مريم غبية

I've been teaching the kids (Benjamin, Zoë, Alexander, and...Phoebe) the Arabic alphabet this year. We liked to make fun of Miriam—and Miriam makes fun of herself—because she can consistently recognize alif...and that's about it. It's just a straight line. And it's the first letter of the alphabet, corresponding to the letter A in English. 

But last night at dinner Miriam proudly announced that she knew how to introduce herself in Arabic. 

"اسمي مريم," she said (ismi Miryam).

"Or..." Phoebe said impishly before breaking into maniacal laughter. "Are you غبي?" (ghabi)

"Wha...what does that mean?" Miriam asked. "Wait...I know this... Are you...are you calling me stupid?"

"Hahaha! YES!!" Phoebe shrieked with glee.

"Rude!" Miriam said (with mock offense—she tends not to take Phoebe's insults very seriously).

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to redirect the conversation and get Phoebe to settle down. "Miriam—what do you celebrate today?"

"I celebraaaaaate..." Miriam said, pausing to think.

"Doing stupid stuff?!" Phoebe said, without missing a beat (and once again dissolving into uncontrollable giggles).

I don't know what to do with this child, honestly. 

"But, Nancy," you're probably asking. "Where did she learn such language?"

Like, if we consistently spoke more kindly in our home my four-year-old probably wouldn't have outbursts like this, right? 

We are prone to being a little sarcastic, that is true, and my children have developed a knack for...quick comebacks. They are always ready to jump on the chance for a sick burn. 

However, in this case I feel the fault lies with the creators of Alif-Baa. 

We always laugh about this curriculum because the title is essentially ABC, but it was written for...people studying Arabic to be, like, diplomats and foreign service agents....so it has some surprising vocabulary. 

Like ambassador, for example. Or, as anyone who has gone through Alif-Baa and Al-Kitaab know, الأمم المتحدة (the United Nations). I think الأمم المتحدة shows up in Al-Kitaab...probably right along side "My name is..." and "Hello," because obviously the third thing you should learn to say in any language is...United Nations.

Anyway...there we were, innocently learning the letter غ (ghayn) and Alif-Baa and the book throws this vocabulary at us:

"Practice writing and pronouncing the word غبي (stupid). Do not stop to dot until you have finished writing the entire word."

I'm not fluent enough (at all) to pull out other words that include غ (ghayn) in various positions (and only include letters that the children know how to write so far), so we went with ghabi. 

And that's how the kids learned the word stupid in Arabic.

Hardly my fault. 

To be fair, Alexander consistently confuses غبي (ghabi) with غنم (ghanam—sheep) and perhaps ghanam would have been a safer word choice to have the kids write and pronounce over and over again. 

But we haven't gotten to the letter nuun (ن) yet, see? So we had to learn ghabi.