Comments on: What to Call Who, When, and How To Be Polite While Doing So

By: Chris Hitchcock

Chris Hitchcock — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:01:02 +0000

yeah in shami I think it’s 7ajj/7ajje as well not 7aajj 7aajje as you might expect. I think in Egyptian there’s a consistent-ish rule that before two consonants a long vowel becomes short – which is why all the feminine participles are like 3arfa not 3aarfa. Whether somebody spells it حج or حاج probably depends on how keen they are on spelling things like fusha?

btw, انسة is used in Shami as well as a polite term of address – يا صبايا is the plural of صبية, and you can say يا صبية or يا صبايا, but it’s less polite I think than يا انسة, which is the normal way of saying ‘miss’. In Syrian and Lebanese there’s also يا خانم yaa khaanom which is I think originally Turkish (surprise!) or Persian and which is similar, if a bit less polite than يا انسة.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:10:49 +0000

FYI I ran across this in a Jordanian novel, so the potential for a typo might be most likely. It would certainly be a grammatical anomaly.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:09:28 +0000

I want to say that the formal spelling of the female pilgrim drops the alif: حجة but I am not sure. It could theoretically help cut down on confusion in written Egyptian dialect! Is it كل حاجة or كل حجة? Not sure when you’d be talking about every female pilgrim, but you never know.

By: Rach

Rach — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:46:25 +0000

I’ve been told that the respectful way to address an elderly Christian person is to call him/her mo2ades/a (مقدس/ة). Similar to “hag”, it’s a person who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (القدس), but also literally means “blessed person”. I doubt there are old Christian men who’d become belligerent if called “hag,” but you might make their day if you call them by the proper term.

By: Caitlyn

Caitlyn — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:28:07 +0000

Ya 3my / yabny / ya sha2e2 / ya negm and so on will get their own post soon. Ya ragel is a good one that I definitely need to be using more.

By: Andrew Reid

Andrew Reid — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:21:47 +0000

I’ve heard people calling police and military officers “basha” as a genuine term of respect also.
There’s also the all purpose “Ya 3am”, usually with people you know or someone who’s annoying you.
“Ya ragel!?” as a term of surprise is pretty great too.