Abba Abba

Abba Abba was published in 1977. It is English writer Anthony Burgess's 22nd novel.

The theme is the last months in the life of John Keats. The sonnets of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli that feature in the novel were translated by Burgess's Italian wife, Liana Burgess.

Plot summary

In Part One, the poet has various adventures, meeting the Roman (dialectal) poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli in the Sistine Chapel, and Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, in the Pincio.

Part Two consists of about seventy (from a total of 2,279) amusingly blasphemous sonnets by Belli, purportedly translated by one "Joseph Joachim Wilson", a descendant of the Roman man-of-letters Giovanni Gulielmi (a character in Part One).

An elaborate passage describes how the Italian Gulielmis were transformed into English Wilsons "during a wave of anti-Italian feeling occasioned by alleged ice-cream poisoning in the 1890s in the Lancashire coastal resorts of Blackpool, Cleveleys, Bispham and Fleetwood". "J. J. Wilson" is a thinly veiled "John Anthony Burgess Wilson".

ABBA

ABBA (stylised ᗅᗺᗷᗅ) were a Swedish pop group who formed in Stockholm in 1972. With members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, ABBA became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1975 to 1982. They won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 at the Dome in Brighton, UK, giving Sweden its first triumph in the contest, and were the most successful group ever to take part in the competition.

ABBA's record sales figure is uncertain and various estimates range from over 140 to over 500 million sold records. This makes them one of the best-selling music artists, and the second best-selling music group of all time, after the Beatles. ABBA was the first group to come from a non-English-speaking country to enjoy consistent success in the charts of English-speaking countries, including the UK, Ireland, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The group also enjoyed significant success in Latin American markets, and recorded a collection of their hit songs in Spanish.

Raba Bar Jeremiah

Abba or Raba (Rabbah) Bar Jeremiah (cited in the Jerusalem Talmud as R. Abba bar Jeremiah;Hebrew: רבה בר ירמיה or רבי אבא בר ירמיה) was Babylonian amora of the third century, the son of Jeremiah b. Abba and a pupil of Rab. He lived at Sura and transmitted to his generation the sayings of Rab and Samuel. One of his sayings, several of which are preserved in Palestinian sources, may be here quoted. Prov. ix. 1-3: "Wisdom hath builded her house," etc., refers to the Messianic age. The "house" is the newly erected Temple at Jerusalem; the "seven pillars" are the seven years following the defeat of Gog and Magog, which are indicated in Ezek. xxxix. 9; the "feast" is that described in Ezek. xxxix. 17; and the verse, "She hath sent forth her maidens," etc., means: "The Lord sent forth the prophet Ezekiel with the message to the birds and beasts" (Lev. R. xi.).

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilhelm Bacher (1901–1906). "Abba". Jewish Encyclopedia.  Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: Bacher, Ag. Pal. Amor. iii. 529, 530; Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot, ed. 1882, ii. 336.W.

Ab (Semitic)

Ab or Av (ʾĀḇ; related to Akkadian abu), sometimes Aba or Abba, means "father" in most Semitic languages.

Arabic

Ab (أَب), from a theoretical, abstract form ʼabawun (triliteral ʼ-b-w) is Arabic for "father". The dual is ʼabawāni or ʼabāni "two fathers" or "mother and father" (ʼābāʼi-ka meaning "thy parents").

Li-llāhi ʼabū-ka is an expression of praise, meaning "to God is attributable [the excellence of] your father".

As a verb, ʼ-b-w means "to become [as] a father to [somebody]" (ʼabawtu) or "to adopt [him] as a father" (ta'abbā-hu or ista'bā-hu).

In the construct state, Abū (أبو) is followed by another word to form a complete name, e.g.: Abu Mazen, another name for Mahmoud Abbas.

Abu may be used as a kunya, an honorific. To refer to a man by his fatherhood (of male offspring) is polite, so that ʼabū takes the function of an honorific. Even a man that is as yet childless may still be known as abū of his father's name, implying that he will yet have a son called after his father.