Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Last Night, Tonight, Tomorrow Night...

Well, I can view these title in 3 perspective...

One in Islamic sight, Two in Malaysian sight and three in the world sight...

Firstly, in Islam, we are taught that new day starts after Maghrib. Thus, around 7ish pm, it is already the next day.

Secondly, in Malaysia, if that morning is Monday, that night would be Tuesday. It is nearly the same with the Islamic teaching but without the time frame mentioned.

Lastly, in norm, we would always think that the next day would start after 00:00 am.

Here, we can say that, the cultural differences between these group.

For Example:
If a muslim says, I will meet you tonight[as that time frame is Monday], does he/she meant the night after Sunday morning or the night after Monday morning...

I hope you can follow what I am saying.

Besides that, if the same person says, tonight was amazing, [by this time, it is already Tuesday morning]. The usage of past tense is questioned.

Even in Malaysia, we do not mean what we are saying.

For Example;

We always say [Khamis malam Jumaat], ~Friday Night [in Norm] ~Thursday Night [in Islam]

However, we always say, [The time frame is Friday morning]. Last Night was amazing. See the confusion here. Even though, Malaysian says the time frame after Thursday morning is Friday Night; we still think that it is last night when the time frame is Friday morning.

You can see more confusion in this context. How what and Where are the boundaries...

A lot of plans will be in ruin if the time frame is not standardize...

Let say, if I am using the norm time frame, and said tomorrow night we will going to have a party in my house. The listener is a muslim. Thus, he/she might come on that night as the context of tomorrow night in his idea is after maghrib of that following morning.

Therefore, I wonder, how can we survive if what we say is not what we meant?

When is Last Night, Tonight and Tomorrow Night actually???

^_^

1 comment:

  1. this is a good issue that can be further studied under Sociolinguistics - just in case you want to continue your Masters in Linguistics somewhere, this can be your topic of study ;)

    All the best!

    ReplyDelete