Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Arab lexicographers derive the name of one of the classical metres of poetry from a vb. I, now extinct, ^† ramala u which, apart from meanings relating to ↗raml ‘sand’, in ClassAr also can mean either ‘to weave (thinly, a mat of palm-leaves, etc.)’ or ‘to walk quickly’. From our present state of knowledge it is difficult to decide whether there may be some truth at least to one of these etymologies. The fact that ramal sometimes is classified as an insound, somehow “contaminated” type of poetry, does not bring much more light into the word’s etymology.

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▪ »The name, according to the Arab view, […] is said to mean either “haste” or “woven” (Freytag, Darstellung der arab. Verskunst, p. 136)«.¹
▪ Some theoreticians of Classical verse classify poetry in three main modes—qaṣīd, raǧaz, and ramal —and regard the latter as »incongruous, unsound, or faulty, in structure« (Lane 3-1867). Is ramal then a kind of “contaminated” poetry? In this case, one could think of a relation with ↗raml ‘sand’ from which, among others, rammala (vb. II) ‘to sprinkle s.th. with sand, so as to blot it’, in ClassAr also ‘to put sand into s.th.’, e.g., food, and hence contaminate it, or ‘to adulterate, corrupt, render unsound’ (said of speech), are derived.

1. A. Schaade, art. »Ramal«, in EI¹.

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