(no subject)

[quillori]

"The philologists held that their language was preserved in its purest form in the desert. Moreover, the speech of the desert Arabs abounded in marvellous lexical rarities and both poets and lexicographers went out hunting for these. For instance [...] bahlasa means 'to arrive suddenly from another country without any luggage'.

Robert Irwin, editorialising in The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

I have just met up with a friend who has had the misfortune to fly in transit through Heathrow four times in the last two months. And yes, she has found herself on each occasion in a position to demonstrate that the experience of desert Arabs some 1300 years ago is still relevant to today's expatriate.

In the interests of adding this excellent and necessary word to my vocabulary, are there any Arabic scholars out there who can tell me how it should be conjugated?

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha! That's wonderful. Can't help with the conjugation, alas.