May 25, 2006

God in Bosnia

One of my all time favourite songs, Marta's Song by Deep Forest, an old folk song in ancient Hungarian led me to look into the meaning of a word that was sung: Istenem, Istenem, and after seaching for its meaning I found that it meant My God/Lord.

I pondered on the word a while, for I recognized it from somewhere; Bosnia. I remembered hearing a Bosnian song and hearing a similar word mentioned in Bosnian.

Today over coffee, at the same café where I saw Tweezer Woman, I asked my Bosnian friend if she recognized the word istenem, and if it meant anything in her language.

Apparently the word for truth, is istina. I asked her if there was any word close to istina or istinem that in Bosnian meant God, just like it does in ancient Hungarian. She explained that the word for God in Bosnian (and Serbian) was bog (very similar to Russian & Ukrainian Боr and боr) , however in everyday slang God is referred to as Istina.

Apparently there is a Bosnian saying that goes:

Istina je samo jedna
tr: The truth is only "one"

Being a Muslim country as such, it must have incorporated the spirit of this meaning in everyday slang thus translating Truth into being synonimical to God. For just as there is only one truth, there is only one God.

Another interesting Holy Linguistics fact.

67 comments:

Boo! said...

And why were you listening to an old folk song in ancient hungarian again? :)

I know you're into languages and all, but ancient hugarian? thats pretty intense!

On a somewhat half-related note... I soooo want to learn a new language!

BuJ said...

very nice post! also very academic! weird enough I just wrote about books and blogs which has a taste of academia...

anyway.. very nice post.. and interesting way to see things i guess...

i have always found it interesting to study the origin of words, but i have to admit to my ignorance in anything vaguely Yugoslavian.. but i have always wondered about the med, and how languages such as Latin, Italian, and Arabic have mixed across the waters.

Anonymous said...

hehe... Buj I'm sure you took a look at Maltese. It's easy to understand while reading it, not too different from Tunisian Arabic. That's where Italian--Sicilian-Italian mixed with Arabic.

Shaira, I understand perfectly how religion gets so involved into language. I have a tendency to say Ahlan almost always instead of Assalám Alaykom even when it's a reply to the Assalám Alaykom, but I've bumped into quite a bit of people where it seems like me usage of greetings turn me into an evil person because I use Ahlan always.

BuJ said...

samawel.. yep.. i am aware of Maltese being a super concution of languages from the med basin, but i guess i need to spend more time on it :)

i was first introduced to it by my maltese taxi driver who decided to shout out his fare in maltese, which sounded so much like arabic, then i tried to convince him that it's arabic that he's saying which is incorporated into maltese.. he obviously didn't agree hehe

SS: by the way.. i wonder what kinda searches will lead people to this post!

ahlan wa sahlan

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Well boo, I guess I'm a language junkie. I also listen to somali songs a lot. I don't let the fact that I don't always understand hinder me. A lot of the arabic I speak, in terms of expressions of emotions I have learnt from listening to Arabic music.

You wanna learn a new language? what are you waiting for! :) Any particular language you are leaning towards?

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Samawel, maltese you say? I must confess I haven't examined the language yet..you got me started now...watch out everyone, I feel a post coming along lol

I guess people become startled since it is so very much attached to islam to reply with wa 3aleykom salam when someone says assalam 3aleykom.

Ah well, ahlan ya samawel! :)

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Buj, who knows what searches will be led to this... Martha Stewart? lol

Boy will they be dissapointed, or pleasently surprised.

Glad you liked the post...gotta be abit academic at times, don't you think? :)

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Buj, who knows what searches will be led to this... Martha Stewart? lol

Boy will they be dissapointed, or pleasently surprised.

Glad you liked the post...gotta be abit academic at times, don't you think? :)

Anonymous said...

Someone searching for truth will land up here now Shaykha.

Me, I'm here for the cookies.

Oh yeah, and we did have the Caferati writers meet in Dubai after all - pics you can see on my blog.

So how many languages did you say you know? Amazing!

farrukh

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Well, they might not find truth but they will find a picture of the world's oldest lie detector. Hmm I forgot to post about that.

Cookies? where? sorry, I ate them all lol

Caferati writers, will check it out.

archer14 said...

Speaking of languages and songs ^^..I came across that french hottie Alizee and for some reason I like fench songs.
Anybody knows what 'J'en Ai Marre' means?

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

It takes a hottie to interest you ey arch?

J'en ai marre means roughly "I am fed up" or "I have had enough of"

Arabic equivalent would be "Mallayt" or "Mallalto"

Boo! said...

I was thinking of german to start off with, because of its resemblance to english... but there seems to be a chance that I might end up in Hong Kong (inshaAllah) pretty soon. So I'm thinking Cantonese might be a better option.

And Cantonese... I'm scared of!

Tainted Female said...

SS... very interesting.. indeed... I'm always learning something new in your blog.

You reminded me of my trip to Serbia though... I was called a "Stupid bleeping Turk", because I was speaking English and had my hair covered.

Luckily for him, it was freeeeeezing outside, and the guy who said it was a drunk old man, or I'd have had to slap him silly.

archer14 said...

"J'en ai marre means roughly "I am fed up" or "I have had enough of"

Really? ...the way she dances suggests anything but. LOL!

btw..Why no posts lately?

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Well boo, german is good for the EU, it is more or less default for business in certain areas, engineering especially (besides the obvious english and to some extent french).

Well cantonese is a language of tones. No need to be scared, just beware. Use the wrong tone and you end up asking for something else.
Say "tono" with a medium leveled tone and you are saying you are hungry. Say it with a low pitch end and you want to hold someones hand.

Anyways you should get started, it's a great idea! :)

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Hey Tainted :) Well it is very unfortunate that there is so much hatred in serbia against muslims, turks and anything that can be connected to Islam. The fact that there are still serbs who today celebrate Milosevic as a hero,is disturbing. Then again, thankfully there are many decent serbs who do not share that sentiment.

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Arch, I have been swamped with a bit of everything over here. We are launching a project at work this week. Hopefully back now.

Well haven't you heard, women say one thing and mean another?... (yawn).

Now stop looking at her video and read a book! A french one preferably lol

Boo! said...

Is that whole thing about Cantonese being a language of tones supposed to make me feel more confident or less confident? :)

Looking at the bright side, I can ask to someone's hand and if she doesn't respond favourably, I can always say that I meant to say I was hungry... just got the tone wrong!

Anonymous said...

Boo... I think the tone thing should make you feel more confident. It's definitely a different experience learning a language with tones, especially since (I'm assuming) you haven't been exposed to much languages that creates different words by the same phonology but different intonations. It'll definitely open up your mind.

Speaking of music and languages, SS: I listen to apart from my typical Fairuz... A bunch of American artists, French artists, Icelandic (not Bjork only, but Sigur Rós too)... That reminds me, I haven't heard their music in ages. Regev and the Idan Raichel Project (Yeah, it's probably political-blasphemy here, they're out of Israel). Hamasaki Ayumi, Utada Hikaru out of Japan, Wax, Lee Soo-young out of Korea. =)

BuJ said...

Alizee is not really a hottie but i have heard just one of her many songs and really liked it!

sho ya sheikha? biddi posts! but good luck in your project at work :)

remember... a woman's work is never over :p

samawel: you'r positively mad.. Icelandic?!!?!
hey guess what.. a certain buj will be going to dubai very very soon :)

Boo! said...

Hey SS... you reeeaaally seem busy these days... wish you success with whatever it is you are busy with and hope you are able to come back to blogging soooooon!

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Boo loll @ asking for her hand in marriage. I know I have been quite busy, been a hectic couple of weeks. But it's all good. Thanx for your well wishes :)

Samawel, you have quite an eclectic taste in music, just like me :) Raichel Project is rather good though, political or not.

Buj, biddak posts? Tayyeb sho biddi sawi ana? Mash'3ooleh lakan! :) Haader, baktob lak post. You are making sure my work is never over...

BuJ said...

it was not me or you who once famously said that a woman's work is never done

Anonymous said...

Eclectic it is. :D the Idan Raichel Project is probably the best I've heard or yet to hear come out of Hebrew music. I can't get their CDs here :( I'm hoping I travel to Europe sometime this year, at least to pick up the CDs that don't exactly arrive here intact.

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