There’s a serious error in the fourth line of the transcript. “Ghaytaan” (ﻏﻴﻄﺎﻦ is the plural of “ghayt” (ﻏﻴﻄ, which means “field”, not “farm”. This error is all the more surprising because “ghaytaan” (ﻏﻴﻄﺎﻦ has been correctly rendered as “fields” in the list at the end of the transcript.

A literal translation of the first half of the line would read: “And you planted wheat and fields”. In good English this would be “You planted fields with wheat”. The conjunction “wa” has to be omitted, and “wheat and fields” has to be replaced by “fields with wheat” since word combinations like “plant wheat and fields” are impossible in English. “Grew farms” is nonsense. You can grow plants or beards, but you can’t grow farms.

"Al-sadd" is clearly a reference to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, but I've no idea what the verb "'abara" refers to. The English translation doesn't make sense. Since "cross" is a transitive verb, you have to say what the army crossed. What did the army cross? Has "'abara" any other meanings?

@Desmond - غيط is also a garden

"..planted wheat and grew gardens" would make sense, even if the word list has it as "fields".

@ aliyah.m

According to Cameron’s “Arabic-English Vocabulary for the Use of English Students of Modern Egyptian Arabic”, “ghayt” (ﻏﻴﻄ means “field” or “lowland”. So far I haven’t found any reference work in which the term in question is rendered as “garden”. Could you indicate your source?

“Planted wheat” is correct English, but “grew gardens” is nonsense. “Grow” doesn’t collocate with “garden”.

thank you guys for this piece of joy, sharing with us the new insights-----the first line is great and reminds me of alif , lam , min.....
the last line is stunning with its reference to "trim-tabbing" and the shoulders, and the carrying of the dead ....I will continue to harvest this garden of fresh insights into what is really happening in muslim lands today....so far removed from the stuff on the news.

I very much enjoyed this podcast and everyone's insights and comments. Just for the record: a Google search produces over 7,000 hits for "grew gardens", a number of which stem from UK websites (www.grewgardens.co.uk) although most are from US websites, where "grow" definitely collocates with "garden".

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, Karen. I see there are some examples like "grew gardens of medicinal herbs". This shows that "grow" has acquired a new meaning. In the present instance, however, I'm not convinced that "ghaytaan" means "gardens". Can you shed any light on this point, and have you any idea what the army crossed (a river? a frontier?). Could this be a reference to a military campaign in the mid-twentieth century?

@Desmond

"ghayt" is rendered to "garden" in the "English-Arabic" dictionary, if you follow this link:

http://www.almaany.com/home.php?language=english&word=ﻏﻴﻄ&search=&lang_name=Arabic&category=All&type_word=0

@ tau

Thanks for this very useful information, tau. The site you’ve directed me to looks quite interesting. Arabic has an extraordinary number of synonyms and partial synonyms. If the information on the almaany.com site is reliable, there are at least six Arabic words for “garden”: bustaan (ﺒﺴﺘﺎﻦ, ghayt (ﻏﻴﻄ, hadiiqa (ﺤﺪﻴﻗﺔ, janna (ﺠﻨﺔ, muntazah (ﻤﻨﺘﺯﻩ and rawd (ﺮﻮﺾ.

Fuzzy-edged words like “ghayt” (ﻏﻴﻄ pose considerable problems for translators since in many cases it is hard to decide exactly what they mean. In the present instance “field” seems more plausible than “garden”.
If “You planted fields with wheat” or “You planted wheat fields” is the correct interpretation, we still have to explain why the poet wrote “wheat and fields”. I suspect that this is a figure of speech known as hendiadys.

Two words connected by a conjunction are used to express a single notion that would normally be expressed by a completely different kind of word combination. Hendiadys is very common in ancient Greek and classical Latin texts (especially in Vergil and Ovid), and Goethe, who was steeped in classical culture, often uses hendiadys in his plays and poems. When he revised the manuscript of “Iphigenie auf Tauris”, for instance, he replaced “in lieblicher Gesellschaft” by “gesellt und lieblich” in order to create a greater feeling of balance. It remains to add that some excellent examples of hendiadys are quoted by Manfred Landfester in a book entitled “Einführung in die Stilistik der griechischen und lateinischen Literatursprachen” (p. 112). The examples include word combinations such as “pateris libamus et auro”.

in a conversation with an erudite muslim in north africa, he referred to Abraham or ibrahim, as "He who crossed" from what we now know as Iran....there are depths of meaning for me in this piece as it is an expression of the soul of the oppressed .I hope it heralds a start to pride in Islamic art forms, those nearer the mesjed ,this work is far more interesting to me than Lady Gaga, although she also protests in a western art form.

@Desmond, according to my Mawrid dictionary, the word also means garden. The good thing about all of this is that since all of our dictionaries give at least 3 different meanings for the word, we can safely conclude that the word has more than one meaning and each of the meanings we have presented are correct.

@Desmond, im not sure what your native language is, but in America, we grow gardens. We grow them by planting seeds, of course. Also, I dont think its good English to say "You planted fields with wheat". The average American, like myself, would feel more comfy saying "You planted wheat IN fields", or "You planted fields OF wheat", since a field is not physically planted.

As a noun, "Planted Fields" would work quite well. In English, there are "early-planted fields" and "late" ones.

For example: "Farming Advice: What should you do with your late-planted fields?"

@Des - you said: "Fuzzy-edged words like “ghayt” (ﻏﻴﻄwink pose considerable problems for translators since in many cases it is hard to decide exactly what they mean."

I agree that there could be a problem if the translator, at the time of translating, is not well versed in the English language. However, if it was me and I was well versed in English and Arabic, I would exercise my best judgment and use the word garden instead, since rendering it as field, to me, wouldn't make sense - in English of course.

@ aliyah.m

Thank you for citing the Mawrid dictionary. The more sources we have the better.

In order to interpret this poem correctly we need a considerable amount of background information. While the allusions to the pyramids and the Aswan High Dam are clear, the references to the army and the cultivation of wheat are obscure.

I haven’t been able to find any examples of “grow” + “garden” in the British and American texts on my CD-ROMs, and the word combination in question has not been recorded in any of the dictionaries I have consulted. Nonetheless, the documents Karen refers to in her comment look quite interesting. I suspect that “grow” + “garden” is a new collocation which originated in North America and has recently spread to the UK. There are no examples on the BBC website, but this may change since British usage has been strongly influenced by American English in recent decades.

“Plant fields with wheat” is perfectly normal British English. If you consult the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary you’ll find the following example sentence: “The field had been ploughed and planted with corn.”, and if you run a Google search you’ll find examples such as “planted fields with protectant fungicides” and “planted fields with legumes”. The verb “plant” has several meanings and consequently occurs in different syntactic patterns.

“Planted fields” is not a noun. It is a noun phrase consisting of a noun and an adjectival participle. I’ve no objection to “early-planted fields” or “late-planted fields”. This is normal standard English.

The wink after the Arabic word was unintentional. Every time I put an Arabic word in brackets a winking eye appears automatically. I find this annoying because it conveys the impression that I am always grinning at my readers.

You are right when you say that a translator ought to have a good command of his/her working languages. In the present instance, however, proficiency in English and Arabic is not enough. The translator needs more background information in order to be able to decide whether ghayt (ﻏﻴﻄ means “garden” or “field”. You think it means “garden”, and I think it means “field” (see my comment on hendiadys).

When a passage in a source text is obscure or ambiguous the translator has no right to take arbitrary decisions. If the author of the text is still in the land of the living he (or she) has to be consulted, and if the author is dead the translator has to invest some time in research in order to ferret out sufficient background information.

@Desmond What is considered normal in BE is not always normal in AE. In fact, as an American, I think American English is the better of the two, but thats still up for debate (from others..as for me, the case is closed)!

@ aliyah.m

It is true that American usage differs in many respects from British usage, but it is patently absurd to affirm that American English is superior to British English. Linguistic jingoism is always irrational.

@Desmond, if there's one thing I enjoyed in 6th grade, it would surely be studying 'fact vs opinion'. I can recall having to read through articles and determine what was fact vs opinion. Sentences that began with:

"I think....." - for example, was often spotted and thrown into the dungeon with the rest of the opinions, while the facts in the article reigned supreme.

Did you miss the memo this morning..or did you simply read over my statement that said something like: "I think American English is the better of the two" - ?

And since when did a thought become an affirmation of anything?

@ aliyah.m

I see. You were merely expressing a preference. That's okay. Opinions about matters of taste are not objectively right or wrong.

"I think" can express a conviction, and the expression of a conviction is often tantamount to an affirmation.

@Desmond - I will make us some hot cocoa and then we will sit and talk languages. Whaddya say? A peace offering!

@ aliyah.m

I'm glad you have a sense of humour. I like cocoa and would gladly accept your offer if you were on this side of the Atlantic. No hard feelings, eh?

@Desmond - none at all! You know how haughty us "yanks" can be at times, eh? :p

is that the egyptian eh? question tags seem universal.

@ aliyah.m

So far I've never encountered any haughty Americans, and I would never denigrate the inhabitants of a country I have never visited.

Best wishes
Desmond

@ berry

My question tag is English. As a rule I don't mix languages, but I do appreciate bilingual jokes such as Joyce's "Jung and easily Freudened".

@berry - No, it is the American "eh". From what I understand, (and I dont bother to teach myself Egyptian dialect), but from what i understand, the egyptian "eh" means "what". The "eh" I used means "right? correct?" - its a promt for confirmation.

"So, you wanna play rough, eh?"


@Desmond - although you have never physically visited the land, in my opinion, it's very easy to detect such a trait simply by watching international news. As an American, I do not deny the haughtiness of my preople. Hoo Rah!

(lol)smile

^ although the human intellect is such a one that this needs not be pointed out, I will still point it out for the same of my sanity: I meant to say "people" and not "preople" lol

@ aliyah.m

The Americans I've met in Europe have always been very friendly. I seem to have been lucky.

I have never possessed a television set, and I have always preferred radio broadcasts to television. I like to concentrate on language, and moving images on a screen tend to be distracting.

I could watch TV on my computer screen, but I prefer to listen to videos which I can replay and analyse with surgical precision. Listening requires greater powers of concentration than watching moving images.

@Desmond - haughty and friendly are not opposites. I'm friendly, which is a character train but haughtiness is also one, and people usually have more than one character trait.

Ps: tv is bad for mankind

ugh i hate typos. I meant to say "character trait" ^^ but im sure you've all concluded that!

@ aliyah.m

Haughty people are always unfriendly, though unfriendly people are not always haughty. Haughtiness is a blend of pride, contempt and unfriendliness. In the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary “haughty” is defined as “behaving in an unfriendly way towards other people because you think you are better than them”. I can think of two Arabic words for “haughty”: ﻤﻐﺮﻮﺮ and ﻤﺘﻜﺒﺮ. Can you name two podcasts in which these adjectives have been used?

@Desmond - its ridiculous to say "haughty people are *always* unfriendly". This, once again, is an opinion and not a fact. The 'freedictionary.com" has better defined it as: 1. having or showing arrogance.

Now, since I AM a haughty person (i think I know myself ), I can bear witness to the fact that I AM indeed friendy, and after the exchanges we've been having, there can be no denial of my haughtiness. :-D lol

Also, Ive just got on board the arabicpod train so I havent had a chance to listen to all 399 lessons, but in the Quran, the word is used here:

هُوَ اللَّهُ الَّذِي لَا إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْمَلِكُ الْقُدُّوسُ السَّلَامُ الْمُؤْمِنُ الْمُهَيْمِنُ الْعَزِيزُ الْجَبَّارُ الْمُتَكَبِّرُ ۚ سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ

Ps: My firing squad is weary. Please, I beg of thee, take the hot cocoa and lets call it a truce! (lol)

@ aliyah.m

I'm sorry, aliyah. I disagree. I've stated facts, not opinions. You can't claim to know English better than the scholars who compiled the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. The numerous mistakes you've made in your comments clearly show that your English isn't very good. That's a fact, not an opinion.

You seem to be a kind-hearted soul, but you are somewhat quarrelsome and reluctant to admit defeat.

@aliya, my masri is not great, but I have grokked that" EH "works out as "what" or the lovely american "HuH"..or huh?.do not let our desmond put you off us, he tends to speak as if he is the genius loci and others are idiots.live and let live , he is a bright spark and does come up with some interesting facts .

@ berry

I do not aspire to be a genius loci. I can speak classical Latin, but I have no snake, no patera and no cornucopia.

Dear Ehab and Mohamed,
How about doing a podcast about "netiquette", i.e. basic rules of courtesy when communicating on the internet, with a particular focus on what is considered acceptable according to Arab custom?
Thanks as always for your inspiring lessons.

@karenF nice to see your pixels, a long time back i was a sysop on compuserve , and netiquette in the old days was ,it was taboo to critisize spelling or style of scribbling in an international forum, this made sense to me, in the arab chats that I visit "flaming" takes place more on the level of content than style.

@berry: ah, compuserve - the twitter of its time ... I used to be an avid user back in the 90s. Guess that dates me, as does the expression "netiquette" ... At any rate, I'm curious to hear what our teachers and fellow podcasters have to say about "flaming", "flamers", "posting", "trolls", etc., etc.

ah karen, i have not heared those words for years....compuserve was neat...i suppose our teachers hands are tied really, its a business .
I hope aliya will turn up again, and on a personal level I find it sad that when a young man pours gasoline over himself , and blood drops all over the arab world , we take a piece directly in tribute to these brave folks and for all intents and purposes ignore it.