I posted the words or phrases I need translated HERE
I numbered them and I was hoping someone could take a shot at a translation. They aren’t difficult…
but they are for me. This is unschool related. please let me know if there are any problems viewing them… but if you wouldn’t mind, let me know the number and what it means.
Dont mind the tacky background.
Thanks!!!
Ever heard of cutup literature? William Burroughs experimented with it. He would cut a page of writing into bits, toss them like a salad, and reassemble them at random.
This looks like an art piece using the cutup literature technique. I see phrases from what must be an elementary Arabic reader or storybook, cut into strips and pasted on a sheet of construction paper or something.
The bits of text appear to be disjunct words and phrases from a story about a girl named Maha. The text was printed with vowel markings, characteristic of books for Arab schoolchildren (Arabic for grownups is usually printed without the vowel signs). The order they were rearranged in this image does not make any linear sense.
Is that enough to give you an idea? Is this art by an Arab woman in response to the Iraq war?
OK, I wasn’t going to translate the whole thing, but I couldn’t leave it alone. I went and looked at it some more. Had to know what became of Maha.
WTF?
Bravo, Bravo!
I am not only impressed by yourknowledge of literature knowledge, but the translation as well. a quick explanation: I am taking in Arabic class and we are assigned homework. This homework has more material than we learn. This is because it’s also a culture class. He gives us a chance to get out and talk as well as learn more through correspondence with others. to answer questions: it was bits and pieces taken from a reading passage.
we could viral with this evil thoughts setting in perhaps “a young girl in Iraq found shards of a letter that her mother once wrote and glued them together.” we could have the reuniting of them…then, throw that piece of crap on ebay.
I really do want to thank you for your help.
Cool idea. 
Just note that Arabic writing goes right to left.
But in your OP, you wrote that “this is unschool related [sic].” :dubious:
Sharp thinking there, Cleveland homie. How bout them Browns!
Care to resolve this little contradiction for us, ya talib?
Here are a couple more, if you don’t mind.
A car magazine said that the Countach (K’ntash) car (Lamborghini, I think) was named for what an arabic speaking man said when he first saw the car. They claimed the name means whatever Arabs say instead of “Holy shit!”
Novelist Ken Kesey, writing about Egypt, wrote that “ya lateef” translates roughly as “Look what Al’lah has laid in my garden.” Some non-Arab women I have met find this phrase powerfully romantic. As in, “When I look into your eyes, I think…which in Arabic means…”
AskNott, I’m sorry, I’m pretty sure they’re both pulling your leg. I studied Classical and Standard Arabic; the spoken dialects are so altered that they’re almost different languages, and I would need special study to understand them, or else live where they’re spoken. It’s like if you had studied only Latin all your life, and then tried to understand Italian. You’d sort of understand less than half of it, and the rest would be baffling. Arabic diglossia is like that. I don’t recognize whatever dialect the first one is in, if it’s real. I swear it looks like (someone’s idea of) a joke.
The second one is more like an exaggeration than a fabrication. al-Latîf is one of the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah. It has been translated as ‘the Subtle’. The vocative form yâ Latîf is used for direct address to God. The word latîf also means ‘thin, fine, delicate, dainty; little, small, insignificant; gentle, soft, light, mild; pleasant, agreeable; amiable, friendly, kind, nice; civil, courteous, polite; affable, genial; pretty, charming, lovely, graceful; intellectually refined, full of esprit, witty; elegant’. Hans Wehr’s dictionary translates the attribute of Allah al-Latîf as ‘the Kind’. Hans also tells us:
yâ Latîf — “O my God! Good heavens! For goodness’ sake!”
al-jins al-latîf — “the fair sex.”
If Kesey wasn’t just making stuff up (hey, he’s a writer, writers make stuff up, and Kesey had a vivid imagination coupled with a gnarly sense of humor), maybe the reference to a “garden” is an allusion to a widely-known story in which a character says that, and it becomes a catchphrase. For example, Dopers keep using catchphrases from TV shows and movies. I do not think that catchphrase means what you think it means. Well, this is just my WAG. I don’t know what Kesey was thinking. But I suggest if your version works so well as a pickup line, just keep it, don’t tamper with what works. Until you try it on another brainy female Arabist, who will laugh at you. 
If anyone is surprised that Allah is called “dainty, pretty, lovely, graceful” as though She’s a girl, well you’d be surprised. The femininity of Allah is one of Islam’s best kept secrets. Read Laylá and Majnûn.
Johanna, thanks for taking the time. Kesey’s reference comes from his visit to one of the pyramids. The guide he had hired for the day promised to show him something that would overwhelm him. They both clambered to the peak of the pyramid (no easy trek, the steps are much taller than stairs.) When they got to the top, the guide had him stand upright on the very peak. After being crouched over during the whole climb, and being out of breath, standing upright at the peak sure enough threw him for a loop. He nearly fell off. After Kesey and the guide had a good laugh, that’s when the guide gave him the business about “ya lateef” meaning “look what Al’lah has laid in my garden.”
Your cite of Hans, “O my God! Good Heavens! For Goodness’ sake!” is not really too far off the guide’s alleged embellishment. It expresses a sense of wonder and amazement at the beauty offered by Al’lah. Whether the grandiloquence was Kesey’s or the guide’s, it is picturesque.
Getting back to the Lamborghini, I guess we’re back to square one, and we still don’t know what the name of the ferocious car means.
Thanks again for your knowledge.
