A journey through the nature of doubt in Latin, Greek and Arabic Languages – Part 5

V – Other consequences of narrowness for you to think for yourselves

In the previous post, I have tried to explain how doubt is like an obstructed strait that does not allow the conveyance of goods, thus giving origin to difficulty and poverty. As promised, in this final part of the article I will share with you some other consequences of narrowness, leaving you to do the reasoning for yourselves.

In the third part of my analysis, I’ve showed you that Latin verb suspendo, to hang, and to make uncertain or doubtful, “which, in turn, made it possible to be used tropically to denote both what is uncertain, doubtful, and wavering, hesitating“. Well, I’ll now add one other meaning: to choke to death by hanging, a meaning similar with Latin verb ango‘s to press together – and in relation to the throat, to throttle, strangle, this explaining why the verb ended up being used metaphorically both to to feel or suffer pain, and, most frequently, of the mind, to distress, torment. This is from were angustia is derived. Literally meaning a narrow pass, strait, when used metaphorically, angustia was synonym not only with want, indigence, poverty but also with difficulty, distress, perplexity. English anguish, Portuguese angústia, Spanish angustia, French angosse, all derived from angustia.

Let us stick with the throat, in particular with the windpipe, that sort of tube that allows the passage of air… because I would like to talk a bit about breathing, especially the breathing that is typical of climbing or of running, both of them situations during which breathing is rendered difficult. The Latin word that names this panting is anhelatio, and the action of panting is anhelo, to move about for breath; hence, to draw the breath with great difficulty, to pant, puff, gasp. You may not know its equivalent nowadays, but it probably helps if I say that Spanish anhelo is a derivative, and that it means to have a yen, yearning.

Next thing I want to do is to invite you to pay attention to the following ayat “[…] and whoever He wants to misguide, He makes his breast tight and constricted as though he were climbing into the sky.”  (6:125) The English words tight and constricted are translations of Arabic roots حرج (hrj) and ضيق (Diq), respectively – I’ve talked about them in the previous post, where we’ve seen that the first Arabic root means strait, or narrow; to become contracted, to doubt; to be in difficulty; and that the second one, narrow, or strait (a thing, a place); difficult, or distressing; doubt in the heart, straitness in the mind; poverty. I now want to add صعد (S’d), translated as climbing in the above mentioned ayat, and denoting a breathing with an expression of pain, grief or sorrow, or with difficulty; a long breathing. Before leaving you with your thoughts, I’ll just ask: is there any bridge on the horizon?

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