Three Arabic Words for “Sleeplessness”

سَهْران

root: س-ه-ر / adjective / definition: sleepless

Here I sit, nearby suitcase half-packed with un-ironed clothes, and I remember that it’s been a while since our last post in the synonyms series.

In fact, it was over two months ago—so, before my move—that I wrote Seventeen Arabic Words for Peace and my thesaurus-inclined mind craves another.

Seeing as I’ve been starting my days from 5:30am for the past two months, my brain drifted to sleep’s antonym as the topic for this post, so here we are with three Arabic nouns meaning “sleeplessness” or “insomnia“:

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Winter, Visas, Bowl

صَحْن

root: ص-ح-ن / noun / plural: صُحون / definition: bowl, dish

In case any one of you hadn’t noticed that daylight hours have dwindled to their almost-minimum: it’s winter. (And if you actually hadn’t noticed, I apologise for being the bearer of this heavy news.)

That is, of course, unless you’re over on the other hemisphere—in which case: enjoy your summer. (Mustering any more enthusiasm would make me an empath.)

And now that my weatherwoman bit is out of the way, what I meant to say with the seasonal announcement at the start is that it’s time to buckle down.

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Arabic Observations: The Root of Falling, and Love

مَهْوًى

root: ه-و-ي / noun of place and time / plural: مَهاوٍ / definition: abyss

I love little linguistic crossovers between languages. The ones where we find that two or more languages, far-removed in terms of place and origin, express a particular concept through the same semantic lens.

Maybe I love them because they reveal a common, cross-cultural conceptualisation—a shared human way of thinking that ties us together across borders and tongues. Maybe it’s because this idea of shared conceptualisation relates strongly to my PhD’s theoretical underpinnings—but I won’t bore you with my Theoretical Framework chapter. Yet.

Back to linguistic crossovers: let’s look at one example, using the hollow and defective root ه-و-ي.

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Dictionary Finds: A Form XIV Verb

نادِر

root: ن-د-ر / adjective, form I active participle / definition: uncommon, rare

As they say, one discovery in the dictionary leads to another. So that’s why—for the second week in a row—I couldn’t resist adding to the Dictionary Finds series.

And this time, our dictionary find brings us back to an uncommon triliteral verb form we explored in Arabic Verb Forms XI-XV almost five years ago…

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Dictionary Finds: The Thursday Before الخميس

خَميس

root: خ-م-س / noun / definition: Thursday

Last Thursday marked my move into my twenty-ninth year of life, which makes me twenty-eight in some cultures and twenty-nine in others—and makes me closer to twenty-one in my head.

But it’s not like numbers really matter. Except in the case of the days of the week in Arabic of course, where Sunday is one day (الأَحَد) and so on until we reach the fifth, Thursday (الخَميس).

(I’m reminded of Joey from Friends whose Monday was one day but somehow Thursday was third…)

But let’s get back to الخميس, because before Thursday was titled the fifth day of the week, the dictionary tells us this day had another name.

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Reading Arabic Literature: Settling in and Heading Back

اِسْتِقْرار

root: ق-ر-ر / form X verbal noun / definition: settling down, stability

For the past month, studying productively (and at all) has been a struggle. I’ve been settling into a new life and trying to settle back into a study routine—at a time that my annual, late-autumn sleepiness lulls me into cognitive numbness.

I’m fighting that numbness by forcing myself to engage with reading through not-worth-mentioning ways, and rebuke myself for drinking that sleep-inducing hot chocolate before my study session today.

I’m currently working on the second main chapter of my PhD, which means returning to a novel I’ve mentioned several times before in my posts.

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Arabic Observations: Reflections on حصحص and the Truth

اِستِطْراد

root: ط-ر-د / form X verbal noun / definition: digression

I was browsing my notes on Notion, seeking inspiration for today’s post, when one little word pulled at my eyelashes and demanded attention.

So the title thus began to take form, and I headed to the dictionary where my semantics addiction took hold and dragged me into an unstoppable, thunderous orchestra of cerebration and digression.

But before we digress, let’s… gress. (Words both inspire and fail me.) Let’s start from where my thoughts sprung: حَصحَصَ.

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Exploring Time in the Arabic Dictionary: “the Future”

اللّامَعْنى

root: ع-ن-ي / compound abstract noun / definition: meaninglessness

The clocks went back the day before yesterday and, like every year, it feels like someone somewhere switched off the warming daylight and left us in a cold, dark wintertime.

I think about how a shift of just an hour changes so much, and I wonder whether that speaks to the significance or meaninglessness of counting time.

And with that seed planted, we circle back to our Exploring Time series. This time, we’ll look ahead to the future, المستقبل.

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Uncontactable and Unread

اِختِفاء

root: خ-ف-ي / form VIII verbal noun / definition: disappearance

For those who have found me almost uncontactable—of whom I must mention: journal co-editors, my Akkadian teacher, and dear friends whose messages lie in wait in my Whatsapp unreads—I apologise for my unexplained disappearance.

You see, there was an unexpected meeting. Then, a chosen date; then rings exchanged; then a move to somewhere new. Now: here I am, on a balcony overlooking city lights and my suitcase only half-unpacked.

A whirlwind is probably the only way to describe it and I’m still swirling.

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Arabic Headline Analysis #11

صَديقة

root: ص-د-ق / feminine noun / plural: صَديقات / definition: friend

Has it really been over a year since I last wrote an Arabic headline analysis? My archives nod “yes” and guilt sinks me into my chair.

I think of my friend who was the inspiration behind both the headline analysis and literature translation series—posts with word-by-word breakdowns and guidance for putting everything together to get something that resembles a logical sentence.

Because between un-vowelled words and Arabic grammar complexities, meanings can sometimes get lost for us students.

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