Isaac b. Judah Shuwaykat

יצחק בן יהודה שויכאת

1452

Rocco (1998: 543) explains the name based on the Arabic šawka "thorn, prick", rendered in Sicilian as Sagittuni, among whose meanings include "prickly grass, white thorn"; see also Barbera (1940), Maltese-Arabic-Italian Dictionary, vol. IV: 1154: XUEJKIÈT – šuwaykât – chuaikât pl. dim. of XEUKA (v.t.v.) = prickly plant. See B. Rocco, Il Giudeo-arabo e il siciliano nei secoli XII-XV: influssi reciproci, in G. Ruffino (ed),
Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Romance Linguistics and Philology, Palermo, 1998, 4:539-45.