Talk:Mulukhiyah

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Moved from Mulukhiyya to Mulukhiya
This is the right spelling as spelled on:
 * http://members.cox.net/ahmedheissa/recmuluk.htm
 * http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/561/cu6.htm
 * http://www.gourmet.gr/recipes/egyptian/show.asp?gid=1&nodeid=23&arid=7145
 * http://www.islam.com/reply.asp?id=325549&ct=14&mn=325406
 * http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/199923/000019992399A0811387.php

and the double y doesn't make any sense. --Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 14:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no single "right spelling", and Wikipedia needs to record all the spellings that users are likely to look for. See  below for further comment. yoyo (talk) 14:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Redirect from "Molokiya" spelling
I added a redirect from the spelling "molokiya," which I've encountered fairly frequently for this dish in the past. (The world could really use some standard rules for transliterating Arabic to Latin script.) Just wanted to let anyone know who's watching this space. ExOttoyuhr (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The world, unfortunately, does have "some standard rules for" transcribing (rather than transliterating - see the article Romanization of Arabic) "Arabic to Latin script" - at least 19 different sets of them! See also my attempt to ease the confusion, below at Talk:Mulukhiyah.  yoyo (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggested page name change to MOLOKHIA
Am not sure what the wiki rules are, but the Molokhia spelling has 129,000 google hits, which is more than five times all the other suggested spellings added together. Can we change the name of the article to match the most common translation on this basis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.209.60 (talk) 21:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a note that the page Mulukhiyah-
 * includes the transcription /Molokhia/, and
 * is the target of the redirected Wikipedia query "Molokhia".
 * Like the OP (Original Poster) I'm not sure what the Wikipedia rules are. On Wikipedia, a redirect from any synonym incurs almost no performance penalty.  But perhaps the present page title "Mulukhiyah" somehow confers greater status or acceptability on that spelling than on the most popular spelling (according to the OP).  Given that we're not trying to legislate the usage of English in any way, the issue is:
 * Should we choose page titles to reflect majority usage, whenever that is clear?
 * What is the policy (if any)?
 * yoyo (talk) 14:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Purpose
Many readers are confused by the various ways of spelling Arabic words in English. I hope to help ease the pain ;-)

Disclaimer
As always, corrections and suggestions for improvement are welcome!

Transcription
There have been many systems and styles of transcribing Arabic words into the Latin alphabet, or an extended version of it. Not all of them faithfully represent the sounds of Arabic, and one of their main failings is in suitably distinguishing long vowels from short ones.

The typical representations in Latin script of a vowel will depend upon the recorder's native-language spelling conventions; for example, /oo/ represents the long vowel in English "boot" (IPA [uː]), while a similar sound is written in French as /ou/, as in "debout".

Here's the beginning of the article: Mulukhiyah, mloukhiya, molokhia, mulukhiyya, malukhiyah, or moroheiya (Arabic: ملوخية‎; Japanese: モロヘイヤ)

Now, looking at the Arabic spelling, I believe the correct transcription - according to the rules used by most modern English-speaking scholars of the Arabic world, in my several decades of experience (and confusion!) - would be either /mulūkhiyah/ or /muluukhiyah/, depending on whether the macron (horizontal over-bar) accent is available in the character set. The second vowel is phonetically a "long [u]", here represented as either /ū/ or /uu/.

It would also be acceptable to lose the final /h/, which represents the "tāʾ marbūṭah" (a phonetic [t] which becomes [h] in utterance-final position), though preferable to retain it.

Thus I recommend augmenting the various spellings by adding: "A common transcription of the Arabic spelling is /mulūkhiyah/ or /muluukhiyah/, and its sound is given by IPA [muluːxiyah]".

Spelling
An encyclopaedia tries to represent what is, rather than what somebody feels should be. Thus, Wikipedia should faithfully record the commonest Latin-alphabet spellings found "in the wild", i.e. in the real world. Assuming those spellings mentioned in the opening paragraph are both real and common spellings, they should remain as they are. If there are other common spellings, please feel free to add them.

However, it is not the role of Wikipedia - or any encyclopaedia - to try to correct these spellings, no matter what their apparent weakness in correctly or clearly representing the original source words according to the orthographic rules of the target language. That's a "crusade" we can safely leave up to the spelling reformers of the world, most of whose efforts fall on deaf ears. Which is why there are so many different transcription systems in existence! For example, the article Romanization of Arabic mentions 18 different systems and standards, and is not exhaustive, since it misses out, at least, the X-SAMPA system.

Following are some notes on how these spellings may have arisen; these notes are merely informed conjecture, and are not encyclopaedic material, being essentially original research. I offer these notes to help other Wikipedia editors understand why there are several different ways of spelling Arabic (and other foreign) words in English.


 * 1) The first spelling /mulukhiyah/ approximates the common transcription closely, but shortens the second vowel.
 * 2) The second spelling /mloukhiya/ seems to be a Francophone spelling of a North African or Levantine dialect form, in which the first vowel [u] is reduced to a nearly-nonexistent schwa, and which represents the long [u] in the typical French manner by /ou/.  Therefore, this spelling would likely be common in those regions of the Arabophone world and should stand as it is.
 * 3) The third spelling /molokhia/ appears to be based on a typical Orientalist transcription style from the 19th century CE, commonly used by British Orientalists and the British Raj in India.  Spellings in this style usually represented the short vowel [u] by orthographic /u/ and the similarly articulated long vowel [uː] by /o/.  Similarly, /i/ represented short [i] and /e/ represented long [iː].  However, that style often recorded vowel length inaccurately, with /…o…o…/ (and /…e…e…/) occurring much more frequently than the more usually correct lengths /…u…o…/ and /…o…u…/ (and /…i…e…/ and /…e…i…/).  Perhaps they were trying to represent supposed vowel harmony rules?  A more accurate transcription would have been /mulokhia/ or (better) /mulokhiya/.
 * 4) Another editor commented that the fourth spelling /mulukhiyya/ is "illogical"; illogical, since the doubled /y/ would seem to imply a triple-length vowel.  However, I believe this spelling arises in another transcription system that used /i/ for phonetic [i] and /iy/ for phonetic [iː].  In that system, a spelling /…iyy…/ represents the long vowel [iː] followed by the consonant [j] at the beginning of the next syllable.
 * 5) The fifth spelling /malukhiyah/ is similar to the first, but with the first vowel changed from /u/ to /a/, and fails equally to show the length of the second vowel.  Whilst the Arabic spelling supports any spelling /mVlūkhiyah/, with V being any of the short vowels /a/, /i/ or /u/, I have seen and heard no evidence that [maluːxiyah] or [miluːxiyah] are acceptable Arabic words; and even if they were, their meanings would probably be very close to that of [muluːxiyah].
 * 6) I guess the sixth spelling /moroheiya/ must represent the Japanese spelling /モロヘイヤ/, but do not know this for sure.

yoyo (talk) 14:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The ban by Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim
According to the Feedback page, one poster wrote that he: "was informed by an Egyptian national that the ban occurred due to it being so loved by Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah that he believed it so superior that no one else but he and his council (family and others high in power etc) to be able to consume it. It shouldn't be for the common man."

Yet this can't be the whole story, and smacks of political propaganda. Other pages on the internet speak of al-khalifa al-hakim bi-`amrullah banning it because he believed it "drove men and women to lustful excess" or "wild with desire", and that he also banned many other pleasures. So there may have been a moral purpose to his bans.

Does anybody have any reliable sources on this topic?

yoyo (talk) 06:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Untitled
This is regarding the statement: "Mloukhiya is also the Moroccan term for okra, which goes by gnāwiyah in Tunisia and bāmyah (Arabic: بامية‎) elsewhere."

1. I think that the wording is inaccurate/requires better clarity. 2. The author really wanted to say that Moroccans use the word "Mloukhiya" when they are referring to the "Okra" plant as opposed to "Corchorus" plant. 3. The author also appears to wanted to give more detail about the fact that the Egyptian word for the "Okra" plant is bāmyah (Arabic: بامية‎). Which -in my opinion- is not exactly the subject of this "Mloukhiya" Wikipedia item... 4. I think that more relevant is to say that the Moroccan word for Corchorus is not "Mloukhiya", rather Moroccans use the word SALK (Arabic: سلق‎ ‎) to refer to "Corchorus". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.61.2.146 (talk) 19:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Vegan source of beef/chicken
The little info box thing says this plant contains beef and chicken broth, should we add a section where talkin about its a big potential vegan cuisine game changer?73.170.186.221 (talk) 17:53, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Plant vs. dish
This article covers both the plant and the common dish made with it. This is a bit confusing, and is even more confusing when the information is taken into wikidata.

Shouldn't we split it into one article for the plant, and another for the dish? --Macrakis (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Joe in Australia (talk) 23:19, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Bitter
I don't know why the intro claims mulukhiyah to be bitter. It just isn't. I don't know what possible kitchen mishap caused this misconception. 〜 Festucalex  •  talk  19:57, 29 March 2023 (UTC)