Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
half-beak (
Hemiramphus
);
abū min
ª
ar
“father
of the saw” for the sawfish (
Pristis pristis
);
abū
£
aan
“father of the beard” for the
goat fish or mullet (
Mullus barbatus
);
umm
arn
“mother of the horn” for the trigger
fish (
Balistes
);
umm al-
ª
abābī
“mother of
the barbels” for the barbel (
Barbus sharpeyi
).
Some names derive from living foreign
languages, and especially from Spanish,
such as
an
ª
ūyah, an
¡
ūyah
(Spanish
anchoa
),
the anchovy (
Engraulis boelema
);
arrang,
ranga, ranka
(Spanish
arenque
), the herring
(
Clupea harengus
);
bakūra
(Spanish
albacora
),
the albacore (
Germo alalunga
);
durāda
(Span-
ish
dorado
), the goldfish (
Sparus aurata
). The
influence of English, of French and of
Italian should also not be disregarded. To
the Persian
parastūg
“swallow” are related
barasū
¡
, barastūk, arastu
¡
for the mullet
(
Mullus
), and from the Turkish
alabalık
comes the name
alābāl
∞
ā
for the trout.
In a process contrary to these Arabic bor-
rowings of foreign terms, systematic sci-
ence has sometimes needed recourse to
an Arabic term, which is then latinised,
to specify a sub-species limited to a par-
ticular region. Thus
barda
= the pink
sea-bream, is encountered again with
Chrysophrys berda; affāra
= the wrasse, with
Chrysophrys haffara; sarb
= the grey gilthead,
with
Chrysophrys sarba; ba
ª
īr
= polypterus
Bichir, with
Polypterus Bechir; buhār
= the
diacope, with
Diacope bohar; baya, bayyā
=
a silurus of the Nile, with
Bagrus bajad;
arīd
= the parrot fish, with
Scarus harid;
alāwī
= the guitar fish, with
Rhinobatus
halavi; durāb
= the chirocentrus, with
Chi-
rocentrus dorab; duma
= a silurus of the
Nile, the Euphrates and the Niger, with
Bagrus docmac;
∞
ubbān
= the green scarus,
with
Scarus ghobban; safan
= the sephen
skate, with
Raia sephen; say
¡
ān
= the sidjan
scarus, with
Scarus siganus; līmī
= umbra
limi, with
Umbra limi;
ª
alba
= a silurus of
the Nile and the Niger, with
Schilbe mys-
tus; ahmal
= a silurus, with
Pimelopterus
tahmel; urfī
= the braize orphe, with
Pagrus
orphus; bunnī Nīl
= the Nile barbel, with
Barbus bynni; lafūt
= the unicorn fish, with
Lophotes cepedianus; limma
= the limma ray,
with
Raia lymma; abū anūn
= the sansun
kingfish, with
Caranx sansun;
¡
iddāba
=
the djeddaba kingfish, with
Caranx djed-
daba; balam
= the anchovy, with
Engraulis
boelema
.
2. Anatomy
The anatomy of the fish is summarised
in few words. The scales are called,
according to the regions:
ar
ª
af, fi,
taflīs, īrāt, i
ª
ra, ba
ª
īr al-ūt
and
a
ª
kāma
(Spanish: escamosa). For the gills and the
bronchiae, organs of respiration, the only
words found are:
¶
ay
ª
ūm
, pl.
¶
ayā
ª
īm,
¶
an
ª
ū
ª
a, na
¶ª
ū
ª
pl.
na
¶
ā
ª
ī
ª
. The
cetaceans expel water by means of blow-
holes or
naysam
pl.
nayāsim
. For the fins the
terms are:
¡
anā al-samak, zinifa,
¡
ānia
.
The eggs laid by the fishes (
ūmār
) con-
stitute the spawn,
sar al-samak, sir, sarwa,
utur
, deposited in spawning-grounds or
masra al-samak
, habitual sites peculiar to
each species; it is there that the fry (
bulū
)
develop.
3. Halieutics
It is known that, since prehistoric times,
fish has always provided one of the prin-
cipal alimentary resources for riverside
and coastal populations, especially of the
Mediterranean, the Arabian Gulf and
the Indian Ocean. It may thus be stated
that fishing (
iiyād al-samak
) engendered
both coastal and oceanic navigation, and
this even before the long-range voyages
of migration and of commercial traffic.
First of all, it is important to distinguish
between two very different types of fish-
ing, sea fishing and fresh water fishing,
the species of fish belonging to these two
aquatic environments not being the same,
although some migrate periodically from
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