wa·di (noun) or wa·dy
wa·dis or wa·dies
1. mainly dry water course
a steep-sided water course in arid regions of North Africa and southern Asia through which water flows only after heavy rainfalls
2. oasis
an oasis, especially in North Africa
I have heard this used in the American southwest and also American Pacific Northwest in place of "coulee"...
Curious as to it's origins...
wadi
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Despite the Vulture Headress, we do not think of you as a bird-brain, fair lady.I know this word from the Pogues' Girl From The Wadi Hammamat.
"Lovely as a green parakeet..."
Man, no one has ever called me that.![]()
-gailr
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
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"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
Re: wadi
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Languagewa·di (noun) or wa·dy
I have heard this used in the American southwest and also American Pacific Northwest in place of "coulee"...
Curious as to it's origins...
Wikipedia
F
Thank you, Frank. I knew it had Arabic origins, but was real curious as to how it migrated into usage in some geographic areas of the States. Back in the 1960s, I knew some very old cowboys in New Mexico who regularly referred to them as "wadis". Perhaps the Spanish connection mentioned in Wikipedia explains that...
I'm only guessing here, not even sure if the pieces below belong to the same puzzle...Thank you, Frank. I knew it had Arabic origins, but was real curious as to how it migrated into usage in some geographic areas of the States. Back in the 1960s, I knew some very old cowboys in New Mexico who regularly referred to them as "wadis". Perhaps the Spanish connection mentioned in Wikipedia explains that...
A Spanish connection doesn't seem logical to me. Older loan words with initial in Spanish with word initial w- as 'wadi' got 'hispanicised' to gu- (as Guadiana, from Wadi-Anas; see also guerra < Germ. werre, war).
On the other hand, 'wadi' (as a technical word) seems to be a re-loan in Spanish (couldn't find a date for that).
The explanation in Encarta looks very plausible to me:
"Aside from other direct borrowings [edit: into English] readily recognizable as Arabic émigrés, for example, falafel, kebab, imam, madrasa, and wadi, a few derive from place names."
BTW, etymonline gives 1839 as the date of the first attestation in English.
F
Last edited by frank on Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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I think the links posted above make the issue quite clear, but I'll say it out loud anyway. The Arabic word is واد wādin or وادي wādī. Seeing as plurals are always fun with Arabic, you get two of them: اودية awdiyä or وديان wadyān. The word is used for any valley, wet or dry.
There are a significant number of Arabic loanwords in Spanish due to Arabic being the main language of much of mediaeval Spain. So you get the Arabic place name وادي الحجارة wādī al-ḥijārä, meaning 'the valley of stones', becoming the Spanish Guadalajara. The change of initial w- to gʷ- is universal in Spanish.
The most memorable wadi I've seen is the narrow ravine through which tourists walk to get to Petra in Jordan. Suddenly, you turn a corner, and you can glimpse something of the first carved façade through the narrow wadi opening. The ravine is Wādī al-Mūsà — Moses' Valley.
—Garzo still around!
There are a significant number of Arabic loanwords in Spanish due to Arabic being the main language of much of mediaeval Spain. So you get the Arabic place name وادي الحجارة wādī al-ḥijārä, meaning 'the valley of stones', becoming the Spanish Guadalajara. The change of initial w- to gʷ- is universal in Spanish.
The most memorable wadi I've seen is the narrow ravine through which tourists walk to get to Petra in Jordan. Suddenly, you turn a corner, and you can glimpse something of the first carved façade through the narrow wadi opening. The ravine is Wādī al-Mūsà — Moses' Valley.
—Garzo still around!
"Poetry is that which gets lost in translation" — Robert Frost
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