Mullaqat Glossary

The language of the nomads

a: from, via, by, through

abu: book

al: The definite article

Al Uqombozi: The Release. This is the transformative movement in Mullaqat cultural history, and it occurred thousands of years ago within the current continuity. Before Al Uqomobizi, the Mullaqat lived a settled life, but the popular spiritual revelation of a life without attachment changed the whole of Mullaqat culture in just a century. The source of Al Uqombozi is considered to be a wandering teacher named Tangazi who lived more than 2,000 years ago and who wrote a text called “Al Haditha fa Sahaumak” (A Tale of Forgetting)

Al Shoshea: The Stirring, or the life force that animates matter, or inspires us to an action even as we know that the outcome is only temporary.

Al Waqoti baada quifoo: The time after death, the afterlife, understood as a transition and a time of reflection.

Anama: woman.

Aman: Return

amanboku: The Mullaqat martial art. Like jujitsu, it is purely defensive, but can but utterly annihilating. Meaning literally “Return force,” amanboku converts the energy of an attack into a devastating response. Although the art of amanboku emphasizes controlling and disarming, most Mullaqat who practice the form are equally skilled at moves and responses that create traumatic injury. Philosophically, a Mullaqat is OK so long as he or she does not set out to create harm, and so long as the response to an attack is not lethal. Otherwise, the attitude is “He created it. I returned it to him.”

Amar: A plantation, or collective agriculture. Large-scale farm devoted to field crops. Typically refers to an operation defined by large-scale infrastructure, such as ditch and flood-gate irrigation.

Amarna: The farming region of southernern Mullana.

Arfalla: Breath, or to blow. In addition to its practical aspect, Arfalla has a metaphorical connection to Shoshea.

Atesa: Feelings, emotions.

Ath: Edge. Precipice.

Bal: Sacred. Can be used as a prefix (balmaatesa, or “sacred suffering”), but when used as a prefix with a conjunction offset by apostrophes it denotes “sacred place.” Hence Bal’a’Blos means literally “A place made sacred by archived knowledge.” Other places, such as the temple observatory Bal’fa’Sanawatu (Sacred place of observation) has been shortened over time to simply Bal’Sana.

Bana: Master

Bangi: Marijuana.

Banti: shoes

Bahrati: Happy

Bahratidoplo: A fortunate couple. The term refers to love matches in which the union lasts and continues to make both parties happy. These are famously rare, and therefore celebrated.

be-: prefix meaning encumbered by choice.

Bedu: Choice.

betraq: Chosen suffering, elective attachment.

Betraqbila: Innocence. To live without the experience of elective attachment.

betraqwatu: The state of illusion that one experiences when caught in the throes of attachment.

Betraq bin wazo kwa fasi: To choose to suffer without thought to one’s self.

–bila: A suffix that means “the experience of.”

bin: without

binhupi: Free (slang)

binlolo: A woman who is past her sexual prime. A celibate woman. Dry, or worn out (slang). Literally, “without a sash.”

bo: deep

boku: force

blos: Knowledge archive.

bshara: to trade, to swap

Bur: Fortress. Refuge. Can also mean an outpost.

chafu: nasty

Chinzo: Low

Chunguza: Researcher, one of the two significant ancient factions of the Bal’a’Blos/Edge City complex. Formally “Al Chunguzas.”

dalfa: Mother

dalfo: Father

dana: Fancy, pretentious, luxurious, or leaning toward betraq.

danahupi: (slang) Someone who puts on airs, thinks highly of his or her self, or risks beqtraqwatu by attachment to luxuries. Literally: “fancy underwear”

digo: Little, small. Can be used as a suffix that diminishes the root word.

Diglo, digla: Infant boy, infant girl, before receiving a name.

doto: dream

doto sziadzi: A psychedelic drink of hallucinogenic plants steeped in grain liquor.

Eia: Safety. When used in a place name with a conjunction it typically refers to a harbor.

El: Indefinite article. Also an archaic form of Al, the definite article, typically used only in old place names.

El Chinzo Nija: The central Mullaqat philosophy, literally “A low path.” Note that it is referred to “a” path, rather than “the” path.

Fa: Of

Fahi: The energy of consciousness, disembodied from a living thing. Fahi may be radiated, directed, concentrated, amplified or stored.

Fahamu: Consciousness

Fahamuwatu: The state of being fully conscious.

Falla: Life

fanya: To do.

Fasi: self.

Farazi: Horse.

Fujo: confusion

Garide: Parade.

Gnima: Grace

goma: drum

Gomba: A woman of any age who loses or renounces attachment to her erotic nature, whether from lack of interest or simply because of she is on the path to sutraq. Also applies to men (gombo). It’s worth noting that a young woman (amana) may begin as iriqwa, spend a period as a gomba, return to iriqwa, give birth and become a malolo, pass into the realm of the oogomba as she ages, and then find a renewed erotic interest once her child-rearing years are over and put on her lolo again. A woman’s sexual status is hers to decide.

Gomba Tombazi: Insult meaning rapist, or someone so stupid and non-discerning and selfish that they would fuck someone who can’t enjoy it.

Goomoo: The Mischief Moon, smaller partner to Madalfa, Mother Moon.

gozi: skin.

gozikalun: leather.

Haditha: Tale, story, myth, fairy tale.

Ham: Flood.

Haqima: To judge.

Haqimawatu: A judgment, or verdict

Haqimazi: A judge, or mediator.

hema: a versatile fabric shelter or tent, carried by all Mullaqat bands. Most are made of treated hemp.

Hupi: Mullaqat underwear. A square of light fabric that is folded, rolled and tied so that it covers the crotch and knots at the waist.

Huru: Freedom of choice, an experience predicated by sutraqwatu.

hurumulla tibwa: The free-floating perfection of the moment.

Ino: ink

Iriqwa: Maiden. Though it does not imply virginity, an iriqwa refers to a woman (amana) who is of childbearing age, but has not yet has a child.

Itya: Tea (beverage).

Ityaesleni: Tea (plant)

Ka: To march, or travel by foot.

Kagi: Sex

Kagidigo: Sex that cannot lead to pregnancy.

kagimiani: Generic hetereosexual vaginal intercourse, in any tone, mood or position.

Khadi: Cards. The traditional Mullaqat deck has 71 cards, based on four suits of 12 each, plus 22 trumps, plus a card called the bahdi, or chance card, which is not used in some games. The Mullaqat deck is the basis of decks used around the Western World. The most common variant is the Kot deck, which loses one of the two “royal” cards in each suit (resulting in 10 pips with one “ruler” per suit) plus eight trumps. The ubiquitous Western game of Kot is played with these 52-card decks. The four suits are Flames (motos), Feathers (yoyas), Basins (kombos) and Stones (mawaes). Gwynyrians play Western kot by removing cards from the 71-card “Khadibahdi” deck, which they use for future telling and studying the unseen.

Khadibahdi: The generic term for the Mullaqat tradition of “reading the cards.” A person who reads the cards for insight or for others is called a “khadibahdazi.” Most Khadibahdazi use the 71-card deck, with the bahdi card representing the presence of a wildly unpredictable random elements that can tip the future right out of the standardized picture. Mullaqat use the Khadibahdi in a variety of spreads, but Gwynyrians, who learned the art from the Mullaqat, lay out five cards (the “Self” cards), starting from the right, surrounded by four cards (the “World” cards) for most of their readings.

Kinyesi: shit

kit: it, the gender-neutral pronoun.

Kita: female pronoun.

Kito: male pronoun

Kondo: A wool serape that can be used as a garment or as a blanket.

Koti: jacket

kurudia: The traditional Mullaqat call-and-response vocal form. A Kurudia consists of a verse section and a call section. During the verse section, a poet speaks or sings a poem that has been composed to fit within the rhythm and melody of a particular kurudia, and the rest of the singers create background music by humming or singing words and sounds in harmony, and a drummer beats out the rhythm. The kurudia moves to the Call section when the drummer beats a transition signature. During the call section, a lead singer (not the poet) sings the call that the rest of the singers repeat in a complex harmony. After it is completed, the kurudia shifts back to the verse section. The melody, beat, call and response of a kurudia do not change, but the poem that is related and contained by the piece is something that can be changed at any time. There are dozens of kurudia, and new ones are trotted out occasionally.

Kwa: to, movement toward

Jami: Social, friendly

Jamisaa: The social hour, the period after the evening meal when members of a safaqunzi relax together and talk about whatever. This is also the time when poetry is read aloud, songs are sung, music is played, and jokes are told. This is the most important time of the day for Mullaqat culture, particularly among traveling bands, but town Mullaqat follow the practice as well, gathering in public spaces to gossip and share whatever poems they’ve written during the day.

Jinga: Stupid.

Jinsei: The cross-quarter festival of fertility, lust and young adulthood.

Joto: Coat.

Juna: The Sun.

Jumbee: Advance party, emissary. A single person or small group that travels ahead to the next place on a safaqunzi’s itinerary to make sure the gambee is not occupied, and that the caravan will be welcomed.

Lana: vest

Laelemawimbu: Full Tide.

Lil: Lifted, picked up, raised, placed above.

Lil wa maatesa: Lifted for suffering, the state of being passionately and erotically attached to another person.

Lolo: A piece of fabric that a woman will tie across her waist to cinch her vazikama. The lolo accentuates her natural curves. A woman who is no longer attached to her erotic self is said to be binlolo, as she is no longer seeking sexual partners and stops wearing her lolo.

Ma: Beauty.

maatesa: suffering

mabegu: seed

Madalfa: Mother Moon, larger partner of Goomoo, the Mischief Moon.

Mafala: A woman who has given birth but remains sexually active and erotically imaginative. The same term also applies to ripe fruit. Mafala women are the standard of beauty and the erotic ideal in Mullaqat culture.

–mak: The suffix that makes a verb progressive.

Malolo: a decorative metal chain with a clasp that is worn by young Mullaquat women over their outer garments, and often as an accessory over the traditional lolo. The malolo serves to cinch the vazikama at the waist to accentuate the woman’s curves, but as an ornament, the Malolo has become eroticized, and a Mullaqat woman who plans to meet a lover will often strip to nothing but her lana, her malolo and her zotski.

–mani: the suffix that puts a verb in the past tense.

Mawimbu: Tide

Mahuta: Regret

Mhanga: Sand

mhanga bana: Sand master, the person who envisions and supervises the creation of a mhanga suna, or sand art.

Midishi: Teaching

Mima: Mountain.

Mokono: Hand.

Mokonopigono: Hand-fighting.

moots: feet

moshi: smoke

muhimo: Useful

muhimungo: Truth, in the earthly sense. Literally “useful lies.”

maji: Fresh water, water

matu: slippers or slip-on shoes made of fabric, often with a hemp-rope sole.

Maylezi Mabalu: The Guardians of the Ancestors, or the Librarians of Bal’a’Blos.

mere: The ocean

moto: fire

mulla: To drift like a cloud or to float along the surface of water; to travel without direction or purpose.

Mullana: The native name of the lands belonging to the Mullaqat people. Literally “the region of the drifting people.”

Mullaqat: The Drifting/Floating People

Mullaqwa: The language of the Mullaqat.

mullawatu: To be intoxicated in a relaxed way, as with bangi.

Mumbuzi: Goat.

Mung: circle

–na: A prefix meaning “region of.”

nadi: To write

nadinka: Writings, texts.

nam: Salt. The adjective “namo” means “salty.”

namere: seawater, tears, brine

ni: “to,” when used to form an infinitive. “Fanya” is the infinitive form of “do,” but to state the infinitive one says “ni fanya.”

nija: path

nost: fermented mare’s milk

nungamo: camel

nuqwazu: The traditional Mullaqat headdress, typically woven from flax but now often made from imported cotton. The nuqwazu is always dyed indigo blue, but the difference between a man’s nuqwazo and a woman’s is that the man’s headdress is always simple blue, and the woman’s is given a distinctive pattern by use of wax or other method of exclusion during the dying process. A nuqwazu can be worn like a turban, like a scarf, like a bandana, like a dew-rag.

nyum: a house, or any form of residence that cannot be pulled down and moved.

nyum bshara: house swapping, the act of breaking attachment to a permanent structure by trading places with someone who has a less-nice home.

Oo– prefix meaning elder, or old

Oodalfa: Grandmother

Oodalfo: Grandfather

Oogomba: An asexual crone. The concept also applies to elderly men (oogombo).

Oonija: Mullaqat word for The Old Path and Gwynyrians.

Oowaza: Elders, or the people who you talk to when you have a question.

Pepot: The wind.

Pepotundu: The dark wind, or the force that animates someone who chooses to do bad things.

Pepotunduzi: Someone who is breaking the Mullaqat way and doing bad things.

Peqyaza: (peck-YA-za) Alone.

Peqyazi: (peck-YAH-zi): A solitary Mullaqat. One who travels without a band. Many Mullaqat pass through a period of being Peqyazi in their youth, and it is common for the elderly to choose the path of the peqyazi when they are tired of life and ready to move on.

Phanda: Pit. Often used to describe a crater.

Piji: city

Pijidigo: town

Plata: Occurring in the past, as in “have.” Used in a past-perfect verb tense.

Punda: ass, donkey

qambee: a permanent camp owned in common by all travelers.

Qambeena: A qambee that has been overtaken by people who do not leave. Hence the camp becomes a place. Also used to convey the idea of a village.

Qambeenazis: Assholes. Jerks. Literally “the people who move into qambee and never leave.”

qane: sugar-based liquor

qat: People

Qatfablos: The Mullaqat word for the Librarians, the “people of knowledge.”

qifunqu: Passage, travel.

qitwa: A person’s head.

qofia: A hat with some kind of a brim, worn with or in the place of the nuqwazo. The use of qofia is a more or less recent development, and most qofia are simply DuQaddic or Clydish hats that are purchased or acquired in trade. Because the wearing of qofia is quite visible, and because it is a new cultural development that not all Mullaqat view favorably, qofia also has the slang meaning “fad,” or “trendy.” As in, “What’s that spice you’re using? It smells very hat.”

qofazi: A hipster, someone who is modern, sophisticated or shallow. Literally “A brimmed-hat wearer.”

qofiabila: Simple, unpretentious, traditional. Literally: “Without a brimmed hat.”

quifoo: Death

qurudi: Return, in the cyclical sense. Not to be confused with boku, meaning to return as in giving something back.

Qwatch: spontaneous, natural laughter.

Qwatcheqo: Disapproving laughter.

Qwatcheqo midishi: Laughter teaching, reproach, correction, censure.

Qwatch jinga: Stupid party, or “giggle fit”

ratasi: paper

refu: Tall

refubanti: boots

rhadi: Erotic.

rhum: Rose, the flower that symbolizes attachment and suffering. Also, rose-colored.

rifa: knowledge, but more specifically, life knowledge, or knowledge that you have gained on your own, through experience, personal insight or inference. Not to be confused with Blos, or archived knowledge, which comes from beyond one’s self and may only be received, not generated or personally owned.

rifa a maatesa: knowledge from or enhanced by suffering

ru: with

Sa: Community, with the implication that the compact between most of the members of the community is based on something beyond family connections. Can be used as a prefix, and when offset by an apostrophe from a conjunction means “Place of community” in place names. This archaic convention has been ground down by quolloquial use, with the conjunction often dropped from the name and its place marked only by an apostrophe. Hence Sa’fa’Urthazi (“Community of gardeners”) in time became Sa’Urtha, or even Surtha.

Sabi: To count (verb), or the final total of a count (noun).

safaqunzi: (sa-fa-KEE-foon-zee) A Mullaqat nomadic band, the basic unit of Mullaqat society and culture. Literally means “a community of travelers.”

Sahau: To forget.

Salimsha: surrender.

Sana: Astronomic observatory, or a megalithic complex that is constructed as a reference point for observing stars and lunar cycles.

Saarae: Poem.

Saarazi: Poet

Shaba: Copper.

Shang: A necklace with beads divided by knots that the Mullaqat use for a devotional practice that is supposed to help them seek sutraq. The shang has four metal beads, followed by eight stone or crystal beads, followed by 21 beads of carved wood.

Shoshea: A swirling wind, or dust devil, common to the desert.

Shosheadigo: The Little Stirring, or the painful first erotic desires of children and adolescents.

Shoshea yayo: Lust.

Sin: To be, is

Sini: is not

Su: Unencumbered, lacking.

Suna: Art

sunanyum: An art house, or permanent structure at a qambee that is devoted to the creation and viewing of mchanga suna, or other public meetings and performances. These structures are built by Mullaqat safaqunzi, but sunanyum in DuQaddic/Clydish territories are often maintained and improved by the locals, who are given the freedom to use the facility while the Mullaqat are not around.

Sutraq: Detachment.

Sutraq bin maatesabila sini sutraq: Without the experience of suffering, detachment is not detachment.

Sutraqwatu: The transient experience of living in the absence of desire and attachment, in an unencumbered perspective that allows one to experience the free-floating perfection of the moment, or “hurumulla tibwa.”

Swalah: Members of a safaqunzi advance party who travel ahead to make arrangements.

szaid: Help (noun), or “to help” (verb).

sziadzi: helper.

Tamko: talk (infinitive)

Tego: Mine where metals or other resources are extracted.

Tibwa: Moment

Tindwa: Fashion.

Tindwa Mullawa: Current speech.

Tomba: To fuck. To have sex wildly and for pleasure.

Tombazi: “fucker.” To call a man a “Gomba tombazi” is a terrible insult.

toto: Child. Denotes a boy child who has received a name, but not yet moved into the age of sexual activity, or started showing secondary sexual characteristics (facial and body hair, muscular development, etc.). A tota, or girl child, carries the title until she puts on her lolo. A young woman who does not put on the lolo will be called a tota until some point in her adult life, when she either declares her asexuality, or everyone just figures it out. Such women are called gomba.

Traq: Attachment.

Uath: Land’s edge. Generally refers to a point of land that is unsafe, such as Ei’Uath, from the archaic Eia’Wa’Uath, or “Safe harbor on the dangerous shore.”

uchawae: magik

Udangani: Illusion. It’s also the word that refers to temporal, worldly reality.

Udanganidigo: Private illusion. More literally, “little illusion.” To live in a private illusion is to live in separation, loneliness and misery.

ungo: Lies.

Uqwelli: Ultimate reality, the reality beyond the worldly plain of physical existence. Also means spiritual truth, or ultimate truth.

Urtha: Garden, or a place where produce or flowers are grown,

Usoauso: Face-to-face unprotected heterosexual vaginal intercourse, allowing the eyes to meet. While sex per se is not taboo in Mullaqat culture, the protected act of intimacy is to gaze into the eyes of a lover during sex.

uso: face

uume: penis

uume-uso fa betraq a nyum: A greedy person who is overly attached to possessions.

uzingi: grain liquor

vazikama: An un-dyed full-length tunic, usually woven from flax or hemp.

Wa: For

Wajanja: Clever.

Wajanjuwatu: Cleverness.

Wao: They (pronoun)

Waqat: High

Waqatibwa: Greatness, or more literally, apex.

Waqoti: Era or period of time

Waqoti fa Gnima: Time of Grace

Waqoti fa Mahuta: Time of Regret

–watu: a suffix that means “state of being”

wazi: to cover.

waziqitwa: A headcovering.

waziqitbila: informal.

waziqitbilna: Private space, the place where people may take their hats off.

waziqitwana: Public space, the place where one should cover one’s head.

waziqitwatu: Formality.

wazima: Adult. An adult woman is generically referred to as wazima (plural: wazimas), although her sexual identification title would take specific precedence. An adult male is wazimo, and he is considered wazimo unless he declares himself gombo.

wazimawatu: adulthood

wazo: Thought.

Welebangi: Hemp, the industrial rope/textile cousin of bangi, or marijuana.

Wengi: Many, much

Wengikagzi: Kagi with many lovers simultaneously.

Yayo: Crazy, insane, mad, obsessed with attachment, incapable of detaching

yelah: hair.

Yelah Garide: To advertise oneself for sexual partners during the evening social hour of a safaqunzi.

Yenyeqoo: Humble.

Yenyequwatu: Humility

Zap: To snap

zapzap: snapping

–zi: Suffix that means “one who performs the action.”

Zotski: Stockings. Traditional zotski are long knitted garments that ascend the leg to the hip, and are worn for warmth. Modern zotski, however, are worn by Mullaqat women in intimate settings because they consider them erotic.

zupzup: Fish

zutuno: Olive