Talking with the hands

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The Italians are reputed for speaking with their hands, but as a Mediterranean people we do much of our own gesture-talk. The Lebanese tongue is spiced up by a number of gestures that often make words unnecessary.

Due to Western influence, nodding and shaking one's head are taken for granted to mean yes and no. Yet these are really not the gestures we use. To say yes with the head, we nod it forward, the emphasis being on the inclination of it towards the front. To say no, we tilt it backwards more or less emphatically. This is often accompanied by a lifting of the eyebrows, and you can actually say no just by lifting the eyebrows (just like you can say yes just by blinking!) A click of the tongue can be used along with it or not. This is a very simplified explanation, for all sorts of elements participate in giving nuances of meaning to the no: with this simple gesture we can say "of course not", "no, are you crazy?", "unfortunately not", "no and I knew it would be so", "no and told you so"... A "NO dammit!" usually doesn't bother with moving the head, the tongue clicking violently with an appropriate face expression does the trick.

Responses to this article revealed to me that many abroad who have met Lebanese have wondered about those strange face movements during conversation. If you were ever one of these people, now you know the person was responding to your words, completely unaware that it would make no sense to you.

Here's a little summary of the above, in images worth 1000 words...

To shake one's head sideways like westerners do is a question. I sometimes use this to say no by mistake, and as a result the person talking to me always repeats the question, thinking I'm asking: "what did you say?" The question asked by the head shake can also be "What?", "Why?", "What's wrong?"... etc, the exact thing asked depending on the context of the conversation. There is a gesture with the hand that serves the exact same function: fingers open, they depict a "wave" that almost closes them on the palm while the hand rotates slightly. The difference is that the head shake is mostly used in answer to something, while the hand twist can be an opening question before you even say hi ("What's up with you? Where have you been?"). For example, tapping one's wrist and doing this gesture with the hand is a way to ask the time. As you can imagine, this is often used in classrooms. A hand twist by the side of one's head says something like "Is there a brain in there?" A furious hand twist says "You have a problem!?" To use any angry gesture without uttering a word is quite threatening, as if the person knew he/she didn't need to be verbally scary.

Wait sign Another very common gesture is the pursed hand: palm upwards, all the fingers are joined at the tip. This means "Wait." It can be a polite way to say "Hang on a second" while we're busy with something else, in which case the hand doesn't move. It can be a comforting "Just wait and things will get better, you'll see", although fatherly rather than compassionate, when the hand moves up and down slowly. It can be a threatening "Just you wait", often used by kids who intend to go tell. It can also be an offended/shocked "Take it easy, chill out" gesture when used even more slowly, the hand slowly descending just once, or the fingers tensely pinched. In this case the hand often opens suddenly after a moment, a gesture that means "shame!" or "come on, you know this isn't proper" (on its own, it underlines something that should be evident, as if saying "see that?"). I'll give an example for this. During a class, a student is chatting while a classmate is trying to present a project. The teacher frowns at the talkative one and makes the pursed hand gesture, then suddenly lets her fingers pop open. The sequence here means "Lower your voice! Shame on you, your classmate is presenting, you could at least respect that!"

Some gestures are only really used by children. A cute combination is singof-saleh. Singof is a gesture where the hand makes a fist, with the little finger erect. The hand is rotated around the axis of the finger. The gesture means: "I'm not talking to you. We aren't friends anymore". Saleh, its complementary, is the same gesture but with the index finger erect. It means: "We're friends again!" (the word "saleh" means "reconciliation"). Adults only use them as a joke.

In everyday conversation we use several gestures to underline our words. Interlocking the index fingers means "crowded", usually used in the sentence "the people at the place were LIKE THIS". Holding the two index fingers side to side with the rest of the fingers closed says of two people that they get along very well. Slicing the air horizontally in front of us carries a notion of nothingness, as in "There is none left" or "I did nothing of the work", or simply "There's nothing". Pointing down one's throat means "Yeah right! Feed me more lies if you dare".

I've seen gestures so specific that I had a hard time figuring them out. There is an area outside Beirut called Dawra, which means "Circle, round" (it's a roundabout). Bus and taxi drivers heading there describe a circle in the air with their finger. This is addressed to pedestrians, and quite unique -- no other place I know of has a name that lends itself to such a rebus.

What about insulting gestures, you may wonder. Well, the middle finger in its Lebanese variant has the hand fully open with the middle finger folded, but erect, downwards. It then looks as if it was the only thing jutting perpendicularly to the flat surface of the hand. I don't recommend trying it.

Trying to put this all down in writing made me realize how incredibly subtle these signals and their meanings are. I wonder if they should not be a considered an integral part of spoken language, just like intonations are. I can't imagine talking to someone face to face without using gestures such as the above to say what words cannot say.