[HPforGrownups] Name meanings: Arabella Figg

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 44090

Eloise, hearing a commotion from the classroom she is passing, finds Richard 
(whose nerves I am becoming quite concerned about) bouncing a ferret on the 
floor. Brandishing her wand and transforming the ferret back into an 
indignant Richelle, she demands an explanation:  [That's it. I'm not really 
TBAYing, I just couldn't resist the image!]

Richard:
> Briefly, it all hinges on the meaning of "bella". Expanding on (and 
> cleaning up) what I said last time, it does NOT mean "war" - it is a plural 
> 
> accusative, and means "wars'" (note apostrophe, ie "belonging to the wars", 
> 
> or "of the wars"). In effect, insisting on using that particular word 
> origin would establish a meaning for  Arabella of "refuge of the wars", or 
> more descriptively, if literally meaninglessly, "the place where the wars 
> are safe".

Eloise:
Sorry, Richard. I'm confused. I've read the above passage several times, 
mindful of the last time I jumped in on a thread only to find I'd misread a 
sentence (I think it was Richelle's as it happens).

The accusative case indicates that the noun in question is the *direct 
object* of a verb. It is the *genitive* case which indicates possession.
In the case of bellum which, if memory serves, is second declension neuter, 
the genitive plural ("wars' ") would be bellorum, wouldn't it?
'Bella' could be either nominative, vocative or accusative plural. But not 
genitive. If it is accusative, we cannot translate it with an apostrophe... 
Can we?
If 'bella' is a noun, rather than an adjective, the combination is as you 
say, meaningless: the juxtaposition of two nouns unconnected in any 
meaningful way by case.

> <>
> The basic, principal meaning of "bella" is a female nominative singular 
> adjective meaning "beautiful"; "ara" is a female nominative singular noun 
> meaning "altar", "sanctuary" or "refuge". I leave as an exercise for the 
> reader to work out what it might mean.

And this, before you find reason to disagree with me again, is exactly what I 
said too, the last time round. 
*If* we are to derive Arabella this way, which I don't think we should! 

But I don't see that in isolation, the adjectival meaning is any more basic 
than the nounal one. My Latin primer was full of 'bella'!


Be fair to Richelle. She does realise that her etymologies are considered 
fanciful by Latinists (you do, don't you?) - hence banging her head on her 
desk.

OK. On to Richelle's post:
Time for a brief lesson in basic Latin, I feel. (My Latin doesn't go much 
beyond basic!)

Richelle:
>Okay, perhaps I am a complete idiot, and perhaps incapable of reading a
>Latin dictionary properly but here is what my dictionary tells me:

>bellatrix (which I don't like using, as the a is a long a sound, not short):
>female warrior
>bello: wage war
>bellum: war; combat; fight
>belli: at the wars

>No apostrophes in sight.

Eloise:

No, there aren't. The problem is that Latin nouns and adjectives decline in a 
way that many (?most - unlike you, I'm not a linguist) modern languages 
don't. Latin dictionaries assume knowledge of this. There are a number of 
different declensions, with variants according to the gender of the word. 
Bellum which, as I have said, is a neuter noun of the second declension, goes 
like this:

                   singular                                        plural

Nominative   bellum     (a war)                           bella
vocative       bellum      (o war!)                          bella
accusative    bellum     (a war)                           bella
genitive        belli         (of a war)                        bellorum
dative           bello        (to or for a war)               bellis
ablative        bello         (by,with or from a war)    bellis

Richard:
> The basic, principal meaning of "bella" is a female nominative singular
> adjective meaning "beautiful"; <>

Richelle:
>The word "bella" is no where in my Latin dictionary, so I can't say.
>However, looking up beautiful in the English portion, gives nothing remotely
>close to bella.

Eloise:
It doesn't in mine, either. I bet you got 'pulcher', didn't you? (And 
incidentally, that's the masculine form, so if you wanted to use it to 
describe a girl, you would have to alter it to 'pulchra'. My dictionary 
assumes you know that.) In the English-Latin  section of mine, 'bellus' only 
occurs as a translation of 'nice'!
However, in the Latin-English section of my dictionary, 'bellus' is defined 
as, 'pretty, handsome, pleasant, nice'. 'Bellus' is the masculine nominative 
singular form, the form in which adjectives are normally listed in the 
dictionary. Try looking that up.
I assure you, it's one of the first, basic adjectives that you learn. Or at 
least, it was, way back when.

Now... Adjectives decline in just the same way as nouns.
If agreeing with a neuter noun, 'bellus( -a -um)' would be declined like 
'bellum', above.
If agreeing with a feminine noun (such as 'ara'), it would be declined,

nom. bella            bellae
voc.  bella            bellae
acc.  bellam         bellas
gen.  bellae          bellarum
dat.  bella            bellis
abl.  bella            bellis


To anyone who does have a smattering of Latin grammar, the obvious, first, 
*Latin* meaning of 'ara bella' is 'beautiful altar', or 'beautiful 
sanctuary'.

In RL, names frequently change forms, hence one of the difficulties in 
deriving them. OTOH, if JKR wanted to use Arabella as a Latin word to convey 
something, then I think she would *probably* use the obvious meaning.


Richelle:
<>Now, if you have read what I wrote above, you will find that based on MY
>Latin dictionary, which has no apostrophe anywhere involving war or wars, is
>accurate.  Stop screaming.  I said based on MY Latin dictionary.  It doesn't
>mean it is accurate. It's possible there's a mistake in the dictionary.  

Eloise:
No, there's no mistake in your dictionary. It's just that as I indicated 
above, the dictionary will give only certain basic forms of a word, assuming 
that you know how to make the other forms.
The genitive forms do tend to be indicated, though. In the Latin  - English 
section of mine, for instance, 'bellum' is given as, 'bellum, -i  n. war'. 
That tells you how you should expect to decline it.

Richelle:
>But I am defending my intelligence here.   I did not study three languages 
(not
>counting English) throughout high school and college on my way to  Master's
>degree in Educational Technology by being a complete idiot who can't read a
>dictionary.

Eloise:
Of course you're not (says she, not wanting to seem guilty by association!) 
But if you don't know the grammar, the dictionary will be misleading.

Richelle:
>Besides, my emphasis was more on "Figg" that could come from "figulus" which
>means Potter.  A while back I had a wild notion that Arabella Figg was
>related to Harry, not by blood, but as an inlaw, based on the meaning of
>"figulus."  I've changed my mind, as I think it reads better as an entire
>statement, which I will not dare to repeat as I've been yelled at once
>already.

Eloise:
Well, you know I won't agree with you about that. But I defend your right to 
be as fanciful in your derivations as you like. For all I know, you may be 
right. It rather depends on JKR's knowledge and intentions when it comes to 
Latin usage. It's not clear how good her Latin is.

I really don't think we have to fight over these things. Some people enjoy 
abstruse (fanciful) detective work, some people enjoy LOONacy. I like a bit 
of both, myself. 

IMO, the problem with these things really comes when people start publishing 
these theories as facts, telling the world that there is an Arthurian 
character called Voldemortist, or that there is a legend about the Running 
Weasel.
I think Richelle knows that her ideas are controversial and hasn't pretended 
otherwise or indeed, that they are any more than her opinion.

Eloise
Hoping and praying that she's got her declensions right.


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