Note 441 — TALE OF NÚR AL-DÍN ALÍ & HIS SON BADR AL-DÍN HASAN

Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes "Fleisher" upon the word "Ghamghama" (Diss. Crit. de Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares with "Dumduma" and "Humbuma" determining them to be onomatopoeics, "an incomplete and an obscure murmur of a sentence as it were lingering between the teeth and lips and therefore difficult to be understood." Of this family is "Taghúm"; not used in modern days. In my Pilgrimage (i. 313) I have noticed another, "Khyas, Khyas!" occurring in a Hizb al-Bahr (Spell of the Sea). Herklots gives a host of them; and their sole characteristics are harshness and strangeness of sound, uniting consonants which are not joined in Arabic. The old Egyptians and Chaldeans had many such words composed at will for theurgic operations.