Thread: Let's speak Arabic!

I have a fun little game: Let's speak Arabic...regardless of dialect. And then, let's try to translate what we were saying. I'll start:

Allo, ismi Mark. Ahlan w Sahlanfeekon! Ana Filipini w Ameriki bas ba7eb kteer Libnan wallah 3anjad! Kamen, bti7ke 3rabi bas bifam shway. Tyeb, inta (inti) meen?

And er.... the point.....?
if you speak Arabic, you can translate..if you don't........
Why not just hold a conversation with another Arabic speaker?


I prefer tea over soda! Screw you Leila Nazmi!!!

Can you explain the meaning of this?

Salam aleykum. ism Silke.

If I understand you, the game is to translate what you were writing and writing something new? I am used for another transcription system, I don't know which letters you mean with 7 and 3. Am I right 3 stands for 'ayn?

oooh interesting. Just starting to learn Arabic. Unless you just sit there and type out the phonetic versions of the numbers 1-10 I'm not with you. But I will watch with interest and see if I can finally get to grips with some of it.

Apparently my accent is good. Pity I have no idea what I'm saying!

Anyway ...

Isme Freddie. Azaic?

Originally Posted by ssille

Am I right 3 stands for 'ayn?

Okay, if anyone could explain the meaning of the numbers, I'd appreciate it.

3 is ayn, 7 is the "hard" H.

Originally Posted by nisaasaintlouis

3 is ayn, 7 is the "hard" H.

Thanks.

[QUOTE=Mark Balahadia;469952]I have a fun little game: Let's speak Arabic...regardless of dialect. And then, let's try to translate what we were saying. I'll start:

Allo, ismi Mark. Ahlan w Sahlanfeekon! Ana Filipini w Ameriki bas ba7eb kteer Libnan wallah 3anjad! Kamen, bti7ke 3rabi bas bifam shway. Tyeb, inta (inti) meen?[/QUOT

here a little translation of what Marc wrote

"hello, my name is Mark, welcome. I am Philipines and american, and I love very much Libanon. I speak just a little arabic. And you who are you?"

Ahalan sadiqi, ismi Michelle, ana min Ameriki. Umri talaytha wu talateen sanah.
Lil asif ana ata hadath fiqat qalil min Arabia.
Ana behab muzik Arabi wa Masri.

Araka fi ma bad.

Michelle

Originally Posted by Michelle75

Ahalan sadiqi, ismi Michelle, ana min Ameriki. Umri talaytha wu talateen sanah.
Lil asif ana ata hadath fiqat qalil min Arabia.
Ana behab muzik Arabi wa Masri.

Araka fi ma bad.

Michelle

You're speaking fu'sha! I got the first and third line. My fu'sha is horrible, I can only really understand Lebanese dialect (and Syrian/Palestinian).

You said: Welcome Mr., my name is Michelle, I'm from America. I'm 33 years old. [I didn't get the second line]. I love Arabic and Egyptian music.

Tasharaffna, ya Michelle. Shoo 3am ta3imle hala2? Ana fee Bhuz hala2 :-p

Originally Posted by lizajuk

And er.... the point.....?
if you speak Arabic, you can translate..if you don't........
Why not just hold a conversation with another Arabic speaker?


I prefer tea over soda! Screw you Leila Nazmi!!!

Can you explain the meaning of this?

Leila Nazmi (or Leila Nathmi) was a popular folkloric Egyptian singer back in the 70s. She had a cute song called "Ma shrab shi shay" (I don't drink tea). The first stanza of the song starts with the phrase "ma shrab shi shay, ashrab ghzuza ana" (I don't drink tea, I drink soda). It's a song about a girl who is modern so she opts to drink soda versus the more traditional tea. I love drinking tea and I hate soda so now I hope the reference makes sense.

ya3ne, ana mish kizab!

Originally Posted by Mark Balahadia

Leila Nazmi (or Leila Nathmi) was a popular folkloric Egyptian singer back in the 70s. She had a cute song called "Ma shrab shi shay" (I don't drink tea). The first stanza of the song starts with the phrase "ma shrab shi shay, ashrab ghzuza ana" (I don't drink tea, I drink soda). It's a song about a girl who is modern so she opts to drink soda versus the more traditional tea. I love drinking tea and I hate soda so now I hope the reference makes sense.

ya3ne, ana mish kizab!

Bless you, darlink! Translate please...........

Originally Posted by nisaasaintlouis

3 is ayn, 7 is the "hard" H.

The rest of the letters and corresponding numbers are here: [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_Chat_Alphabet]Arabic chat alphabet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


Now can anybody tell me what in the heck this is? Urban Dictionary: kawanin

Seriously, "it is well known that the arabic especialy egyptian belly dancers used to have their own language..."? Huh? I can believe that since dancers work in the entertainment/nightclub industry, they may have had more contact with less-closeted gays than Egyptians who held more conservative and conventional careers, but...wow...I'm not sure that Urban Dictionary entry even makes sense.... Has anybody heard anything about this (not the accuracy of the obscene slang part, just the concept of dancers having "their own language")?

Originally Posted by Mark Balahadia

You're speaking fu'sha! I got the first and third line. My fu'sha is horrible, I can only really understand Lebanese dialect (and Syrian/Palestinian).

You said: Welcome Mr., my name is Michelle, I'm from America. I'm 33 years old. [I didn't get the second line]. I love Arabic and Egyptian music.

Tasharaffna, ya Michelle. Shoo 3am ta3imle hala2? Ana fee Bhuz hala2 :-p

You did well Mark.

Ahalan Sadiqi is how you greet a male friend.

The sentence you didn't know said,
unfortunatly, I speak only a little Arabic.

Araka fi ma baad
That's all for now.

Now, what you wrote at the bottom has me stumped.

I did know, "nice to meet you Michelle" but the rest has me stumped.

Has anybody heard anything about this (not the accuracy of the obscene slang part, just the concept of dancers having "their own language"

Yup, performers had a cant of their own, but it wasn't hugely complicated. A little like Palari for gay men, but maybe not even that extensive. Karin van Nieuwkerk mentions it. From what she said, IIRC, it would be like us saying "The wooglyboogly is rachacha tonight" to mean "the boss is in a bad mood tonight" or "it's inglybingly" to mean "tight crowd, we'll get going shortly." Just words they'd developed among themselves so they could discuss things "privately".

Originally Posted by lizajuk

Bless you, darlink! Translate please...........

"ya3ne ana mish kizab" (I mean, I'm not a liar).

Originally Posted by Michelle75

You did well Mark.

Ahalan Sadiqi is how you greet a male friend.

The sentence you didn't know said,
unfortunatly, I speak only a little Arabic.

Araka fi ma baad
That's all for now.

Now, what you wrote at the bottom has me stumped.

I did know, "nice to meet you Michelle" but the rest has me stumped.

You are speaking fus'ha. It's very hard for me to understand as I really only understand Lebanese (and related dialects).

"Shoo 3am ta3imle hala2? Ana fee Bhuz hala2 :-p"

This is very Lebanese dialect. "What are you doing now? I am on Bhuz now"

Shoo: what
3am: denoting present action
ta3imle: you are doing (feminine)
hala2: now

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

The rest of the letters and corresponding numbers are here: Arabic chat alphabet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Now can anybody tell me what in the heck this is? Urban Dictionary: kawanin

Seriously, "it is well known that the arabic especialy egyptian belly dancers used to have their own language..."? Huh? I can believe that since dancers work in the entertainment/nightclub industry, they may have had more contact with less-closeted gays than Egyptians who held more conservative and conventional careers, but...wow...I'm not sure that Urban Dictionary entry even makes sense.... Has anybody heard anything about this (not the accuracy of the obscene slang part, just the concept of dancers having "their own language")?

If this word exists, it might have its roots in the term kawal. Kawal were the male dancers of Cairo. The term later became a derogatory word for gay men.

The whole Urban Dictionary entry just sounded so weird to me. It's one thing to have a few words of slang unique to group of people with something in common, but the problem with Arabic is that they do have linguistically significant dialects arising in small pockets. I thought I read once that there were tribes in the Gulf where the women spoke so differently from their men that they were actually considered to be speaking two separate dialects with documented differences in grammar and pronunciation (like Lebanese Arabic vs. Egyptian Arabic). I can believe that gay subculture has slang that the larger linguistic group doesn't know or use, and that entertainers have some of their own slang, too, but I would assume there is some set of overlap, like there is in English. Slang can travel from group to group and spread into the mainstream, and often obscenities are the first words to make the jump because they're so potent and obvious.

The idea of dancers having their "own language" just strikes me as absurd. If Egyptian dancers had a "language," wouldn't it have had the capability to describe what they do? How many times does the argument come up that we have no set of recognizable naming conventions for the movement vocabulary? If every dancer in Egypt used the same word to describe a move, wouldn't we know about it by now? (Sorry, I'm getting off topic...)

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Karin van Nieuwkerk mentions it.

I remember this too. Was she talking specifically about Ghawazee performers, though? I don't have time to look this up till later...hopefully somebody will beat me to it.

I thought it was Mohammed Ali Street entertainers. Hmm. The book is in the next room. I could go and look it up. But it's very COLD in there... and reaching my bedtime...

Ah! I totally forgot about this. Just dragged out "A Trade Like Any Other." There's a whole section on the "entertainers' argot" from p. 96-102. Apparently this language is used by all varieties of entertainers and is comprehensible among entertainers throughout Egypt.

Nisaa

ETA: And it's just as Zumarrad described above...made-up words (or modified Arabic words) that allowed the entertainers to speak privately (without listeners understanding what they were talking about). Heh...kind of like Pig Latin...you know, igpay atinlay???

Originally Posted by nisaasaintlouis

ETA: And it's just as Zumarrad described above...made-up words (or modified Arabic words) that allowed the entertainers to speak privately (without listeners understanding what they were talking about). Heh...kind of like Pig Latin...you know, igpay atinlay???

Sahra was in Philadelphia yesterday, and mentioned this briefly to a few students while we were talking during a break. Musicians and dancers have some words or phrases that meant something else - one example was "Salat Tango" or "let's play a tango" but really meant, "it's dead here, let's wrap this up and go home."

I didn't know about the dancers' and musicians' argot, but am not surprised. In the khan el khalili, the gold market in particular, everyone who does business there understands an argot, which includes different ways of saying numbers, prices, etc., so that no one from outside understands their negotiations that take place among themselves. I've heard it being used and although I know Arabic numbers and money terms I did not understand ANYthing they said with respect to money.

marhaba, ismee Shiraz. ana taliba fee gemya 'delaware' wa raqassa ayden.
3mreee ashroon wa uheb loo-ah arabiya m3 kul qalbee!!!! 3tteeny etekelam ahsen fil mustaqbul qareeban insha'alah. fehemnee?

Fehemtik mia bil mia.

shoo "mia?" hetha keleema jedeeda lee. ?? 'little by little' mithla 'schwaya b schwaya o le?

100% -- literally "100 by 100." I probably spelled it wrong -- I'm used to an entirely different transliteration system than most people use.

tabawn!!!! haha... arif 'mia'.... etetheker el-an! shokran!

im not used to transliteration AT ALL we must write everything in arabic in class but idk the keyboard for it here.

nahnu usdeeeqah bil 'facebook.' tektubeen 'uheb sidi bou said' fee sooratee min tunis. insha'alah ana se-edross raqs mah-ick fee elseif!!! :)

... hebick ketheeran 'bintbeled' ;) !!!!

wene shahrzad?? heea raqaasa gemeela wa tedross el-looah arabiya ayden!

ahtteeny eqool 'mia b mia' eela ustethatee qareeban hehe... uheb hetha goomwa shokranlik