Female Camel Nomenclature among Arabia’s Bedouins

Abstract

The camel’s cultural importance among the nomads of Arabia can be attributed to its critical role over the centuries in ensuring the people’s survival. Its status explains the herders’ detailed knowledge of the animal and their breeding expertise. As a result, an extensive classification system of camel naming prevails among Bedouin Arabs. The category names assigned, in particular to the females, serve as “information packages” that transmit traditional knowledge from one generation to the next. Apparent name-loss among a younger and more urbanized generation thus reflects an erosion of this once vital knowledge. It is hoped that recording a wide range of female camel names here, and documenting their classification, will help towards the preservation of such an important knowledge system.

Keywords:

• anthropology
• Arabic
• Bedouin
• categories
• folk taxonomy
• language and culture
• lexical semantics
• zoonymy

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amel Salman

Amel Salman teaches linguistics and translation in the Department of English at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. She holds a doctorate in lexicology and lexicography from the University of Glasgow, UK. Her research interests include language and culture, ethnolinguistics, and ethnophysiography.

Nafla S. Kharusi

Nafla S. Kharusi received her doctorate in linguistics from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Currently she is working on Oman’s toponyms, investigating the extent to which language and culture influence the categorization of landscape features. Her other research interests include ethnic politics and ethnolinguistic minorities of Oman.