The more I thought about it the more I realized that it was a lack of creativity that was pushing people to talk this way. The article claims that “love has 77 names, each of which has a slight but crucial difference from the other.”“Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon. There is a whole category of words
that mean one thing as well as its opposite. For example, the word, "saleem,"
means the one who is cured as well as the one who has just been bit by a snake.
The word baseer, means one with great sight and insight, but also means blind.
Mawla means master and slave and wala means to follow and to lead, The word
umma, which is usually translated as nation, means the entity that is followed,
or the guide, as well as the entity that follows and is guided.”
“Hawa means light liking but also transfers an element of error,
bias and
irrationality. As the old pre-Islamic proverb goes: "Hawa is
the downside of
reason."
Then you have ishq, which comes from
entanglement, like two pieces
of wood and ivory in a work of arabesque, the
two lovers are inseparable yet
still independent and distinct. Then
there is hayam, which comes from
wondering thirsty in the desert, and fitna,
which means love, infatuation,
passionate desire, but also means civil war
and illusion. There is izaz, which
is the kind of love that gives both
lovers power and dignity, and sakan, which
also means home and tranquility,
the Quran uses this word to describe the
relation between married couples.
The highest stage of love is, paradoxically,
fanaa, which means
non-existence. This is the stage where the lovers lose their
independent
existences and actually become one another. This stage is usually
used by
Sufis in reference to divine love and the unity of existence.”
Why then are people using these words to mean things they don’t? And what are all the other words? I say lets make a list… help me out…the ones I know are
1) 7ob
2) 3esh2
3) Gharam
4) Hayam
5) I3gab
6) Shaghaf—>brought to me by cerise
7) Hawa
3 comments:
I'm not sure of someone with a degree in Political Science the the best to argue about linguistic features in the Arabic language! This guy is no specialist in language and his article starts with twisted examples. (aal el 3arabi malyan kalimat el kelma heyya el antonym beta3ha aaal ... wi 3agabi .. naas betefti)
akeed whenever you come up with articles and information you have to take the source into consideration and use your personal discretion but if you arrive at the same conclusion as the good fellow without being a scholar then... that should tell you something.
ofcourse the notion of "everyone else thinks so" and there is strength in numbers shouldnt be a valid defence to any argurment but if it is an observation that you too can make it only rectifies the observation. He's not claiming anything prolific about the Arabic language. Isn't teaching people his theories on language he's just simply stating his perception.
walah as in "el walad da walhan"
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