The Kubbabish are hospitable, and strangers, of whom they have no cause to be afraid, are frankly received among them. They talk loudly and appear always to be quarreling, and use very strong expressions for the smallest difference…Every other word of their conversation is an oath.
-Mansfield Parkyns, The Kubbabish Arabs between Dongola and Kordofan, 1851
Why don’t you fall in a hole!, said the drover Idris to his trail boss Yusuf when scolded for saddling the camels too late after dawn. Or at least that is how the BBC’s Arabic Service translated the subtitle for whatever in fact he did say. Maybe it was an oath- Let Allah be pleased!- or maybe it was a curse- Let all your children be born left handed!- or maybe it was an expletive- Your Mother’s Zucchini!- but I will never know. The original audio tapes have been misplaced long ago, and anyway I like the idea of Yusuf falling in a hole on the Way of the Forty.