A lesson in English, courtesy of Arabic

One of the things I love about Arabic is the root system. Reading through Hans Wehr makes you stop and contemplate the interconnections of  words and their meanings. Every word has a story behind it. Such reflection soon makes me wonder about the history and interconnections of my own language, English.

I remember the first time I looked up “mathaf” in the dictionary. Mathaf is the Arabic word for museum and comes from the root, t-h-f, meaning “treasure” or “present” or “work of art”. It made me think about museum in English. Why do we call museums museums? Well if you stop and think about it, museum has the word “muse” in it and in a way, museums are indeed the places where we get inspiration. 

So if we were to define museum by its root meaning, would it be “the place where we get inspired”? 

Wow. Makes you want to go off and study Ancient Greek doesn't it? 

Today I made another discovery/realization about an English word: encourage/discourage.

If you take a moment and look at the word, you see that it contains the word “courage”. What can we surmise about the true meaning of the word “encourage”?

Encouraging is all about giving people courage to succeed. Confidence to try… and fail but try again… and possibly fail again, but keep trying!!! (especially when it comes to learning Arabic).

I wish that all those over-zealous types who put so much pressure on their children to succeed paid more attention to the etymology of words, because then they would see that encouragement is all about giving courage… believing in your students and children and making them realize that they are capable of intellectual bravery on their own.

Thank you Arabic for once again teaching me about English!

Noura with a lam?

I suppose I should explain why I am Noura with a lam. It may sound like I am trying to make a nerdy joke about html or a humorous reference to Latin or Greek grammar. I assure you I am not. I am not nearly qualified to make those types of witty quips. Unlike Boris Johnson (whose father apparently boasts "anyone who can master ancient Greek can run London" never mind the 3,000 million pound budget) my knowledge of classic languages is entirely dependent on Asterix and Monty Python. And everything I know about computers, I learnt from Wikipedia. They even have a special "dummy" section for me.

No, I should explain. Noura is an Arabic name. I live in Sudan. Everyone here wants to call me Noura... all the time. But my name isn't Noura. It is Laura. It has always been Laura and I am very attached to Laura! 

Sometimes, I try to explain: "My name is Laura but with a lam." This explanation invariably ends with everyone calling me "Nula".  They tell their friends, "This is Nula. She is from Bulgaria" (I also like to make up more interesting origins for myself- but that is another post entirely). I then try and intervene, "No, my name is not Nula. It is Noura with a Lam." A confused look falls across their faces, "Noura with a lam? So you are called Luna? Like the moon?" At this point, I usually just give in. I can see that I am not going to win and Luna is slightly better than Noula after all. 

But it still bothers me. They just don't want to get rid of that N. I don't know why. Perhaps it has something to do with the meaning of the word?

Noura means Light in Arabic. It's not a bad meaning. If we go back to the first monothesistic religion, Zoroastrianism, (which if you are unfamiliar with ancient Persian religion was the original "One God" gang), we find that they worshipped light and fire as an incantation of God on Earth. Could this be the connection? That somewhere deep in the monotheistic psyche, there is some strong association between Light and God, and accordingly, Light and Civilization itself? 

For what would the world be without Light. No-one would get anything done. Especially in a place like Sudan. Cairo may be the city that doesn't sleep but Khartoum feels very differently about the night. It is a slumberous place when the sun goes down (which suits me fine!) So perhaps I should go with the name, Noura. On the whole, I am a fan of civilization. We have done some great things. 

The only thing is that I am pretty attached to my real name. I wasn't always, especially when there were three other Lauras in French class in year 7. But over, time I have come to love it on its own terms. It was explained to me by Greeks that Laura was a Goddess who got turned into a tree because she fell in love. I like this. I like the idea that I an overly romantic tree. It makes me feel like an Ent. Maybe it is better to be an Ent than the pre-requisite for civilization? I don't know.

And I suppose I am not that unlucky. There are worse things to be called in the Arab world than Laura. Nick means "fuck" and Paul means "to publicly urinate". Marisa is a kind of beer and Anna means "I" or "me" (which can be pretty confusing, let me tell you!). Laura is kind of like the Arabic word for language too, "Logha"; I guess I have that going for me. 

Someone recently called me "Gloria". One of my mum's best friends is Gloria and she is a Chilean artist with a beautiful voice! Maybe from now on, I should just say my name is "Gloria", then I shall be introduced as "Gloria from Chile." Fantastic. I don't mind being Chilean. They have good wine and sweet temperaments, so....

"Goodbye Noula from Bulgaria. It has been nice knowing you!"

Your sincerely,

Gloria.