If truth is indeed the first casualty of war, then language runs a tragically close second.
Given my lifelong interest in language (a positive quality in an aspiring writer, one would think), I can't stand seeing it abused. When I see it abused for propaganda purposes, though, I become absolutely livid.
In recent years, nothing has sickened and enraged me more than the Orwellian "Newspeak" the Republican Party's despicable neocon wing created -- and subsequently foisted upon a public too dumbed-down and frightened to call bullshit on them.
"War on terror" -- as if processes, emotions and/or tactics were subject to military defeat.
"Axis of Evil" -- as if Iran and Iraq weren't bitter enemies, and as if either had formed a Hitler/Tojo-style alliance with North Korea.
"Islamofascism" -- as if Theocracy and corporatism were compatible, nay, complementary.
"Homeland Security" -- as if the concept differed from national security.
"Total Information Awareness" -- as if this meant something other than establishing a totalitarian police state.
The most horrifying atrocity in the "war on language," however, is the term "jihadi."
"Jihadi" is a bullshit, pseudo-Arabic word, dreamed up and spoon-fed to slack-jawed cretins by glassy-eyed propagandists who know nothing of the mechanics of Arabic. Those who parrot it do nothing but reveal their own ignorance and destroy their own credibility insofar as the Middle East and Central Asia are concerned. Granted, the term originated in "moderate" Indian and Pakistani newspapers during the '90s -- and for a very specific reason -- but it's since become a neocon buzzword, especially among monoglot neocons who know nothing of Arabic.
As it happens, I do know something of the mechanics of Arabic -- and a few other languages. I'm hardly fluent, but I seem to be leagues ahead of most of my countrymen. This leaves me with little choice but to bring the mace of enlightenment down upon a few thick (but empty) skulls.
Arabic is a Semitic tongue. Unless one buys into the shaky "Nostratic" hypothesis, it's completely unrelated to English and the rest of the Indo-European family. In moron-friendly terms, this is to say that Arabic doesn't work the same way English does. In Arabic, as in other Semitic languages, broad, abstract concepts are expressed in biliteral, triliteral (the most common) or quadriliteral consonant clusters. Specific concepts are related by inserting different vowels before, after or between the root consonants, and/or modifying them with prefixes, suffixes and infixes.
Think of the Hebrew words talmid (student) and Talmud (instruction). Both stem from the triliteral root lmd, which relates to learning, wisdom and/or knowledge. Same language family, same principle. Now you understand why the Hebrew greeting Shalom ("peace") and the Arabic Salaam are phonetically similar and have identical meanings: they derive from the same Proto-Semitic triconsonantal cluster, slm, as does the masculine name "Shlomo" (the non-Hellenized, non-Latinized form of the name "Solomon"). Another example is the cluster mlk, which (broadly) subsumes the concepts of authority and rulership. This root has yielded fruit as diverse as the Arabic malik ("king," and one of the names of Allah), the Hebrew melech (Adonai melech is one of the Qabalistic names of God), and even the Biblical name Melchizedek.
The word jihad is based upon the triliteral consonant cluster jhd, which indicates sacrifice or struggle. A person undertaking a jihad is a Mujahid (plural Mujahidin -- sometimes Romanized as Mujahideen), even as a person who embraces Islam is a Muslim (triconsonantal root of both words: slm).
Would you call Muslims (mu + slm) "Islamis" or "Salamis"?
Of course not. You'd sound like a fucking idiot. No... Let me rephrase that: You'd actually be a fucking idiot.
So why use the term "jihadi," which makes you sound like just as much of a fucking idiot?
Moving right along...
In recent years, Arabic has suffered the most abuse at the hands of propagandists.
Remember George I pronouncing Saddam Hussein's given name as if it were "Sodom"?
Deliberate, calculated propaganda, folks. Anyone who's ever studied Arabic (or Hebrew, or Aramaic, or Akkadian, for that matter) knows that in most -- not all, but most -- Semitic words, the stress falls upon either the penultimate or final syllable. The name "Saddam" is no exception to the rule. But pronouncing it "Sodom" sets up a nasty chain of associative thought in the audience's minds, now doesn't it?
Then there was Gulf War II, in which the entire stable of talking heads at Fox News began pronouncing Qatar as if it were "cutter." Bzzzzt! Wrong again, gobshites. The q is difficult if not impossible for an English speaker to pronounce correctly, so I don't mind the use of a "k" sound. What pissed me off was the deliberate substitution of schwa sounds for the long "a."
Oh, but didn't "cutter" sound ever so fucking kewl? You know, as in "We're gonna cut Saddam's balls off an' shoot pool with 'em"? Once again, pure propaganda.
Arabic, unfortunately, isn't the only victim of this nauseating brand of mischief. When North Korea began launching nodong missiles every other week, the talking heads made much of the name. You know -- Kim Jong Il has no dong, right? Now our spin-doctor pals were implying that the Kimster launches missiles because he feels sexually inadequate. It's so blatantly Freudian; even a propagandist should be ashamed to stoop to such a level. It's also another example of deliberate language mutilation in the name of a political agenda.
Nodong
(a disgustingly Marxist name for a missile, and I admit it) means "toil" or "labor" in Korean. It's also the South Korean pronunciation of the word.I don't suppose the average, mouth-breathing TV puppet is familiar with consonant shifts, but they're actually very common. If, for example, we compare the English word "apple" with the Dutch appel and the German Apfel, we see that the "p" sound has mutated into "pf" in German. And the shift is consistent. Compare German Pferd (horse) to Dutch paard, or German Pfennig to English "penny" or Norwegian penge and you'll see two more examples. Even in English itself, consonant shifts occur. Compare the posh British pronunciation of the "t" in "water" to its American counterpart, and You'll note that in American English, the medial "t" is pronounced as if it were "d," a shift from an unvoiced to a voiced dental.
(The Cockneys, bless their hearts, have counfounded everyone by eliminating the dental entirely and replacing it with a glottal stop. Come to think of it, Cockney is a goldmine of consonant shifts and losses. "H" doesn't exist as an initial -- except where it shouldn't; medial and final "t's" are often dropped or muted -- "That ain't it," as pronounced by a Cockney is essentially a stream of vowels and diphthongs punctuated by glottal stops -- and the voiced "th" often becomes "v" in the medial position. I've often wondered if this isn't a Jutish inheritance, as I've noted similarities in spoken Danish. Shit. I'm digressing again. Time to get back on topic.)
Other consonant shifts exist in Sioux (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota) and in the different pronunciations of the initial "r" in Brazilian and Continental Portuguese (Brazilians often prounouce it as if it were "h"). The famed "Castilian lisp" (I've noticed that some Mexicans and Puerto Ricans get a kick out of hearing it, incidentally) is another example.
Korean is no different. In the North Korean dialects, nodong is pronounced as if it were rodong.
But where's the fun in that? Where's the fun in empirically observable reality? We can't resort to tenth-grade cock-humor; pat ourselves on the back for our cleverness; devise reductionist, nursery-rhyme chants
; or otherwise jerk ourselves off when we contaminate our preferences and preconceptions with "inconvenient truths."But I suppose that's OK. After all, "We're an empire now. We create our own reality."
Have a nice fuckin' day.
