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Article: Inshallah: the war in Iraq might leave us a new word to match a new sense of our own limitations.(Tuning Up)(inshallah, an Arabic phrase which means "if God wishes")
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When worlds collide, the sparks are sometimes linguistic. Not long ago, in a Q & A on the Web site of The New York Times, an Iraqi translator was asked to explain the points of difference he saw between his own people and the Americans he encountered in Iraq. He brought up the Arabic phrase "inshallah." The Americans, he said, "have respect for time"; Iraqis, in contrast, "use the word inshallah, which means 'if God wishes,' to postpone things."
It may be that this point of difference won't be a distinction much longer. An American colonel in Iraq, writing to The Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks, recently observed: "The phrase 'inshallah,' or 'God willing,' has ...
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