ABSTRACT
The following is an interlinear translation of the first line of one of the preIslamic ﺔﻘﻠﻌﻣ poems, ﺪﯿﺒﻟ ﺔﻘﻠﻌﻣ. (The تﺎﻘﱠﻠَﻌُﻣ are seven pre-Islamic ‘odes’ – ﺪﺋﺎﺼﻗ, sg. ةﺪﯿﺼﻗ – considered to be the most outstanding examples of pre-Islamic poetry, one of which, ﺪﯿﺒﻟ ﺔﻘﱠﻠَﻌُﻣ, was written byيﺮِﻣﺎﻌﻟا ﻞﯿﻘﻋ ﻮﺑأ ﻚﻟﺎﻣ ﻦﺑ ﺔﻌﯿﺑر ﻦﺑ ﺪﯿَﺒﻟ. According to tradition, they were hung on the Ka’ba in Mecca.) In this translation, ~ indicates that the two English words so linked correspond jointly to one Arabic word in the ST; - indicates that the two English words so linked correspond to two linked Arabic forms or words in the ST and // indicates a hemistich (half-line) break in the middle of the line. This is a standard feature of traditional Arabic poetry and is marked in the ST by a space between the words ﺎﮭُﻣﺎﻘَُﻤﻓ and َﻰﻨِﻤﺑ, which is longer than the spaces between other words in the line:
Disappeared the-camping~grounds alighting~places-their and-stopping ~places-their // in-Mina became~deserted Ghaul-its and-Rijam-its
As is apparent from the incomprehensibility of the English TT here, interlinear translation is normally only employed where the purpose of the translation is to shed light on the structure of the ST. Mainly used in descriptive linguistics or language teaching, interlinear translation is of no practical use for this course, and we shall not consider it further.
