Thread: Nashaat, Nashaar or Nashaal? Tell me about this word in the context of Khaliji dance and dress

Hi all,

I was in casual conversation with my favorite gulf man the other day about what the Nasha'al in Thobe al-Nasha'al stood for and he didn't recognize the word. It could have been my pronunciation, he suggested it might be a name, but since then it has been bugging me.

So, I go online and I find references to Nashaat, Nashaar, Nashaal (or Nasha'at, Nasha'ar, Nasha'al) for both the decorative thobes and the Khaliji dances done with them, but so far nothing to indicate what these words are alone - a name of a region? a family name? the thobe makers name? Are they all transliterations of the same word? If so, which one is the closest to the Arabic?

One of you must know. Right?

hook me up with your mad knowledges.

wait...hair?

شعر

is that it?

oh masters of Arabic, how does Sh3r turn into Nashaal, Nashaar, or Nashaat?

My notes say that it means hair, but I don't have anything more precise. :) I hope someone with good Arabic can chime in!

Have you seen Aisha Azar's article about this?

ARE WE CONFUSED YET

For some reason, I'm thinking I was told by a native speaker that it had nothing to do with hair, and the word modifying "thobe" had to do with the embellishment on the dress itself (i.e., the translation was more like "decorated dress"), but I can't find anything to verify that, other than A'isha's postscript. I can report that Google is adamant that it prefers the spelling ثوب النشل (nuun+sheen+laam, so "nashaal"/"neshel," not "nashaat" or "nashaar"). There is an ar.wikipedia page to back that part up. ثوب النشل

Meanwhile, courtesy of Google Books, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab States Today: A-J by Sebastian Maisel and John A. Shoup:

During the wedding party hired musicians play popular songs and younger women usually perform the traditional dances of their area, oftentimes wearing traditional dresses called thawb nashal. Most of the movements are from the shoulders and the head. There is a little shimmying in the shoulders, small drops with the hips, and gliding of the feet. One distinct movement is called na'ish, or tossing the hair, in which women loosen their waist-long hair and swing it in circles, which is considered a higher and more enthusiastic level of performance. Na'ish is said to have originated from the Bedouin tribes and is performed along the Gulf coast.

I don't know if that clarifies anything. Arabic can be misleading in transliteration--could be variations on the same root, could be two words that coincidentally both have nuun and sheen in them. I'm wondering if the "hair" etymology isn't simply a misunderstanding. Why would a dress be named after hair? The dress is simply a fancy improvement over what is worn normally, so the idea that it's a way to express that (as opposed to linking it to a dance that may or may not be done while wearing it) does seem plausible.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

'm wondering if the "hair" etymology isn't simply a misunderstanding. Why would a dress be named after hair? The dress is simply a fancy improvement over what is worn normally, so the idea that it's a way to express that (as opposed to linking it to a dance that may or may not be done while wearing it) does seem plausible.

That would make total sense. The notes I have are from a workshop a few years ago and probably made a lot more sense when I wrote them down. What I have written on the paper (if that helps jog anyone's memory) is "Thobe Nashaal/Nashaat/Nashal, Verreh?, Naesh/Nash = hair?"

I know - terrible note-taking that day. LOL

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I can report that Google is adamant that it prefers the spelling ثوب النشل (nuun+sheen+laam, so "nashaal"/"neshel," not "nashaat" or "nashaar"). There is an ar.wikipedia page to back that part up. ثوب النشل

So I tried pasting ثوب النشل into Google translate, and it translates this as "Dress pickpocket"

Things that make you go hmmmmm.....

Ajeeb/Sakhr has a few different variations, but they're all in the same vein.

نَشَلَ
lift, save, pilfer, deliver from, liberate from, extricate, rescue

نَشْل
pickpocketing

Is it possible the embroidery technique has some name referring to the process of drawing out? Something to do with the process of extracting the metal to make the threads? I have no idea. I have zero Arabic needlecraft vocabulary. This site says the threads are called "Qasab," though. Discover Saudi Arabia

If I go to Google and just type the first six letters, it prompts me to choose from this list:

ثوب النشل ("thobe al-nashal")
ثوب النشل ثوبج ("thobe al-nashal..." thaa+waw+baa+jeem?)
ثوب النوم ("thobe al-nawm" AKA "nightgown")
ثوب النشل البحريني ("thobe al-nashal Bahraini")
ثوب النشل القطري ("thobe al-nashal Qatari")
ثوب النشل الاماراتي ("thobe al-nashal Emirati")

All signs point to ثوب النشل being on the right track. The text on this web page looks similar to what's on ar.wikipedia, and the pictures match what we're talking about. www.sanabes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139075

Dunno. All I've got are scraps....

Thank you. It is helpful at least to have it written in Arabic, now I at least know the transliteration and I have an idea of what it doesn't mean.

Not that I speak from experience, but it would be a great garment to go pickpocketing in. Space to hide your loot underneath, and lots of drapery to cover your busy fingers while they poke about in other people's pockets and bags.

Originally Posted by Aniseteph

Not that I speak from experience, but it would be a great garment to go pickpocketing in. Space to hide your loot underneath, and lots of drapery to cover your busy fingers while they poke about in other people's pockets and bags.

this made me laugh out loud.

A quick scan through Heather Collyer Ross's book, "The Art of Arabian Costume," yields the term "thobe nashal" as an illustration caption. Will look through some more after I cross a couple of items off the dreaded To Do list.

When I asked a local guy in Abu Dhabi, he pronounced it like "na'ashat".
Another version...

MEISSOUN

Not to confuse matters further, but I've heard the dress called Thobe Nasha'al and the dance called Raks Nasha'at (which I was told means 'hair dance')

But I have zero expertise in this matter and will wait here for those of you who know what the hell is going on to figure it out and explain it!

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Not to confuse matters further, but I've heard the dress called Thobe Nasha'al and the dance called Raks Nasha'at (which I was told means 'hair dance')

This is consistent with what I'm finding. One of my concerns over how "hair" got into the name of the dress, and Shems mentioned this upthread, is that there is a ayn in "sha'ar" that isn't in "nashal." It's not always apparent from transliteration, but the letter ayn is a consonant in Arabic, not a sequence of vowels with a glottal stop between them like it can look in English. Consonants don't usually just fall out of a word's skeleton during declension or conjugation.

Some of the confusion comes from the fact that ayn isn't consistently rendered in English. It might come out like a "3" with a combination of whatever vowels the transcriber feels are important to write. Sometimes it's an apostrophe with some or all of it's vowels. Maybe it's just the vowels. It's one of those letters that exists in Arabic but just doesn't have a direct equivalent in English.

Torbeau, you mean ayn, not ghayn, right?

Knowing the word for hair is sh3r شعر in its most basic form, wouldn't hair dance just be a-raqs a-sh3r (my best shot at trying a transliteration) الرقص الشعر - I'm wondering, where would the "na" in nashaat or nashaar come from if sh3r is the root? And if it is nashaat then why does it end in a "t"? Would that be some kind of plural form? like bint to banat? but wouldn't there still be a "r" sound - sh3r to sh3rat شعرة ?

What makes the most sense to me so far is the theory that "Nashaal" نشال refers to the kind of embroidery or style of the dress and that all the other versions we hear are likely misunderstandings of that word.

Originally Posted by meissoun

When I asked a local guy in Abu Dhabi, he pronounced it like "na'ashat".
Another version...

MEISSOUN

This is also the term an acquaintance of mine, Egyptian living in UAE, uses for the dance: raqs na'ashat or na3ashat, meaning "to toss the head from side to side," which is also consistent with a text source quoted earlier. The 3ein is in the first part of the word.

Interestingly, the Emirati embassy in the US also uses this term on their web site in a caption for a photo:
Photo and Art Galleries | UAE Embassy

I don't know where the term "nashal" to describe the thobe comes from. Various Arab folks I've asked seem unfamiliar with the term, but it could be my crappy pronunciation that's mucking things up. Whatever "nashal" means, I suspect the two words, na'ashat and nashal, are actually not etymologically related, and they're just getting conflated because transliteration of Arabic is so variable.

That is helpful, I was able to find the spelling for Na'ashat in Arabic:


‎نعاشات

or a-Raqsaat Na'ashaat

‎الراقصات نعاشات

which I found here:

http://www.rakland.net/vb/showthread.php?p=24327

so, at least now we can really clearly distinguish between
‎نعاشات - a descriptor of the dance and نشال - a descriptor of the dress

so...n3ash - to toss the hair - n3ashaat - tossing the hair? something like that
and nashaal - some descriptor for the dress, likely in reference to the embroidery?

Is that about where we are at here?

Originally Posted by bintbeled

Torbeau, you mean ayn, not ghayn, right?

Yes, brain freeze, thanks. I fixed it upthread. Ayn ع, not ghayn غ.

To me, one of the most important points for students to understand is that this is one name for one type of dance from the Gulf. It's _A_ Gulf dance, not _THE_ Gulf dance. Hair isn't always used as a prop. Men normally don't toss their heads, but they can do many of the other body movements as women in their social dancing. Khaleeji dance sometimes involves props like canes/walking sticks, camel whips, swords, daggers, rifles, etc. (As far as I know, the stick is the only one on that list that women might traditionally use, and I was taught that is usually limited to the badawi style; although, I guess it's possible they might pick up one of the other things if they were parodying a guy.)

Natives might choose to call what dance students think of as "Khaleeji" (i.e., the thobe and the hair tossing) "raqs" plus a general name to indicate it's what the locals do ("sha'abi" or "baladi"). They might modify it with a name that reflects a specific place ("Emirati" or "Kuwaiti"), or to indicate it is done within a regional subculture (e.g., Bedouin), or they might even apply a generic term like "turath" ("heritage" or "traditional"). "Khaleeji dance" is not one thing, raqs na'ashat in a thobe nashal, which is how I was incorrectly taught as a beginner.

I find it interesting that the troupe dancing at the wedding in Ras al-Khaimah wasn't wearing the traditional thobe that is associated with Khaleeji. Is that a local style of that emirate, or a reflection of the growing obsolescence of the classic, T-shaped, embroidered thobe?



BTW, interesting posts about Omani music and dance here. Oman Folklore - English Sabla