Arabic moments
Sometimes things happen fast. Today, we will talk about Arabic words that express short periods of time.
The blink of an eye
The most common Arabic word for a short time period, that I know about, is laHZa, that means moment.
The blink of an eye is a short time period. The word laHZa is related to the eye. Examples of words that share the same root as laHZa are laHZ that means glance and mulaaHaZa that means observation.
We will look at two sentences to see how laHZa can be used in Arabic.
Another Arabic word for a short time period is lamH.
The word lamH is also related to the eye. Words that share same root as lamH are for example lamHa that means glance and the verb lamaHa that means to glance.
Google wants to translate the Arabic expression fii lamHi l-baSari to in no time. But I prefer the more literal translation in the blink of an eye.
More short time periods
Here are three more words that denote short time periods. They can be seen as synonyms for LaHZa and lamH, although they probably have slightly different nuances of meaning.
The Arabic word wahla means moment. Something interesting with wahla is that related words, ie words with same root as wahla, is related to fright.
The Arabic word burha means moment. I can not see that burha has any roots or related words. It can be a loanword from, for example, Persian.
The Arabic word hunayha means moment. I can not see that hunayha has any roots either. And it does not fit among the common Arabic word patterns.
It may be that a hunayha is the shortest of the moments we went through. It may also be that the word is quite rare and old-fashioned. When I used it once, the person I was talking to was impressed that I knew it.
Suddenly
Now we will look at an adverb that is related to short time periods. The Arabic word faj'atan means suddenly.
I want to point out that the term adverb is something we use in English grammar. In Arabic grammar we instead talk about Zarf which is words for time and place.
Pass by quickly
Speaking about short time periods, I want to mention the Arabic verb khaTara. It is used when someone or something (such as a thought) passes by quickly.