The Difference Between “Story” & “Lady of the Night”
Day 65 of my imprisonment…… Just kidding. I always wanted to start off with that though. It seems only fit to try to shine a bit of light on the Arabic language for you. Then and only then will this situation/story truly bring a stitch in your side from laughter.
Arabic has several letters that, to the untrained ear (my ear), sound almost identical. Heavy t, normal t, heavy d, normal d, heavy h, and the normal h, and the list goes on. One of the kickers though is the “q.” The Q is a “k” sound that comes from the back of your throat. BUT in different dialects it changes. For instance, the Gulf Regions and among the Bedouin they pronounce it as a “g” sound. You know, like “gut.” Other places, like in the Levant and
So the word for pen (Qalem), depending where you are, could be said as, qalem, galem, or ‘alem. Confused? Good. Now, if you use the Q sound you have to get it from the back of your throat or it comes out as a K sound and that, of course, changes it to a completely different word all together.
I spent a lot of time around a couple of Bedouin when we first got here, so I tend to pronounce the Q as a G now. So where most of my classmates say “qalem” or “’alem” I say “galem.” Well, I’ve noticed that when I say words in class some of my classmates don’t understand it because of my accent, so in class I try to switch while I’m talking from using the G back to the Q. Because of that I sometimes don’t get the Q to go back enough in my throat and it comes out a K. Make since?
Good, now on with the thing you are to be laughing at. One day we were telling stories. So I go on with my story. It’s starts of with me saying, “This is my story” and later on I say, “and in this story such and such happened” and “the point to this story is such and such.” Well the whole time I am trying to hide my Gulfi/Bedioun “G” and replace with the more widely accepted Q, but apparently it kept coming out weak and as a K, because every time I would say “story” the teacher would smirk and try not to laugh.
So I learned a new word that day. Here is what I learned from my “story.”
“Qussa” means “story”
“Kussa” literally means “whore” or the most vulgar word you can come up with for prostitute.
With that said, because of my weak Q that came our as K, go back up to the previous paragraph and replace “story” with well….you get the picture.
Funny eh? Well, yeah. It was funny.
