were the two beautiful grey mares at bersim at Mustonod when I and Wilfrid and Judith rode there together some years ago”. Mustonod looks like the location of an agricultural estate of Abbas Hilmi’s.
But instead of “Mustonod”, read “Mustorod”, a place at the fork of the Nile Delta, North of Mataria, west of Izbet al-Nakhl, in Cairo’s poor northern suburbs. Very little remains of the agricultural land, according to Google Maps, and one of Africa’s largest oil refineries occupies the site today.
The original name of the place is “Ezbet Awqaf Mustorod Afandina”, with Afandina being one of the titles the Khedive was known by (Cf. the Abbas Pasha Manuscript).
See here:
http://www.madamasr.com/sections/environment/egypts-biggest-refinery-about-get-bigger
March 9, 1904
Page 298 line 2: “Keyhilan A. of the Tanviri [?] strain”, read instead “of the Tamiri strain”, ie. K. Tamri.
January 4th 1889: “On our way round the Ezbezieh garden..”, read Ezbekieh instead of Ezbezieh. The garden still exists in the neighborhood of same name. See Jan. 27 entry where it is spelled correctly.
February 24, 1891, page 211, 5th line:
“the Tahawi family (the Hamadi Sheykhs)”, read instead the “Hanadi”.
February 25, 1897:
“Count Landberg, a linguist in the specialty of Arabic dialects. […] Says the Arvalik [?] have horses which originally came from further north but still much south of Nejd and absolutely unconnected with Nejd and its inhabitants.”
Read instead the “Awalik” instead of “Arvalik” (letter v does not exist in Arabic), of which US-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a drone strike in Yemen, was one.
March 27, 1897:
“Ahmed Bekin” called. Read “Ahmed Bey Yekin”.
March 27, 1898:
“it was Mohammed Sarame”. Instead read “Salame”.
May 8, 1898:
“A telegram received by Mlle de Bassano as follows: “Tell Lady Anne Blunt Hotel Jena Mr. Blunt seriously ill no to delay”.
Instead of Jena read Iena. This is Hotel Bassano, a block away from Avenue d’Iena in Paris. I have often stayed in that Hotel.
February 28, 1898:
towards the middle of this long entry: “the large pink house a long way down the Kar en Nil Street where I found..”
Instead of Kar en Nil read “Kasr en Nil”, a principal street then and now bridge over the Nile today” where a palace once stood. The “Nile Palace” (Kasr en Nil).
Check out this site:
http://www.egy.com/gardencity/97-12-25.php
and the mention of Kasr El Nile
you will learn a lot
March 27, 1898:
“it was Mohamed Sarame late Syce Basha to Ali Pasha Sherif”. Instead of Sarame read “Salame”, and compare with other entries where it is spelled correctly.
March 28, 1898:
last line.
“Ei mmulku lik lik lik” instead of Ei read “El”, the definite article.
February 2, 1899, letter to Wilfrid Blunt, line before the last line on page. 269:
“Abder Salam Pasha and their sons”. Instead of Abder read “Abdel”. Salam is one of God’s 99 names in Islam, and “Abdel Salam” is of one of 99 composite names of the Servitors of God.
March 6, 1907 page 317 fourth line
Instead of “A Khamwaja had been give the list” read “a Khawwaja”. Khawwaja means foreigner in Egyptian dialect.
December 12, 1878
Instead of “a khayal from Ed Dueybi one of the Beni Sakkr sheykhs. He prefers Ed Dueybi…” read “Ed Dreybi” twice. This is a reference to the clan of Abu Dreyb/Drayb one of the leading clans of the Bani Sakhr tribe, also called Al-Draybi/Ed Draybi/El Dreybi/etc. Where Archer read a u, it’s an r.
Also December 12, 1878
Instead of “Snellmat” in “A Snellmat girl married a Mezrab who died, and she married again immediately another Snellmat”, read “Swellmat” twice. This is a reference to the Sawalimah, an old Anazah tribe later absorbed by the Ruwalah.
October 9th, 1917 entry, 3rd line: “the tiresome Ali ibn Zeyd” … should instead read “the tiresome Adi ibn Zeyd”. Adi ibn Zeyd al-Ibadi was a pre-islamic Christian poet (and not of the best, in my opinion) from Hira in today’s Iraq. Lady Anne mentions him, in the context of her working on his biographical entry for her never published magnum opus (“The Book of Fragments”), perhaps in her chatper on the pre-islamic kingdoms of Hira and Ghassan. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_ibn_Zayd
February 1st, 1917 entry, 5th line: “My most embarrassing chapter ‘Hira and Ghassan’ is almost finished […] and the other two go and found at Hura the Hakhm dynasty” should instead read “go and found at Hira the Lakhm dynasty”. Hira was the capital of the pre-Islamic Lakhm kingdom in Iraq. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Hirah and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhmids
February 5th, 1916 entry, second line: “I showed him the jemeyqa [?] where Mutlak first was camped” should instead read “I showed his the jemyza where Mutlak first was camped”. Jemeyza is the Arabic word for the sycomore tree (ficus sycomorus), a large tree that produces fig-like fruits and that’s common to Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_sycomorus