Musings: The Shaikh's English
In Hawaii if someone says "You know my Feezicks Professah, you know da bolo head one? Some AKAMAI!" what he means is “You know my Physics Professor at the University of Hawaii, Manoa? The one with the shinny bald head? He is the most intelligent man I have ever known!”.
A similar distortion of the Queen’s English takes place in the Middle East.
The first thing one must do is expand one’s vocabulary immediately upon arriving in the UAE.
When I first heard: “The shurtaa caught the motorist and gave him a mukaalifaa” I really didn’t know what the speaker was saying. I later learned that “shurtaa” means Police and “mukaalifaa” means “a ticket”.
Another useful word to know is “khalaas”. The first time I heard it was in a minibus. The front few seats in a Dubai Transport minibus are reserved for the fairer sex. Often, there is a shortage of the fairer sex in this country (where the male to female ratio is 3:1 or better) so in the final minutes, conductors allow males to take these seats. On this fateful day, seconds before the bus was to start, with just two seats left before the bus became full, two burkha clad Muslim women boarded the bus. They looked pointedly at their reserved seats bit the stout-hearted males refused to budge. The women were forced to take the last two seats on the bus, in the last row. And, horror-of-horrors, were made to sit in close contact with the men. A growl of anger rose from the other inmates on the bus. The three males decided to make a stand and refused to vacate the seats. Soon there was a lot of confusion in the ensuing mêlée but the two women’s voices were heard over the din woefully proclaiming the words “khalaas” repeatedly. However, the crowd didn’t want to ‘khalaas’ the proceedings. Peace was restored when the trouble makers were forcibly ejected from the bus and marched to the Supervisor’s office. The women took their rightful place and the bus left shortly thereafter.
“Khalaas” is a very powerful word. Once when a guy behind me was driving with his headlight main beam on and this irritated me to such an extent that I went to the extreme step of asking him (via sign language) to pull off the road. I got out and marched over to his car. I could see that he was stunned by this display of aggression and was wondering what would come next. I asked him to roll down his window (there is a unique body language for this in this part of the world – one extends one’s arm with all fingers bunched together. It means “please. Do as I say” and is followed by a gesture. In this case I gestured for him to roll down his window. He lowered the window with great trepidation and I asked him why, in the name of all that was holy, he was driving around with his main beam on. His relief at not being struck forcibly on the face was evident. He babbled something that escaped me. After listening a while, I wondered what to do next. Obviously any further aggression was not called for and yet I couldn’t just walk away without doing something positive. I let him babble on a little further and then I beckoned him to stop babbling. “Khalaas” I thundered and walked back to my car. I left him bewildered and, more significantly, with a beam that had been lowered.
I once had the good fortune to work for a sheikh. He was a distant member of the ruling family but nevertheless an important man in his own right. He had been a Minister of the UAE many years ago. I spoke to him many times without actually having met him. One day……..one fateful day………we met.
I was filled with a sense of dread at how this meeting would go. Here was a powerful man, a man on talking terms with the Ruler of Dubai. A man who could make or break me with his little finger – nay, something even softer than that!. Having never met a sheikh in my life I was unable to mentally slot him into the many slots that I had for the various VIPs and dignitaries.
He was meeting me because he had purchased an expensive Nokia Communicator; he initially didn’t know how to set it up to receive faxes. I fixed that for him and gave to his driver who handed it to him. However man is a curious creature and he wanted to learn how to use the wretched instrument to its fullest capacity. He sent the instrument back to me with a message that he would be visiting the office two days hence and that I should teach him the intricacies of communication a la the Communicator.
Being a firm believer in Murphy’s Law I listed every thing that could possibly go wrong and then addressed myself to each of these issues multiple times till I had everything perfect. I even looked forward to meeting the almighty sheikh.
An hour before the appointed hour I saw a UAE national walking towards me. Medium height. Medium build. Red as a cherry due to the exertion of having climbed two flights of stairs. “Salaam Alaikum” I wished the stranger. “Salaam” he replied. “I am the Sheikh”.
There was a moment of stunned silence on my part and then I invited him in to the office so that we could start the training session. “Communicator khalee valee” he replied. “I am here to give you another task. A very secret one. Tell no one about it” and saying this, he gave me my secret task which, even today, is so secret that I won’t talk about it.
“Khalee Valee’ in this part of the world means “to hell with it”.
And I more fully appreciated Murphy’s Law than I previously had. The law states “If anything can go wrong, it will”. I figured nothing could go wrong. What went wrong was that he said khalee valee to the whole project! Something that I never anticipated.
Shortly thereafter I met an Egyptian male secretary to a UAE national manager of a company. I was there to pitch for their website – they didn’t have one and were looking for someone to do it. The Egyptian probably liked me for after a while of waiting in his waiting room he took out a file and showed me some photographs and then outlined a theme for my approach to the big man. “He likes this too much” he told me. “If you tell him like this, he will give you the order”. “Liking something too much” is also a part of the lingo here.
One comes across “same same” very often. Ask someone something and he will probably use this phrase. “This training program of our company same same as that of Emirates Airlines”.
"Same same" is used equally by Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Arabs and almost all the 140 nationalities that Dubai plays home to. European expats who have lived in Dubai a long time also tend to feel that "same same" makes for easier comprehension and use it without batting an eyelid.
What else, you ask?
Khalaas. I have decided to stop. No more. Khalee valee to the rest of this article. I will do the balance tomorrow, and if I wrote same same don’t blame me!
This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)
A similar distortion of the Queen’s English takes place in the Middle East.
The first thing one must do is expand one’s vocabulary immediately upon arriving in the UAE.
When I first heard: “The shurtaa caught the motorist and gave him a mukaalifaa” I really didn’t know what the speaker was saying. I later learned that “shurtaa” means Police and “mukaalifaa” means “a ticket”.
Another useful word to know is “khalaas”. The first time I heard it was in a minibus. The front few seats in a Dubai Transport minibus are reserved for the fairer sex. Often, there is a shortage of the fairer sex in this country (where the male to female ratio is 3:1 or better) so in the final minutes, conductors allow males to take these seats. On this fateful day, seconds before the bus was to start, with just two seats left before the bus became full, two burkha clad Muslim women boarded the bus. They looked pointedly at their reserved seats bit the stout-hearted males refused to budge. The women were forced to take the last two seats on the bus, in the last row. And, horror-of-horrors, were made to sit in close contact with the men. A growl of anger rose from the other inmates on the bus. The three males decided to make a stand and refused to vacate the seats. Soon there was a lot of confusion in the ensuing mêlée but the two women’s voices were heard over the din woefully proclaiming the words “khalaas” repeatedly. However, the crowd didn’t want to ‘khalaas’ the proceedings. Peace was restored when the trouble makers were forcibly ejected from the bus and marched to the Supervisor’s office. The women took their rightful place and the bus left shortly thereafter.
“Khalaas” is a very powerful word. Once when a guy behind me was driving with his headlight main beam on and this irritated me to such an extent that I went to the extreme step of asking him (via sign language) to pull off the road. I got out and marched over to his car. I could see that he was stunned by this display of aggression and was wondering what would come next. I asked him to roll down his window (there is a unique body language for this in this part of the world – one extends one’s arm with all fingers bunched together. It means “please. Do as I say” and is followed by a gesture. In this case I gestured for him to roll down his window. He lowered the window with great trepidation and I asked him why, in the name of all that was holy, he was driving around with his main beam on. His relief at not being struck forcibly on the face was evident. He babbled something that escaped me. After listening a while, I wondered what to do next. Obviously any further aggression was not called for and yet I couldn’t just walk away without doing something positive. I let him babble on a little further and then I beckoned him to stop babbling. “Khalaas” I thundered and walked back to my car. I left him bewildered and, more significantly, with a beam that had been lowered.
I once had the good fortune to work for a sheikh. He was a distant member of the ruling family but nevertheless an important man in his own right. He had been a Minister of the UAE many years ago. I spoke to him many times without actually having met him. One day……..one fateful day………we met.
I was filled with a sense of dread at how this meeting would go. Here was a powerful man, a man on talking terms with the Ruler of Dubai. A man who could make or break me with his little finger – nay, something even softer than that!. Having never met a sheikh in my life I was unable to mentally slot him into the many slots that I had for the various VIPs and dignitaries.
He was meeting me because he had purchased an expensive Nokia Communicator; he initially didn’t know how to set it up to receive faxes. I fixed that for him and gave to his driver who handed it to him. However man is a curious creature and he wanted to learn how to use the wretched instrument to its fullest capacity. He sent the instrument back to me with a message that he would be visiting the office two days hence and that I should teach him the intricacies of communication a la the Communicator.
Being a firm believer in Murphy’s Law I listed every thing that could possibly go wrong and then addressed myself to each of these issues multiple times till I had everything perfect. I even looked forward to meeting the almighty sheikh.
An hour before the appointed hour I saw a UAE national walking towards me. Medium height. Medium build. Red as a cherry due to the exertion of having climbed two flights of stairs. “Salaam Alaikum” I wished the stranger. “Salaam” he replied. “I am the Sheikh”.
There was a moment of stunned silence on my part and then I invited him in to the office so that we could start the training session. “Communicator khalee valee” he replied. “I am here to give you another task. A very secret one. Tell no one about it” and saying this, he gave me my secret task which, even today, is so secret that I won’t talk about it.
“Khalee Valee’ in this part of the world means “to hell with it”.
And I more fully appreciated Murphy’s Law than I previously had. The law states “If anything can go wrong, it will”. I figured nothing could go wrong. What went wrong was that he said khalee valee to the whole project! Something that I never anticipated.
Shortly thereafter I met an Egyptian male secretary to a UAE national manager of a company. I was there to pitch for their website – they didn’t have one and were looking for someone to do it. The Egyptian probably liked me for after a while of waiting in his waiting room he took out a file and showed me some photographs and then outlined a theme for my approach to the big man. “He likes this too much” he told me. “If you tell him like this, he will give you the order”. “Liking something too much” is also a part of the lingo here.
One comes across “same same” very often. Ask someone something and he will probably use this phrase. “This training program of our company same same as that of Emirates Airlines”.
"Same same" is used equally by Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Arabs and almost all the 140 nationalities that Dubai plays home to. European expats who have lived in Dubai a long time also tend to feel that "same same" makes for easier comprehension and use it without batting an eyelid.
What else, you ask?
Khalaas. I have decided to stop. No more. Khalee valee to the rest of this article. I will do the balance tomorrow, and if I wrote same same don’t blame me!
This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)
posted by Prakash Subbarao's Blog at
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