I had forgotten how much pleasure there is in learning a new language, right away, even when one knows little more than the alphabet and a couple of dozen words. So it is with my adventures in Arabic.
I am also finding it quite difficult, though, and a bit anxious-making. I’m used to learning a language in a very structured way. You start with the noun paradigms and a bit of vocab, pick up prepositions here and there, then charge headlong into the verb.
My teacher’s approach is quite different. We’ve seen very little of the kind of grammatical technicality that delights me. We’ve had a lot of vocab and useful sample sentences – my name is, I’m from, etc. Not really my style, but I’m plugging along.
One of my fellow-students, a completely adorable young guy from Iraq, who speaks the language like the native he is, but doesn’t know how to read or write it, struck up a conversation the other day. Two or three of us were idly talking, before class, about what was hard and what was not, and the topic turning to language learning in general. My young friend observed, with sincere friendliness, that it must be especially challenging for me… at my age. Then of course he realized what he had said, and his mortification was beautiful to see. Arabs are an extremely polite group of people, in general, and he obviously felt that he had lodged his foot so far into his mouth that he might never get it out again. And to an old guy I’m rude like this! Or so he’s thinking.
I hastened to his rescue. Oh yes, I said, it’s definitely more difficult. Best time to learn a language is when you’re three. All downhill from there. But it’s still fun. This was taken as intended, and all was well.
I’ve known a lot of “Arabs” over the years – it’s a slightly problematic term, hence the quotes, but they use it themselves, so who am I to be persnickety. I like them, nearly always; like the manners, the culture, the general affect. And I rather admire Islam, though I know very little about it.
It would be jarring, under any circumstances, to encounter the nauseating hatred and vilification of Muslims that the hasbarabot army are filling my exiguous social-media pipeline with, these days. Of course it’s always been a staple of Israeli propaganda, but it’s taken on, of late, a new fervor, and descended to a Gehenna of filth and degeneracy that I can’t find words to describe. The dogs have always delighted to bark and bite (for God hath made them so), but now they’re also drooling, snapping at imaginary flies, and shitting on the carpet. A sobering example of how race chauvinism and a sense of entitlement are very, very bad for one’s character.
But it’s especially sickening for me just now because I’m trying to find my way into this cultural world, to some modest extent anyway, and finding it very amiable.
Naturally, contrarian that I am, I’m considering converting to Islam. At least, down the mosque, I wouldn’t encounter any nonsense about de-gendering pronouns. Or nouns, for that matter.
Just kidding. Of course. I’m with Dr Johnson on this – too old to change my religion. But one can respect and admire another. And perhaps even wish that one’s own religion were in some ways more like it.
Such has been my ignorance of Islam that I hadn’t known how much Mary, the mother of Jesus, is venerated by the followers of the Prophet (peace be upon him). She is sometimes referred to as “umm al-Noor” – mother of the light. Since I have a high regard for the lady in question myself, this made me quite happy. There is a whole sura in the Koran named after her, which tells pretty much the story we know from Luke, with some lovely additional detail. I looked it up online, and stumbled through it, with a helpful interlinear translation. I was surprised how many words I recognized – or at least, how many roots I recognized. (There’s lots of vocab overlap with Hebrew, surprise, surprise.) Though taking apart a verb is still well beyond my grasp.
Since one of the things we did in my student days, even at the earliest stages of learning a language, was to try to translate a passage, as literally as possible, I did the exercise. Read it as a student’s homework, with no claim to accuracy, much less authority, and still less the eloquence, which I can dimly sense, of the original. Here’s the first bit:
And remember in the book Mary, when she withdrew from her family someplace east, and took a veil [literally hijab, maybe a screen or concealment metonymically] away from them. So we sent to her our spirit and it appeared to her as a man in form. And she said, I seek refuge with the Most Gracious from you, if you are God-fearing! And he said, I am only a messenger from your lord, to bestow on you a righteous son. And she said, How can there be a son for me, since no man has touched me, and I am not a whore? And he said, thus for you, says your lord, it is easy for me, and we will make him a sign for mankind, and a mercy from us. And it is [emphatic: think “does be”, or “stands”] a command decreedi.
The rest is good too – there’s a palm tree and a shower of dates and a fine clear brook running nearby, which Luke doesn’t seem to have known about, and Mary very humanly says, while giving birth, “I wish I were dead and forgotten in oblivion.” And Jesus turns out to be a very in-charge baby.
Mother of the light. Well, we could use some light. Look kindly upon us, أم النور, walking in darkness and the shadow of death.
i Those who know Arabic and know the passage are most sincerely invited to correct my blunders.