#but that's not actual the meaning of the word in the literal Arabic language and Islam as religion

[arabian-batboy]

I really find it interesting how Zionists have no issues constantly using words like "Islamic" or "Islamist" or "jihadist" to describe the people they're killing without any fear of being accused of Islamophobia or that they're being bigots.

Because they know that we live in a world where anything or anyone remotely "Muslim" are automatically portrayed as inherently evil and deserving of death, especially in the US and other Western countries where Israel gets most of its support from them. So therefore, no one can be mad at them for killing all of these people, right? After all, they're only killing scary radical "Islamists" and "jihadists," NOT innocent people.

Meanwhile you would never hear any pro-Palestine people calling IDF soldiers "Jewists" or "Jewish extremists," even when they're literally branding the star of David onto Palestinians' faces and houses, instead we have to be very careful to not associate Judaism with Israel's crimes and are obligated to write a long essay about how we in fact do NOT want to kill every Jew in the world before we're allowed to show a shred of sympathy toward the thousands of Palestinian civilians being murdered as we are speaking.

Yet somehow that's not enough and they still hit us with the "when you say Zionists you actually mean Jews!" all while ignoring how they themselves aren't putting any effort into not demonizing Islam and Muslims with their words, because demonizing Islam and Muslims isn't an issue to them and the only way they can justify all the killing they're doing.

#as a Muslim I still find it funny how non-Muslim still think that Jihad is a bad or a scary word #White Supremacists decided to hijack the meaning of this world and make it into a code-name for mass killing #and jihadist is just another word for terrorist #but that's not actual the meaning of the word in the literal Arabic language and Islam as religion #not in the past not in the present and not anytime in the future #unless of course you're a White Supremacist yourself #then continue telling yourself that's what these words from a language you don't speak mean #hence why Zionists (the biggest White Supremacists) continue using that words as if its something negative #so that other White Supremacists will stand with them against these evil Jihadists #palestine #gaza #palestinian #anti israel #anti israeli #anti zionist #anti zionism

[vhstown]

super short london slang guide !!

i haven't got a scooby doo about cockney so this is mainly gonna be mle and like the way 14 year old secondary school boys talk oookay let's go (just so yk i am a londonder!!!!!)

direct things to call people (or avoid calling people)

bruv, blud, man, mate, fam (can use in replacement of a pronoun like he, she, you and i or for emphasis — "man's got a meeting, bruv!")

more on "man" it can be used in plural too — "us man" or "them man" or "you man"

my g, my guy (for referring someone you are friendly/friends with)

bossman (something you'd call a shop or business owner — "aye bossman get me the 3 wings and chips yeah")

big man (usually used in a sarcastic friendly but kind of demeaning way, the older cousin of "big guy" — "oi big man what you sayin' cuz?"

i wasnt going to put these here cause of personal preference but 😭 people are gonna use them anyway so i might as well tell you what they mean:

peng (adjective cute/pretty — "her? she's peng!")

leng (adjective hot/sexy — "rah, he's leng you know?)

nouns

ting (usually to refer to a girlfriend but can also just mean "thing"... or a knife? — "don't chat to my ting fam!")

grim (very outdated word for a promiscuous woman — "she's a grim bruv!")

skeng (gun)

shank, spinner (knife)

paper, Ps, pronounced "peas" (money)

ends (neighbourhood, area — "if i catch you in my ends yeah")

mandem (group of friends — "having a laugh at the pub with the mandem" aha)

gyaldem (group of women / female friends)

ganja (weed)

blem (cigarette)

pagan/paigon (snitch or untrustworthy person, not a super common you might wanna use "snake" or "snitch" instead)

wasteman (someone who's useless, a lowlife)

pussio/pussyo (pussy, coward)

other common words and phrases

wagwan, or "wag1" in text (what's up, what's going on)

bare (a lot — "i got bare problems with him!")

gassed (prideful, full of yourself — "im actually so gassed, man got promoted"

"and that" (instead of "and stuff" — "i got links and that")

"allow it" (let something slide — "i forgot my wallet allow it bossman")

safe (like "alright cool", or as a bye — "aight safe")

"pattern up" (fix up, get it together)

hard, tight (cool, good, though "hard" is also used in an offensive way — "bro thinks he's hard, pussio")

blam (to get shot, not actually very common to hear in my experience)

sheffed (up), shanked (to get stabbed)

ahlie (used as an interjection when in agreement with something, similar to phrase "am i lying?")

non-mle specific words i hear sometimes

thick (dumb, stupid)

clapped/tapped (ugly, weird, unattractive)

merk/murk (kill, beat up)

slag, sket (slut)

chav (used to refer to someone of the low social status, associated with violent or rude behaviour)

taking the mick, taking the piss (being annoying)

mad (means crazy obviously but people use it a lot, can have positive and negative connotations — "that's mad!")

nonce (literally means pedophile / sex offender, do what you will with it 😭)

dickhead, bellend (similar to douchebag)

wanker (used towards someone you dislike, or in a joking way)

geezer (usually to refer to an old man)

also!!!

depending on which communities are predominant in the area, words from other languages can come in / have come in

some words are common with US slang too because they share origins 😁 ain't that cool

there's a lot of influence from jamaican patois due to the history of british jamaicans in london for ex in words like "ting" or "mandem" or "wagwan" (hence why mle is sometimes referred to as "jafrican") and its not strange to hear "bomboclaat" or "bloodclaat" here either

in communities where there's muslims and arabs (especially in east london) you might hear arabic terms like "wallahi", "khalas" or "astagfirullah" (though people debate whether that's cultural appropriation or not)

south asians have also had an influence with words like "gora" or "ganja" though again this is largely area based and the impact of hinglish is also found a lot outside of london

some people have a mix of different dialects! i mainly alternate between mle and estuary (sometimes yorkshire don't ask it is very easy to pick up...)

you're not gonna hear every single word here all the time the usage varies throughout london. the way north and west londoners speak can be v different for example

uhhhh if you wanna learn properly just listen to some grime or sutn . listen to londoners speak!

for some more resources in-depth PLEASE check out these guides made by other british people ! (one and two)

ok that's it bye bye british ppl & londoners feel free to add on! it is midnight rn so ive probably missed stuff lol... dms are open in case you've got any questions or want any help :p

#vee rants #hobie brown x reader #spider punk #spider uk #hobart brown #hobie brown #hobie brown x gn!reader #british accent #london accent #potential to be edited

[magnetothemagnificent]

What is the difference between anti-semitism and antisemitism? I personally prefer anti-semitism just because it makes it easier to read and breaks up the word into more easily digestible parts. I have a learning disability so I find it helpful to know the origins of a word. Anti, meaning against, semite, like semitic languages or ethnicities including hebrew or jewish respectively. Is it just that one is technically correct? (As if I was saying re-cycle instead of recycle)

""Anti, meaning against, semite, like Semitic languages or ethnicities including hebrew or jewish respectively.""

Your reasoning is exactly why it's wrong to write "anti-semitism". It's not against Semitic languages and ethnicities- Semitic languages include a ton of languages in the SWANA region, and they are not the target of antisemitism. Only Jews are.

"Antisemitismus" (German for "antisemitism") was popularized in Germany by a Jew-hater as an alternative word to "Judenhass" (literally means Jew-hatred), which was a bit too on the nose for his liking, and he wanted to make Jew-hatred sound more scientific and logical and palatable. This was during the age of Scientific Racism and eugenics- "antisemitism" was coined to sound more scientific, in the same way medicines are "antiviral" or "antiseptic" or "antibiotic". "Antisemitism" made Jew-hatred sound cleansing and logical, like a cure for the proliferation of the racial mutts Scientific Racism categorized Jews as. It made Jew-hatred not just about religiously motivated hatred, but as "science"-backed racism.

Writing "anti-semitism" implies that it's about being "anti" Semites (which are not an ethnic group, actually, it's just a language family that includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Amharic), which its not. Gentile Arabs aren't the targets of antisemitism. Gentile Assyrians aren't the targets of antisemitism. Gentile Ethiopians aren't the targets of antisemitism. Only Jews are, whether or not they speak the Semitic language of Hebrew.

"Antisemitism" is a historical word with heavy implications- it reminds us that Jew-hatred isn't just about the hatred of Judaism as a religion (which many people claim it is), but that it's about the hatred of Jews as a *people*. Jews aren't oppressed just because of our religion- indeed, atheist Jews and Jews who converted to other religions are still targets of antisemitism. We are targeted and marginalized because of our ethnic and racial identity, too. It's only in recent history that "Hebrew" or "Jew" isn't considered a racial identity.

The origins of the word don't lie within "anti-semitism", so if you have a learning disability, that won't help you understand the word. The word originated as a single, unhyphenated word (remember, German words don't have as many hyphens as English words do), and you must use it correctly and listen to Jewish people when we tell you that you need to recognize its context and history.

#antisemitism #education #history #scientific racism #racialized antisemitism #antisemitism not anti-semitism

[thatdeadaquarius]

I have so many ideas but none of them can be put into words, all I can do is just wheeze as they come along🤣

Also remember how wordy and flowery Teyvat speech/dialogue is? ADD THAT TO THE FACT THAT TEYVAT HAS ITS OWN LANGUAGE---

Reader can understand the basic speech which is why they are so blunt (I love this idea so much 🤣) and can piece together an idea what the person is talking about.

*insert random person talking about a commission with a long ass backstory*

Traveller & Co.: *understands completely and making plans to retrieve said commission*

C!Reader: (They said they had a cart.... a bunch of hilichurls appeared... dancing?.... they want us to dance fight the hilichurls???? Dance off???)

Actual story->The person's cart got ambushed by a group of hilichurls and taunted them by dancing around it.

....... it doesnt always translate well

Also imagine Reader heaeing random names and overthinks it as a word instead of a name.

Example: Pantalone means pants in Philippine English (sorry not sorry Pantalone)

Tsaritsa??? Oh do they speak russian there??? - reader

Capitano -> captain in some countries

(I once mistake Sandrone as Sandalone and I just went "... ehh??? Standalone? Sandalone as in Sand Alone???? Sandal (Flip flops)????

Oh wait its Sandrone" ".... as in Sand and Drone??--)

-Vine Boom

VINE BOOM ANON MY BELOVED 💖❤🧡💛💚💙💜✨️✨️

Gif is me writing u anything ever:

AHFLALA FERRRALLL I STG I ALSO THOUGHT ABT THIS!! WHY U COULD ALSO BE BLUNT BC U ONLY GOT THE BASICS 💀 RIP

Man theyre written language looks so scary to learn, kinda like when I looked into trying to learn Mandarin/Japanese (and even Korean), the letters r just inherently so different i was so intimidated

And u dont even read it like left -> right like English

Omg i tried to reply to a arabic comment on my art post once, and i felt so acommplished when i finally was able to type "اشكرك (thanks)" but like, i had to put it on the OTHER SIDE OF THE TEXT BOX, LIKE ALIGN IT TO THE RIGHT INSTEAD OF HOW U KNOW ENGLISH IS INHERENTLY ALIGNED LEFT, IT WAS SO TRIPPY-

Going thru genshin life only understanding minimal words of anything anyone says is honestly how i feel like ive been playing Genshin LMAO

Those analysis videos/lore are saving a bitch's life out here

PANTALONE IS ALSO RLLY CLOSE TO SPANISH FOR PANTS I KNOW WHAT U MEANNN LOL

UR ENDLESS CONFUSION FOR SANDRONE PLEASE ANON U DIDNT EVEN GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST CORRECTION IT JUST KEPT GETTING WORSEEE 😂😭 SAME THO

That would literally be you in genshin tho, like i could easily see it being like, back to back misunderstandings 😭😭

Like u think u got it right (Oh so his name is Rex Lapis, wait what? Morax? Ok his name is Morax...?? What??? Zhongli??? WHO IS THIS MAN-)

.

JFC first they gotta have a whole different language (like u saw in game)

And ON TOP OF THAT THEY CAN TALK FOR 10 MIN STRAIGHT ABT THE WEATHER OR SOME SHIT??

No... just, no.

U quickly decide u like what little bits of language u could pick up so far, which just results in,

U guessed it, simple speech and short fragmented sentences (or broken Teyvatian)

U cant even bring urself to care when u give half the characters a heart attack and send the rest into laughing fits

No fucks given, they wanna make this extra hard on u by being wordy on top of a new language,

Yeah u dont care what comes out of ur mouth anymore

Also, since everybody is raised in Teyvat very few ppl dont know the language, which once again brings us back to ancient/older deities/creatures who have a more simplistic version/outdated version of modern language

.

Omg getting stuff mistranslated bc u cant understand it all/only keywords sounds like hell but also rlly funny

Traveler/Paimon: "Alright, yes, all is well. We will accept this comission, and depart soon."

You: "...they want us to?? Dance fight?? Hilichurls...???"

Traveler just stares at u half in pity, half trying to hide their amused smile, Paimon is giggling

The commissioner is shook bc a supposed ancient creature?? Just accepted?? Their simple commission?? And u think they want u to dance battle???

.

PLEASE U MISTRANSLATE THE HARBINGERS NAMES RIGHT TO THEIR FACES

Signora: "You shall rue the day you crossed the Fatui mortals!"

You: "Lady we don't care, just fight us."

(Signora just means 'Lady')

Signora: *offended gasp*

Traveler/Paimon trying to stifle laughter

Raiden Shogun jaw dropped a little

.

Pantalone: "What a pleasure to finally meet you traveler, and thine wonderful companions!" *little bastard smile*

You: "And it was awful to meet you, Pants."

Pantalone: 😶😧😡 "Pants?! HOW DARE YOU NOT EVEN GIVE ME THE MOST BASE RESPECT, AFTER I GREETED THEE SO KINDLY-"

.

Oh its so funny, everytime you talk about Childe you always phrase it like he's an actual child bc u thought everyone was just calling him a little kid for some reason (u dont know how Teyvat ages work, he could be for all you know!)

Not very long, but Vine Boom anon your brain >>>>

Ur ideas r so on point, i love them sm

That makes perfect sense why u could be talking blunt too, like an in world explanation really

For you, all the desserts🥰 🤲🍪🍨🍰🍮🧋🍦🍡

Cheers,

🌒🌊🌧Aquarius♒️🌌🌘

#vine boom anon ilysm #yall r so funny i cant keep up help #big brain anons #genshin impact #ask box open #genshin sagau #my asks #sagau #genshin sagau ideas #gender neutral reader #genshin imagines #please send asks #:) #<3 #genshin isekai #genshin god reader

[givemearmstopraywith]

This may be a bit of a dump question but I've always wondered about this and I thought I could ask this from you since you seem to know more about it. I hope that's okay! Are the translations of the bible and their differences very important? Are the messages that the writings send us that different from each other depending on the translation?

it's very important. translation is an art, like anything else. from a semitic language like hebrew or arabic, it's difficult and often impossible to fully capture the meaning of a word in the original text using english (or any other language). in judaism every stroke of every letter is thought to be an emanation of God: he is the words themselves. the quran is the word of God exactly as it was transmitted to the prophet. so abrahamic religions, bar christianity, place extraordinary important in literal meaning, because you encounter God not only in the meaning of the words but in their very essence, their form and shape.

scriptural translation has always, always been fraught with problems. for instance jerome, developing the vulgate, encountered exodus 34, where moses encounters God face to face and is transformed with rays of light. the hebrew word for this transformation is קָרַ֛ן, and jerome translate it to "cornuta," horns: for centuries afterward moses is depicted in art as having horns, like a goat, because of this mistranslation. it may be that jerome meant "glorified" rather than "horned," based off his later commentaries and use of the term by previous exegetes, but the fact remains that outside of the theological sphere this single word, translated to a western language, stripped back meaning tragically. even to the extent that it propagated harmful stereotypes about jews.

or consider the use of the word "atonement" in english translations of the new testament: katallage, used in romans 5:11, is translated as atonement, but it actually means "reconciliation" or "restitution." in fact, jesus never speaks of atonement. in the old testament the word translated to atonement is כָּפַר, "kaphar", which means "covering." in 1 peter 4:8 we are told, "love covers over a great number of sins." how different would christian understandings of atonement be if we translated "kaphar" as "covering" and not atonement? forgiveness for wrongdoing becomes not something we offer to or beg from God, but something to which we submit, because the action is removed from us, humble as we are, to the great forgiver- the great lover.

i say all this to contextualize the difficulty of translation to begin with. but in the sense of critical pedagogy, every translation of any religious text is subject to the bias of the translator. a good translator is conscious of their bias and seeks to remove it from their work. but christian scripture has an agenda. it is not only something we read for a personal relationship to God but something that is used to dictate right behaviour, as a means of social control, something that develops culture. if a person translating a text has this in mind, they can construct the meaning of the text towards what version of a society or culture they feel is "right," based on their personal and invariably biased understanding of a text. this is why i dislike the kjv translation and never recommend it. the kjv is a product of its time. it is not a good translation of the bible: it is old, but it is not the oldest english translation, and its meaning is absolutely skewed. this is difficult, because many evangelical christians believe the kjv is the absolute word of God, and they are already wrong, because no translation will ever be absolute truth: it is only translation.

words are a limiting system. when we try to capture the essence of something like a god, we are limiting him to our vocabulary.

i always recommend the nrsv because it is version i use for scholarly work. it isn't beautiful but it is as close to a "correct" translation as you can get. but i always supplement my reading with other tools: the jewish annotated new testament is wonderful, for instance, and biblehub has detailed interlinear translations of different translations and the original text. but i am also aware i will never be able to fully comprehend the depth and beautiful of scripture until i learn hebrew and greek, at minimum. but this should not discourage anyone: scripture is meant to be read. but it has to be read actively, critically. God wants you to swallow his words, but he needs you to chew them first.

#replies

[anakinsafterlife]

Thoughts on Dune Part 2

All right, friends. Dune Part 2. I absolutely picked the wrong time to start wanting to return to Tumblr, since I'm currently in the thick of Ramadan, but c'est la vie. I'm a bit worried that if I don't review now that I might forget my specific impressions of the movie, though I have to say that if this weren't Ramadan that I absolutely would be going back to see it again in the cinema, which says a lot considering that it's been at least ten years since I've actually wanted to go back and repeat a film instead of just waiting for it to come out on streaming/DVD.

So the movie is good. It is in fact very, very good. It's the Empire Strikes Back of the Dune duology (possibly trilogy), and (much like Empire) in terms of cinematography, music, scripting and acting it's nearly flawless. There are, however, issues, things that might not occur to a majority-Western audience but which are immediately clear to anyone who either comes from an Arab or Muslim background.

What follows here is a deep dive into some of the historical and cultural sources of Dune and some of the ways in which the movie producers, and in some cases fans, have failed to acknowledge those sources.

First of all, it's obvious that the Fremen are meant to be based on the Arabs, but of the the entire main cast there is only ONE actor with an Arab background, and that is Souhaila Yacoub, the half-Tunisian actress who plays Shishakli, the female Fremen warrior who is executed by the Harkonnens. Now, I have to say that this woman was fantastic. Her attitude is completely on point for an Arab, especially a North African Arab: forceful, loud, a bit brash and mocking even under fire. Nicely done. Points to the producers there, but I have to take that point away again because she is literally the only Space Arab who is actually Arab. Javier Bardem, the Spanish actor who plays Stilgard, does have some interesting moments and one of the reasons why I feel that the screenwriters were advised on Arabic traditions/culture. The incident during which he warns Paul about the Jinn in the desert like it's a joke but then immediately turns extremely serious when Paul starts smiling is so in character for an Arab and honestly just a brilliant bit of scripting, but much of the time he also acted more or less like what people *think* a fanatical religious Arab acts like--loud, frantic and unstable.

Not only this, but the "Muslim" behaviour/traditions in the film are at best...vague. People are praying, but in any direction at all. I do realize that this would be a complicated issue on another planet, where the Ka'aba couldn't be pointed to, but there are Islamic rulings for EVERYTHING. Check out the one about praying in space:

Even if they had as a society simply picked a random direction for prayer, they should all be praying at the same time and in the same direction (they seem to do this in larger crowds, but not in the smaller group where we first see people praying). They also definitely shouldn't be talking during prayer or trying to make other people talk to them during prayer (as Chani does), since talking breaks your prayer and you have to start over all over again (during obligatory prayers).

Language, too, is an issue, and a big one, because while I do understand that a conlang was developed for use in this movie, the linguists consulted did know that the language was meant to be heavily influenced by Arabic. Consequently, they've included a lot of fragmentary Arabic in their work. Unfortunately this Arabic is poorly pronounced at best, to the point where I was looking words up and laughing at what they're meant to be based on. For example, "Shai Hulud," the word for the Worms, is based on the Arabicشيء خلود, which means "immortal thing," and should be pronounced with "shai" rhyming with "say" followed by a glottal stop, and the 'h' in "Hulood" is actually a guttural sound like the infamous "ch" in Bach, followed by a long U. Another example is Mua'dib مهذب , a real word in Arabic that means "teacher," but is is actually pronounced with a "th" sound instead of a d and emphasis on the second syllable, not on the last as in French. (Note: I made an error here. There is a word مؤدب , pronounced mostly the same in the movie, but with a glottal stop after the 'u' sound and a short 'i' after the d sound rather than a long vowel, that is usually used to mean polite, urbane, gentlemanly, etc. but which can also mean teacher, although I have never heard it used in this context) "Usul", أصول, Paul's other Fremen name, was likely not, as I had previously guessed, based on the word "Rasool," meaning Prophet, but on أصول الفقه the Principles of islamic Jurisprudence, which also ties directly into a religious/prophetic them. Again, this is pronounced on the long vowel, so with a short first U and a long second U.

I've included the Arabic spellings in here, by the way, so that you can drop them into Google translator and hear how they actually sound.

Now, I do realize that the story itself is set 8000 years in the future and that spoken Arabic as a language would have changed considerably in that time, if it existed still at all, but Arabic is a liturgical language as well as a vehicle for conversation, and Muslims all across the world today use it as a tool for worship. Muslims who have no cultural connection with Arabic often still learn it in order to connect more deeply with religious traditions and simply to perform prayers and other religious duties. Religious scholars consider it to be a necessary duty of the Muslim to learn at least some Arabic:

And keep in mind that the Arabic spoken today across the MENA region is very different (and different in different places) to the Arabic spoken 1400 years ago by the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him). Given Islamic traditions, the chances of the Fremen using liturgical/classical Arabic for their worship would be quite high, even if their spoken language had evolved past the point of being recognizably Arabic.

Keep in mind, also, that Dune as a whole is an allegory for colonialism, economic exploitation of poorer nations (or making rival nations poor through the same), as well as dehumanization of the views and needs of native peoples in order to make that exploitation palatable to the occupying forces (I thought that this was done quite smartly in Jessica's part of the story; although she is sympathetic to the Fremen, she feels that manipulating their religious traditions is the best way to protect her son, and in doing so she allows herself to dehumanize the people who come to rely on her).

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us not to distance ourselves too much from the intended message by claiming that Dune is fiction and need not too accurately reflect the culture and religion of the people that the Fremen are so clearly based on. The fact that the producers have done little to hire Arab actors or induced any real effort to accurately pronounce the Arabic words or accurately portrayal Islamic practices seems to indicate that they are concerned about identifying too closely with the economic and cultural struggle between East and West, properly because they fear the potential economic backlash, and this despite the fact that Frank Herbert clearly wrote his book to illustrate the fallout of that struggle.

Here is a wonderful article written by a culturally Arab woman:

There are numerous other articles addressing the same issues, but I like this one because it's written by a Muslim woman, who also addresses the "hijab cosplaying" in the movie. I didn't get into that much, but I definitely recognize that it's a problem when Muslim women worry about potential violence while wearing hijab in the streets of Western nations, but the same article of clothing is fetishized in movies and fashion.

I've also seen some comment about the Mahdi mention in particular. This is a saviour-figure in Islam who will come near the end of the world. There is no emphasis on this figure in Sunni Islam, but Shias seem to have a significant body of literature concerning this figure and, from what I understand, believe that he may perhaps have already come, and so there has been some poor reception in that community to applying the label of Mahdi to Paul. Criticisms ranging from insensitivity to outright blasphemy have been levelled regarding this usage. Now, there was some tip-toeing around the prophetic theme in Dune, and rightly so, I believe, since the Prophet Mohamed is the "seal of the prophets" in Islam, meaning the last and final. The fact that Paul was essentially set up as a false prophet by the Bene Gesserit does avoid some of the potential fallout from this, and also makes sense of Chani's rejection at the end of the film, since she felt strongly about Paul acting as a false Prophet.

Again, I am aware that there is internal cosmology within the series itself, and that some fans object to the religion of the Fremen being referred to as Islam, but when the inspiration for the entire ethnicity, religion, and the natural resources at stake are as clear as they are in this series, it's also futile to expect that people will not draw those associations, nor that people belonging to the religion or ethnic group in question may not acknowledge the beauty of the movie, the gorgeous cinematography, rousing music, and tightly plotted story, but still take exception to what is clearly Orientalism.

And it is frankly such a shame that we have to place this movie under that header, because the story of Dune is so sympathetic to the Middle East and its peoples, and as I said in the beginning I actually loved the film and found it very beautiful. It was also exciting to see Islamic themes used creatively in mainstream media, but while Frank Herbert clearly wrote the story as an exposition on the exploitation of natural resources, particularly oil, in the MENA region, the truth is that the racism and exploitation that he was protesting are very much alive today and contribute to the oppression of millions. It's particularly disappointing to see the message of the movie sail over the heads of people watching it when Arab Muslims in Palestine are being dehumanized and obliterated at this very moment, and while Libya was one of the latest Arab nations to be targeted for its oil resources, only a decade ago, with European oil companies moving in directly after the downfall of Ghadafi (which makes the timing extremely suspicious, one might say):

And even after the US finished their occupation of Iraq, Western oil companies remained en mass to continued drilling:

Egypt to this day remains economically destabilized while Western nations exploit its oil stocks, to no benefit at all of its peoples:

I'm sure I could cite dozens of other cases, but it's clear that there is a one-on-one parallel between spice melange and oil, making any protests of apoliticism in an inherently political story utterly vain.

I could go on, but I needn't. In short, this beautiful movie could have done so much good even beyond its obvious artistic merits, but instead it is still towing the political line. Much as was the case for Jessica and Paul, sometimes you can be a Harkonnen and not know it.

#dune #dune part 2 #meta #islam #arabic #history #orientalism #paul atreides #lady jessica #chani kynes #oil drilling #colonialism #arrakis #north africa #the middle east

[ifthestarsarewilling]

fun facts about the names of the penumbra podcast characters (junoverse specifically cause i haven't watched the other one)

nureyev was a famous male ballet dancer, and peter/petya means rock! petya (the name slip calls nureyev) is actually a female name, as well as being the name of a family of malware. the surname nureyev and the name petya are both russian/eastern european, despite the names of outer rim planets being from a variety of cultures (brahma is a hindu creator god, ranga is an australian word, balder (aka baldur) is a norse god of light and beauty, yama is a hindu god of death/the underworld/justice, osiris is an egyptian god of the afterlife that judged souls, susano-o is a japanese god of thunderstorms).

aurinko means sun! buddy obviously is another word for friend

vespa means wasp, and ilkay means new moon.

so buddy and vespa are literally eachothers sun/moon awwwwww

rita means pearl and is a greek word

juno is the roman goddess of marriage and childbirth, but unlike in greek mythology she has a more warlike aspect! steel is used as a metaphor for being strong and hardy, as well as coming from germanic origins and relating to the german word stahl, to stay.

jet is a type of black semi-precious stone, plus y'know. jet engines, etc. sikuliaq is a boat! a research vessel actually, and the word means 'young sea ice' in the native Iñupiaq language.

m'tendere means peace in chichewa, a language spoken in zambia, malawi, mozambique and zimbabwe

kanagawa means 'god sound river' and is also a city! croesus basically means rich, croesus was a rich king of lydia (also the last king). cecil means blind to ones own beauty or sixth, but i prefer the first interpretation because cecil wears loads of makeup and trys really hard to be this big personality, missing his true beauty on the inside. cassandra was an ancient greek prophetess who was cursed to always see the truth but never be believed, and her documentary ideas making money when she was told they wouldn't is very cool. min means 'minute', 'from' and 'quick' or 'clever' in abbreviations, arabic and korean respectively.

thats all i can be bothered to do for now, more possibly coming later! lmk if anyone wants more!

#the penumbra podcast #name meanings #because i am a nerd #sorry google #fucked up my search history for this #junoverse #peter nureyev #juno steel #buddy aurinko #vespa ilkay #jet sikuliaq #rita penumbra #rita redacted #mtendere #cecil kanagawa #croesus kanagawa #cassandra kanagawa #min kanagawa #character names #names are so cool

[toocutetonom]

Thai actual meaning Names version! ☺️

23.5 องศาที่โลกเอียง

In English the title can be translated as "The 23.5 degrees to which the Earth is tilled" and someone might think "omg it uses Earth's name" well... No. But it's funny how things turn around by translating it.

Breaking it down, the word used are:

23.5 = astronomically speaking, the Earth's rotation axis is tilted 23.5 degrees on its orbit around the Sun

องศา = Ongsa, which is the character's name, means "degree", "angle"

ที่ = let's say it means "which" in this case

โลก = "globe", "Earth". It's not the same word used for "Earth", the IG user Ongsa clames to be, but you now see why it's funny by translating it. In Thai the title has her real name, but if translated, it now mentions her cover-up character. (... just like a translation will always have an unfaithful layer because it can't deliver the full meaning of the original language 👀)

เอียง = "inclined", "leaning to one side"

Characters:

Ongsa องศา = as mentioned, it means "degree" 🌏

Sun ซัน = this one's easy, the center of our solar system, the Sun 🌞

Luna ลูน่า = it means "moon" in latin and several other languages 🌜

Aylin เอลิน = its origin is Turkish and Swiss, it means "moon halo" or "one that belongs to the moon". It also sounds very similar to the English loanword อเลียน (alien)👽

Alpha แอลฟ่า = coming from the Greek, "alpha" (α) is the first letter of the alphabet. We all know the other declinations of the term... 🐺

Charoen เจริญ = from a religious perspective, her name means "to chant", "to pray". On extended cases, it can also mean "progress", "joyful", "grow". 🙏

Mawin มาวิน = it comes from the English "win" and it could literally mean "came to win".

Tin ติน = It can come from the metal or from the name Valentine. In both cases it describe someone who's strong and healthy.

Teacher Nida ครูนิดา = it has arabic origins and it means "call", "voice", "sound"

Teacher Bambam ครูแบมแบม = might refer to willpower and strength of will (tbh idk google search is filled with BamBam from GOT7😵‍💫😅)

Ton ต้น (😐 no pic for him, he's too self absorbed. Jk I reached 10pics 🤪) = it can have many meanings including "beggining point", "origin", "leader"...

I guess someone on the internet has already made this but i haven't seen it anywhere yet, so here we go. If anyone has complains or thinks something's wrong, let me know 👐

#23.5 the series #23.5 degrees #gl series #gl #thai actual meaning #ongsa #sun #ongsasun #aylinluna #aylin #luna #alpha #tin #mawin #ton #charoen #nidabambam #nida #bambam #love pattranite #milk pansa #milklove #view benyapa #june wanwimol #viewjune #ciize rutricha #ford arun #aj chayapol #earn preeyaphat #euro thanaset

[majorbaby]

i was going to make a video compilation but actually i think that would give MASH too much credit or make it seem like I really think this show did generally well by race and racism, plus I can't go back and edit a video if I change my mind at any point. so here's my text-based list of race moments that actually land for me, whether intentional or based on my personal interpretation.

s01e05 The Moose - which is mostly a white saviour episode but actually does do a few things right:

this moment of solidarity between Oliver and Young-Hi

in response to the Swamp Rats' indignation that anyone would sell their child into servitude, Ho-Jon explains very frankly "Well some of the locals sell their kids for money Hawkeye, they have no other means." - not to say that it's right that Young-Hi's parents did that to her, but like, they didn't sell her to get rich, they did it because they're likely living in poverty and they have other younger children to support

Young-Hi cheekily explaining in her letter to Hawkeye "heehee the nuns have no idea I'm Buddhist" she's taking them for a ride, it's great

and Young-Hi's "I am also very beautiful!"

s02e15 Officers Only

Hawkeye introducing a black enlisted man as his brother-in-law - soooo very recently, like I argued this at the mic at my last convention, we've started to rethink the use of"brother" and "sister" to refer to your union comrades has start. if your boss caught you organizing with a friend after work, you would say "oh that's just my brother/sister". arguments against this are gaining traction now because of growing awareness of non-binary people but tbh it should have never been a thing it only protects white people who can reasonably pass as siblings, if you're black or brown you're SOL (as you usually were anyway). so anyway. this is a long ass paragraph just to say that Hawkeye saying " brother-in-law" in the union episode of MASH makes me feel ways. someone was thinking about intersectionality way back then.

s02e19 The Chosen People

Sam Pak in OR at the beginning of the episode, thanking America for saving Korea "from the bottom of our bomb craters." and also just generally making jokes that actually land about the Korean language because he's the one making them, "Pish-posh? That's my mother's family name"

tbh Sam walking around like he owns the base is pretty great in general

s05e08 Dear Sigmund

Klinger: Smaha! Smaha! Potter: [to Private Habib] What'd he say? Habib: He said "Smaha! Smaha!"

If it is Arabic it's funny because Potter assumes Habib will translate and he just repeats the words in Arabic because that is what Klinger literally said. If it is gibberish it's funny because Potter assumes its Arabic and Habib gives him the gibberish. This is one of my favourite gags in the whole show and fun fact also the moment I realized Jamie Farr must be a native speaker because his accent is so natural. It's pretty cool he got to flex that.

s05e11 Hawk's Nightmare

this is just me, but I love that Hawkeye describes the people of Crabapple Cove as never changing colour, always the same "off-white" - this was a time you almost never heard white people acknowledge their whiteness, except when speaking about racism. really struck me the first time i heard it. probably my favourite thing from Hawkeye re: race and it's not intentional. I definitely prefer it to his white saviourism

s06e08 In Love and War

the exchange between Kyungsoon and Hawkeye where the extent of his naiveté is put on display, "You're being awfully practical about this" "I thought you liked that about me [list of things she had to do for survival that Hawkeye initially admired in her but is now throwing in her face]"

episode ends in Hawkeye having to accept that sometimes love is irrelevant, the circumstances are what they are (the love was there and it didn't matter, but it was there) - this imo is the only episode of MASH that even begins to touch on the realities of being a Korean civilian in the war

s08e03 Guerilla My Dreams

the gang fails to save a woman from being taken away and she will likely die, as would've probably happened irl. sometimes being on a sitcom isn't enough to save you from your fate as a prisoner of war and it was good to be reminded of that for once. it's the white saviour trope averted.

s08e08 Private Finance

I can at least appreciate that this time when someone is explaining how all sides of the war are to blame for the scourge of war, it's a young Korean girl in her own words. rest of the episode is questionable but normally such a line would go to Hawkeye.

s08e15 Yessir that's Our Baby

the Korean official biting back when Hawkeye tries to accuse him (on behalf of the country) for not recognizing mixed-race babies as Korean, stating that neither does America recognize mixed-race babies with American fathers as Americans, unlike France and the UK

s11e01 Hey Look Me Over

this episode is textually about the very specific and not uncommon experience of being desexualized as a fat, Asian-American woman - it deserves a proper episode recap/analysis with that lens and I'm planning on take a stab at it if/when I ever get around to that ep in my rewatch. these stories were not being told in mainstream media until like, five years ago. there are some the hypersexualized or fetishized Asian woman in media and usually the movie/show/comic is doing that as a selling point rather than commentary. it's unfortunate we haven't progressed much since that moment 40 years ago.

[citation needed, cannot remember the name of the episode]

while admitted a Korean doctor tells Hawkeye he wishes things were different and that he could work alongside Hawkeye and BJ and Hawkeye asks with perfect American ignorance (paraphrase), "You'd want to do that?" and he responds, "You treat the enemy, why can't I?"

And finally, Soon-Lee and Klinger in GFA, a little bit in As Time Goes By. I started writing an essay on Klinger as the romantic lead of GFA but I think I'm going to try to make it a video essay so I can include clips from the show without having to make a bunch of gifs.

But in a nutshell, Klinger gets to do stuff in GFA that the often emasculated brown man still doesn't get to do much on television. As MASH progressed we did occasionally get to see Klinger take on a more serious role, Alan Alda has spoken on trying to do that for the character rather than rehash dramatic plotlines for Hawkeye or BJ who got plenty of their own.

Having Klinger represented that way gives audiences a chance to see him more three-dimensionally. As someone who is capable of romantic love, attraction, courage and someone who might be sexually desirable to others - in a less direct way than Kellye demands of Hawkeye in Hey Look Me Over. I think the lack of subtlety in Hey Look Me Over is great because there can be no question about what that episode is supposed to do and also because it drives home that Hawkeye is so blinded by his preconceived notions of what a "desirable woman" looks and sounds like that Kellye has to scream it in his face before he realizes what he's been doing. But it's also nice to have an example that's woven into the writing and cinematography.

Normally I don't like to add these kinds of disclaimers because I value open conversation but if you're rb'ing, please be mindful of your tags. I intentionally excluded a lot of the moments where I know I'm supposed to give this show an A+ for its progressivism when it has a white person demonstrating basic human decency. That bar is just too low for me.

#race on mash #re: mash

[hopelesslovebug]

i just heard a bad BAD take about abdul's name so giving my wisdom to the people as an egyptian muslim

DO NOT trust anyone who tells you that his name is blasphemy in any way IT'S NOT

let me start with the easy one. "avdol" isn't a real name, it doesn't exist. this is just a misspell/mistranslation but honestly i don't have anything against people who use it to refer to mohamed because misspells and mistranslations of names will always exist in every language, even in arabic there are misspells of english names and it's bad let me tell you

"abdul" is a shortened version of multiple names actually like "abdullah", "abdulhai", "abdalmonem" and "abdulfattah" but it also can be a name on its own. my uncle is literally named "abdul". it is a name you can not deny it, tho it's pronounced "abdo/عبدو" not "abdul/عبدل" but like.... misspells and mistranslations like i told you is language biggest enemy

(quick arabic lesson i guess but you can remove anything in the structure of sentences and words in arabic -but with rules ofc- in "abdullah" i simply removed god's name so the name rn just means slave "عبد" but i add the letter "و" to refer to god so now i have the name "abdo" that means the same thing as "abdullah" which is "servent of god")

anyways pronouncing or writing any arabic name wrong is NEVER a blasphemy who ever said it is was stretching very hard bro

but it doesn't matter how you choose to refer to him just enjoy the character you know, a name shouldn't be an obstacle

#arabic is a very complicated language just because of its grammar #i mean i do lose lots of grade points because of it cough ack #i hope this helped in any way #also i hope it was understandable god #jojo bizarre adventure #jjba #jjba sdc #jjba stardust crusaders #stardust crusaders #mohammed avdol #mohammed abdul #mohamed avdol #mohamed abdul #jjba part 3 #mine

[dissociative-disaster]

So I started playing Elden Ring today, and it reminded me of a funny thing FromSoft games sometimes do with the Welsh language.

So obviously in ER there’s the character Blaidd (idk who he really is I just know he’s popular - I’m only like two hours in). Which I find funny because while to a non-Welsh speaker his name sounds cool and fantasy-ish, a Welsh speaker will immediately recognise it to just be the word for Wolf, which is quite funny. There are a few examples of these in soulsborne games, and chief among them to me is Gwyn, Lord of Cinder from Dark Souls.

Gwyn’s name comes from the Welsh folkloric figure Gwyn ap Nydd (‘ap’ has a similar usage in Welsh to ‘ibn’ in arabic, so his name means ‘Gwyn, son of Nydd) - (sometimes) king of the otherworld of Anwn, who also appears in Arthurian legends. This is well and good, but names don’t come from nowhere, and in Welsh there are generally a few places names come from. In this case, the name Gwyn probably started life as a surname.

While a lot of people might think them similar enough, Welsh surnames differ slightly in origin from English surnames. Until very recently (around the finance act of 1894 i think but don’t quote me on that this is from memory), surnames were less an inherited familial thing and more of an adjective on someone’s name, so that you could know which John out of the thirty-seven Johns in everyone’s circle of influence is being discussed. This was probably the same in England, actually, but the interesting thing is that in Wales (or at least North Wales) people still talk like this today. Nobody cares what your surname is - they know you by an adjective or nickname.

This adjective or nickname comes from one of four places generally: your job, the name of your home, the name of a more well-known family member, or the colour of your hair. For instance, my Taid (grandpa), John. Nobody knew John Owen, but everyone knew John Siop - he lived in Siop Isaf (literally ‘Lower Shop’).

Hair colour is less-used nowadays, but used to be very common, and is the basis for many surnames. Using a colour as an adjective for a person’s name in Welsh refers to their hair colour, and those old nicknames tended to stick and become surnames. A few English surnames, actually, come from Welsh hair colour surnames - like Lloyd, which comes from Llwyd (Gray), or Wynn which is from Wyn (treigliad (it’s complicated) of Gwyn, meaning ‘White’).

So we’re back at Gwyn. Gwyn ap Nydd’s name, then, was a descriptor of his hair colour. Which is interesting, but not my point. The point I was trying to get to before rambling on about the etymology of Welsh surnames was that Gwyn, and its variant Wyn, are very common Welsh first names. But the reason I find the name ‘Gwyn, Lord of Cinder’ funny is because Gwyn is the name of my five-foot-three bald uncle who plays golf and smiles like a fairy from a medieval illustration.

#welsh #surnames #rambling #dark souls #elden ring #surnames probably work exactly the same way in English now that I think about it lol. #ah well #i’ve already made the effort.

[roosterr]

i just know gaz is so bad at learning other languages and soap is right there next to him.

they both try so hard, but it's just not their strong suit. I feel like gaz is worse than soap. he managed to pick up the tiniest bit of Arabic in urzikstan, and by that I mean literally 1 or 2 phrases with an accent so terrible farah actually laughs when she hears it. Alex is smug about it too, because he has one up on gaz in that regard.

soap was actually okay in Las almas, he could infer what people meant without actually understanding what they were saying, but as soon as he left mexico everything he learned just evacuated his brain (apart from the word hermano). ghost, on the other hand, picks it up so easily and soap is so fucking jealous.

#ask

[harmofud]

Listen, I'm just gonna go ahead and put out my two cents on here about the Israel-Palestine war, as someone who doesn't know jack shit about either one of those situations and has only been learning about them for a week but does know a whole lot about literary analysis.

Guys, there is so much misinformation going around. It is a war, and ignoring who you agree with, Hamas and the Israeli government would absolutely love it if you thought the other group's citizens are full of irredeemable barely human monsters. If this is the first time you're learning about it (like me), keep in mind where you are getting your info from! Double check things! If someone has translated something from Hebrew or Arabic and you don't know either of those languages and you don't know the person who translated it, keep that in mind! It would be so easy to lie about translations!

If your info comes from Twitter, Tiktok, Facebook, Tumblr, literally any social media, note that propaganda, hatred, and plain old misunderstandings are going to give you info that can be false or greatly misleading. You cannot trust everything that people say. There are organizations that benefit from your lack of understanding and outrage.

Things to look for from news:

- An actual news team or certified organization reporting it (NOT just a random post)

- Location of news team/certified organization

- The connotations of similar words (remember that famous example of people finding stuff during Hurricane Katrina vs looting stuff)

- The connotations of words that mean the same thing (bad vs abysmal)

- Placements of paragraphs (if someone sandwiches a brief paragraph of something bad happening to the Palestinians with what happened to the Israelis, then the implied feeling of the article might be with the Israelis)

- Translated information (If you don't know the language, you don't know for sure what they're saying/writing!!!)

There's probably more but I'm drawing a blank right now. Info from eyewitnesses can help you form your own opinions, but keep in mind people can just lie about it. AI can replicate famous people's faces and voices.

We live in an era of misinfo. Be careful. Be responsible. And for God's sake, don't take everything you see at face value.

#palestine #israel #propaganda #misinformation #war

[meshlasolus]

Hey, I just wanted to be informed about what “from the river to the sea” means? I’ve been looking it up but all I’ve found is free Palestine bullshit. In one of your posts you implied it has a separate meaning so can you please explain if you’d like? Sorry if I’m being rude or anything I just want to be informed.

"From the river to the sea" (Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر, romanized: min an-nahr ’ilā l-baḥr; Palestinian Arabic: من المياه للمياه, romanized: min al-mayeh lil-mayeh, lit. 'from the water to the water') is a political slogan that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which currently includes the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories: the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

At first glance, it has no other connotation to it other than the meaning people are shouting, which is 'Palestine will be free.'

It sounds very progressive and helpful to Palestinians when that's all that's said... but with the additional words that belong to the phrase: فلسطين ستكون عربية

It translates to: from water to water, Palestine will be Arab.

Not 'Palestine will be free', Palestine will be Arab.

Little white liberal ppl are writing these inscriptions on signs and protesting against the killing of Palestinians, but when they do, they don't even understand that they are encouraging Hamas to make Palestine an Arab only state. They claim they want to save lives while literally chanting for the extermination of jews using Hamas Nazi rhetoric.

This, of course, does not mean that all Palestinians are Arab or that there are not Arab jews. However, the notion of Hamas wanting to irradicate only the Israeli government is completely false when their mission was to mainly kill jews and try and take the land by force of killing innocents on October 7th. My friend Hasharon had sent me video attachments of hamas recruits shouting their kill count to one another and saying in their language 'praise allah, for all these dead jews.' They also screamed things on the phone like 'father, i killed ten jews, be proud of me, father, i killed ten of them.' They quite literally committed the exact same attrocities but on a deeply personal level. (Y'know, the same thing that people are condemning Israel of doing... except commiting numerous war crimes in the process.) Obviously, it is too complicated of a situation to take one look at and choose sides. For the most part, I side with Jews as I am one, but we must not forget about our muslim brotherhood in this time. Jews and Muslims are cousins, and they have the ability to live in peace. They have for thousands of years, and the discourse is only now coming from the ways this notion of 'there has to be only one bad guy' is being portrayed in the media.

There is no one bad guy. That would be the easy thing, to say 'oh Israel should be wiped off the planet because they are settlers and have no right to be there and by existing in that land, they are causing Palestinian suffering,' or to say 'Well Hamas is the literal government that Gaza chose for themselves and not only did they use secret tunnels to invade Israel and kill over a thousand innocents, but when Israel responded, their people hid them in hospitals and schools and made Israel look like the bad guy for irradicating terror.'

Do you see how both notions seem to fall on the radical of either side? It's why the conflict not only gets out of hand through the media, but starts to paint a picture that 'if you don't choose the right side you are an evil nasty person and you also deserve to die.' Or at least that's what my anons have been saying, but I digress.

The point is, by going to one extreme or the other, we make even more chaos in an already complex and sad situation.

Very few people in Israel actually believe Gaza should be destroyed, and likewise, I've not seen any of posts from actual Gazans saying they condone the death of others in their name. There are always going to be extremists, because unfortunately, there are some adults who behave like children and think they are of the highest possible knowledge in this world. Being well educated means nothing if you're only educating yourself based on the things you already believe. There's some Jewish wisdom that my grandmother taught me saying: to achieve knowledge is to experience the discomfort of realizing you may have been wrong.

Many liberals are very confident that they have all the answers in this time. I'm not condemning anyone, and I'm not excusing other's behavior either, but I want to make it known that you can't just say something without backing it logically and with context. 'From the river to the sea,' is a perfect example of that.

Sorry for this long rant I've just been wanting to get it off my chest as I've seen even more non arabic people posting the arabic signs around my city and non even realizing what they actually mean.

#israel #gaza #palestine #fuck hamas #jewish lives matter

[inbarfink]

An Extremely Eleborate Analysis of the Hebrew Translations of Aziraphale Saying Fuck

Okay, one challenge in translating things into Hebrew that many people, including some Hebrew speakers don’t consider, is swear words. Because, like, it’s not as if Modern Hebrew is unfamiliar with the concept of swearing… it’s just that most of our swear words are loan words. Primarily from languages such as Yiddish, Arabic, Russian and English.

And that’s kind of a problem for what’s supposed to be a translation. The typical expectations from a Hebrew Translation is that it’ll minimize the use of loan words and Gratuitous English that often slips into actual Modern Hebrew speech. This usually limits the amount and variety of swear words the translator can use.

To bring it back to Good Omens, specifically the famous Aziraphale Says Fuck scene:

------------

In the 2006 translation, both instances are translated as ‘Zayin’.

As a noun it means ‘penis’ and you can also turn it into a verb meaning ‘sexual intercourse’. This is basically the crassest swear word in Modern Hebrew (including loan words, which are generally considered slightly tamer than Hebrew Words. For example, ‘shit’ is also a swear in Hebrew but it’s use is more equivalent to ‘crap’ in English. While ‘Khara” is considered the Hebrew equivalent to the use of ‘shit’ in English) - So ‘Zayin’ is really the most direct translation you can have for ‘Fuck’ in Modern Hebrew.

(For those how know a bit of Hebrew, yes, this word is also the seventh letter of our alphabet. I don’t have time to go into the etymology right now but the short version is that Modern Hebrew is like some sort of Bizarro Timeline where people used the term ‘F-Word’ so much that it because the actually crass swear and ‘Fuck’ became it’s tamer euphemism)

Anyway, yeah, “Zayin” should be the perfect translation to “Fuck”, but the problem is:

It’s used both times, and in the exact same way, removing the element of escalation from the sequence.

The manner in which “Zayin” is used is… kinda clunky.

Cause while “Zayin” is really crass, and while “Zayin” can be used to mean ‘intercourse’… it’s not really used as an exclamation in the way Aziraphale uses it

“Zayin” and it’s variations are generally used as part of a longer sentence or phrase. I have never seen or heard anyone exclaim “oh, Zayin!” outside of, well, overly-literal translations of English-language media. So as a translation choice, it takes the reader out of the story and make the dialogue feel very unnatural.

Meanwhile the 2020 translation tried to address it in a very creative way. Which I... applaud on a conceptual level, but I’m not quite sure it worked.

So the notable thing about 2020 Hebrew Aziraphale is that he uses a lot of strange, old-timey exclamations. And outside of just characterizing Aziraphale farther (since not all of the peculiarities of his speech can be preserved in a direct translation) - it seems to be trying to emphasize the point of Aziraphale not swearing by making his exclamations so stuffy. And it also tries to build to the Aziraphale Says Fuck scene in a different way, because the way it was translated is, well…

Okay, so this:

Was translated as “eiyzeh Khara!” - a n exclamation that means something like “what shit!” or, more naturalistically, “oh, shit!”. So this line now sounds more like an actual Hebrew speaker actually swearing - but the swear was also downgraded quite a bit. Like, you know, a big part of the impact of Aziraphale Says Fuck is that is ‘Fuck’.

But the real problem comes a few lines before that.

Which was translated as ‘lekol hashedim!’. Literally it means something like “to all the demons!” - or more accurately probably something along the lines of “damn it”.

But it is a very very tame exclamation. Like, not really swearing or profanity in any way. I knowthat in Hebrew the line between tame swears and simple exclamations is a little blurry. And I understand that part of the point of Aziraphale’s strange old-timey exclamation is to try to paint him as someone who’s definition of a swear is on the strict end of that spectrum. It’s almost an added joke for the translation, the idea of Aziraphale thinking of ‘lekol hashedim!’ as a swear.

But, yeah, even under that lens, it’s a bit too tame for that joke to work. I mean, I’m pretty sure you can say “lekol hashedim” on Sesame Street with no problem. Why would Aziraphale even consider the word for ‘demon’ to be profane when he talks with a demon about demons for pretty much this entire book? (It’s not like Original English Aziraphale avoids words like ‘damn’ or ‘hell’ or anything). If a phrase was used on a goddam official Loud House comic book translation I’m pretty sure it can’t count as a fucking swear!

So while the 2020 translation is better at preserving the escalation and is a lot more naturalistic, a lot of the edge of the gag is lost when one swear is considerably tamer than the original English and the other one isn’t even a swear in any sense of the word.

Now, I don’t have the magic solution as to how to perfectly translate that sequence. “Zayin” is the best match for “Fuck” - but using it on its own as an exclamation is pretty clunky and, like, if you use a longer expression that uses ‘Zayin’ it will really mess with the pacing and even the contents of the scene (like you can have Aziraphale shout the equivalent of “fuck you!” at Shadwell but I don’t think that’s what the scene is going for).

The best I can come up with is maybe using “khara” for the first instant and just using “fuck” (as in the English loanword ‘fuck’) for that second time. Which is more-or-less what the show's Hebrew Dub did. I mean it’s not ideal because outside of the general discussion about gratuitous English in translation (there’s precedence. Crowley uses ‘shit’ a couple of times in the 2020 translation) ‘fuck’ is slightly less crass in Hebrew compared to English (like I said, original Hebrew words are usually considered harsher than their loanword counterparts. I use 'fuck' all the fucking time but I honestly feel a bit uncomfy with how many times I typed out 'zayin' in this essay lol). But it would still be, like, the second biggest swear word and that’s still something??

#good omens #good omens book #translation #aziraphale good omens #aziraphale #good omens aziraphale

[miadebbas]

Teta Alit

Teta Alit visually translates phrases from the Arabic/Lebanese language into literal scenarios to bring humour, lighthearted connection, and understanding between diverse backgrounds. This Series will play with language and show how beautiful, poetic, and funny the Arabic language is. 

The title in english means, "My Grandmother Said". "Teta" Is My Grandmother in Lebanese, and the word "Alit" can be translated to the word said.

This series was part of my undergrad thesis at OCAD U. 

Ever wondered what some expressions or proverbs your grandparents, or even parents, say sometimes means? Or while visiting a foreign country you hear a strange saying and you wonder what it means? Sometimes they even translate funny…

Here are 10 Lebanese and Arabic proverbs that could have a different meaning that what they sound.

1- El Ered Bi 3ein Emmo Ghazel - القرد في عين أمه غزال

This translates to “The monkey is a deer in his mother’s eyes”.

It’s an Egyptian expression that means that the mother thinks that their child is beautiful and perfect when in reality they are not.

2- Kalemak 3assal 3ala Albeh -  كلامك عسل على قلبي

This translates to “Your words are honey on my heart"  

The feminine version would be “kalemik 3assal 3a albeh”. You just have to replace the -ak with -ik depending on who you talk to. -ak is masculine and -ik is feminine

This expression is the perfect response for when a special someone says something especially sweet. This can also be a used for flirting 😉.  

3- Baselto Ma7rou2a - بصلة محروقة

This translates to “Your onion is burning”

the feminine version would be “Baselta ma7rou2a”. -o is masculine -a is feminine, changes depending on who you talk to.

you can also use “Baseltak ma7rou2a” or “Baseltik ma7rou2a” if you are talking directly to the person. The previous versions are when you are talking about someone.

*see previous proverb for -ik and -ak explanation.

This proverb means that he/she is very impatient.

4- El Tekrar Fi Ta3lim El Hmar - التّكرار في تعلّم الحمار

This translates to “repetition teaches a donkey”.

it means practice makes perfect.

5- Tanjra w le2it ghataha -  طنجرا و لاقيت غطها

This translates to “A pot found it’s cover”

This is said of two people who click.

Personal anecdote:  It is something I felt when I met my best friend. It felt cosmic, it felt right. It felt like I, to take the words of the proverb, found my cover.

6- 7amil El Sullom Bil 3ared -  حامل السّلم بالعرض

Translates to “He is carrying the ladder horizontally”.

When you say it to a woman you have to say “7amle el sullom bil 3ared”. -il is masculine and -le is feminine.

This means he/she is complicating things.

7- Toqbor Albeh - تقبر قلبي

This translates to “Burry my heart”.

Just to let you know no one wants to burry anyone here...

Funny enough despite the dark tone of the expression, it is actually an expression to express one’s love to another. It means that they would rather die than to lose you. It is something I hear my mother say a lot to my siblings and I, so for me this is an expression mostly used by mothers.

A similar expression of love would be Tuqborni*/تقبرني : which translates to “Burry me” .  

This also means that they would rather die and have you bury them before losing you.

An expression used instead of saying “I love you so much”.

*I actually hear my grandmothers say it a lot to express her love.

A sweet expression, right?

8- Rou7 Ballit El Ba7er - روح بلّط البحر

This translates to “Go tile the sea”.

Oh! how I love this expression!! I am guilty of using it a lot, especially when talking to my brother. 

 This is an expression used a lot instead of saying “Leave me alone” or “Get lost”.

9- Fakhar ykassir ba3do - فخار يكسر بعضه 

This translates to “Let the pottery brake itself”

This means to let people deal with their own mess, in other words let’s not deal with the problems of others.

10- Re7na Salata - رحنا سلطة 

This translates to “We went salad”

Something we say when we’re screwed and there is no going back.

I started this thesis to give you all a look at my culture but in the end, I ended up learning a lot too!

Hope you enjoyed it~

Mia 

PS: This might be my longest post. 

#Lebanese #Arabic #Lebanese Sayings #funny sayings #Art #illustration #ocadu #thesis #2020-2021 #undergraduate #acrylpainting #series #fun #educational #culture #language #arabic language