MR ＞︿＜ BOOGIE !!!

if you happen to be sticking around, let me first outline the linguistic issue for you:

yes, akhi does mean “my brother.” that’s really the best and most literal word-for-word translation anyone could possibly give you.

in more grammatical terms, it is the first-person possessive form of the word akh, which, you could probably guess, means “brother”. the -i suffix at the end is what denotes possession and who - in this case, the speaker - is in possession of the object.

another word you might be more familiar with is habibi, which means “my beloved”. habib is the object, the noun form of “beloved” and -i is the possessive suffix, the “my”. and that’s pretty much how the suffix is used - it essentially serves the same function as putting “my” in front of “book” or “cat” or “brother” in English. only, possession is indicated at the end of the given word rather than as a separate predicate. hence why phrases like “his akhi” are a whole mess of grammatically incorrect in both languages, because you’re basically saying “his my brother.”

it is also important to note that while akh and its various forms are sometimes used in colloquial settings when talking about one’s brother, it is a word that comes from and is used primarily in formal Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic), or fus7a. fus7a is used in a number of ways - you'll find it in the news, books, speeches, official documents, formal letters and whatnot and most importantly, in the Qur’an, from which it originates. but it's not used in everyday conversation. while the dialects share many basic similarities with formal Arabic, there are entire grammatical rules, words and conjugations in fus7a that don’t ever get used in colloquial Arabic. as such, akhi takes on several different meanings across the colloquial dialects that diverge from the literal meaning in fus7a. and even if someone is using it to speak about their actual brother, it's a pretty formal way to do so and it does not have the meaning you’re all ascribing to it. if you want an actual term of endearment, you’ll have to dig deeper.

and that's where i'll leave you to do your own research, because i’m not here to give you an Arabic lesson. that’s what WordReference and Reddit threads are for (just be on the lookout for bots).

but do yourself a favor and don’t just rely on those (and definitely do not go to Duolingo, i wouldn't trust AI with George Clooney's birthday, let alone the linguistic structure of an entire language). look up language guides and forums online. there’s actually some really good and reliable stuff out there from native speakers. fuck it, even Urban Dictionary is a better resource than wherever the first of you got the word akhi from - no, really, it actually contains several entries that define how it's used in certain contexts (none of which, you will find, include familial terms of endearment). and there are plenty of other Arab users on this site who have already talked about this and have provided detailed explanations of how it’s used in formal and dialectical Arabic. there are even entire blogs on tumblr that are dedicated to teaching Arabic. if you don't trust the internet, patronize your local library's language section (though they're unfortunately more likely to have books on just Modern Standard Arabic).

i promise you, however unapproachable internet and library databases might seem when it comes to learning languages, it is not as difficult to navigate as you think it is. the information is 100% there if you bother to look for it. and it’s free.

now, why am i making such a big deal out of this?

because if you actually gave a shit about writing Damian as explicitly and meaningfully Arab, you’d recognize that Arabic is not some accessory you can adorn your characters with however you like and hope no one notices you've put it on backwards.

Arabic is a real, living language that is used by real, living people every day.

and listen, i really don’t want to discount the good intentions so many of you have in using this word. i know that a lot of you using it aren’t intentionally using it incorrectly (or at least, i assume that’s the case), that you really just want to acknowledge what DC itself is shit at acknowledging. but i need you to understand that it is not enough. it's not enough to copy + paste from Google Translate and hope for the best.

the first and most important rules of linguistics will tell you that direct, literal translation is a discrepancy in and of itself. for example: if you put the Iliad or, idk, Proust through Google Translate, what came out would be pretty shitty and incoherent. it wouldn't entirely make sense. that’s why translation exists as a profession. to make sense of colloquialisms, grammar and diction that lack cross-language equivalents.

anyway, back to your good intentions: of course it sucks that many of DC’s writers tend to avoid meaningful engagement with the cultural backgrounds of the characters they write, particularly their characters of color.

of course it sucks that they tend fall into harmful stereotypes and tropes that could be avoided with just a little bit of intentional, respectful research. hell, they have the means to hire professional cultural and linguistic consultants if they wanted - they have absolutely no excuse.

and of course it sucks ass that many don’t treat Arab stories with care or compassion, especially considering that the very origins of the al Ghuls as DC villains are deeply rooted in the orientalist demonization of Asians and Arabs. that beyond that, they are also consistently whitewashed by both writers and fans alike. Damian and Talia in particular, when they are portrayed as morally good (and sometimes even when they’re not), tend to be drawn with lighter skin, which is a whole other level of fucked up. not to mention the majority of actors who have portrayed both Talia and Ra’s al Ghul are not Arab and, in fact, the only Arab actor to portray Ra’s al Ghul is Alexander Siddig (shoutout, by the way, to an absolute legend and cinematic treasure).

and before any of you folks crawl your way out of the woodwork to inform me that “actually, white and white-passing Arabs exist, you ignorant, uncultured heathen”, i’m just gonna cut you off at the pass here to let you know that i know. i should fucking hope i’d be aware of my own existence.

in all seriousness, though, wholistic representation of Arabs cannot center only those of us who are light skinned, white or white-passing. to do so stinks of Westerners’ tendency to fetishize, aestheticize and appropriate ethnic cultures while giving less than a rat’s ass about the people they come from, like a kind of cherry picked whitewashing, if you will. like, "it's okay to celebrate and take part in your culture, but if you do it while being dark skinned, you're either primitive and barbaric or some kind of noble savage." obviously, skin color has no bearing on the legitimacy of Arab heritage. but leaving dark skinned Arabs out of the picture erases the real and immense diversity of the Arab world. and it makes representation dependent on proximity to whiteness and palatability to white audiences, which is entirely antithetical to the whole point of representation.

yes, we need representation, too - Arabs are not a monolith. but the fact remains that dark skinned people of color are consistently underrepresented across the board - fans of color on this and other hellsites have been saying this for literal years. and if you don’t believe that’s true of DC comics, i'm sorry, but you haven’t been paying attention.

so, yeah. both the current canon and fanon, in many ways, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to representation. but that is exactly why diving headfirst into the now fandom-wide phenomenon of using akhi in your fanworks doesn’t actually do anything to counteract the harm done. frankly, because many of you have no historical, cultural or linguistic context for this and other words, it often exacerbates and replicates it.

and idk, maybe this all seems a bit over-the-top for a word that literally just means “my brother.” but because so many of you forego background research entirely and just parrot each other, the way you’re using it is harmful. because you’re completely disregarding all of that historical, cultural and linguistic context in favor of portraying what you perceive to be a more accurate Damian. which is especially damaging when many of you show no inclination or desire to examine just how enshrined racism and orientalism are in many canon and fanon portrayals of Damian or how your own headcanons might reinforce the stereotypes that fuel those portrayals.

Arabic is a heavily racialized language in the West. the choice to use it in your works as non-Arab creators is one you make in a world full of stigmatization for people, languages and cultures that do not meet standards of European whiteness. the fact that the maximum level of effort English speakers are barely required to put into including another language in their work is to open the most laughable language resource on the internet and copy + paste is indicative of the imperial system that requires the rest of the world to be multilingual while the majority of those for whom English is their first language hold fluency in only one.

multilingualism is far more common outside of Western centers of imperialism because the system in place is designed to keep it that way. and the West’s xenophobia ensures that we view it as a kind of liability, rather than the strength that it is. and on top of that, the racialization of certain languages further reinforces that xenophobia by wrapping them up in a mess of simultaneous fetishization and denigration. which is how you end up with the expectation that immigrants do the cultural, intellectual and emotional labor of bridging language barriers. in other words, writing something even as innocuous as “Damian missed his akhi” in your fanfiction because you saw someone else do it without doing any research of your own is a privilege of ignorance that native Arabic speakers do not have. i wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of you English speakers using it don’t even know how to pronounce it properly because you’ve never been forced to learn the phonetics, much less the alphabet, of a language that isn’t your own.

again, i understand where it’s coming from. i understand the impulse to expand upon what DC has given us and actually explore Damian’s cultural heritage. i understand the desire to do his Arab roots justice. i wish DC was better at the job they literally gave themselves, too. seriously, i get it.

but by not doing the research necessary to understand what you're putting in your fanworks, you’re just repeating the same irresponsible mistakes that DC’s writers make. and not only is that reductive of the Arab character you’re trying to honor, but from a viewer’s perspective, it’s indicative of a lack of creative integrity. it’s just sloppy writing. it says that you’re not actually committed to creating accurate or compassionate Arab representation with Damian. you just care about making him believably Arab to a primarily non-Arab audience. and continuing to do it even after being informed tells me you don’t actually give a fuck about Arabs or our representation because you don’t respect our language enough to learn how we actually use it.

and i hope i can trust you to know the difference between an honest mistake and willful ignorance, here. i completely understand if this is your first time learning about any of this. but again, all the information you could possibly want is available 24/7 on the very same device you’re using to write your fanfiction and create your fanart. you know, the one you’re using right now to read this post?

if you have the time to write a 100k word fanfic you have more than enough time to learn how the word akhi is actually used.

and if you did your research, you would see that there are so many actual, beautiful terms of endearment you could be using instead. Arabic has no shortage of them - there are so many i couldn’t possibly provide you with a full, comprehensive list of them all. but i will give you a tiny bit:

khayye is a Levantine term usually reserved for a close brother - i could actually see Damian calling Dick this and it means the same thing as akhi, just more affectionate. and of course, there are plenty of other terms in other dialects, but i’m not as familiar with those yet and really, you should do your own research. i also mentioned habibi before, which is a very popular term of affection and it’s often used casually even with strangers as it’s not strictly platonic or romantic, though i personally don’t believe Damian would use it towards his family, at least not frequently or without sarcasm (which is the best way to use it, imo).

and there’s also more poetic ones like 3ayouni (my eyes), hayati (my life), qalbi (my heart, though don’t get it confused with kelbi, iykyk), ruhi (my soul), najmi (my star), nouri (my light), azizi (my treasure/precious one). and hundreds of others that are dialect- and family-specific.

there is so much to work with that y’all have left virtually untouched. don’t be afraid to get creative! that’s what fanfiction is all about, right?

that said, if you do choose to use Arabic in your fan works, remember that language doesn’t exist in a vacuum. use it as a character study. use it to ask those questions DC doesn’t. like:

does Damian speak Arabic?

why does Damian speak Arabic? and what dialect(s) does he speak? because yes, there are regional and national dialects all over the place. don’t limit yourself in your research.

was Arabic the primary language he spoke back in the League? and if it was, how has living in Gotham, a predominantly English-speaking environment, changed his relationship with the language?

does he experience culture shock at all and how has that effected his experience of Gotham?

does he use it around his Gotham family? why or why not? does his Gotham family use it with him? why or why not?

does he have different terms of endearment for each of the people he cares about in his life? do they each have terms of endearment for him?

what does Talia call him? some of DC’s writers have her call him “my heart”, which i have written in romanized Arabic above. you’re welcome.

does he also speak any Chinese dialects? and what role does that play in his life and identity? you don’t have to focus on just his Arab roots. Damian’s heritage is a combination of multiple ethnic backgrounds - do better than DC and find ways to make your work reflect that. as a canonically mixed character, Damian and mixed readers like him deserve to have that respectfully represented. though, as per the main point of this post, please do some conscientious research before using any Chinese dialects.

what’s his favorite Middle Eastern dish? shoutout to that one artist i saw (whose name i can’t remember, i’m so sorry) who drew Damian and Jason sharing a pot of mjaddara, one of my personal favorite easy meals to cook when i’m missing home.

does he read any Arab poetry and who is his favorite poet? does he prefer the classic poets or the modern ones? i personally think he might enjoy Imru’ al-Qays but i’m biased because we had a cat named after him and i kinda like the idea of Damian being a fan of one of the most notoriously sappy and melodramatic romantic poets history has to offer.

has he been able to use Arabic around other Arabic-speaking folks in Gotham? and on that note, where are Gotham’s Arab populations from and what dialects do they speak?

endless avenues to explore!

or, you know, if you truly, madly, deeply do not give a single flying fuck (though if you’ve made it this far into my rant and still don't care, i'm... impressed?): how about you try this nifty thing i like to call not using Arabic in your work at all?

i can’t imagine you’re anywhere near your wits’ end if you’re using Google Translate as your linguistics consultant, but you know what takes even less effort? not using it. which is perfectly fine. you don’t have to delve deeper if you don’t want to. i’m not gonna hunt you down and force you to study Arabic grammar.

but using a language that isn’t your own, especially if English is your first and only language, comes with a responsibility to do it justice. no one is forcing you, dear English speaking fanfic writer/fanartist, to use a language you don’t speak. and i mean that quite literally. the world is already built to save you the inconvenience of having to speak other languages. so if you’re gonna go in, go all in. don’t needlessly embarrass yourself, habibi.

if doing any further research just seems a bit too daunting for you, remember that language isn’t the end-all-be-all of cultural ties. it can be a bridge, a connector, at times a vessel and often a reflection of culture. but culture is more than the language(s) tied to it. people and their relationships to their culture(s) are more than the languages they speak. it’s entirely possible to write meaningful Arab representation without using Arabic.

and let me be so, so clear: language is, for many reasons, a very important part of preserving, nurturing and restoring culture, particularly for the world’s Indigenous and diasporic communities, of which Arabs are a part. but it has also been weaponized against those very same communities by imperial and colonial powers. including a random Arabic word in your fanart or fic, the meaning of which you have only a vague understanding, is not the ultimate signifier of Damian’s Arab heritage some of you seem to think it is. and i know most of you just use it as a cute little nod to his cultural background in your headcanons, but it means nothing without the context behind it, especially the way i see it used with reckless - albeit mostly well-meaning - abandon.

honestly, it’s just really fucking annoying to see so many people constantly misuse your language and be unwilling to correct themselves. kinda feels like you’re losing your mind, sometimes. which is a bit how i feel making this post.

look, i’m not asking you to do college thesis level research on the Arabic language before you make the art you create for zero financial compensation in your own free time. that’s not what this post is about.

but i am asking many of you to examine why you want to have Damian or Talia or whoever speak Arabic in your non-Arabic fanworks in the first place. as non-Arab fans and creators, determine what preconceptions of Arabs you might hold, question why they’re there and where they come from and do your best to learn about how they might influence your portrayal of Arab characters like Damian. if you’re desperate for a jumping off point in that regard, i recommend checking out TV Tropes’s pages on the al Ghuls.

again, language doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s irresponsible to treat it like it does. if you want to make meaningful content of Arab characters, i encourage you to go out there and build your creative integrity by doing enough research to at least feel confident that you understand what you're putting in your fanworks.

and, lastly, if you do choose to use Arabic in your work, please use it with respect.

.

anyways here are some resources to start off with for anyone interested: