Kuwaiti speech did not settle for one word for what blows over the country. Every direction has a name, every degree of heat has a name, and every state of the weather has a saying. It is a lexical wealth built by the people of the sea and the desert together, because both their livings hung on it.
Names by direction
- Anashi — blows from the north or north-east, thin, gentle and cold.
- Al gharbi — comes from the north, cold and gentle.
- Reeh al saba — easterly, close to temperate, gentle and tending cool.
- Al suhaili — south-westerly and warm, raising the temperature at midday in summer.
- Al kaws — easterly, hot and loaded with dust, and mentioned unlovingly in the songs.
- Al samoum — hot and dry, usually from the north or north-east, scorching at midday.
- Al aafour — a low-pressure system in which the wind turns in a circle and raises dust.
Names by heat
Lahoub for hot air and hot weather. Sabra for bitter cold, also said as “sabbarat al shita”. “Hammarat al qaith” for the fierce heat of summer, especially at midday. Of August’s heat they say “aab al lihab”, August of the blaze. Warmth, though, has a phrase in its favour: “al difa afa” — in warmth there is health and wellbeing.
The proverbs
“The door the wind comes through, shut it and be at peace” — said of something whose occurrence causes harm, so its openings are closed.
“A word, and it flew off on the air” — also “a word the air carried away”: a word thrown out carelessly then spread, and its owner cannot call it back.
“Every wind has its sail” — a sailors’ proverb, meaning generally that everything has what suits it.
“A push of the pole, and the wind easterly” — the mardi is the long pole a sailor pushes the boat with. With an easterly wind the push moves it faster. Said of being glad at getting rid of someone unwanted quickly.
“The kaws: travel at its start, and harbour at its end” — another of the sea’s sayings.
A chant that chooses the north
“O kaws, stay away, we do not want you tonight; we want the northerly and the good gusts” — an outright preference for the north wind and its breezes, and a dislike of the hot dusty easterly kaws.
And a last word
Some of the names moved from the weather to people: “aryahi”, said of someone with little resolve.
Photo: a wall of dust approaching the horizon. By Tonymapping, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: Al Qabas, the “Dreesha Turathiya” series by Dr Saud Mohammad Al Osfour, part twenty of “The Kuwaiti dialect and its capacity for making meaning”, the natural phenomena section.
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