The World in Harmony: Arabic

I’ve been looking forward to posting a song in Arabic, so here we go! Exciting! The song in Arabic I will be talking about (and hopefully you will listen to) is Habaytak Bisayf (I Loved You in the Summer) by Lebanese singer Fairuz. Let me first say this: Fairuz is a big deal. She has been brought up multiple times in my Arabic class as one of the most famous singers in the Arabic language. This is well deserved as her voice is beautiful, as well as full of emotion. This brings me to one of the reasons I believe this song and singer is a great example of how music can transcend language. But first, take a listen!

Fairuz- Habaytak Bisayf

Hopefully after you’ve taken a listen, you realize this is not a cheery, happy song. There’s sadness to it, a feeling of pain and desire. Her voice goes through so many inflections which match the emotions within the song. Not to translate too much (because I want the emotion to stand out through the voice, and also because I don’t speak that much Arabic), the song covers the pain of waiting for your love as well as the persistence of love as time passes. Heart-wrenching, no? The voice of Fairuz alone, though, presents this pain to the listener, translation aside. Music and singing has the ability for humans to identify an emotion even though the listener may not directly be told.

The video I linked to this post was of a performance in France, and I did this on purpose. Despite the language differences, others were able to enjoy the music of Fairuz. Even today, the YouTube comments are written in a range of different languages. People are brought together from across the world by their shared love and delight in music, no matter the language. Arabic seems to especially get a bad rap for being a harsh language, however, as this music shows, as well as the plethora of music produced by other Arabic singers, Arabic is lyrical. It has the ability to express what others need to understand, despite a lack of similar vocabulary. This quality can be found in other music, in other languages, as the translation of the lyrics is only a small piece of the whole when conveying emotions. It is in the emotion of music that each us can understand one another.