Journal of Linguistic and Rhetorical Studies

Journal of Linguistic and Rhetorical Studies

On Some Words in Abū Nuwās’s Fārisiyyāt (Perso-Arabic Macaronic Verses) and their Implications for Persian Historical Linguistics

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 professor, Persian Language and Literature, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 PhD. Student, Persian Language and Literature, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran :
10.22075/jlrs.2026.41397.2890
Abstract
This paper examines some terms of Persian origin attested in Abū Nuwās’s Fārisiyyāt (also known as: Perso-Arabic macaronic odes). Such odes are distinguished by the notable frequency of Persian loanwords and phrases within them. The study of Persian words and phrases of Fārisiyyāt is of great importance in fields such as Persian historical linguistics and the history of Persian literature, as many of the Fārisiyyāts date back to the early Islamic period (ca. 8th-10th CE), i.e. when the Classical Persian literary tradition of Khurasan was not yet established, or at best, was still in its preliminary stages; note that from the Islamic conquests of Persia (ca. 7th CE) up to the 9th CE, New Persian is only evidenced by fragmentary attestations, mainly as Persian words and phrases occurring in macaronic poetry, or quotations in Persian cited in Arabic prose literature, or fragmentary Persian documents in non-Arabic scripts such as Hebrew. Among the poets who composed Perso-Arabic macaronics the best known is Abū Nuwās, the celebrated poet of the Abbasid period in Arabic literature. His macaronics can provide us with valuable data about the status of the Persian langauge in the early Islmaic period, and, moreover, about the literary origins of the later Persian court literary tradition. The Persian terms from Abū Nuwās's macaronics examined in this paper can provide useful data on the status of the Persian language in the early Islamic period, as well as on its development from the Middle to the New Persian stage. The terms under discussion are as follows: kuh/buh 'bogeyman'; farabud/farebud 'intemperate'; nibardag 'experienced, warlike'; usturga 'brazen'; and zirakk 'brisk, quick'.
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