Arabic, Persian, Urdu

The Arabic is مقام, maqaam, from the root QWM meaning to stand. The ma- prefix can be part of a form indicating "place of" (e.g. maktab = office, from KTB to write), so maqaam = place of standing, standing, status, place.

That root shows up in one of the bits of Aramaic the gospels quote Jesus as having said: Talitha kumi = maiden arise.

I don't know Persian or Urdu, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if makam were used in Persian to mean something like (Oriental) musical mode or scale, as it is also in English. The music of Urdu speakers may have ragas instead of makams; I don't know.

The form of word that has MAFAAL feature points to time or place of action or general position of action. The context then decides whether one is talking about time or place or some other positioning or both. For example the word Masjid is well known to mean place of worship but it also can point especially in Qur'anic Arabic to timing of prayer.

MAQAM as a musical term is also certainly used in Arabic and it may point to the positioning of the musical note or so.

Take care all

Hussein

Thanks all very interesting, especially the thing about the music scale!

I was originally interested in the word because the "nickname" for the city I live in, Amsterdam, is Mokum, apparently originally a Yiddish word coming from Hebrew, meaning "place" in which I recognized a cognate with the word in Turkish.

Yes, מקום, "makom" (modern Hebrew pronunciation) means place. Kumi is also modern Hebrew for "stand up" - we're talking modern here! - said to a female. (In Hebrew verbs are masculine or feminine.) A mother will say to her young daughter on the bus: "Kumi... let this elderly gentleman sit down."

I didn't know masjid for prayer time, or about that form referring to time. Thanks, Hussein.

And thanks, shuffaluff. That's cool.

Should I (attempt to) explain what hlatif means by the MAFAAL form?

Here goes.

Arabic, and I think Semitic languages generally, form words by putting a root, usually of three consonants, into a particular pattern or form. So from KTB you might have kataba, he wrote; kaatib, writer, scribe; and maktab; place of writing, office. From QTL you might then have qatala, he killed, qaatil, killer, and maqtal (although I don't know if that word exists), place of killing.

When Arabic grammarians want to refer to these forms, they use the root F3L (3 = ayin, a guttural consonant lacking in English) = to do, to make. They would talk about the fa3ala form (third person singular masculine perfect); the faa3il form (spent participle masculine) etc. The maf3al or, as hlatif wrote it, MAFAAL form, denotes place or time of. Makaam is that form for the root QWM; w's and y's cause odd but predictable things to happen compared to other consonants.

Yes, same in Hebrew.

I remember some years ago reading a newspaper article about workers in a מתפרה. I didn't know the word, but the root תפר T-F-R shone through. The first letter and the last letter in the word are just frills and extras, indicating "a place where T-F-R is done". תפר T-F-R means "sew" (what you do with needle and thread), so it is a place where sewing is done, MATPERA. Therefore these workers were in a clothing factory.

As the starter of the thread, I did know about the MAFAAL form. I learnt about it when wondering how a word as short as matar could denote something as modern as an airport.
The explanation may be useful for someone else, though

But I did not think of the implication...
So, interestingly, both Hebrew and Arabic have a MAFAAL form, where an initial m- denotes a space!?

Edited by: kalpea_tuli

Looks like it. Arabic can add the feminine suffix to it as apparently can Hebrew, Maktaba = library. Madrasa = school (DRS = study).

Matar, as you might guess, is from a word with a Y (I think; it might be a W and I'm away from my dictionaries) in the middle. TYR = fly.

It's not just the initial m that Indicates "place or time of x-ing". The whole form is MaF3aL, where F, 3, and L indicate the first, second, and third consonants of the root. There are other forms with initial m and even initial ma. MaF3uuL is the past participle, e.g. Mahmoud = praised.

Edited by: Sibawaihi

Madrasa = school; Hebrew midrasha (although that's specifically a type of religious school, but it is of course the same basic idea from the same root).

The root פעל (F/P - ayin - L) in Hebrew has the basic meaning of working. (F and P are interchangeable, depending among other things on where they are in the word.) And that's where the idea of MAFAAL comes from. So פועל po'el is a workman; מפעל mif'al is a factory; פעולה pe'ula is an activity; הפעלה haf'ala is causing something to work, such as plugging an electrical appliance in.