Talk:yallah

RFV discussion: December 2021–February 2022

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yallah

I have not succeeded in finding any use or mention of this word, in Google Books, the Internet Archive, web searches, JSTOR. It is from an OCR of Webster 1913 in the scan of which I do not see it. Fay Freak (talk) 07:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

This is the version of Webster which has been OCR'd widely. The correct spelling is yallah. However, even the correctly spelt term may fail RFV, so I'll leave this open. Ideally we would trace its etymology and, based on that information, determine what alternative spellings might be in use. This, that and the other (talk) 09:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes. I have searched this spelling yallah now (which you moved from yalah) thoroughly and everything indicates it is a ghost-word, likely a mistranscription of one of the other names, like somebody entered it into some catalogue, and thus it is alleged to be used “in the London market”, which it was probably not. Fay Freak (talk) 09:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

(e/c) I put what I could find of the updated spelling at Citations:yallah, but it does indeed look like just a lot of catalogue-y sources copying each other. Other spellings I spotted include Jallah (in an Italian copy; in French and German copies "Yallah" is used) and google books:"yellah oil". Are we sure it's not just yella (yellow) oil? (In the one image I can find that's not an opaque/tinted bottle, but a clear bottle, it does seem to be yellow oil...) (Or, yes, as Fay Freak says, it could easily be a mangling of one of the other names, or some local name. One of the books spells mahwa/mohwa two ways in the space of one sentence.) - -sche (discuss) 10:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@-sche, Fay Freak: I've added some more stuff to the citations page, but I agree that it looks like a ghost word. Apparently it also gets some mentions under the French "huile d'Yallah", see e.g. this. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 04:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• RFV-passed —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 06:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  @-sche, Fay Freak: Do you agree with closing this as cited? Maybe the definition should be changed to simply "mahua tree", seeing that the term is used as "Yallah oil plant" etc. Also, a label and category like (ghost word) would be fun. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 11:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Fytcha: No, I don’t see it used as anything, although I agree with it being finally closed now as we all tried our utmost. They all copy from catalogues, by all likelihoods the word was not part of the lexicon of any author quoted. I am for having a {{no entry}} for findability of the cites, though then again instead of defining on the citation page one could as well in the mainspace but note that we think it is a spurious word by the reasons above. @Svartava2, tell us its origin if you think it is genuine—I, for my part, as outlined above, with agreement by -sche, reckon this “word” an accident for some other word. Fay Freak (talk) 11:57, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Fay Freak: How do you assert that “[t]hey all copy from catalogues, by all likelihoods the word was not part of the lexicon of any author quoted”? —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 15:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Svartava2: That’s how it usually looks like. You must put yourself in the position of the authors of such botanical books. They do have to use previous books to even know a botanical name and its signification, and together with it they copy vernacular names. You find this in all kinds of botanical works: Lists of vernacular names. So what your question tells me is that you have never searched English organism names outside the Wikimedia bubble. Why doesn’t give you the stereotypical phrasing “Yallah oil in the London market”, besides a clear mention, to think? The 1870 “quote” from “English Mechanics and the World of Science‎” is not even a sentence and is an entry from a lexicon. The three other “quotes” contain the repetitive order “Epie. Mahoua. Yallah-Oil Plant” which is clearly not organic. Fay Freak (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Fay Freak: Alright, but I'm not confident enough, so I leave you to make it {{no entry}}. —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 16:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

RFV-failed. See Fay Freak's comment above. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)