7 ms·

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late R

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late Russian ex-foreign minister, and ex-prime minister Primakov, who is Arab states specialist and reads Arabic scripts very well, once saw a garment with 'No god except Allah...' on Patriarch of Russia Alexy II, shocking him because similar ritual garments were used by the Orthodox church for centuries - with inscriptions on the cloth seen simply as decorations - cloth was by tradition bought in Syria. Story was from ca. 1995.

deleted 9y ago
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PakG1 9y ago
As a funny modern example, check out Kenyon Martin, former NBA all-star, having Chinese character tattoos. I never really thought about this until social media apparently all told him to back off when he said current Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin shouldn't have dreadlocks in his hair because that was a black culture thing, and then Lin (politely) pointed out that Martin had Chinese character tattoos. I imagine very similar. And then on the flip side, I read an article a while back about how t-shirt manufacturers in China choose English slogans for making t-shirts based on how nice they think the letters look, not based on what the words mean. They have no idea what the words mean and will actually even change some of the letters to make the pattern look nicer if they think it helps.
- asymmetric 9y ago
  I would be really interested in that article about t-shirt slogans!
  - darklajid 9y ago
    Don't know about the GP's article, but there are actually quite some YT videos around of someone interviewing people in Asia (I think the last one I saw was based in Japan), asking them if they know the meaning of the words on their shirts. Some of these are hilarious..
    - akoster 9y ago
      While living away from my native California, I had a good laugh seeing someone with a "San Bernardino Beach" shirt.
      - rblatz 9y ago
        I have multiple shirts that say Surf Ohio on them, I’d assume it was also a tongue in cheek thing like that.
  - PakG1 9y ago
    Sad to say I can't find it. But it had interviews of top sellers of t-shirts. These people would literally type random English letters into online search engines (obviously not Google) and see what got auto-suggested. Then they'd choose the auto-suggestions that literally looked the prettiest or coolest to them. Maybe change a letter here or there to make it look even more cool. Then off to the t-shirt printers.
  - flyinghorse 9y ago
    Well in my country (3rd world country), most t-shirts are imported from China. If they have slogans, it's with English text with broken grammar or usually with text that doesn't even make sense. No one bothers though since English isn't widely spoken in neither of the countries.
- fludlight 9y ago
  There is also the Western predilection for Chinese character tattoos which don't always mean what the customer thinks they mean and, of course, the Chinese predilection for English tattoos that...
  - akavel 9y ago
    http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com - a blog "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture". Highly recommended for disillusionment and entertainment value! :)
  - chewz 9y ago
    there are few blogs re: Japanese t-shirts 'in English' 'Crap your hands'... etc. http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japanese-shirts http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japa...
rspeer 9y ago
Is it actually shocking? Isn't it just a statement the Orthodox church would agree with ("there is no god except God") written in Arabic?
- aedron 9y ago
  It's literally the first commandment.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    not necessarily. monolateralism and monotheism aren’t exactly the same. most versions of the commandments specify that the god of abraham is the only god that ought to be worshipped. strict monotheism came later. edit: that said, yes, it should be totally unsurprising.
irrational 9y ago
But Allah is a cognate of El/Elohim. You could translate it as There is no god except El/Elohim. Just because it uses Arabic characters doesn't mean it can't be translated into English (or Russian) as something other than Allah.
- taneliv 9y ago
  But if it was literally that sentence, one has to note that it is the beginning of shahada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada , one of the Islamic creeds. From this perspective the surprise element of the story (if true), is both stronger and clearer to explain.
- empath75 9y ago
  It’s a specifically Muslim formulation of the idea, though.
ddalex 9y ago
Very interesting, do you have a reference?
microcolonel 9y ago
There's some suggestion that the Spanish interjection olé is also descended from Allah (or rather some conjugation of it). More or less, each name for God in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions is related to a similar name in one or both other traditions. "Allah" is a modern standard Arabic transliteration of a word which translates quite simply to God. The only reason to translate it as "Allah" is to signify that the context is Islamic.
- DavidAdams 9y ago
  Spanish speaking people have an even more obvious loan word from Arabic they use pretty commonly: ojalá. It means, "hopefully," or literally, "God willing."
  - ominous 9y ago
    The word "alphabeth" is also of greek origin. But no one tries to pass the message of greek influence to the point of there being articles for that in hackernews.
    - phaemon 9y ago
      I don't know what that means. Everyone knows that there is a massive Greek influence on Western culture. The only reason there might not be many HN articles on it is that it's so obvious.
    - Grustaf 9y ago
      >The word "alphabeth" is also of greek origin. Yes and no. It came through Greek (though to us via Latin) but of course the names for Alpha and Beta (and most other letters) are based on the Phoenician Aleph and Bet.
smnrchrds 9y ago
Allah literally means God in Arabic. It is comprised of definite prefix 'Al' and the word for god 'Elah'. In English, to show the difference between generic god and specific God, the first letter is capitalized. Arabic does not have the same capitalization rule , so instead they call the specific deity 'Allah', literally meaning 'the god', or 'God'. This is important because not all Mulsims are Arab and not all Arabs are Muslim. Allah is first and foremost an Arabic word. As a result, practitioners of Islam in other languages use other words to refer to God. In Iran, for example, Persian word 'Khoda' is used by Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians to refer to God in their religion. 'Allah' is never used except in phrases and words borrowed from Arabic and using it on its own in the middle of a Persian sentence would sound very odd. I have also heard that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use the Allah to refer to God in their religions, but I have not fact-checked it.
- vowelless 9y ago
  The parent likely means "La ilaha illallah". So the point it not about "Allah" (indeed many cultures use that word for God -- it is derived from the semetic El). The point is instead about an inscription of the Shahada on the cloth of the Patriach of Russia. This would be akin to the US President wearing a garment with something along the lines of "God save the Queen" in Latin (assuming the President didn't understand Latin).
  - rflrob 9y ago
    On the other hand (debates about the unity of the trinity aside), Christians believe in a single God as well (and that God is understood by Muslims to be Allah). So while the shahada is strongly associated with Islam, I doubt it would particularly conflict with Orthodox Christian teachings (IANA religious scholar). So perhaps the better analogy would be the US president wearing "A Mari Usque Ad Mare", the Canadian motto, which means "From Sea to Sea".
- theprotocol 9y ago
  >I have also heard that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use the Allah to refer to God in their religions, but I have not fact-checked it. I can confirm this. We say "Allah." The advent of Islam into the global public awareness has created a lot of confusion about Middle Eastern cultures, e.g. I frequently hear "Allah is the name of the Muslims' God." But it is in fact a more generic word, exactly analogous to "God" with a capital G.
Sharlin 9y ago
Yep. It's like people nowadays getting tattoos with Han characters without knowing what they mean. Or the exact opposite happening in the CJK countries where Latin letters or gibberish English phrases are used decoratively in t-shirts. It is also well known that Nordic smiths would—with varying success—imitate decorative patterns and Latin phrases found in items forged by their Central European counterparts.
voidmain0001 9y ago
You all know that language is notorious for co-opting words and phrases from other languages, without necessarily bringing the original meaning or tradition. E.g. In Spanish the phrase ojalá is used to respond to a question with an optimistic 'I hope so!'. It is derived from the Arabic "ma sha allah" meaning if God wills it, and yet I doubt many a Spaniard cares that they are invoking the title of the Muslim God. Heck, a lot of the Spaniards that I know have the last name Matamoro which basically means that someone in their ancestry was given that name because they killed Moors, and while my acquaintances find the thought of killing revolting, they don't change their name.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

PakG1 9y ago

As a funny modern example, check out Kenyon Martin, former NBA all-star, having Chinese character tattoos. I never really thought about this until social media apparently all told him to back off when he said current Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin shouldn't have dreadlocks in his hair because that was a black culture thing, and then Lin (politely) pointed out that Martin had Chinese character tattoos. I imagine very similar. And then on the flip side, I read an article a while back about how t-shirt manufacturers in China choose English slogans for making t-shirts based on how nice they think the letters look, not based on what the words mean. They have no idea what the words mean and will actually even change some of the letters to make the pattern look nicer if they think it helps.

asymmetric 9y ago
I would be really interested in that article about t-shirt slogans!
- darklajid 9y ago
  Don't know about the GP's article, but there are actually quite some YT videos around of someone interviewing people in Asia (I think the last one I saw was based in Japan), asking them if they know the meaning of the words on their shirts. Some of these are hilarious..
  - akoster 9y ago
    While living away from my native California, I had a good laugh seeing someone with a "San Bernardino Beach" shirt.
    - rblatz 9y ago
      I have multiple shirts that say Surf Ohio on them, I’d assume it was also a tongue in cheek thing like that.
- PakG1 9y ago
  Sad to say I can't find it. But it had interviews of top sellers of t-shirts. These people would literally type random English letters into online search engines (obviously not Google) and see what got auto-suggested. Then they'd choose the auto-suggestions that literally looked the prettiest or coolest to them. Maybe change a letter here or there to make it look even more cool. Then off to the t-shirt printers.
- flyinghorse 9y ago
  Well in my country (3rd world country), most t-shirts are imported from China. If they have slogans, it's with English text with broken grammar or usually with text that doesn't even make sense. No one bothers though since English isn't widely spoken in neither of the countries.
fludlight 9y ago
There is also the Western predilection for Chinese character tattoos which don't always mean what the customer thinks they mean and, of course, the Chinese predilection for English tattoos that...
- akavel 9y ago
  http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com - a blog "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture". Highly recommended for disillusionment and entertainment value! :)
- chewz 9y ago
  there are few blogs re: Japanese t-shirts 'in English' 'Crap your hands'... etc. http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japanese-shirts http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japa...

rspeer 9y ago

Is it actually shocking? Isn't it just a statement the Orthodox church would agree with ("there is no god except God") written in Arabic?

aedron 9y ago
It's literally the first commandment.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  not necessarily. monolateralism and monotheism aren’t exactly the same. most versions of the commandments specify that the god of abraham is the only god that ought to be worshipped. strict monotheism came later. edit: that said, yes, it should be totally unsurprising.

irrational 9y ago

But Allah is a cognate of El/Elohim. You could translate it as There is no god except El/Elohim. Just because it uses Arabic characters doesn't mean it can't be translated into English (or Russian) as something other than Allah.

taneliv 9y ago
But if it was literally that sentence, one has to note that it is the beginning of shahada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada , one of the Islamic creeds. From this perspective the surprise element of the story (if true), is both stronger and clearer to explain.
empath75 9y ago
It’s a specifically Muslim formulation of the idea, though.

ddalex 9y ago

Very interesting, do you have a reference?

microcolonel 9y ago

There's some suggestion that the Spanish interjection olé is also descended from Allah (or rather some conjugation of it). More or less, each name for God in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions is related to a similar name in one or both other traditions. "Allah" is a modern standard Arabic transliteration of a word which translates quite simply to God. The only reason to translate it as "Allah" is to signify that the context is Islamic.

DavidAdams 9y ago
Spanish speaking people have an even more obvious loan word from Arabic they use pretty commonly: ojalá. It means, "hopefully," or literally, "God willing."
- ominous 9y ago
  The word "alphabeth" is also of greek origin. But no one tries to pass the message of greek influence to the point of there being articles for that in hackernews.
  - phaemon 9y ago
    I don't know what that means. Everyone knows that there is a massive Greek influence on Western culture. The only reason there might not be many HN articles on it is that it's so obvious.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    >The word "alphabeth" is also of greek origin. Yes and no. It came through Greek (though to us via Latin) but of course the names for Alpha and Beta (and most other letters) are based on the Phoenician Aleph and Bet.

smnrchrds 9y ago

Allah literally means God in Arabic. It is comprised of definite prefix 'Al' and the word for god 'Elah'. In English, to show the difference between generic god and specific God, the first letter is capitalized. Arabic does not have the same capitalization rule , so instead they call the specific deity 'Allah', literally meaning 'the god', or 'God'. This is important because not all Mulsims are Arab and not all Arabs are Muslim. Allah is first and foremost an Arabic word. As a result, practitioners of Islam in other languages use other words to refer to God. In Iran, for example, Persian word 'Khoda' is used by Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians to refer to God in their religion. 'Allah' is never used except in phrases and words borrowed from Arabic and using it on its own in the middle of a Persian sentence would sound very odd. I have also heard that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use the Allah to refer to God in their religions, but I have not fact-checked it.

vowelless 9y ago
The parent likely means "La ilaha illallah". So the point it not about "Allah" (indeed many cultures use that word for God -- it is derived from the semetic El). The point is instead about an inscription of the Shahada on the cloth of the Patriach of Russia. This would be akin to the US President wearing a garment with something along the lines of "God save the Queen" in Latin (assuming the President didn't understand Latin).
- rflrob 9y ago
  On the other hand (debates about the unity of the trinity aside), Christians believe in a single God as well (and that God is understood by Muslims to be Allah). So while the shahada is strongly associated with Islam, I doubt it would particularly conflict with Orthodox Christian teachings (IANA religious scholar). So perhaps the better analogy would be the US president wearing "A Mari Usque Ad Mare", the Canadian motto, which means "From Sea to Sea".
theprotocol 9y ago
>I have also heard that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use the Allah to refer to God in their religions, but I have not fact-checked it. I can confirm this. We say "Allah." The advent of Islam into the global public awareness has created a lot of confusion about Middle Eastern cultures, e.g. I frequently hear "Allah is the name of the Muslims' God." But it is in fact a more generic word, exactly analogous to "God" with a capital G.

Sharlin 9y ago

Yep. It's like people nowadays getting tattoos with Han characters without knowing what they mean. Or the exact opposite happening in the CJK countries where Latin letters or gibberish English phrases are used decoratively in t-shirts. It is also well known that Nordic smiths would—with varying success—imitate decorative patterns and Latin phrases found in items forged by their Central European counterparts.

voidmain0001 9y ago

You all know that language is notorious for co-opting words and phrases from other languages, without necessarily bringing the original meaning or tradition. E.g. In Spanish the phrase ojalá is used to respond to a question with an optimistic 'I hope so!'. It is derived from the Arabic "ma sha allah" meaning if God wills it, and yet I doubt many a Spaniard cares that they are invoking the title of the Muslim God. Heck, a lot of the Spaniards that I know have the last name Matamoro which basically means that someone in their ancestry was given that name because they killed Moors, and while my acquaintances find the thought of killing revolting, they don't change their name.