Date:    Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:30:01 -0700
<br>From:    "A. Maberry" <maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: Long story on Melungeons
<br>
<br>Very interesting article. The Turkish "me'l^un c^ani" means literally
<br>"accursed soul" (sg.). The Arabic cited is somewhat unclear "ma'lun jinn"
<br>or "ma'lun jann" seems to be an attempt to say "accursed (sg.) demons, (or
<br>evil spirits or genies)(pl.)". I think it is somewhat ungrammatical in
<br>that a) it is a case of a singular adjective modifying a plural noun and
<br>b) adjectives follow the nouns they modify. Therefore one would
<br>expect "jinn ma'lunah" the adjective being feminine because plurals are
<br>treated as feminine (an only and rare exception in which the adj. is not
<br>fem. is a constructio ad sensum e.g "rijal mu'minun" men(pl.) believing(m.
<br>pl.) = "believing men". Also since the Turkish connection would have dated
<br>to Ottoman times, not modern, one would have to look not at the modern one
<br>but the Ottoman one, which could have easily been the Persian-like
<br>construction "c^an-i me'l^un". There may be a lot of reasons for tracing
<br>the Melungeons to some place in the Near East, but IMHO the linguistic
<br>evidence is kind of weak and raises a lot of questions.
<br>
<br>Does anyone have any references to works tracing the parallels between
<br>American Indian and Turkish words mentioned in the article?
<br>
<br>Allen
<br>
<br>maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]u.washington.edu
<br>
<br>On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
<br>
<br>> The Knoxville News-Sentinel has a long story on Melungeons in today's
<br>> edtion: http://www.knoxnews.com/061898/up_front/5792.htm
<br>>
<br>> Bethany
<br>>
<br>