Certain Arabic words, such as hadaf, meaning goal, and mubaraah, meaning match, take on extra resonance during a World Cup.
However, one of the most important and coveted words is shasha, meaning screen.
A good shasha at a cafe often means at least half a dozen screens, each at least 100 inches, marking it as a serious venue. Anything less, and it may as well stay on the screensaver, because no real sports fan will be there to watch the game.
Shasha refers to various screens, from television and cinema to computers and phones.
A fan watching the opening World Cup match in a cafe is most likely doing so on shashat al-tilfaz, meaning television screen. Someone following highlights on a phone is looking at shashat al-hatif. In a fan zone, crowds may gather in front of shashat al-ard, meaning a display screen or projection screen.
The word is now part of ordinary daily Arabic, especially around social media and digital life. Laqtat shasha means screenshot. Musharakat al-shasha means screen sharing. Shashat lams means touch screen, and the all-important waqt al-shasha means screen time.
Intriguingly, the origins of shasha are more physical than digital: shash means fine white cloth, muslin or gauze.
The word’s journey to the screen came through cinema, where older theatres across the Arab world projected images onto pale, stretched cloth.
That cinematic legacy still gives the word an allure in Arab entertainment.
To appear ala al-shasha, meaning on screen, is taken as a sign you have made it. Nujoom al-shasha means screen stars.
Al-shasha al-Arabiya, the Arab screen, can be used as an umbrella term for a wider discussion on the state of Arabic television and media.
With all that said, Shasha is still a word that invites us into another world: the screen as a stage for our art and stories, and, in the case of the World Cup, a place where all our emotions are channelled in real time.
