Damascene grumble, part two

20 Sept

September 19, 2007

Believe it or not, I am still mentally adding anecdotes and insulting examples to my first list of grumbles about driving, and about smoking. It turns out I didn’t even skim the surface of how bad things are, (remember, we are in week 1 of Ramadan, and the ramifications on driving are immense, especially just before iftar) but you’ll be happy to know that other issues are competing for my ire.

The other day, at Costa (the coffee shop chain), I gave my order to the barrista, in Arabic naturally, and paused as I tried to remember a word, giving up and adding “to go” in English. He smiled, so I asked him: “How do you say that in Arabic anyway?” He replied, literally: “Take away.” We actually both laughed and realized there was no accepted Arabic yet for this most global of phenomena, and that the actual translation of "take away" didn’t quite sound correct. I still find it very amusing, and sometimes even endearing, that Syrians (and other Arabs) have developed certain terminology to suit their needs.

In technology, they will say things like “sayyavet” (meaning “I saved” on the computer), or “m’farmmat” (meaning “it is formatted”). An air-conditioned space is “m’kandash” while an interior-decorated place is “m’dokar,” and the list of such linguistic innovations is long. It is when Syrians try to use “straight” English, as versus its Arabized version, that things go astray, and that my grumbling takes a life of its own.

First, there are the annoying miscellaneous people who claim they know something and have to convince you of it, even though you’ve never heard of it. My husband, who has lived in the UK for nearly 25 years, tried hard to persuade some of his extended family members that no matter where they’d heard it, the supposed saying “He who sucks seeds shall not succeed” was not exactly a common saying, to put it mildly. He tried to elaborate on the fact that the whole concept of eating seeds (you know, cracking them open with your teeth, then by some extremely able and unappealing manoeuvring pushing the seed out, and eating it while spitting the seed shell out – one of the things I love to hate) was not common in the Anglo-Saxon world, let alone the strange notion of sucking them. To no avail. “You just don’t know” they protested, “that’s what the English say.” Faced with such erudition, who are we to argue?

Then you’ve got those who know they don’t speak it, but who try to be helpful by “translating” for you. I remember a colleague going out of his mind because a merchant in the old souk had tried to convince a foreign gentleman accompanying him to buy some merchandise, saying repeatedly: “Zis, advice!” (“Hay nassiha!”) But they all pale in comparison to the professional language-bashers, spread equally between the private sector (which should know better) and the public sector (which should be held accountable).

I still fantasize about tracking down and insulting (I’m restraining myself here) the idiot who first came up with the idea of splashing the English word “Sale” across his shop windows; not because that was wrong, but because he thought he should also add the French equivalent, or so I assume went his thought process, and ended up writing “Sold.” No, I won’t pardon your French. So which is it, is it on sale, or has it already been sold? Of course, every single shop in Damascus now announces price reductions in these two or three languages; I’m not sure they’re aware that it’s “Soldes” in French, or that they’re even aware that it’s another language altogether. They now go together: Sale, Sold. Quick business, when you look at it that way. Even on the über-posh Damascus Boulevard and its designer clothes boutiques (seen below in this shot taken by night), the “multilingual” sales pitch falls for the “proven” message. “But the owner is Lebanese!” exclaimed a friend. Sigh. When are Syrians going to snap out of this notion that Lebanese=better?

Sometimes, while driving, I turn on the radio to get to know what’s the happening thing, and I channel surf between several popular private stations, mostly ending up on Madina. Every few minutes, when advertising time comes, I start to grumble again: for some strange reason, Syrian marketing people (wait ‘til I show them) are advising their gullible clients that an ad for a product or a service in Syria would be better with the Lebanese accent, and with the annoying Lebanese style which I don’t quite know how to describe (basically, a rather effeminate male voice, practically singing the words and stressing the last syllable of the brand name). This unfortunate ploy also applies to television, I’m afraid. I will simply have to link to one so that you know what I mean. Are any of my fellow Syrians with me on this? Yes, we digress, but come on! (As a marketing communications consultant, I owe it to my profession to write a post about Syrian advertising one day, if I can bear it.)

Damascene restaurants, even little tiny ones with two plastic tables on a street corner, also oblige foreign visitors to Syria with a custom-made translation of their dishes; frankly, it’s cute. Annoying, but somehow cute. It becomes unacceptable when the more expensive ones do it. My mother was once looking at a dessert menu, wondering what “Grape” meant: was it the fresh fruit alone, or some concoction built around grapes? No no, answers the waiter: “It’s grape. Grape with sugar, grape with chocolate, grape Suzette, grape with whatever you like.” It took a while, but she finally understood it was a crepe. You see, neither English nor French are her first language, and I’m sure the waiter in question would never believe she speaks both fluently, since she had to ask what a grape was.

I wouldn’t dream of taking up a whole post to denounce the errors and the horrors of mistranslations in restaurant menus, you’ve all probably seen numerous examples. Nor will I waste time on the job announcements in weekly newspapers which demand “excellant” English, or on the advertisements (even billboard ads) which can’t be bothered to check that words are spelled correctly. After all, we barely have time for tackling the public sector, and part of the reason for my blogging delays is that I’ve been trying to document the numerous examples of things gone terribly wrong at government level, and which I deem totally unacceptable.

All I’ve seen so far is that the Syrian authorities are steadfast in their opposition to linguistic perfection, or even normalcy. As many of you know, the Baathist regime has always made a point of keeping the level of Arabic at its highest. (Actually, this is true even of previous, more prosperous and enlightened eras in Syria.) Apparently, this obsession with the respect of the Arabic language (which I’m told still manages to get massacred by robotic “journalists”) does not apply to foreign tongues, even though all city signs are now written in two languages at least: one being Arabic, and the other … well, it’s difficult to say. Lest we get lost in a labyrinth of examples from the lingua franca of Syrian officialdom (or rather officialdoom), let us simply tackle, ever so superficially for now, the subject of street signs - you know, like everywhere else in the world, the official signs that indicate where roads will lead you, eventually, maniacs and moronic drivers notwithstanding.

I truly do not know where to begin grumbling, nor how to rate which signs got me the most infuriated, nor which of the many photos I have been taking to post on this blog. It would be impossible to put them all, so I will create my little album and save it for later. Mind you, so far, I’ve mostly been clicking while driving whenever I see a chance, so I clearly need a different approach. Official direction signs in Syria seem to be made by a foreign spy, or an agitator who hates Syrians so much he wants to humiliate them and cause even more chaos. This person is clearly secure in the knowledge that no Syrian official alive, and even less Syrian civil servants, will be bothered to check his work, even assuming that somebody in those damn ministries, governorates and directorates (which all do very little ministering, governing or directing) actually would know how to translate, write, spell, punctuate, capitalize, or even stick to one font.

These are the signs from hell, the signs which make me reconsider my desire for Syrians to add other languages to their education. The diversification in these signs is amazing: a single Arabic name will be translated in several different ways, with several different spellings, with several different fonts, with the most confusing and illogical random layout leaving you unsure of which word belongs to which arrow, in different signs posted around the city.

Sometimes, I feel the signs have been put together in the same way blackmailers send ransom notes, with letters cut out from different newspaper articles in a scary way. We are being held to ransom, and we’re ignoring it to our own peril. Sometimes, various letters are capitalized in the name, in the middle of the word, and not even necessarily the first letter. Often, a period will come at the end of a full name (or word of some sort) for no reason. Sometimes, there are letters (one letter, like “C,” or several letters, like “sq”) following a name, leaving English speakers the task of guessing that “Umawyeen.Sq” does not really mean Omayad multiplied by itself (oh horror of horrors). Sometimes, I see the words “C Center” to “translate” the “markaz al madina” notion; how difficult would it be to write City Center, and exactly who decides what can be abbreviated, and how? And the problem is, this is not some isolated mistake, or a few experiments gone wrong: the damn signs are everywhere, you can't miss them! Even worse than all that is the detachment with which most people are reacting when they see my wrath; I am talking about family and friends who speak English and/or French, who are well-travelled, who are critics of the general situation, but who have completely given up on such “minor” problems.

True, in the hierarchy of what Syria needs, it may not really belong to Maslow’s bottom pyramid level, nor even to the first two or three, but Syria’s image needs all the help it can get, and it costs nothing to be correct. I’ve seen our famous square written as Omayad, Umayad, Umawyeen, and several other undecipherable atrocities, with no specific translation or transliteration system, or, come to think of it, actual language being used. Often, there is a period after the main name, instead of after the word which is actually abbreviated. Thus, instead of “Omayad Squ.” (as if they couldn’t fit the letters “are”) you usually get “Omayad. Sq” (in a less clear spelling of course).

I’ve seen signs showing how to get to “Beirnt” or, closer to home, to “Salhia.Soqe.” I’ve seen signs leading to a “Governoraite” office or to “New Sham” (the old shams are already all full, they’re building loads more on the outskirts of Damascus). And I’ve seen signs less than a few hundred meters apart using different spellings for an area of Damascus. For example, the spelling of “kafar suseh” (capitalization be damned) is just impulsive as that of our most famous square. But there is a lot worse … a lot, lot worse. Sometimes, things are not only translated or transliterated liberally, but they are transliterated by someone who has only HEARD the real translation of a given name, and who subsequently spells it accordingly. The "playing it by ear" school of translation. Looking for Customs? Who do you hold accountable for this kastom-made catastrophe of a language? (Note also the different spelling, and the liberal capitalization, of the same area shown in the photo above.) How can this be allowed in a major capital like Damascus? How can the numerous ministers, or "responsibles" above, driving by the C streets not feel shame at this most obvious of disgraces amongst many disgraces? How can these signs of incompetence be allowed to remain, and to increase?

Then again, what should we expect from a government which considers SANA to be an acceptable, nay, convincing official agency to represent its steadfast stances, and which dares to publish a rag called Syria Times (which is basically a mistranslation of other official rags) and charge money for it (5 pounds is still money)? What should we expect from a government which establishes a "Syria Media Centre" with great fanfare (and even greater cost, said to be in the millions of pounds - Sterling, that is) in the capital of media, only to close it down a couple of years later, after a publicized change of director, with absolutely no explanation or consideration for its credibility?

Again, I digress. I leave you with a sign which perhaps shocked me even more than most (because I have driven many times past it without noticing it), so much so that I drove back there to take a photograph, looking very suspicious as it was already night. It was taken in front of the headquarters of the supposedly most technologically-savvy and internationally-oriented Syrian gathering of officials and the pedantic wannabes who swarm around them. And with that, obviously, I rest my case.