Farsi Friday

It's Friday today - the weekly holiday - and Farsi is on my mind.

Here is Afghanistan two languages dominate the sound-scape: Dari and Pashto. Last year, when I first landed at Kabul airport, I was amazed to hear the driver who came to pick me up, ask somebody, "Kujo ast?" - and I understood the meaning perfectly!

Then at my workplace, I heard a colleague asking for a "Kainchi" and I knew without looking up that he wanted a pair of scissors. As days went by the list of familiar words got longer and longer - Charkhi (rotate), Hal (solve), Kharid (buy), Khwaab (dream), Daan (gift), Giriftaar (arrest), Pasand (like), Mushkil (difficult), Khushi (joy)... Just about all the words I assumed to be Urdu actually belonged to Farsi!

It turns out that Dari is the same as Farsi, the language of Iran and much of the former Persian Empire which included not only Afghanistan but also Iraq, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and parts of southern Russia. It is spoken by no less than 110 million people! Countries that belonged to the former USSR stopped using the Farsi script and adopted the Russian script.

Now if the words sounded so familiar, how long would it take to make sense of the written Farsi script? The curls, dots and squiggles on banners, shops and books looked completely different from the 32 letters a friend wrote down for me. A search of lessons on YouTube followed, and I gradually learnt that the letters when written together take on completely different shapes.

I continue to be confused by letters that sound similar:
"A" can be آ or ع
"Ta" - ط  or  ت
"Se" - س or  ث
"He" - ح or ه
"Za" - 4 options (!) - ظ ض ز ذ
"Ga" - غ or  ق

It may take a while to get a hang of the written and spoken language but until then, we have music! Here is a sample of some amazing Farsi instrumentals by Mehdi Aminian -

On Owls and Idioms

This is one of the most intriguing idioms I have come across.

Translated from Hindi to English, it means, "To straighten one's owl", and the common understanding of the idiom in North India is "get one's work done", in a sneaky kind of way.

For instance, when you are in a meeting that has been called to discuss, say, a cleanliness drive. If you see some participants holding forth on an issue that has little to do with cleanliness but more to do with settling an old grudge with somebody specific, it could be said that he is  'straightening his owl'. He is using the meeting as a means to achieve a goal that is narrow and personal.

It is similar to 'Shooting off somebody's shoulder' but it goes beyond taking advantage of a person or a friend, to achieve you own purposes.

While this idiom is pretty apt in a lot of situations - especially at a workplace, or in politics - it origins remain mysterious. The owl (Uluka in Sanskrit, and Ullu in Hindi), despite being the vahana of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is considered a stupid bird in North India. So if you do something idiotic, you might be called an Ullu in Delhi, or an Ullu da Pattha (son of an owl!), in Punjab.

Perhaps this is because the bird looks quite lost and disoriented during daytime. However, unlike bats, it never perches upside down. So how on earth did this idiom originate?

Also, are there similar idioms in other languages?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

• Hindi Idioms - http://www.hindisahityadarpan.in/2013/01/famous-hindi-idioms-phrases-and.html
• 25 Hindi idioms inspired by food - https://www.naukrinama.com/stressbuster/25-hindi-idioms-inspired-food-brought-hearing-saying/
• Vahana - (Sanskrit - "that which carries, that which pulls" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahana