Talk:जलेबी

Etymology

Hobson-Jobson claims this derives from a different Arabic word: [1]. I think this is زلابية, with zayin and not jeem as in the current word, but I don't know the tashkil. 70.172.194.25 04:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

@70.172.194.25: I don’t know how the Arabic term, which I hear زَلَابِيَّة (zalābiyya) as well as زَلَابِيَة (zalābiya) from YouTube (with reduction of the first vowel), would not be itself from Hindustani. There isn’t even a root ز ل ب*. Since this is also a Gulf dish, though also a Levantine one, and there are all those Indians in the Gulf, @KoveytBud would easily believe the same.

But it is used already in One Thousand and One Nights (instantly found in various editions on Google Books), which however only corroborates Indian origin (regard Wikipedia about that book under the heading “Possible Indian influence”).

Wahrmund, Adolf (1887) “زُلَابِيّ”, in Handwörterbuch der neu-arabischen und deutschen Sprache‎^[2] (in German), volume 1, Gießen: J. Ricker’sche Buchhandlung, page 841 from Al-Zamakhshari presents a more original form زُلَابِيّ (zulābiyy) which is more obviously a foreign formation. Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881) “जलेबी”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes‎^[3] (in French), volume 1, Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 598a, to affirm the šadda in the ـَة form that I have heard, only recorded زَلَابِيَّة (zalābiyya), also from Middle Arabic sources. We can see the distortion as an outcome of the great age of the word.

So I have to assent to @Chuck Entz’s proposal of جُلَاب (julāb) plus a well-known Persian or Hindustani suffix; or more exactly a Śaurasenī Apabhraṃśa (inc-sap) if not just Classical Persian (fa-cls) origin. Fay Freak (talk) 12:06, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for researching this. I just saw that page 11 of this document agrees with the etymology Chuck Entz added, and explains that the source I mentioned above likely had it wrong. But on the other hand, they claim the Arabic word might be completely unrelated, from Persian زلیبیا (zalibīya, “latticework”). 70.172.194.25 14:34, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

@70.172.194.25: Reading it now. Is “perhaps the meaning of the Persian word receded from memory” an euphemism for “they have made the Persian etymon up”? “Lattice” is Hindi जाल (jāl), जाली (jālī), Marathi जाळें (jāḷẽ), from there probably irrelevantly rare Persian جال (jāl). Although the author possibly was influenced by thinking about Persian چلیپا (čalīpā, “cross; cruciform, curly, bent”) from Aramaic צְלִיבָא / ܨܠܝܒܐ (ṣəlīḇā, “cross”), which is not less remote. We need to ask our Indian guys what the second part would be. Fay Freak (talk) 15:32, 26 April 2022 (UTC); “cross” added 16:01, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@70.172.194.25, Chuck Entz: Nah, it can be presumed like I have suspected, I haven’t even read this pleasure writing in Repast to the end and have already pinpointed weakness in his interpretations of the synonyms مُشَبَّك (mušabbak) and شَبَّكِيَّة (šabbakiyya), while both casting better derivation for them and sourcing the origin of زَلَابِيَّة (zalābiyya) from جُلَاب (julāb). He wasn’t even good at transcribing the Persian terms either. Fay Freak (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2022 (UTC)