Pronunciation: Khanjar and Jambiya
 

Was chatting to a friend of mine who used to live in Oman and has a smattering of Arabic the other day. Was talking Khanjars and got to discussing the pronunciation.
I always say 'Can-Jar'
She says it should be 'Cun-ja'

What about Jambiya?

I tend to say 'Jam-beea'
Others I know say 'Jam-bye-a'

So where do you all stand on these important questions? ;)

Salaams Atlantia ~ Its a bit like the pronunciation of "Tomato" in the UK compared to the USA... It sounds a bit different but everyone knows what you mean. Khanjar is correct... Khunjar is correct... Jambiya or Jambeea or Jambia also works ok. :) (depending on how much cider you have) :)
Salaams,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

Khanjar is a Persian word and we have always pronounced it Khanjar, never Khunjar.

Interesting.

As a transliteration from a different script, I would imagine that both words would be pronounced phonetically, which seems to be the case from what Ibrahim has written, with any variation in vowel pronunciation being a product of region, however, one letter does puzzle me, and that is the "R" in khanjar.

Is this letter rolled, or is it flat?

My ex Omani Forces mate also states the pronunciation IN OMAN was Cun-ja.

LOL, right!
So you see why I made a thread of this?
I'd have expected like Alan says for the translation to be phonetic, but it apparently isn't? At least not when it comes to Oman ;)
Which seems strange as the 'Khanjar' is the national knife of Oman. Why not simply have a unique spelling for Oman that reflects it's unique pronuciation?
Unless the pronunciation is variable as Ibrahiim suggests?
But that is not what my friend and Stu's are seeming to be saying.

My friend who lived out there for many years, was quite 'well connected' (to say the least) and she was adamant that I was pronouncing it incorrectly and that it is 'cun-ja' only.

Now as AJ says, I always thought that it was of Persian origin, which got me wondering if there was a phonetic difference between the translation to Arabic "خنجر‎" and to 'English' at which point I started thinking about 'Jambiya' decided I was rambling and started this thread!

Well, I always assumed that it was a hard sound: open up, and say 'AHH'.
:shrug:

kukri is even worse!

kukri,khukri,khukuri,khukhuri,kookrie, cookairie, khukrie,kukhri, kukry, gurkha head removal chopper knife, etc, etc.

Still I guest the prounonciation all sounds similar.for them! ;)

So not so bad after all! just the spelling that gos crazy! :D

Spiral

Are we here looking for how its pronounced by accents?

In classical Arabic, Khanjar is pronounce as Khanjar and Khenjar. Like AJ, I used to think its a Persian word that has been adopted by Arabic, but according to Lisan al Arab, it is Arabic. The R at the end is not a silent letter, every single voice is pronounced. When it comes to accents, I dont know how Omani's say it but Yemeni's and some Saudi's call it Khengar.

As for Jambiya, it is pronounced Janbiya or Ganbiya (atleast thats how I heard some Yemeni's pronounce it). Jambiya is a false term but hey, its not the only false term we collectors use.

True dat ! :D

About middle east pronunciations I know zilch, but Indonesian is my second language and in my normal day to day family and friends conversation I speak a mix of Indonesian/Javanese/English.

Now, here's the thing:- jambiyas exist in Indonesia too, and in Jawa they call them "jambio", sometimes pronounced not as "jam-bi-o" but as "jambyo", the last three letters as in "Yo dude!"

I do feel that variations in pronunciation of the vowels in these two words in the middle east would depend to a very great degree upon regional pronunciation.

A. alnakkas:- if the "r" is pronounced, is it rolled? That is "rrrr" ? Something like a Scotsman rolls his "r's".

Hey A.G,

Its Khanjar without the rrr :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_DK2...eature=related

In the first few seconds, you can hear the guy speaking saying both Khanjar and Janbiya :-)

Thank you.

Salaams ~ Its funny but most Europeans say canjaa.. whereas Omanis say Khunjar with a fairly strong Kh (as in the Scottish loch) at the front but a soft r...(not the rolled r) at the end ... but certainly the r is just audible. It is claimed that the word is an Arabic original absorbed and transmitted through Persia to India. The Met museum claim that the item... A dagger ...with the name of Khunjar arrived in Indian weaponry design :shrug: in the 16th Century probably via Persia. The picture being worth 1000 words please see http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=14878:shrug:
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

The reason I said Khanjar is a Persian word is because it is mentioned in Shahnameh, which was written over 1000 years ago and was the first book post Islam that was written strictly in Persian without any Arabic words but 2. It reffers to a short knife, unlike the middle eastern khanjars of today. As far is as pronounciation, we pronounce it as it is written with KH not K and pronouncing the R not RR.

Salaams AJ1356 ~ I think that is entirely possible and Persia not only had a strategic interest after Islam in the region mainly through imposition of taxes in some coastal areas but had a significant presence in Rostaq and Bahla (They built the Bahla Fort pre Islam) in the Interior. I see no reason why it could not have been originally a Persian word. Seems reasonable to me. :shrug:
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

Namaste Ibrahiim,


As you say most Europeans pronounce the word as spelt and sound the 'r' not just as 'Can-jaa' but actually 'Can-jar'.
My friend although English was discussing the correct Omani/Arabic pronunciation and she was adamant that the Omani's pronounce the word: 'Cun-ja'.
So is that 'soft' pronunciation localised to Oman or more widespread?

Interesting. Well I only checked Lisan al Arab, perhaps a book specialized in Arabised words will be best? cant think of any..

Hey Lotfy.

I can hear him saying Jambiya: 'Jambeea', but not Khanjar, whats the time on the clock?
I'm glad 'Jambeea' is correct, I don't like 'Jambeyea' sounds like a Cajun dish!

Salaams ~ If its written its pronounced... The Kh at the beginning is important... Kh as in Scotlands Loch..and at the end a soft r... audible but not the rolling rrr of Northumberland and Scotish dialects. Och aye rrrright?
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

:D

My mother tongue is Malay so in order to correctly pronounce the Arabic words or the Malay words which were borrowed from the Arabic words I had to learn what we called as Makhaarij.

http://www.readwithtajweed.com/image.../Makhaarij.gif

The Makhaarij of the Letters means the correct position of the organs of speech in order to produce a letter so that it can be differentiated from others. This is equally so whether the letter is a consonant or a vowel.

mohd

Resurrecting this old thread to add another data point: Yesterday I showed my sword/knife to an elderly Mongolian man. He only spoke a few words of English but he seemed to know a thing or two about swords, he showed me some nice draw cuts with my tulwar and nearly gave me a heart attack when he bent my kaskara nearly in half (thankfully it sprung back).

I couldn't understand what he was saying but I did notice he called my curved daggers "khanjar". He pronounced it kihn-jarrr with a rolled r at the end. So they call them khanjar in Mongolia and that's how they pronounce it.

In Turkish, we pronounce "hançer" with a strong h so the first part is exactly like in the Turkic word khan) and the scond part of the word is pronounced as in chariot and cherry, and the final "r" sound is strong.

" Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?"
:-) :-)
Happy New Year!

define 'english'.

the english i speak is differently pronounced than the english of the people around me. (i'm american, if you've forgotten ;))

pronunciation of similar words here can vary over a distance of 20 miles or so.
pronunciations in the USA vary from north to south, east to west. canadian english and northern US american english are darn close until you get to the pronunciation of 'about', USA it's 'abowt', in canada it's 'aboot'. moving right along, spreading east and southwards from the UK, you'll have fun understanding a south african english accent - then when you get to autralia & NZ, even more vowel drift.

...and that's a language with a fairly strict spelling dictionary. also not mentioning that UK english accents changed a lot in the victorian era, prior to that, UK english sounded more like what they speak in west virginia, USA, according to linguists. (think of jody foster's accent in 'silence of the lambs', she doesn't actually speak like that in real life, she learned it with difficulty for the movie)

now take that and try to transcribe anything from that mess of english into a language that not only uses different characters to describe the sounds they use (and possibly sounds english doesn't even have) or a language like arabic where the vowels are indicated by little diacritical marks rather than by characters in the main alphabet (which only has an 'a' and a 'y'). the marks are even usually left off in texts as 'everybody knows' how to pronounce the word in their own dialect.

and heaven forbid you try chinese & their multiple dialects and 5000+ characters, which the japanese also use and renounce entirely differently.

then try translating a word from that other language back into english (or even the patois of 'engrish' used by many other countries)

it's a miracle we can understand anyone.

i, of course, do not have an accent :D i suspect that anyone reading this also 'knows' THEY do not have an accent. everyone else does tho. ;)

also haven't mentioned that we can use different words to describe things, like with my 18 mo. old saluki lurcher, she has 'feathers' (feathering). which i'm not sure what they are called in arabic to describe the long ear hair and wispy hair fringes on the back of their legs, on their feet and especially their tails.

bragtuitous doggy photo from last summer, her ear feathering is longer now) :