63874 Early Scientific Expediti

On Forsskål’s work with the gathering and philological treatment of Arabic names for plants and animals Provencal, Philippe Published in: Early scientific expeditions and local encounters. New perspectives on Carsten Niebuhr and ‘The Arabian Journey’ Publication date: 2013 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Citation for published version (APA): Provencal, P. (2013). On Forsskål’s work with the gathering and philological treatment of Arabic names for plants and animals. In I. Friis, M. Harbsmeier, & J. Bæk Simonsen (Eds.), Early scientific expeditions and local encounters. New perspectives on Carsten Niebuhr and ‘The Arabian Journey’: proceedings of a symposium on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia Felix (Vol. 2, pp. 101-109). Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Scientia Danica, Series H, Humanistica Vol. 2 No. 4 Download date: 06. okt.. 2021 Early Scientific Expeditions and Local Encounters. New Perspectives on Carsten Niebuhr and ‘The Arabian Journey’ Proceedings of a Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia Felix Edited by Ib Friis, Michael Harbsmeier and Jørgen Bæk Simonsen Scientia Danica. Series H, Humanistica, 4 · vol. 2 det kongelige danske videnskabernes selskab Contents Ib Friis, Michael Harbsmeier and Jørgen Bæk Anne Haslund Hansen: Niebuhr and the Visual Doc- Simonsen: Introduction 7 umentation of the Arabian Voyage, 1761-1767 119 Daniel Carey: Arts and Sciences of Travel, 1574-1762: Michel-Pierre Detalle and Renaud Detalle: Carsten The Arabian Journey and Michaelis’s Fragen in Niebuhr’s Reply to the French Academy: A Newly Context 27 Discovered Memorandum from 1768 145 Peter Ulf Møller: Long Transit to the Unknown: Ber- Catharina Raudvere: The Pedagogical Virtues of ing and the Siberian Context 51 Comparison: Jacob Jonas Björnståhl in Constan- tinople 1776-79 149 Lawrence J. Baack: From Biblical Philology to Scien- tific Achievement and Cultural Understanding: Ib Friis: Travelling Among Fellow Christians (1768- Carsten Niebuhr, Peter Forsskål and Frederik von 1833): James Bruce, Henry Salt and Eduard Rüp- Haven and the Transformation of the Danish Ex- pell in Abyssinia 161 pedition to Arabia 1761-1767 61 Charles W. J. Withers: Travel, Truth and Narrative in Jonathan M. Hess: Carsten Niebuhr, Johann David the Arabian Writings of James Wellsted (1805- Michaelis, and the Politics of Orientalist Scholar- 1842) 195 ship in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany 78 Harry Liebersohn: The Romance of Hawaii in Wil- Michael Harbsmeier: Niebuhr’s Method 85 liam Ellis’s “Narrative of a Tour Through Hawaii, or, Owhyhee” 208 Philippe Provençal: On Forsskål’s Work with the Gathering and Philological Treatment of Arabic Ib Friis: Carsten Niebuhr and James Bruce: Lifted Lat- Names for Plants and Animals 101 itudes and Virtual Voyages on the Red Sea ...? 222 Roger H. Guichard: Niebuhr in Egypt 110 Contributors 251 On Forsskål’s Work with the Gathering and Philological Treatment of Arabic Names for Plants and Animals Philippe Provençal Abstract One of the main goals stipulated in the Royal Instruction to the members of the Royal Danish expedition 1761-1767 to Arabia was the gathering of local names and designations for plants and animals. Peter Forsskål, the appointed naturalist of the expedition, had specifically been given the task of noting local names for botanical and zoological species met during the expedition. Forsskål acquitted himself scrupu- 2013 · lously of this task and his notes are of great academic value. The philological difficulties, methods and implications of Forsskål’s material are discussed and compared with the author’s own experience with collecting and analysing Arab names for plants and animals. During field work involving the gathering of local names of such organisms, the researcher may encounter the following main categories of difficulties: (1). Doubt about the botanical/zoological identity of the species in question. The informant may not always be able to distinguish similar species or know their precise designation. (2). Linguistic imprecision. The researcher may be unable to · early scientific expeditions and local encounters · early differentiate or recognise the different linguistic features of the provided names or 4.2 designations, or may not be able to understand precisely what the informant means. Even if the spelling of the collected species name is controlled by the informant, spelling mistakes may occur. These difficulties are illustrated and discussed through sci.dan.h. the royal danish academy of sciences and letters six examples, gathered from Forsskål’s philological material and the author’s own field research. science, i.e. the species which were not listed and de- Introduction scribed in Carl von Linné’s 10th edition of his Systema The expedition “The Arabian Journey 1761-1767”, in Naturae.1 which Forsskål took part, was designed as a multidis- In the Royal Instruction of the expedition of 15 ciplinary undertaking. Even though the initial scope December 1760, it is stipulated in the §§ 17-19, that the of the expedition had been to gather new data in or- tasks of Forsskål were both philological and biologi- der to make advances in the philological treatment of cal. He had to gather and systematically describe all and research in the text of the Bible, the final impact new species and to record their local names both in of it was much wider. It included, among other re- Arabic and in Latin characters. He furthermore had sponsibilities, the gathering of as many different plant to compare the information he acquired with the in- and animal species as at all possible, as well as schol- arly registration of these species and the scientific de- 1. See discussion of what Forsskål used for identification of scription of the species, which were considered new to species in the field by Hepper and Friis (1994, pp. 25-29). 101 philippe provençal sci.dan.h. 4 · 2 formation given by Classical Arabic authors on sub- Arabic and Latin characters and, if the names varied jects of nature and natural history, and with the lin- from one locality to another, to record the local varia- guistic and philological information provided by the tion in the use of names. As a consequence of this in- main Arabic lexica, which were used by his contempo- struction Forsskål recorded the names with the local rary Europeans scholars.2 dialectical pronunciations. In the Arabic-speaking domain there is in most cases a significant difference Philological treatment of Arabic species between the official written language and the spoken 4 names ones. Forsskål was a fine philologist, and he knew which grammatical features corresponded to each The treatment of Arabic species names represents a other in the dialects and in the official Classical Ara- specific problem. In most cases the identity given by a bic language. It is admirable that he carefully wrote particular name for an animal or plant is either not down the notes on local Arabic names of animals and known or rather vague. There are several reasons for plants and never tried to alter them into Classical Ara- this: bic. 1. The names of species were never philologically Forsskål’s publications with Arab names of standardized in Classical Arabic literature. plants and animals 2. The names vary with local use. 3. In Classical Arabic science, which was the refer- As is well known from the literature, Forsskål died ence source in the Arabic speaking countries until during the expedition, perishing of malaria in the the modern nahdah, i.e. the “renaissance” of science town of Yerim in Yemen on the 11th of July, 1763. If his and letters which started in the nineteenth century works were to be of scientific use, they had thus to be and was both provoked and enhanced by the in- published posthumously, and this task was meticu- creased contacts with Europe,3 the concepts of bio- lously carried out by Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815), logical species were not adequately defined. Hence who was the sole survivor of the expedition. there was not even an approximation of consensus Two books authored by Forsskål but published by about the concepts of the individual species. Some Carsten Niebuhr appeared in 1775: A botanical work species were unanimously accepted, while the Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, was published early 1775.5 Prob- opinions about the delimitation of other species ably later 1775, Niebuhr published the zoological varied tremendously. work, Descriptions Animalium.6 In these books the notes 4. The great majority of Classical Arabic texts of gathered by Forsskål regarding the local names are good quality on zoological and botanical matters listed and published, usually in association with a sci- still await a serious interdisciplinary study. entific treatment of the species they have been recorded to designate. It must be noted that Forsskål pro- When Forsskål left for the expedition, he was thus vided all the local names he encountered, not only asked to solve a problem, which was already realized those in Arabic. Thus he has also noted local names in to be complicated. He acquitted himself scrupulously Greek and Turkish gathered during the expedition’s of this task and brought home a very substantial mate- stay in Constantinople and in other places in the rial of local zoological and botanical names in Arabic. In § 18 of the Royal Instruction Forsskål was explicit- 4. Moscati et al. (1980) § 4.5- § 4.6; Bergsträsser (1995) ly ordered

Load more