دقل

From Proto-West Semitic *daqal-, in Akkadian only found in the toponymy of Chaldean territory, and likewise the Arabic is suspect to be influenced by semantic loan from Aramaic דִקְלָא (diqlā, “date palm; topgallant”) for the sense of a “mast”, compare also سَارِيَة (sāriya, “post, mast”) from Aramaic, though the mast sense is also found in Mehri dəqāl (“mast”), Soqotri daqal (“pole”). In Hebrew דֶּגֶל (déḡel, “a flag”).

The sort of dates denoted by this word varies according to time. In antiquity, it denoted in particular a date palm that produced an abundant number of dates, however of an inferior quality, often characterized by being hard, small, or having a meager ratio of flesh compared to its pit. In modernity the meaning has switched to denote a supreme kind of date; the semantic shift seems to have been brought on by the popular variety دَقْلَة النُور (daqla(t) an-nūr, “heavenly or divine dates”, literally “date-palm of light”), so-named for producing a harvest as numerous as the ill-tasting variety, yet instead of being the expected unpleasant taste, they have a notoriously heavenly soft honey-like taste.

دَقَل • (daqal) m (collective, singulative دَقَلَة f (daqala))

1. a variety of dates (fruit and tree)
   • 7th century CE, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 55:43:

     أَلَسْتُمْ فِي طَعَامٍ وَشَرَابٍ مَا شِئْتُمْ – لَقَدْ رَأَيْتُ نَبِيَّكُمْ صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَمَا يَجِدُ مِنَ الدَّقَلِ مَا يَمْلَأُ بِهِ بَطْنَهُ؟

     ʔa-lastum fī ṭaʕāmin wa-šarābin mā šiʔtum – laqad raʔaytu nabiyyakum ṣallā llāhu ʕalayhi wasallama wa-mā yajidu mina d-daqali mā yamlaʔu bi-hī baṭnahū?

     Don’t you have food and drink as you will, whereas I have seen your prophet not even finding the worst kind of dates to fill his belly?

دَقَل • (daqal) m (plural دِقَال (diqāl) or أَدْقَال (ʔadqāl))

1. topgallant, topmast, mast tree, mainmast
   • a. 671, by النَابِغَةُ الْجَعْدِيّ (an-nābiḡatu l-jaʕdiyy)

     لَمْ يُقَايِظْنِي عَلَى كَاظِمَةٍ سَمَكُ / الْبَحْرِ وَحَوْلِيُّ الدَقَل

     lam yuqāyiẓnī ʕalā kāẓimatin samaku / al-baḥri waḥawliyyu d-daqal

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• → Swahili: digali (“stem of a tobacco pipe”)
• → Tigre: ደቀል (däḳäl, “mast”)
• → Tigrinya: ደቀል (däḳäl, “mast”)

• “دقل” in Almaany
• Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881) “دقل”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes‎ (in French), volume 1, Leiden: E. J. Brill, pages 452–453
• Fraenkel, Siegmund (1886) Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen (in German), Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 145 and Fraenkel, Siegmund (1886) Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen (in German), Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 223
• Freytag, Georg (1833) “دقل”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎ (in Latin), volume 2, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 45
• Guidi, Ignazio (1879) Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici (in Italian), Rome: Tipi del Salviucci, page 19
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “دقل”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎ (in French), volume 1, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 717
• Lane, Edward William (1863) “دقل”, in Arabic-English Lexicon‎, London: Williams & Norgate, page 898
• Müller, David Heinrich (1887) “Arabisch-aramäische Glossen”, in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes‎ (in German), volume 1, pages 25–26
• Nöldeke, Theodor (1875) Mandäische Grammatik‎ (in German), Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, pages 43–44
• Wehr, Hans with Kropfitsch, Lorenz (1985) “دقل”, in Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart‎ (in German), 5th edition, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, published 2011, →ISBN, page 400
• Zadok, Ran (1981) “The Toponymy of the Nippur Region during the 1st Millennium B.C. within the General Framework of the Mesopotamian Toponymy”, in Die Welt des Orients, volume 12, page 67