Each language harbors nuances that are most comprehensible to its native speakers. As someone who is fluent in both English and Arabic, I invariably find myself grappling with this phenomenon whenever I come across an Arabic songs or a love poem.
Allow me to begin with a brief introduction to the Arabic language. Arabic contains 28 letters, with some sounds that do not exist in other languages. The language is written and read from right to left, recognized as official language in 25 countries, and is spoken by over 400 million people worldwide. It proves to be a challenging language, with both an official written form and a counterpart in slang. Most modern Arabs use slang in their daily conversations, reserving the official language for formal contexts like documents, government speeches, and books.
The Arabic language possesses a captivating and vivid quality. The vividness often causes some songs or poems to lose their essence and meaning when translated into English, or to sound as if written by a deranged lunatic. Sometimes the translation hinders the intended expression of the work by its creator. But, to those who are natives to the language, the meaning is not lost; on the contrary, it is comprehended at profound levels that defy easy explanation. To clarify what I mean, here are some examples.
First example is from a song by an icon in the traditional Syrian and Arabic Tarab music, Sabah Fahkri of Aleppo, Syria. Tarab is almost a genre or style of music, a word that has no accurate translation in English but makes perfect sense in Arabic. The closest meaning I came up with after ruminating on this is “Music High”. A style/genre of music or way of singing that in the appropriate setting, has the power to immerse you in moments of ecstasy and rapture.
Sabah Fakhri sang:
خَمْرَةَ الحُبِّ اِسْقِينِها
هَمَّ قَلبِي تُنْسِينِيهْ
Which translates to:
Water me with the alcohol of love
The burdens of my heart you’d make me forget
“water me” here refers to the act of giving someone water, like holding up a cup of water to someone’s mouth and tilting it so that they are drinking because of your action. But can also mean watering as in watering a plant. Such word is hard to describe in English.
The overall meaning of these two lines: he is asking for love embodied as an intoxicating alcohol to be poured by his lover, like an act of watering a plant. Upon drinking her intoxicating alcohol of love, he would forget all the burdens that his heart feels.
He then went on to sing:
أنتِ عِنوانُ الأمَل
اسكِري باللَّثمِ روحِي
خَمرَةُ الرُّوحِ القُبَلْ
Which translates to:
You are a title of hope
Drunken (intoxicate) my soul with kisses
The alcohol of the soul are kisses
This translation above is a modest approximation of the intended meaning in those words. In the original language, the elegance and the beautiful metaphors resonate in ways that even when translated, may not have the same delivery and impact on your feelings.
Another example; this is a poem that is written by Ibn al-Khatib (1313-1374 AD). He was an Arab Andalusi, a poet, polymath, philosopher, historian, writer, and a physician from Emirate of Granada. His poem was made to a traditional famous song that says:
جَاءَتْ مُعَذِّبَتِي فِي غَيْهَبِ الغَسَقِ
كَأنَّهَا الكَوْكَبُ الدُرِيُّ فِي الأُفُقِ
فَقُلْتُ نَوَّرْتِنِي يَا خَيْرَ زَائِرَةٍ
أمَا خَشِيتِ مِنَ الحُرَّاسِ فِي الطُّرُقِ
فَجَاوَبَتْنِي وَ دَمْعُ العَيْنِ يَسْبِقُهَا
مَنْ يَرْكَبِ البَحْرَ لا يَخْشَى مِنَ الغَرَقِ
Which translates to:
Here comes my tormentor, in the dead of the dusk
As if she were a bright planet in the horizon
So I said, you enlightened/brightened me O you good of a visitor
Were you not afraid of the guards on the roads?
She answered, and the tear of the eye runs before her
He who rides the sea is never afraid of drowning
Some believe that when Ibn-al-khatib wrote this, he was ill, and therefore the girl in the poem is a metaphor for the illness that came up upon him. However, one can also interpret these lines from a perspective of love and passion. Describing the girl he loves as his tormentor is a sadistic way to describe someone you love. However, the beauty of the Arabic language is that when you read it, you don’t assume the literal meaning. She torments him because he feels so deeply and intensely towards her, feelings of love so intense that they make him suffer.
The other challenge in translating this poem lies in the line “So I said, you enlightened/brightened me O you good of a visitor”. In Arabic, we often say to someone who has arrived, ‘nawwart’ (for a male) or ‘nawwarti’ (for a female), conveying that their arrival and presence metaphorically bring light to the place they have just entered, similar to a light bulb illuminating a dark space. Such word is difficult to translate to English; thus, “enlightened” or “brightened” can be used, but they do not capture the true sense of the intended word.
These are only two examples showcasing the profound depths that the Arabic language can reach in terms of meaning and metaphorical expression. The question that arises is, what steps should one take if they don’t speak Arabic but desire to engage with Arabic literature? The key lies in utilizing your imagination. If a translation appears awkward or lacks coherence in English, it may be due to an overly literal interpretation. Personally, when delving into literature in a foreign language, I rely on my imagination to grasp a more faithful sense of the emotions the author intended to convey.
Every language has inherent beauty, accentuated by art, music, traditions, and cultures. Despite its seeming aggressiveness to non-Arabic speakers, Arabic language reveals itself as one of the most sensual and delicate language, resonating deeply and passionately with the human experience.
Image Credit: annacj
