Return to Index page

Dr Klaus Bung
68 Brantfell Road
Blackburn BB1-8DL

© 2010 Klaus Bung

008

Klaus Bung:
Why only Muslims can have "breakfast" at night

It is useful to look closely at words you are trying to learn and check whether they consist of components which you already know or which are used as parts of other words, which are then easier to learn. In this article, we look at English "breakfast" (which literally is the meal with which you BREAK your FAST. French, Spanish, Romanian and Latin words also mean "breaking of fast", whereas the Chinese and German words simply mean "early meal". We also look at the Arabic, Farsi and Urdu words for breakfast and at the customs of Muslims during Ramadan.And last, but not least, there is a fantastic story about my Egyptian dentist, something that will have you rolling on the floor laughing - ROFL.Read more below.

2010-09-04 Why only Muslims can have "breakfast" at night

Being a God-fearing person gives you opportunities which secularists and atheists do not have. This is something that Richard Dawkins (may Satan have mercy upon his body), the idol of British atheists, will be able to ponder in eternity in a place where heating comes free of charge and where he does not need the winter fuel allowance.

One of these opportunities is having breakfast in the evening. This is something an "unbeliever" cannot possibly do. If it's in the evening, it will be dinner or supper or even iftari, but it can't possibly be breakfast.

Breakfast in the evening is a contradiction in terms. Evening is at the end of the day. Breakfast, by definition, is early, at the beginning of the day.

The actual word "breakfast", however, does not state that this is an early meal. Breakfast has acquired this meaning merely through force of habit, by tradition.

By contrast, the German word for breakfast, Frühstück (from früh = early and stück = piece (of bread) ) states explicitly that this meal has to be taken early in the day.

Looking at the components of words

When I was discussing the word "breakfast" with some of my foreign Internet friends, all keen students of English, I found that for some of them the word "breakfast" was simply a single unit, a string of nine arbitrary letters glued together to mean whatever the whole word means, namely "morning meal". They did not realise that "breakfast" has two components, break + fast, like "afternoon" has two components, after + noon.

That is a weakness inherent in the way they were taught English.

By contrast, it is a fundamental principle of DYLL and IDYLL, that we always, even with beginners, look into the origins and components of words. When I am learning a new language, I force my "teachers", however unwilling they may be, to give me the components (if any) of all new words.

In learning Urdu, for example, I then find that "paXana" (toilet) is composed of "pa" (purity) and "Xana" (place). This knowledge helps me to learn many other words containing "Xana" (where the /X/ represents the final sound in Scottish "loch" or in German "ach" or the initial sound in Urdu "Xargosh" (= rabbit), but not the sound /ks/ in English "mix").

For example: bavarci-Xana (kitchen, cook's place), gusal-Xana (bathroom, bath place). Or: mombatti = candle (from mom = wax and batti = lamp). Or I find that "charpai" (bed) is composed of "char" (four) and "pai" (feet), which makes this word unforgettable.

All this goes to show that it is useful to know the components and origins of words. If the teacher does not give this information voluntarily, the student should force it out of him.

If you have isolated the components break + fast, you realise that this early meal is in fact described as the meal with which you "break your fast" (= interrupt your fast, end your fast). In the case of English, this is, of course, not a religious fast, like Muslim, Hindu and Jewish fasts, but simply the period of the night during which people have not eaten anything, simply because they were asleep.

However, even nightshift workers, who may have been eating during the night, will call this early morning meal before they go to sleep (in the morning) "breakfast". To that extent the word has firmly acquired the meaning "early" rather than "breaking of a fast".

The Muslim fast

The Muslim fast during Ramadan is more serious. It is a real fast. It applies during the day, from sunrise to sunset, strictly regulated by the clock and strictly observed to the minute.

At the exact minute, when the sun sets (changing by about four minutes each day) and the call comes from the mosque, Muslims break their fast by respectfully (ceremoniously) eating a single date. That breaks the fast (it IS, so to speak, the breakfast), and after that they can eat again as normal and continue to do so, if they wish, until the sun rises the following morning, and their fast resumes.

The food and the delicacies which they eat will be more delicious than at ordinary times of the year, for this is not a time of sadness and mourning, but a time of religious contemplation and joy, somewhat similar in character to what may be found in a practising Christian family, on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Epiphany in various Christian countries.

Muslims from India and Pakistan, of whom there are many in England, call that meal with which they end their fast "iftar" or "iftari". They WOULD NOT call it "breakfast" because "breakfast" does not have any Islamic connotations, and they CANNOT call it "breakfast" because breakfast (in the English sense of the word) must be taken in the morning.

Well before sunrise the following morning (say at 3.45h), Muslims get up and perform their morning rituals, including Fajr, the first prayer of the day. They will then also, before the sun rises, start and finish their last meal of the night, which English people would call, for themselves, "breakfast" because it is early in the morning.

Muslims call it neither "breakfast" nor "iftari" because no fast is being broken, and it is not preceded by any sustained period of not eating and not drinking.

Indian and Pakistani Muslims call this early morning meal during Ramadan "sehri". This word specifically signifies the END of the freedom to eat, or, the last chance to fill up with fuel and energy to see you through the day till the evening. People eat "sehri" only during Ramadan. Their early morning breakfast at other times of the year is denoted by a different word.

But let us stick to the early morning meal (pre-fasting meal) during Ramadan.

The word sehri has been imported into Urdu from Arabic (via Persian), and we will look more closely at the Arabic word now.

Arabic words for morning meals

In Arabic, the "root" or constant of a group of related words tends to be the consonants. One varies the vowels in order to derive different but related meanings.

We take the root s-h-r.

In Arabic the time before sunrise is called "sahar". The meal that is taken at that time is called "sohor". The food that is eaten at that meal is called "sahor" (rarely used); in brief:

• sahar - a time
• sohor - a meal, i.e.an event
• sahor - a kind of food, i.e. an object

The word sohor is NOT the general word for breakfast (early morning meal), i.e. the meal one takes AFTER having slept. Sohor is specifically the meal one takes BEFORE the fast begins (directly opposed to BREAK-fast, sohor is the START-fast). As such one can have sohor only during Ramadan (and on any other fasting days).

At other times of the year, in Arab countries, the word "eftar" is used to denote the early morning meal, the breakfast, the meal one takes after having fasted or not eaten for 12 hours or so.

So "eftar" simply means "breaking the fast", and during Ramadan this meal is shifted from the morning to the evening. Only believers can do that (switch the morning meal, eftar, to the evening). Non-believers, like the English, can not sensibly do that, they must have their breakfast in the morning or not at all - quod erat demonstrandum.

Looking at it in a formalistic way, during Ramadan "breakfast" is shifted from morning to evening, and liberty to eat is shifted from the day into the night.

Arabic "sohor" and "eftar" travelled to Persian (Farsi) and became "sahari" and "eftari", and these words in turn travelled to India and became "sehri" and "iftari" respectively.

Breakfast in some European languages

First two boring examples:

• In German, breakfast is "Frühstück", which is explicitly an "early" meal. Nothing to do with fasting.
• In Italian it is "colazione", which literally means a "collection" of things, bits and pieces, assorted foods, snacks.

But French, Spanish and Romanian (like Italian, languages derived from Latin) refer to the concept of FASTING, even though I am not sure how many Frenchmen and Spaniards are aware of this fact.

Latin: jejunare = to fast.

From this we have French "le jeûne" = "the fast".

From this we have "dé-jeuner" = to discontinue the fast, "le déjeuner" = lunch (rather a late breakfast) and "le petit déjeuner" (the little lunch, the breakfast).

From the same Latin je-junare, we have Spanish des-a-yuno (breakfast) and Romanian de-jun

That's as much as I have been able to establish so far. I will now look at other languages as well and see if any other interesting concepts turn up in their words for "breakfast". I will add to this article whatever I can find. So come back from time to time to look for updates.

My Egyptian dentist

My readers may be surprised and wonder how I could be so clever and knowledgeable about Arabic. Let me confess that I owe all my information on Arabic to my dentist. Her name is Aya. She lives and works in Egypt, but she is not a gypsy. She has forbidden me to publish her surname and her exact location because she already has far too many patients. She specialises in the ancient, and essentially feminine, art of pyramidal dentistry (see below).

Aya is not only a humanist, she also has a social conscience and does pro bono work for the under-crocodiles (that's what underdogs are called in Egypt). Outside her surgery is a sign "Crocodiles please use side-entrance". She has built a ramp for them, and every day there is a trickle of her short-legged long-tailed goggle-eyed darlings coming to be treated on the Egyptian NCHS (National Crocs Health Service).

When the treatment is finished, they reward her with a tender kiss - on the cheek, while shedding tears of gratitude. Crocodiles never cry except while eating politicians falsely accused of corruption and expenses fraud and when moved by Aya's kindness.

Wikileaks reported recently that the Egyptian government is about to ship a squad of crocodiles to be rehoused in the Thames to help clean up the river and British politics. "Selfish politicians will anilated (sic!)", an erudite union leader wrote in his blog when welcoming the immigrants from Egypt.

Aya is so good that, twice a year, I make the long trek from my little village in England to Egypt to have a checkup. For me it's like a pilgrimage. She is a direct descendant of the Pharaos, and her dental skills have been handed down in her family unchanged for thousands of years. I become acutely aware of this when she tackles me. This woman is genuine.

There is no dentist in the universe more dedicated and more thorough than her. When I open my mouth, she attacks my teeth with a vengeance: no caries and no microbes will survive.

Now click on the image to make it larger. It shows Aya at work on a British tourist, a peroxide blonde (link 2) who had dared to have a tooth ache while in Egypt. The bint should have known better. For Aya this is the chance of a lifetime to take revenge for the Suez Attack of 1956. For once, Aya thoroughly enjoys her job as a dentist. She has discovered her mission in life. God has delivered the enemy into her hands.

She is wearing a male mask because a face veil (niqab) would make it impossible for her to see which tooth she wants to destroy next.

She is also an extraordinary partner for any linguist and phonetician (I said "phonetician" and NOT "Phoenician"!). Through her dental training she knows all about dental stops, interdental fricatives, alveolar stops (voiced and unvoiced), retroflex stops, palatal plosives etc, and that makes her into an unbeatable teacher of Arabic pronunciation, the weirder the better.

The first time she beat me was when I was trying to pay her a compliment by calling her "qalbi" (= my heart, my sweetheart, my darling). But my Arabic pronunciation was so pathetic at the time that I said "kalbi", which means "you bitch" and is as bad as "kutti" in Urdu. (As you can see when you compare the / q / and the / k / sounds, in Arabic it is easier to insult people than to be nice to them.) Without a second's hesitation, Aya threw me a left hook that John Prescott or Max Schmeling would have been proud of.

Three of my teeth were instantly expelled (rather than extracted) and were sticking to the blood spattered walls of her surgery. Mercifully Aya agreed to replace them by implants, at my expense. She also offered to give me, as a permanent souvenir, a sample of her pyramidal dentistry, about which more anon.

During my previous visit, she had introduced me to a team from the Department of Archaeological Dentistry (or Dental Archaeology) at the University of Central Oswaldtwistle, a university which has enriched the world with many marvellous discoveries. (See their research report on: "The function of the Haggis in the eco-system of the northern and the southern hemisphere".)

The Oswaldtwistle scientists managed to establish that the pyramids are in fact not burial sites. They were created out of desert mountains and filed into their perfect (and dangerous) shape by armies of Pharaonic dentists. The so-called burial chambers in the pyramids were the result of caries. It is not surprising that dental gold was found in them. The beautiful artefacts in them are the result of Darwinian evolution.

When the Egyptian dentists were, for decades, diligently filing away at the mountains to turn them into pyramids, their pain was excruciating. It was at that time that Pyramidon (popularly known as C13  H17 N3O was invented to relieve the pain of the pyramids. Any street urchin in Cairo will confirm this.

Hoechst (German for "highest", another reference to the pyramids) and Bayer (pronounced "buyer") mass-produced the drug and supplied it to the Pharaos. The Oswaldtwistle scientists dug hundreds of the ancient Pyramidon tins out of the desert sand, and their battered appearance tells you instantly that they must be thousands of years old.

The pyramids were created as visual aids in the distance-training of Pharaohnic dentists, showing them the ideal shape of efficient teeth. That's why they had to be so big. All this has been proved beyond any doubt by the team from Oswaldtwistle University. The team has been short-listed for the next Nobel prize in dentistry.

Aya offered to reshape my teeth in a similar fashion. By ancient Egyptian tradition, this will have to be done without anaesthetic. "It's always been like this. Take it, or leave it, or leave me forever," she declared, flashing her stunning triangular teeth. She is so beautiful that I immediately accepted her proposal. The procedure will be carried out in February next year. The world's media will witness the event.

When Aya has done with me, my mouth will be that of a Terminator or of a vampire. There will be no stopping me then.

I shall be eternally grateful to Aya for what she has done for my teeth, my knowledge of Arabic (especially its dental sounds) and for her contribution to this article.

Advice

If you need help with learning (memorising) English vocabulary, use the DYLL procedures described on the Advice page of this site: Link 1, Link 2

We help you to learn faster
and remember more