Son of a Shoe - A bit of Arkatrashian Culture

يا جزمة يا ابن الجزمة (ya gazma yibn ig-gazma) When someone from Arkatrash calls you "ya gazma", they are saying you are a shoe. People who were not born into the tongue understand the words, of course, due to the gift of one hundred tongues, but the meaning escapes them.
  The shoe is associated with dirt and the ground in Arkatrash and by extension the unclean and sullied. You can be sure you have been seriously insulted when called a shoe in Arkatrash. The above line, in its entirety, means "You shoe, you son of a shoe.", so whoever is throwing that at your head is out to cut deep.   Interestingly, however, the word "gazma" is actually used ironically by inhabitants of the western side of Arkatrash where the Sullied Ones live. They often call each other shoes as a form of showing affection and criticizing society's view of them.  
''Why don't you get your pots somewhere else, ya gazma!'' Hapat spat on the ground and Yillep's eyes widened.
The tourist from Aquaris looked nonplussed at the lank boy that had just yelled at him for bumping into his side while viewing Yillep's inventory. ''Ya... did you just call me... a shoe?''
''Out! Out, Hapat! You naughty boy! Do not curse in my house, you hear me! Out!''
Hapat spat again and left.
''I am so sorry, dear customer,'' Yillep apologized, his eyes downcast.
''I still don't get the shoe bit.''
"It is... not a nice thing to say here. Please, cast it out of your mind; the boy is young and knows not what he is saying."
— From 'One Hundred Brittle Tongues' by Nahib Jorgesbrödl

Comments

Author's Notes

Special thanks for this article to Arabic learning resources! Check it out, if you want to learn some Arabic ^-^


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Jul 23, 2018 20:41 by Abrupt Leviathan

Quite a fun article! I love me some obscure insults.

Jul 23, 2018 21:16 by Koray Birenheide

glad you enjoyed it ^-^ don't forget to hit that like button :P   Also, I'll trade you obscure insults for obscure words anytime, if you know any :D

Jul 28, 2018 23:57 by Abrupt Leviathan

There's a like button? Sorry, I'm brand new to the site. Liked!   Obscure words? Hang on, I'm sure I had a list somewhere... How about Thaumaturgy? Sough is another pretty good one.

Jul 29, 2018 01:04 by Koray Birenheide

Hoh boy, you'll have to do a lot better than that xD Offers in my court start with fernticled, quizzacious, and cyclopian architecture. :P And thank you very much ^-^

Jul 29, 2018 02:11 by Abrupt Leviathan

Dang! I had a feeling I would be outclassed. :P I'll have to see if I can dig up some good ones and get back to you.

Jul 29, 2018 11:27 by Koray Birenheide

Looking forward to it ^-^

Jul 30, 2018 05:18 by Abrupt Leviathan

I wager you already know phantasmagorical, and propitiate is probably too easy, but I feel like I might have a chance with hemolymph.

Jul 30, 2018 11:34 by Koray Birenheide

Pff, I used hemolymph on my article about the giant moths of Yamato:

Codex Riccardium - A Primer on the Moths of Yamato
Species | Dec 26, 2018

As Riccard Leeuw prepares to discuss the principles of technamagix in his codex, he sets a few pages aside to talk about the Moths of Yamato. (13848 Words)

And phantasmagorical? come on! Propitiate though, I have not heard before. So here's one of my favorites:
The Nordmen, especially Angel Saxons and Kaltani, often use the curse word "scite", which pretty much means shit, but is pronounced like a harder version of "shite". While it is believed to originate in the thick tongue of the Skôts, they use it more sparsely than their Kaltani brethren.

Jul 30, 2018 19:31 by Abrupt Leviathan

Well, I at least got one, I'll count that as something. I did actually later Google a huge list of obscure words, but I suspect you likely know most of them. I would suggest Eisenbahnscheinbewegung or Dunandunate, but I don't believe either of those are actually in Dictionaries, so I'm not sure if they count. I quite like Zugzwang, but again, that's likely already in your repertoire.

Jul 30, 2018 20:19 by Koray Birenheide

All the good German ones are. Zugzwang, Weltschmerz, Schadenfreude, Wunderkind, Zeitgeist, Völkerwanderung, a.s.o. I am German xD Also, my former Japanese student gave me a dictionary of obscure English words as a present once :P

Aug 3, 2018 06:22 by Abrupt Leviathan

I at least knew of Schadenfreude, but most of the others are new to me. How about poindexter? Prolix? Nesh? Skeuomorph? Flahoolick?f

Aug 3, 2018 12:29 by Koray Birenheide

Are you skimming buzzfeed lists or something? xD I did not know any of those other than poindexter, so I tip my bonnet. Though I doth feel a bit parched; don't you feel these are a bit weak? With the exception of perhaps prolix. I can't help but feel that if I used any of these the reaction of most readers wouldn't be "interesting" but "ok, but why tho" :P   Well, here is the strongest and most evil insult my world has to offer:  

Go make a wager!
— This is the worst insult known on the face of Aqualon. While one may think that such a dubious honor would belong to insults pertaining to the offended party's mother, this little sentence actually implies the following: "Go die and have your soul shattered so you may never be reincarnated." Many have regretted saying this in anger. Either because they realized the severity of what they said or because of fists approaching their faces at rapid speeds.
  I took this directly from this one:
Vinclav, the Master of Keys
Character | Feb 26, 2020

Now games and wagers are the life / Of sailors, pirates, fisher′s wives; / But do beware the yellow eyes, / Don′t bet to serve, your soul, your life / Always beware the yellow eyes. (2701 Words)

I guarantee, it is one of my finest articles, in case you are interested. If not, well, there are like two more insults in there I'll pull for you if you got more delicious words tucked away somewhere.

Aug 9, 2018 04:58 by Abrupt Leviathan

I will readily admit these are weak, yes, haha. I am entirely guilty of Googling a bunch of lists—your substantial knowledge presented quite the challenge, and I couldn't restrain myself from doing a little research. You've started me on something and I don't know if I'll be able to stop now. :P Other fruits of my shameless Googling include Paralipsis and Cthonic. Cthonic is probably the most useful, at least for the purposes of prose. It sounds enough like Cthulhu I think readers would infer the meaning. I do have one genuine, non-Googled word to offer you, compliments of my brother, who randomly tells me neat things he's discovered on his own time. The word is defenestrate, and it's actually one of my new favourites. The meaning tickles me immensely. If we're counting insults from our own worlds, I have some to offer of my own. I need to actually get articles written up about my language, though—I'm still very new to this site, and quite intimidated by all the different little types of articles and things. Do you have any tips for how one might format a language on this here site?

Aug 9, 2018 12:51 by Koray Birenheide

Ah yes, good old defenestrate. That one comes up occasionally in crime novels and tv shows ^-^ I might actually use chthonic, as a character in the novel has indeed spent over two decades magically sealed away below ground, so thanks for that one. As for paralipsis, well it is always nice to learn new lables for the tools of the trade, very interesting. I'd be happy to provide some ideas and assistance for your formatting; why not join me and other skilled writers I found on WA and the Worldbuilding Magazine on my Discord Server? The comment section of this article might be a bit static for a proper exchange.

Aug 9, 2018 22:38 by Abrupt Leviathan

Was digging through my old "Collection of Handles" (that's what I call my file for loose ideas; I watched TED talk once about metaphors or something that was basically about how all you needed was a handle to get a door to a world, etc.) and found another good one: Threnody. Quite like the sound of that one. Thanks for the invite to the Discord server, I'll have to join! I guess I'll see you there fairly soon.

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