the f), for children utter different words from those used by adults, as may be observed. As for the language children use before they start to talk, some say it is Syriac. When a child wants water, he says unbūh (with u at the beginning, no vowel after the n, ū after the b, and no vowel after the h). If he puts out his hand to something dirty to take it, he is scolded with the word kukhkh (with k and kh), and if he is on the point of taking something that might harm him, he is rebuked with the word aḥḥ (with alif and ḥ). If he takes something that pleases him and plays with it, they call it (or he calls it) daḥḥ (with d and ḥ) with no following vowels.114 They call (or he himself calls) food when he has had enough of it baḥḥ (with b and ḥ). If his mother wants to scare him or stop him from bawling, she says, “Quiet, or the biʿbiʿ (‘bogeyman’) will eat you!” (with i or u after the two bs and no vowel after the ʿs). Biʿbiʿ is derived from baʿbaʿah, which is the sound of the camel.115 Among aḥḥ and daḥḥ and baḥḥ there is mutational paronomasia of the first letter.116 The child addresses his mother as māmā, his father as bābā, his little brother as wāwā,117 and so on. A poet has gathered these expressions together in a verse from a mawāliyā in which he flirtatiously addresses a little boy:
You who stole my heart and soul, Ouch! It hurts!
You make friends with others, but when it’s me, your love’s “all gone!”?
I feed you din-dins and tidbits and you say “All gone!”
Am I a “Bogeyman”? Am I “Yuck,” little baby, while another’s “Yumyum”?118
And Ibn Sūdūn, may the Almighty have mercy on him, says, in similar vein:119
Because of my mother’s death I find sorrows wring me (taḥnīnī).
How often she suckled me tenderly (taḥnīnī),
And, as she brought me up, how often she indulged me,
So that I turned out just as she made me.
If I said namnam, she’d bring food and feed me.
If I said unbūh, she’d bring water to give me.
The words taḥnīnī (“wring me”)120 and taḥnīnī (“tenderly”) constitute “perfect paronomasia,”121 the first being from inḥināʾ (“bending”), the second from taḥannun (“tenderness”) and “having pity” (shafaqah), as is clear.
١١،٢،١١
ويقال عِذار مُنَمْنِم أي يشبه في نبته بدبيب النمنم أو نبات النمام وقد قلت في تشبيهه بدبيب النمنم [بسيط]
| دَبُّ العذار على خدّيه خُيِّلَ لي | بأنَّه نِمْنِمٌ يمشي على مَهَلِ |
One also speaks of ʿidhār munamnim (“creeping fuzz”) on a young man’s cheek, meaning that the down resembles the creeping of the nimnim or of the nammām plant as it sprouts. Comparing it to the creeping of the nimnim, I wrote:
The down crept o’er his cheeks; it seemed to me
To be nimnim moving lazily.
١٢،٢،١١
(وبعضهم زاد نوعًا رابعًا) وسمّاه لِحِّيس بكسر اللام وتشديد الحاء المهملة على وزن بَعْبيص أو لِقِّيس مأخوذ من البعبصة وهي وضع الإصْبَع في دُبْر الغير ولِقِّيس من اللِقاسة يقال لقس الكلب الإناء أي لَحِسَه بلسانه فيكون فيه نوع شبّه باللحيس أو يكون على قياس فطيس واللحاسة والنجاسة على وزن واحد يقال فلان لحس أي مرتكب شيئًا يشبه النجاسة أو كثير الكلام بلا فائدة فتكون اللحاسة والنجاسة بمعنى واحد (قال) في القاموس الأزرق والناموس الأبلق لا فرق بين لقاسة ولحاسة والنجاسة فيها بلا شكّ فهذا أَصْوَب ويقال أنت تعيس لحس أي تشبه لحس الكلب للإناء أو أنّك تلحس الخراء بلسانك أو تتلحّس بالكلام ولا تدري منطوقه من مفهومه والتعيس من معنى ذلك أيضًا فكلّها ألفاظ قريبة الشبه من بعضها البعض ولهذا اللِّحِّيس مزيد الضرر قال في القاموس الأزرق والناموس الأبلق [طويل]
| ولي من أذى اللِّحِّيسِ في الرأسِ كُرْبَةٌ | وغَلْيٌ وأكْلٌ في الثياب وفي الجسدْ |
ومصدره لحّس يلحّس تلحيسًا
Some have added a fourth type of vermin and named it liḥḥīs (with i after the l and double ḥ), of the measure of baʿbīṣ or liqqīs, baʿbīṣ being taken from baʿbaṣah, which is “the insertion of a digit between the buttocks of another,” while liqqīs is from liqāsah (“licking”); one says, “The dog licked (laqisa) the dish,” meaning “it licked it clean (laḥisahu) with its tongue.”122 Thus there is a kind of resemblance to the liḥḥīs; or it may be that the word is formed according to the analogy of Fuṭays.123 The words liḥāsah and najāsah are of the same pattern; one says, “So-and-so is laḥis,” that is, “one who has committed something resembling impurity (najāsah) or who talks a great deal to no effect.”124 Thus liḥāsah and najāsah have the same underlying meaning. In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says, “There is no difference between liqāsah and liḥāsah, and undoubtedly najāsah enters into it too,” and this is the more correct formulation. One also says, “You are taʿīs laḥis,” that is, you resemble a dog licking a dish, or you lick shit with your tongue, or you talk raving nonsense (tatalaḥḥas bi-l-kalam) and cannot tell a thing from its name. Taʿīs has the same meaning, making all of them closely similar expressions, which is why the liḥḥīs are so harmful.125 In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says:
And I
