Ghinnawas (literally "little songs") are short, two line emotional

lyric poem Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

s written by the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arabs, Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert ...

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, in a fashion similar to

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a '' kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a '' kigo'', or ...

, but similar in content to the American

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.Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, by Lila Abu-Lugodh, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1986 Ghinnawas typically talk of deep, personal feelings and are often an outlet for personal emotions which might not be otherwise expressible in Bedouin society. Ghinnawas may also be sung. Lila Abu Lughod - the

Arab American Arab Americans ( ar, عَرَبٌ أَمْرِيكِا or ) are Americans of Arab ancestry. Arab Americans trace ancestry to any of the various waves of immigrants of the countries comprising the Arab World. According to the Arab American Inst ...

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, who studied the Awlad Ali Bedouins in Northern Egypt in the late 1970s, and collected over 450 ghinnawas, has published the most comprehensive work on ghinnawas to date. Ghinnawa is a form of

folk poetry Folk poetry (sometimes referred to as ''poetry in action'') is poetry that is part of a society's folklore, usually part of their oral tradition. When sung, folk poetry becomes a folk song. Description Folk poetry in general has several characteri ...

, in the sense that anyone in Awlad Ali society could author a ghinnawa. In a broader context, ghinnawas may be looked upon as non-standard discourse which are a means of coping with social reality, similar to other discourse forms in the Arab world like the Hikaya

folktale A folktale or folk tale is a folklore genre that typically consists of a story passed down from generation to generation orally. Folktale may also refer to: Categories of stories * Folkloric tale from oral tradition * Fable (written form of the a ...

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, or the Gussa allegories of the Bedouin of the Sinai.

Themes

Ghinnawas usually have sad themes - typically being the lament of lost love, unless sung at celebrations like a

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or a wedding. Ghinnawas are sung by women, boys and also on rare occasions by men. Ghinnawa

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

are well-defined only in context, because of their personal nature. Contents of ghinnawas are considered personal, even sensitive to the extent that Lila Abu Lughod was warned "never to reveal any women's poems to men".Songs from the nomadic heart, Literary Review of Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin society by Lila Abu-Lughod; by Inea Bushnaq;

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, February 15, 1987

Social expression

The Awlad Ali do not have a strong history of public displays of emotion. Modesty or deference and boasting or anger are typically the most commonly expressed public emotion. Most other forms of expression take place through ''ghinnawa''s.

Delivery and structure

Ghinnawas may be written down, which is often the case for intergender communication, but can be spoken as substitute to normal conversation, or sung. The structure of the ghinnawa is very different in written and oral forms. Structurally, ghinnawas are approximately 15-

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

couplets A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

. They can be broken up into 2 hemistiches. If the written form be represented as : the oral form unspools into 16 lines as follows:

78
78
789
78
6789
78
78
6789
78
78
781
1234
78
78
56
56789

Each ghinnawa typically has many variations, and may even be sung with minor variations in a single singing.

External links

Recorded ghinnawas
at the

Lawrence University Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeduca ...

website

Notes

Arabic poetry Ethnopoetics Bedouin society Bedouins in Egypt Folk poetry {{ethnology-stub