How Plato became Aflatoon in Arabic and the languages east of Arabia is explained in this article, but what is equally fascinating is the fact that "Aflatoon" has taken on a life of its own.
Long before I knew about Plato, Aflatoon meant someone who was hyper, a jack-of-all-trades, someone very quick on the uptake - in my memory, it was used for a kid who couldn't really be controlled, but it wasn't a negative term - equally, it implied brilliance. My Punjabi-English dictionary sort of supports my understanding and says "a clever person".
A search of the internet (I don't have a Hindi or Urdu dictionary at home) though, throws up many more meanings, including:
But did he -
...really deserve this?
Long before I knew about Plato, Aflatoon meant someone who was hyper, a jack-of-all-trades, someone very quick on the uptake - in my memory, it was used for a kid who couldn't really be controlled, but it wasn't a negative term - equally, it implied brilliance. My Punjabi-English dictionary sort of supports my understanding and says "a clever person".
A search of the internet (I don't have a Hindi or Urdu dictionary at home) though, throws up many more meanings, including:
- an epithet applied to a boaster,
- a mischief-maker, though for Farrukh Dhondy in his childhood, it was the equivalent of Abracadabra,
- something that is awesome, incredible, amazing or great,
But did he -
...really deserve this?
If you want to hear the complete song (6 minutes of what passed for Hindi music in the '90s), here it is.
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