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The evil eye is
a belief that the envy elicited by the good luck of fortunate people may
result in their misfortune. The perception of the nature of the
phenomenon, its causes, and possible protective measures, varies between
different cultures.
Albanian
language "mer m?sysh" (to give somebody the bad eye) Armenian "atchka
ooloonk ulung ulunk" (eye bead); "char atchk" (bad eye)
Amharic "Buda" (one with envious eyes) Standard Arabic عين حسد ayin
hasad (eye of envy) Tunisian Arabic "'ayn l-mrida" (sick eye) Chamorro
"Atan baba" Croatian "Urokljivo oko" (the cursing eye) Dutch "het boze
oog" (the evil eye) Persian "bla band" (the eye of evil)Finnish "Paha
silm?quot; (bad eye)French "Le Mauvais Oeil", "La Guigne", "La
Skoumoune", depending on region German "B?er Blick" (evil gaze)Greek to
matiasma (μάτιασμα) or mati (μάτι) someone refers to the act of casting
the evil eye (Mati being the Greek word for eye); also: "vaskania"
(jinx)Hebrew "ayin ha'ra" (the evil eye)Hungarian szemmel ver? (beating
with eyes) Italian, malocchio (malignant bad eye)Maltese "l-ghajn" (the
eye)Persian various terms can be found, depending on the region. In
Iran, people use Ceşme Zaxm (pronounced ?Cheshm?Zahm?) which means 'eye
of harm', or Ceşme?ur(pronounced "Cheshm?Shoor") meaning 'Sour Eyes'. In
Afghanistan, Dari-speaking people use the terms "nazar" (vision) or
"chashmi bad" (bad or evil eye). Tajiki-speakers use the terms "chashmi
bad" (bad or evil eye) or simply "chashmi" (derived from the word
"chashm", meaning "eye")Polish oko proroka (the eye of the
prophet)Portuguese, olho gordo (fat eye), quebranto (breaker) or mau
olhado (bad gaze)
Romanian [[deochi]] (from the eye)Russian сглаз (a noun from verb
сглазить from noun глаз - "an eye")Sicilian, ucchiatura ("eye
activity")Slovak little babies are said to have a malady named z oč?
(from the eyes)Spanish, the phrase is mal de ojo (the eye's curse) or
simply ojo (the eye)Swedish "onda ?at" (the evil eye)Tagalog "ohiya" or
mata ng diablo (the devil's eye)Turkish "nazar" (stare) or "kem g?"
(evil eye)Urdu "buri nazar" orsimply "nazar" ("bad vision" or simply
"vision")Yiddish aynore or ahore (from Hebrew עין הרע cayin harac)It is
tradition among many Muslims, that if a compliment is to be made, you
are always supposed to say "Masha'Allah" (ما شاء الله) to ward off the
evil eye; it literally means "whatever God wills". It is a testimony
from someone that he/she believes that either good or bad it will only
happen if God wants to. Dari-speakers in Afghanistan use the phrase
"Nami Khuda" ([The] name of God) in place of "Mashallah", as well as a
phrase with a similar purpose, "Chashmi bad dur" ([May] the evil eye
[be] far). These phrases are found in Tajiki as well, in a slightly
different form. |
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