Delmephialmas and Sircorcor: Gasparo Balbi, Dalmâ, Julfâr and a problem of transliteration

Gasparo Balbi, the state jeweller of the Venetian Republic, visited the eastern Arabian coast in c. 1580 and recorded many of the places in the modern United Arab Emirates for the first time, giving them the names by which we know them today, albeit in sixteenth-century Italian transliteration. While some places are readily recognizable, Balbi's terms Delmephialmas and Sircorcor present problems. It is suggested that Delmephialmas is the island of Dalmâ off the coast of Abu Dhabi but with an additional phrase as a suffix, giving a meaning approximating to Dalmâ, fî-hâ mâ' , i.e. 'Dalmâ, there is water there'. The absence of any reference to so major a port as Julfâr in modern Ra's al-Khaima by Balbi is remarkable. It is suggested that Balbi's term Sircorcor is an eliding of al-Sirr as a synonym for Julfâr combined in error with Khawr al-Khuwayr to the north of Julfâr.     

Reviews

Howard R. Penniman (ed.) Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1980 and 1983, Washington, DC, George Allen and Unwin for American Enterprise Institute, 1983, pp.351. $14.95 (paper)

Alexander Kouzmin (ed.) Public Sector Administration: New Perspectives, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983. pp.329. $15.95

Blanche D'Alpuget, Robert J Hawke: A Biography, Schwartz, 1982, pp.418. $19.95

Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1983, pp. 306. $24.95

Leonie Sandercock and Michael Berry, Urban Political Economy: The Australian Case, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp.193. $22.50, $4.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head (ed.), State and Economy in Australia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 305. $25.00, $12.99 (paper)

Bruce O'Meagher (ed.) The Socialist Objective: Labor and Socialism, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1983, pp. 198, $24.95, $11.95 (paper) and John Reeves and Kelvin Thomson (eds) Labor Essays 1983: Policies and Programs for the Labor Government, Blackburn, Drummond 1983, pp. 197. $12.95 (paper)

James Jupp, Ethnic Politics in Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.213. $22.95, $11.95 (paper)

Archives Guide to Collections, Melbourne, Archives Board of Management University of Melbourne, 1983, pp.210. $18.00, $9.50 (paper)

Nancy Viviani, The Long Journey: Vietnamese Migration and Settlement in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp.316. $26.60

Christopher Cunneen: Kings’ Men: Australia's Governors‐General from Hopetoun to Isaacs. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin Australia, 1983, pp. 237. $24.95, $12.95 (paper)

Dennis Phillips, Cold War Two and Australia, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1983. pp.122. $15.95, $6.95 (paper)

Harry Redner and Jill Redner, Anatomy of the World: The Impact of the Atom on Australia and the World, Melbourne, Fontana/Collins, 1983, pp. 368. $8.95 (paper)

David McKay, American Politics and Society, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp. 336. $55.00, $18.95 (paper)

David Martin and Peter Mullen (eds) Unholy Warfare: The Church and the Bomb. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983, pp.247. $34.95, $13.95 (paper)

Barry Gustafson, Labour's Path to Political Independence — The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party 1900–19, Auckland, Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 199. $18.50

Christopher T. Husbands, Racial Exclusion and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp.191. $49.50

Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 304. $45.50

David Coates and Gordon Johnston (eds) Socialist Strategies, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.294. $49.50, $16.50 (paper)

R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire: the Attlee Government and the Indian Problem, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, pp. 376. $48.75

T.H. Rigby & Bohdan Harasymiw (eds) Leadership Selection and Patron‐Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia, London, Macmillan. 1983, pp.246. £20

Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR, Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1979, pp.353. $16.25 (paper)

Mervyn Matthews, Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1982, pp.225. $15.95 (paper)

Ronan Paddison, The Fragmented State: The Political Geography of Power, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 315. $54.00, $21.95 (paper)

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982, pp. 405. $39.95

David Held and others (eds) States and Societies, Oxford, Martin Robertson and the Open University, 1983, pp.629. $16.50 (paper)

Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations, London, Macmillan/London School of Economics and Political Science, 1982, pp. 232. $36.00

Celso Furtado, Accumulation and Development: The Logic of Industrial Civilization, trans, by S. Macedo, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983, pp.201. $39.95

Irving Louis Allen, The Language of Ethnic Conflict, Social Organization and Lexical Culture, New York, Columbia University Press, 1983, pp.162. US$12.50

Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, London, Routeledge and Kegan Paul, pp.124.

Preston King (ed.) The History of Ideas, An Introduction to Method, London & Canberra, Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 334. $16.50 (paper)

Howard Williams, Kant's Political Philosophy. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983, pp. 292. £20

Gerard Bekerman, Marx and Engels: A Conceptual Concordance, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, pp.205. $62

Nicholas Abercrombie and John Urry, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp. 169, $29.95, $13.95. (paper)

Rob Steven, Classes in Contemporary Japan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 357. $45.50

R.W. Connell, Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture, Sydney, George Allen and Un‐win, 1983, pp.278. $19.95, $9.95 (paper)

Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought Sydney, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984, pp 196. $16.95, $7.95

Bettina Cass et al. Why So Few? Women Academics in Australian Universities Sydney University Press, 1983, pp.253. $14.00

Jocelynne Scutt Even in the Best of Homes: Violence in the Family, Melbourne, Penguin, 1983, pp.303. $9.95     

Land Use Theory and Factor Intensities

Although Thünen's rent theory has been formalized and extended, his interdependent spatial theory of factor intensities has received little attention. The solution must be developed from a fully specified rent equation that recognizes the dependence of outputs on inputs, and the important distinction between fixed and variable costs. A general solution is found for the one-market, one-productive-factor case, with the limiting restriction that marginal revenue productivity must be rising more slowly than marginal costs. The flexibility and power of Thünen's model is shown by developing, from the general solution, scenarios under various market and production conditions.     

The unheard voices of youth in urban planning: using social capital as a theoretical lens in Sunshine Coast,Australia

Despite the imperative that youth voices should contribute to shaping their future world, there is limited evidence of youth agency and participation which articulates their unique experience of community in urban planning decision-making. This study uses the lens of social capital to compare perspectives of community between young people aged 15–17 years and adults in a suburban community on the Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland, Australia. The results, derived from both quantitative and qualitative methods, illustrate the different experiences of community between youth and adults and suggest how urban planners and decision-makers can incorporate youth-friendly responses to address issues of power inequality between youth and adult residents and mechanisms to engage adult residents through collaborative governance approaches.     

The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Iran

Spoken vernacular dialects of Aramaic, generally known as Neo-Aramaic dialects, have survived down to modern times in various regions of the Middle East and can be divided into various subgroups. There are some islands of Neo-Aramaic in the West of Iran, which are situated on the eastern periphery of the Neo-Aramaic area. These include dialects spoken by Christians and Jews belonging to the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic subgroup in the West Azerbaijan, Kordestan and Kermanshah provinces and Neo-Mandaic spoken by Mandaeans in the Khuzestan province. This paper examines a number of distinctive features of the Neo-Aramaic dialects of Iran, including those that have been induced by contact with other languages in the area.