Exploring Time in the Arabic Dictionary: “Yesterday”

أَمْسُ

root: ء-م-س / noun / definition: yesterday

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Some places make you feel as though you’ve stepped back into a distant yesterday or an even further yesteryear. And walking through Souq al Wakra at night, past its cosy courtyards snuggled into alleys meandering towards the coast, I’d set foot into a yesterday I was living for the first time.

There are particular moments in which you notice, more so, the passage of time and your place within (or perhaps in relation to) it. And maybe it was one of those moments that inspired this new series, where we explore concepts related to time—through the Arabic dictionary of course.

And where better to start than yesterday.

There are two key words for “yesterday” in Arabic. Let’s explore what they might be able to tell us about the concept:

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أَمْسُ

root: ء-م-س

We’ll very rarely see أمس with tanween: it’ll occur as either أمسُ or أمسَ or أمسِ (depending on its grammatical function, whether a noun or adverb etc.).

It can also occur with the definite article: الأمس.

I want to pull away from the grammar a little, though. (But if you’re interested, there’s a nice little summary of it in Lane’s Lexicon!)

This word occurs alone under its root in the dictionary, and is defined as:

• yesterday
• the immediate past
• not long ago
• before the present day by one night

…with three possible plural forms: آمُس and آماس and أُموس. (Read The Plural of Few and the Plural of Many for more about what the plural forms mean.)

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So it seems pretty black and white, right?

Yesterday, as we understand it through أمس, is the day preceding the present one or—through a somewhat metaphorical derivation—the near past.

But I was wondering about the possibility of a link to the word مَساء (“evening”) from the root م-س-و or م-س-ي, as it occurs in dictionaries.

—Just so you know: I’m very possibly wrong about this, but let’s explore the idea anyway—

We sometimes think of roots as very fixed. But we’ve seen that they can be fluid too, moving around or swapping letters whilst maintaining meanings (see, for example, Arabic Observations: Same Root Letters, Different Sequence and Arabic Observations: Word Twins).

So, is it inconceivable for a historical link to exist between the hamzated root ء-م-س and the defective م-س-و/م-س-ي? Especially knowing that the line between the hamza and the weak letters و and ي sometimes blurs in derived forms?

Both مَساء and أُمسِية from the latter root mean “evening”. And أمس is defined as the day before the current one by a single night. So what if مساء is the boundary between today and أمس?

And what if the branch connecting أمس to the same root as مساء became disconnected, leaving أمس isolated under its apparent root, ء-م-س, in the dictionary?

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َالبارِحَ، البارِحة

root: ب-ر-ح

And then we have البارِحَ and البارِحةَ also meaning “yesterday”.

(In some dialects, we’ll hear البارِح pronounced as اِمْبارِح, by the way.)

These two adverbs of time, unlike أمس, are far from isolated. From the root ب-ر-ح (which carries the general meaning of departing), many a verb, noun, and adjective have sprouted.

بارِح and the femininث بارِحة are form I active participles (اسم فاعل).

The form I verb, بَرِحَ / يَبرَحُ means “to depart or move away”. But when negated, as in ما بَرِحَ, it means “to continue to be”—meaning that its affirmative form (برح, without negation) mirrors زالَ and also carries the meaning of “to cease to exist”.

From this, we can define البارح/ـة as:

• yesterday
• that which has departed
• that which has ceased to be

Thus, from البارح/ـة, we learn that yesterday is something that has departed from us, moving further into the distance, and something that no longer is.

بارح also encompasses other meanings such as “showing the left side”, “ominous”, and “a hot wind”, as explained here. I’ll hand over the reflection to you at this point: do you think these meanings have anything to do with the concept of yesterday? (Let me know your thoughts!)

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So there we have it: yesterday is not long ago, just an evening away—yet constantly departing from us and from its own existence.

Hmm. If that’s just yesterday, I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

.في أمان الله

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