AboutBehzad Expertise I can answer questions about the usage and meaning of Persian words, proverbs, and idioms asked in Persian or English. Controversial grammatical issues are beyond my knowledge. In addition, I cannot corroborate my answer to a question about newly coined slang words.
PLEASE do not ask me to translate more than 1 or 2 sentences.
Experience Persian language is my mother tongue; however, my knowledge is remarkably more than a mere native speaker.
A few matters have come up recently:
First of all, I am told that there is an expression to do with honour/dignity like this:
صورت خود را با سیلی سرخ نگهداشتن
It seems to be something to do with a red slap, whatever that is, but I really don't understand – please explain.
Finally, do you have a word like بر or بار meaning “place” – I suspect it is used in the place name Malabar i.e. the west coast of the southern part of India, in which case Malabar would mean “place of mountains” (mala is Malayalam, not Persian, but Persian words often form compounds with the languages of India).
My dictionary even gives بر pronounced with a double R to add to the confusion but I take it this last word would probably be an Arabic word in origin?
All the best,
Simon
PS Re “beautiful” – is it qashang for people but zi:ba: for things by any chance?
Answer Hello Simon,
صورت خود را با سیلی سرخ نگهداشتن means to keep up appearances and not to ask others for help. In other words, it mean to hide your poverty to prevent other people from treating you with pity, or to avoid looking miserable. It comes from the fact that people who do not have enough food and suffer from hunger have pale faces, and ones who do not want to ask for the others help and pity, and want to conceal their neediness may make their faces appear red (not pale) by slapping their own faces, of course figuratively.
Dasta:vard means achievement. Example:
این بزرگترین دستاورد علمی سال بود. I:n bozorgtarin dasta:varde elmi:ie sa:l bo:d
Translation: This was the greatest scientific achievement of the year.
Among different meanings of ba:r, one of them is “the place in which something is abundant.” , which I think must be the one you mentioned. However, it has other meanings such as admission to somewhere exclusive such as a court, burden or load, fruit of a tree, figuratively the result of an effort, court of a king or a nobleman, etc.
In one of my previous answers I have written about ba:r. I just quote it here:
“The most common meaning of "ba:r" in contemporary Farsi is load and burden, but it is a polysemous word. One of its meanings is court, that is "ba:r" per se means court, as well. In addition, it means the right of entry especially to the court of a king; when a king permit ordinary people it is called "ba:r-e-a:m" (بارعام) , and when a king permit noble men it is called (بارخاص) . Verbs for "ba:r" are "ba:r da:dan" (بار دادن) which is the act of the king when he grants the admission, and "ba:r ya:ftan" (باریافتن) ,the subject of it is a person who is admitted.
Another close and more general meaning of "ba:r" is a permission given by a king or ordinary people.”
Both Ghashang and zi:ba: are used for describing people and things, but khoshgel, another word meaning beautiful, is usually used to describe people. khoshgel and Ghashang are less formal than is zi:ba:.
