I guess it’s no secret that there are some accents out there that when they traverse the English language will unwittingly interchange their V’s and W’s.
But this, to my knowledge, was merely an issue of pronunciation and not one of spelling. Having different phonics programmed in for release upon the need to express a specific sound.
Much to my delight, I have now discovered this phenomenon immortalised in signage.
I was taking over my grade 1 class from the previous teacher and noticed this beauty on the board:
And it’s true!
Allah as the creator of everything did in fact create the right, the acute, the obtuse, the reflex and the straight angle.
However, when the lesson is on arkān al-īmān you’ve got to wonder if it’s the right place to be making this point.
My encounter with Rabee’ quite literally left me with a foul taste in my mouth!
Here in Saudi, choice can be restricted.
We find, as I’m sure you’ve heard, that some are championed over others. Whether this is because of behind-closed-door agreements or just the natural order of things – I really don’t know!
But having lived in the West I can assert that there is certainly a greater freedom of choice. One which allows you to venture outside of “brand names.”
I’d heard of Rabee’ but had never come face to face before. I don’t know what drove me to it, but I thought to myself – hey, a harmless introduction surely can’t go amiss?
We met in the local market and after a brief exchange at the cashier’s till, I opted to bring Rabee’ home with me and serve some tea.
As I sat there in my living room, I could see the steam rising from Rabee’ and felt the heat that was being omitted as I drew closer.
Yak! What kind of garbage was this?!
What foul nastiness was I being exposed to?!
The shock led me to spit my tea back into my cup.
How could anyone pass this off as a quality beverage?
I think I’ll have to stick to the more well established, like Shaykh Lipton.
At least until someone can bring me over some of my favourite Illuminati bags from the UK.
Is this the end of Saudi Arabia as we know it?
I was truly astonished when I noticed the installation of parking meters in downtown Khobar.
Traffic management is a rudimentary concept to the Western world but the shock to me here is this is being introduced amongst a people who have no qualms, and indeed often feel no shame, at parking like this…
And that’s not someone photographed mid three-point-turn or parked precariously for five minutes while he quickly nips to the shop. This is overnight parking!
In fact the word “park” isn’t appropriate here at all.
The verb “to park” contains shades of meaning that suggests that the action is “out of the way” or “to one side.” A more accurate verb that describes what I witness on a daily basis would be “to stop.”
It is more a process of discontinuing the car’s motion, removing the keys and subsequently walking away from it. With little, or often no, attempt to position the car so that it is not causing an obstacle to other vehicles or pedestrians.
In England I witnessed double-parking; here I see triple-parking and don’t even blink owing the familiarity that it possesses. And to describe a street close to a masjid on jumu’ah would require the usage of words like quintuple or larger.
I’m trying to picture the scene of the first local who’s confronted by a Traffic Warden.
“Excuse me, but you can’t park like that!”
“Ish?”
“Your car needs to be straight and off the road, parked within these lines *points*”
“Lines? Ish hatha, lines? Lines, ish?”
“And you need to pay too!”
“Bay, ish bay?”
“You know? Give money to leave your car here!”
“La, La, La! Ana Fulan bin Fulan Al-Fulani… *wanders off to collect his thobes from the dry cleaners*”
“Take a seat sir! Is it just a trim you’re after? The pagan festival of Christmas will be coming up soon and I suppose you’ll be wanting to look your best?”
“Gobble !?!”
I’ll shortly be leaving for the UK to take a quick break before the next academic year begins.
I’m also enrolled on an intensive study course over the next month or so and everyone that I know who’s done the same course tells me that you have to eat, sleep and breathe the course just to get through it.
This being the case I’ll have to forgo my internet tom foolery until my planned return to Saudi in early to mid Ramadhan, insha’ Allah.
So don’t be expecting any/much activity here for the duration.
If I’ve got my dates correct, my home internet card is due to expire within the hour and so I’d better get this post up now, lest I find myself having to sit in one of the various smoky and seedy internet cafes tomorrow to make this announcement.
All the best to everyone and a Ramadhan mubarak in advance.
I used to have a big problem remembering the numbers 7 and 8, as written in Arabic script (٧ and ٨).
Primarily because they’re just inverted versions of one another and I could never recall if I should be giving someone a V or an N (as I used to refer to them).
This went on for some years until I finally sat down and thought to myself:
“I really need a memory aid to get me past this confusion!”
Anyway, on the way back from the masjid tonight I found myself reading the number eight (in Arabic) on a car license plate and it brought back to mind the aid that I developed (and which I’ve now decided to share).
The way I mastered these numbers was to think of the Arabic number 8 (٨) as a Chinese hat sitting on top of a fat man’s head (i.e. the number 8 ) .
Like so…
Having mentally stored this picture in my head whenever I saw the Arabic numeral ٨, I automatically saw an English number 8 underneath and was able to recognise it for its numeric value.
Voilà!
Now, having spent half an hour or so in Paint trying to illustrate this point, I’ve noticed that it works equally well with a medieval wimple wearing snow-damsel.
So there’s still plenty of scope for inventing variant mnemonics.
The owner of this bumper sticker seems to think not.
I was in a bookshop in search of a specific English textbook that I had in mind for an evening class that I was teaching.
Not holding much hope that I’d find it, I started to wander around the other aisles in case it’d been misfiled or maybe something else might just catch my eye.
Into the “Computing” section, glancing briefly over the titles: “Networks”, “Excel”, “Word Processing.”; Nope, nothing of interest here!
Into “Management”, definitely nothing here.
“Science”, over my head.
What’s this next shelf?
“Women.” Hmm?
I wonder what they’re pushing the women of this ummah to read?
What kind of mind expanding topics do they think ladies are capable of learning and bringing the rest of us advancements in?
What texts with unfathomable depths of complexity do they think that the female mind can grasp.
Well…
Apparently, this shop thinks that women are best intellectually satisfied with shelves full of…
I assume there must be a disclaimer somewhere:
“Warning: These books may overwhelm you!
Please ask your husband/father/brother/son for assistance.”
The difficulty in being surrounded by beoble who either don’t speak English or don’t speak it particularly well, is that your own level of English suffers and starts to deteriorate as you endeavour to make yourself understood.
Last year I taught a class full of 6 year old Saudis and without realising it my language skills began to slip. I’d start dropping prepositions, restricting myself to a single verbal tense or simply speaking in a bullet point fashion so as not to confuse the children.
I’d find myself admonishing a child in a Tarzan-esque language:
“Why you do this? This bad! No do this. OK?”
A further consequence of being immersed in such an environment is that you’re often slow to realise when you’ve stepped outside of it. I remember, after having taught intensely for about two and half hours, I got a message that my principal wanted to see me on an unrelated matter.
I went to his office as instructed and was midway through our conversation when I suddenly became acutely aware that I was talking like a Neanderthal to a man who spoke perfectly good English.
Another corruptive problem that I’ve found stems from the lack of fame the land of Scotland has in Saudi Arabia.
I say this brushing aside for a moment all those Saudis (and a disturbing amount of ex-pats) who’ve seen the film Braveheart and insist on re-enacting it whenever I mention my country of birth.
“Where are you from?” or more commonly “From where you?” can be an everyday question over here; from taxi drivers and shop assistants to the general folk of the street.
I’ve rapidly given up explaining my Scottish decent to off-hand enquiries on nationality from random strangers who seem only able to equate white skin with America.
So, to end such an inquisitive conversation as soon as it starts I often resort to “I’m English” before continuing “How much for the [insert shop product name here]?”
However, yesterday I noticed a new low with my unintentional loss of identity.
I was in a cargo delivery shop looking for quotes on sending items to Edinburgh, Scotland. Momentarily sighing to myself as I noticed that the man had written “Adambr” on his notepad.
But I didn’t feel a compulsion to intervene into his quote-catalogue page-flicking until I saw his finger running down a list of cities of the “United States of America” as he searched for “Adambr.”
Much to my subsequent shame, the urge within me to get the process speeded up blurted out the phrase:
“No, Scotland! It’s in England.”
Now, my mother has been very patient with the various changes that Islam has brought me over the years but I fear that were she to ever hear that I’d identified my homeland as being part of its historic enemy, it might finally lead to the ostracization that things like giving up celebrating Christmas failed to provoke.
 | Abū Ilyās on Wolksvagen |
 | Grammar Nazi on Wolksvagen |
| Abū Ilyās on Wolksvagen |
 | Ilm Seeker on Wolksvagen |
| Abū Ilyās on Wolksvagen |
