Approved Racism: The Arabisation of Dhivehi
Posted By Hilath
When I wrote my first Dhivehi article for this blog, I could foresee a “problem” coming: my use of Dhivehi language’s second alphabet “shaviyani” instead of the traditional “sheenu” to denote the phonetic “sh” sound.
I posted this article on Muraasil and quite predictably I got a comment from a person complaining my use of “shaviyani”.
Well, here’s my reasoning behind it: in Dhivehi, the alphabet “shaviyani” has been rendered virtually useless in most instances, and we use the letter “sheenu” which has three “thiki” (dots) above it which actually doesn’t belong to original Dhivehi alphabet.
What happened was due to Arabs trying to zealously impose its culture on Maldivians, our Dhivehi language has also suffered from Middle Eastern onslaught, resulting in the “introduction” of “thiki jehi Thaana” (literally meaning Dhivehi alphabets with dots) in order to allow Maldivians to pronounce the guttural Arabic vowels which are quite alien to Maldivians.
So all these “alphabets with dots” were a recent introduction to Dhivehi language.
Thus, the deliberate distortion of Dhivehi language is cultural heresy I believe.
To an extent, Haveeru Daily also tried to do away with this alien “thiki jehi Thaana” much to the anger of Abbas Ibrahim, the former head of National Council for Linguistic and Historical Research — a center which seems to have got it wrong. NCLHR doesn’t know that things like culture and language evolve with people’s use, rather than an “authority” imposing rules on it, like making up silly-sounding words to mean Arabic and English language words which have entered into every day use. For instance, tourism has been in Maldives since 1972 and thus the word “tourism” has been a common Dhivehi-ised term, yet former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who likes Abbas Ibrahim’s works, had to “invent” a new “Dhivehi” term “fathuruverikan” which I am glad has never taken hold in our every day use.
I am against Arabising Maldives’ unique language and culture, and so I will never use “Dhivehi alphabets with dots” in order to accommodate Arabic language.
If we have to accommodate any alien language into Dhivehi, why only Arabic? Why not Spanish too since it is more widely spoken across the world than Arabic?
In case you are wondering: how do you say “Association” in Dhivehi since the “sh” sound is denoted by the alphabet “sheenu”? The truth is, before the Arabisation of Dhivehi, Maldivians never used “sheenu” or the phonetic “sh”. If we had been left to our devices without Arabic creeping into Dhivehi, today we will be using only “s” (seenu) to say “George W. Bus”.
So next time if you think it’s funny to hear our MDP MP Reeko Moosa say “fres” orange, “associason”, etc, know that it is his natural way of speaking AND also the correct way Maldivians traditionally spoke before an alien language (Arabic) invaded Dhivehi.
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On another note, I’ve always wondered why some Maldivians are always bothered with “textbook rules.” Because we have been taught from our childhood at school that “this is right, that is wrong”?
Is that the reason why some cannot digest my use of “shaviyani”?
Wonder why some Maldivians do not make much progress with creativity, relating to areas like film-making, literature and music?
Well, we have this notion that there are “textbook rules” to be followed.
For example, if you happen to sit through a training seminar by Television Maldives, they always talk about “rules” that need to be followed. They are concerned if an independent-minded film-maker makes “jump cuts” (or “line cross”).
What they fail to understand is that, with regard to creativity, rules are actually meant to be broken. Otherwise, how do you get a unique creative product out there? What makes your product different from the rest of the guys out there?
Of course I don’t mean that you break rules in any haphazard manner: if you want to use shaky camera (“The Bourne Ultimatum”), distort narrative structure (“Pulp Fiction”) or make jump cuts (“Jurassic Park”) it has to be done with tact.
oh u r missing something here!! u have an arabic name!!
I don’t see anything wrong with placing few dots here and there above, below, beside or when possible even within a thaana character and creating a new sound that we may come across from another language. Wouldn’t you call that creativity? I fully support de-arabizing the thaana script but well’ll need to replace quite a few characters. We’ll probably need new ones for HA-, SHA-, NA-, BA-, LHA-, KA-, A-, VA-, GA- and DA-viyanis, all of which are Arabic. In the olden days adopting a new writing was easy. Here’s a scenario: A creative person gets a chance to demo his “awesome” script to the Elite of the land which the King comes to know about it and decrees the new script to be taught to everyone. Hangul is one such example, thought to be created by the King himself in 1443-4 in Korea. The new script was met by some resistance but eventually the resistance gave in.
@al – Arabic names = more bastardization of our culture.
Hilath, it’s true that Arab culture and language has been imposed on Dhivehin from the top. Dhivehi names are all but dead.. and I can’t for the life of me figure out why certain Arabic words are mandated to be written in the arabic script, even when they are perfectly capable of being rendered in thaana.
The word ‘Allah’ is preciously ‘preserved’ in Arabic script (as if their script is somehow more divine/pure/heavely than Thaana) If Allah can be written in latin letters, like I just did, what makes Dhivehin feel so inferior that we can’t write God in our own language?
Is it that filthy? Or is it just another example of mental conditioning?
We are ridiculous as a Nation.
As long as its an useful ADDITION and not a REPLACEMENT, I have no problem with Arabization or Westernization of our culture. I think it enriches it.
The shaviyani is a case of replacement. So I agree with you there. But I feel the rest of the arab letters are an asset. We should welcome them. English is so rich precisely because of it’s heavy borrowing.
What are you so against Arabic language and so in love with English language? You have no discomfort in writing English words in Dhivehi Articles. But when it comes to Arabic words, you cannot use it. Hilath Rasheed is not a Dhivehi name. So first change the name, bro.
About rules, people talk about rules, because there are rules. There are rules in Dhivehi language, like any other language. So when you break the rules or bend it, people would notice it. When it comes to writing in english, you go along with the English grammetical rules.But when it comes to Dhivehi, you are like… ahhhhhhhhh, what rules? why bother about rules, right?
[...] never use ‘Dhivehi alphabets with dots' in order to accommodate Arabic language,” vows Hilath. Cancel this [...]
Funnily enough people INSIST on spelling “Schedule” with a bodu sheenu!!!
I find this to be… HILARIOUS – specially when they ‘correct’ my use of the “shaviyani”!
Here’s my opinion. Thaana script was actually a replacement for Dhivehi akuru which evolved in time and had ‘Sanskriti’ roots. ‘Dhivehi akuru’ was written from right to left. It was also looks curvy like sinhala but consonants look very different and unique. One of the letter made it to thaana but it was banished to hell by Amin didi.
My idea is that evolution and change to a script will come if the new generation brings their own way of writing, most of time under influence of foreign languages they prefer.
So you don’t like ’sheenu’ letter and most of the young writers think same then maybe after years a change might happen. :)
BTW I don’t agree on what you said about reeko moosa. I don’t have a degree in linguistic field but when reeko moosa says ‘fres’ it doesn’t mean it is natural to Maldivians generally. He’s just funny :P
I think its more about phonology of different dialects, as different people in different parts of Maldives have different dialects there is also a difference in pronunciation. People can write easily what they can say or read as what they can write. It may also be the reason why most people don’t like Arabic letters.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/dhivesakuru.htm
As you can see in the link above there is a letter for “Sh” in eveyla akuru an ancient form of dhivehi akuru. Sorry for the long paragraph. That was racist… :D
And let’s not forget that the first nine letters of Thaana are derived from Arabic numerals of all things.
Hillath…. shaviyani and sheenu has a difference in place of articulation…which come in Linguistics.. so u may not replace them …but if u were to talk about the use of “thikijehi thaana”. never use monopoly…..how do u write it??
i’m happy that Shaviyyani is used by some of the writers and begining to know that it has the right over the Seenu mathee thin thiki, in 1980’s my father sent a letter to Radio haveeru, describing Shaviyyani. also in early days in maldives there were Shiboshi called fruit similar to Gomashi and etc. So Shaviyyani has a placement rather than Naviyyani.
actually dhivehi is a mixture of languages not only arabic but sinhala hindhi ururdhu.and some other indian languages, so if you want to dearabise dhivehi by not using thiki jehi thaana then you have to stop using the words arised from these languages.we can see that dhivehi is so similar to sinhala only one letter change in many words so why dont we change those words and there are many words in hindhi we use those words as the same way they use,
First of all I think you don’t like your religion and so you don’t like using arabic. You like using other languages like Spanish. Dhivehi is a modern language. I am proud that we can use our all the arabic sounds (the longest living language on the planet) and all the English sounds in English (most widely used language on earth).
Reko moosa can “fres” orange and I have met people who use javiyani instead of zaviyani, like “jamaany” technology. And you see kids when they speak they use ‘thaa’ a lot. for instance thaathinaathulhu = faathimaa fulhu so if if hil’athu rasheed is their name they will write “thil’athu thatheedh”.
Sheenu has become dhivehi script with thaana script and the new addition thikijehi thaana script. So, you can’t change it. If start avoiding “alien words” and “invaded languages” one by one, you will end up with nothing, no dhivehi language, no thaana akuru and no hil’athu rasheed.