coffee

You may already know the word عزم يعزم ‪3azam yi3zem ‘invite’ (not ‘be determined’ as in fuSHa), but unless you’re German or Turkish this simply gloss is likely to expose you to some misunderstandings and possibly some embarrassments without a little bit of cultural background. If you tell someone:

بعزمك على فنجان قهوة
bi3zmak 3ala finjaan 2ahwe
‘I’ll invite you for a cup of coffee’

You’re more or less saying ‘I’ll buy you a cup of coffee’.

If someone says to you:

اكيد عزمتو بعد ما فادك هيك
2akiid 3azamto ba3d ma faadak heek
[You must have invited him after he did that for you]

What they mean is ‘you must have bought him dinner/bought him a drink after he did that for you’.

If after going out for coffee (or whatever) with someone they say:

انا عازمك
2ana 3aazmak
I invited you

They’re offering to pay. It’s polite to do this and then argue about it for a bit before one of you concedes (this can be a fairly awkward social thing to get used to, but it gets easier). Conceding immediately makes you look rude. This is a broader field of social awkwardness too, since even if you don’t explicitly say one of these expressions, you might (emphasis on might) be expected to pay if you invite someone somewhere.

The noun is عزيمة عزايم ‪3aziime 3azaayem ‘invitation’. Sometimes you might be invited (out of politeness) to have dinner somewhere, or just not be able to attend. Something you can say is:

عندي عزيمة
3indi 3aziime
‘I have an invitation’

معزوم عند غيرك
ma3zuum 3ind gheerak
‘I’m invited to someone else’s [house]’

Ideally being apologetic.

One of those translation curiosities you come across when you’re first learning Arabic is just how many different words for ‘mind’ there are. On the general theme of common idioms, one of the most common in colloquial is the word بال, which we’ll cover in this post.

خطر على بالي khaTar/yikhTor 3ala baali

‘To occur to’, ‘to think of’, ‘to come to mind’ [= it occurred onto my mind]:

اول شي خطر ع بالي هو هادا السؤال
2awwal shi khaTar 3a baali huwwe haada ssu2aal
The first thing that occurred to me was this question

خطر ع بالي اعمللي مشروع
khaTar 3a baali 2a3milli mashruu3
It occurred to me to/that I could do a project

A more-or-less synonym is simple خطرلي khaTarli.

اجى ع بالي ija 3a baali

‘To feel like (doing)’. Literally ‘it came onto my mind’:

اجى ع بالي ابعتلك
2ija 3a baali 2ab3atlak
I felt like sending [it] to you

The most common usage with this expression by far is with a present participle:

جايه ع بالي اكل ملوخية
jaaye 3a baali 2aakol @mluukhiyye
I feel like eating mluukhiyye [not a linguistic note but try this stuff, it’s amazing]

مو جايه ع بالي
muu jaaye 3a baali
I don’t feel like it

حط ببالو ‪7aTT bbaalo

‘To set your mind on (something)’, ‘to get it into your head that’ [= put it in your mind]:

يعني في حدا كان حاطط ببالو انو يحل محل المدير
ya3ni fii 7ada kaan 7aaTet bbaalo 2inno y7ell ma7all ilmudiir
There was someone who’d got it into his head that he was going to take the boss’s place

لازم يكون بحبني متل ما انا ومش حاطط ببالو يغيرني على كيفو
laazem ykuun bi7ibbni mitel ma 2ana w mish 7aaTeT bbaalo yghayyirni 3ala keefo
He’d have to love me as I am and not have this idea that he’ll change me however he wants [= on his mood]

عندي عادة سيئة انو بس حط شخص ببالي بنكشلو كل حساباتو وحسابات العيلة كمان
3indi 3aade sayy2a 2inno bass 7eTT shakh@S bbaali binkishlo kill 7isaabaato w 7isaabaat il3eele kamaan
I have this bad habit that as soon as I get someone in my head I dig through all their accounts and the[ir] families’ accounts too

Although it’s usually your own mind you’re putting things into, it can be someone else’s too:

انا من كتر ما مجتمعنا حط ببالي انو العيب للبنت بس لما اشوف هيك تويتة رزيلة كاتبتها بنت بكرهها بس لما يكتبها ولد بضحك
2ana min kiter ma mujtama3na 7aTT bbaali 2inno l3eeb lalbinet bass lamma  2ashuuf twiite raziile kaatibiitha binet bakrahha bass lamma yiktibha walad baD7ak
Our society has put the idea that only girls should have shame into my head so deeply [= from the amount that our society has…] when I see a rude tweet written by a girl I hate her but if it’s a guy who writes it I laugh

ببالو bbaalo

‘On his mind’ [= in his mind]:

بضلن ببالك ع طول
biDallon bbaalak 3aTool
They’re always on your mind

خليني ببالك
khalliini bbaalak
Keep me on your mind

Very commonly co-occurs with اللي in the sense of ‘what’s on your mind’, ‘what you’re thinking of’, or ‘what you want’:

آه نفس يللي ببالك
2aa nafs yalli bbaalak
Yeah, [I’m thinking] what you’re thinking

انشاءالله بتحقق كل اللي ببالك
nshaLLa bit7a22a2 kull illi bbaalak
I hope you get everything you’re dreaming of!

There is a set expression, من اللي ببالي بالك or اللي ببالك بالك illi bbaali baalak which means something like ‘you-know-who’ or ‘you-know-what’, i.e. the person or thing both you and me are thinking of:

كل ما أتذكر الي ببالي بالك بتقرف
kull ma 2atzakkar illi bbaali baalak bat2arraf
Every time I remember you-know-what/you-know-who [= what/who is on my mind your mind] I feel sick!

طول بالك Tawwal baalak

‘Calm down’, ‘be patient’. Literally ‘lengthen your mind’. Possibly the literal intention is something like ‘think in the long term’.

لك طول بالك خيو القصة ما بدها كل هلقد
lak Tawwel baalak khayyo il2eSSa maa bidda kill hal2add
Calm down, man, you’re overreacting!

الشغلة بدها طولة بال
ishsheghle bidda Toolet baal
It needs some patience

You can say that بالو طويل baalo Tawiil ‘his mind is long’, i.e. he’s patient or calm, but it’s not very common to say the opposite (بالو قصير), i.e. he’s impatient.

دار بالو daar baalo 

This means ‘take care’, ‘be careful’. Literally, ‘turn your mind’.

On its own diir baalak can be a warning/caution. With min it means ‘be careful of’:

دير بالك من السيارات
diir baalak min issiyyaaraat
Be careful of the cars/watch out for the cars

With على it means ‘look after’ (though in some dialects min is used for this meaning too):

دير بالك على حالك
diir baalak 3ala 7aalak
Look after yourself

بدير بالو على ابنو
bidiir baalo 3ala 2ibno
He looks after his son, keeps an eye on his son

This one we’ve already touched on previously. The verb اكل akal, as we all know, means ‘eat’. It’s also used metaphorically/idiomatically, however, to express a negative passive (a usage which also exists in Turkish and Persian and probably other languages of the region). The things you can ‘eat’ in this sense are numerous – in fact it’s fairly productive, in the sense that anything negative you can experience you can probably ‘eat’ in this sense. Here are some of the common ones:

اكلت ضربة akal@t Darbe ‘I got hit’

اكلت قتلة akal@t 2atle ‘I got beaten up’ [2atal can mean ‘beat up’ rather than literally ‘kill’ in 3aammiyye]

اكلت بوكس akal@t books ‘I got punched’

اكلت زبط akal@t Zab@T ‘I got a parking ticket/citation’

اكلت مخالفة akal@t mkhaalafe ‘I got a fine/citation’

اكلت اصابة akal@t 2iSaabe ‘I got injured’

اكلت بهدلة akal@t bahdale ‘I got told off’ [bahdal = tell off, this is the maSdar]

اكلت خازوق akal@t khaazuu2 ‘I got screwed over’ [خازوق = an impaling stake – this one is metaphorical]

اكلت خرى, هوى akal@t khara, hawa ‘I got screwed’ [= I ate shit, I ate air – this one is complicated enough that there’s a whole post on it]

اكلتها akalt(h)a ‘I’m screwed’ [= I’ve eaten it]

اكل خمسة akal khamse (for example) – ‘lose by five points, get a five (in cards) when you don’t want it’

اكل 18 سنة سجن akal tmenTash sine sij@n – ‘he got 18 years in prison’

Most if not all of these can be replaced, logically, in the active with طعمى Ta3ma ‘feed’ – طعماني بوكس مرتب Ta3maani books @mrattab ‘he gave me a good smack’.

thought-bubble-hover

‘Think’ is another one of these words that translates to several different things in other languages, so here’s a post on all the different ways you can talk about what’s goin’ on in the old grey matter:

فكر fakkar

This one we all know from fuSHa (in fact this is true of most of the words here). It has two major meanings. The first is thinking about something, which takes b- for a noun or a subjunctive for a verb:

عم فكر سافر ع اروبا
3am fakker saafer 3ala 2oorubba
I’m thinking about/of going to Europe

ضليتني طول الليل عم فكر فيكي
Dalleetni Tool élleel 3am fakker fiiki
I was thinking about you all night long [= I stayed the whole night thinking about you]

The second one is thinking that X is Y. This one is very common. Note that this is one of those verbs which in Arabic usually appears in the past or as a participle (perhaps on the basis that fakkar is considered to constitute one single non-drawn out action, like ‘arrive at the conclusion that’). The present بفكر is not used as an equivalent to English ‘I think’:

فكرتك مو جايه اليوم
fakkartak muu jaayye lyoom
I thought you weren’t coming today [= I thought you aren’t coming today]

مين مفكر حالك؟
miin @mfakker 7aalak?
Who do you think you are? [= who do you think yourself?]

ان شاء الله مفكرتيني عم ابكي
nshaLLa mfakkértiini 3am 2ébki!
I hope you [don’t] think I’m crying! [= God willing you think me crying!]

وليش لحتى فكرك اهبل؟
wleesh la7atta fakkrak 2ahbal?
Why would I think you’re an idiot?

As you can see, in most of these cases the most common natural choice is with a direct object and a tamyiiz (or whatever you want to interpret the second object as), i.e. a second object which is either a verbal sentence (like in 3am 2ébki), a participle sentence, or a noun etc. Sentences with 2énno can also follow fakkar, though:

اللي مفكر إنو الاحتفالات خلصت بكون غلطان
élli mfakker 2énno l2i7tifaalaat khélSet bikuun ghalTaan!
Anyone who thinks that [ = the one who thinks that] the celebrations are over is wrong!

فكرت انو وصلنا
fakkar@t 2énno waSSalna
I thought we’d got there

فكرـ fékr-

This is used with pronominal suffixes and is probably classifiable as a pseudoverb: fékrak. It’s generally pretty similar in meaning to فكّر:

يا حبيبي إذا فكرك تخوّفنا بحب ذكرك نحنا ما منخاف الا من ربنا.
yaa 7abiibi 2iza fikrak @tkhawwéfna b7ébb zakkrak né7na maa ménkhaaf 2élla mén rabbna
Listen, pal, if you think you’re going to scare us I’d like to remind you that we fear only God

إذا شايفني مُش عم بشكي فكرك يعني مُش موجوع
2iza shaayifni mish 3am babki fikrak ya3ni mush mawjuu3?
If you see that I’m not crying do you think that means I’m not in pain?

بإنتخابات الجاي فكري أعمل رئيس قلم وإنتخب قبل بيومين تلاته من كل الناس
bil2intikhaabaat ijjaay fikri 2a3mel ra2iis qalam w2antekheb 2abel yoomeen @tlaate min kull innaas
In the next elections I’m thinking of being a returning clerk and casting my vote two or three days before everyone else

ظن يظن Zann yZénn

This one occasionally appears without b- (2aZunn), which is a fuSHaism. In Palestine and Jordan you might hear baZunn-ni with a repeated pronoun on the end (similar to ضل ‘stay, keep’). It usually appears with إنو, or with a full sentence without 2inno. It is used to say ‘I think [it is likely that]’:

سياسي بظن
siyaasi bZenn
He’s a politician I think
He’s probably a politician

بظن غير شي
bZenn gheer shi
I think it’s (probably) something else

والله بظن يوجد اهم من قضية محمد صلاح
waLLa bZenn yuujad 2ahamm min 2aDiit @m7ammad Salaa7
To be honest I think there are more important things than the Mohammed Salah issue

بظن انو هي وقفت حسابها معناتو، لأن حتى عندي هيك
baZunn 2inno hiyye wa22afet 7isaabha ma3naato, la2enn 7atta 3indi heek
I think she [must have] closed her account then, because [it looks] like that even for me

It is also used very commonly on its own:

ما بظن
maa bZenn
I don’t think so

اعتقد i3ta2ad, i3taqad

A possibly slightly more high-register variant of Zann (especially if you use it with the qaaf). Used in the same way syntactically:

لازم ينشال لان غير انو المنظر بشع بعتقد كمان ضيق على الطريق
laazem yinshaal la2enn gheer 2inno lmanZar bishe3 bi3te2ed kamaan dayye2 3a TTarii2
They have to get rid of it, because on top of it being an eyesore I think it’s blocking the road [= it’s narrow on the road]

اعتبر i3tabar

Probably best translated as ‘consider’ or ‘think X to be’:

صادقة وكلشي فيا حلوو وهي عنيدة صح بس انا ما بعتبر هالشي سلبي لاني انا كمان عنيدة
saad2a w kill shi fiyya 7ilw w hiyye 3aniide Sa77 bass 2ana maa bi3teber hashshi salbi la2enni 2ana kamaan 3aniide
she’s honest and everything about her is lovely, and it’s true that she’s stubborn but I don’t consider that to be a bad thing because I’m stubborn too

خطرلو, خطر ع بالو khaTarlo, khaTar 3abaalo

These two both mean ‘it occurred to him’ – the second one with an extra بال baal ‘mind’ (so ‘it occurred to his mind’).

غريب بعرفش كيف خطر ع بالي
ghariib ba3rafesh kiif khaTar 3a baali
Weird – I don’t know how I thought of it/how it occurred to me

خطر على بالي أني روح قول للمدير أني الأنترنت رح يقطع
khaTar 3a baali 2inni ruu7 2uul lalmudiir 2inni l2internet ra7 yi2Ta3
I thought about telling/it occurred to me that I could tell the boss that the internet was going to be cut off

سؤال خطر ع بالي
su2aal khaTar 3a baali
A question that I just thought of

It has a causative:

ما بعرف شو خطرلي اسمع اوبريت الحلم العربي
maa ba3ref shu khaTTarli 2isma3 2oobreet il7ilm il3arabi
I don’t know what made me think to watch the Arab Dream operetta

Verbs with specific ‘think X’ meanings

There’s a type of verb, mostly form X (staf3al) verbs, which typically means ‘deem/think X Y’, where X is the object and Y is an adjective incorporated into the verb by means of a root. These verbs are only occasionally best translated with ‘think’:

 شو هالكام الف استكترتون عليي يعني؟
shu halkaam 2alf @staktarton 3aleyyi ya3ni?
What, you don’t think I deserve a few thousand lira? [= what, this few thousand you think are too much for me?]

لا هادا مستبعد تماما
la2 haada mustab3ad tamaaman
No, that’s completely ruled out [= thought to be بعيد, i.e. very unlikely]

In English ‘just’ can be used to indicate something happened very recently (‘just now’). In Arabic the idiomatic equivalent is by using ‘now’ with the simple past. The most neutral dialect word for ‘now’ is halla2 :

هلق فقت
halla2 fé2@t
I’ve just (now) woken up

انا هلق خلصت جلي
ana halla2 khallaS@t jaly
I’ve just finished washing up [jaly is the maSdar of jala yejli ‘wash up’]

In the present, ‘just about to…’ has a similar effect but in reverse: it expresses that the action is in the very near future. هلق works here too, usually with béddi (which itself often expresses a ‘near future’):

انا هلأ بدي اخلص بكالوريا
ana halla2 béddi khalleS bakoloorya
I’m just about to finish undergrad

You can push this construction into the past with kaan, meaning ‘was just about to…’, as in this common barefaced lie:

كنت هلق بدي دقلك
ként halla2 béddi dé22éllak
I was just (now) about to call you [= tap to you]

Note however that these only work when the reference is approximately to the current time. It’s possible in English to say ‘in those days I was just about to start school’ or ‘at the end of the month I’ll be just about to finish my job’. Intuitively, using halla2 this way in Arabic is incorrect. Our only possibility then is with béddi or ra7, which means we can’t distinguish ‘I was just about to start school’ and ‘I was going to start school’ in this context.

كانت رامية ودن معانا

‘She was eavesdropping on us.’ As though unnamed woman was so desperate to hear your conversation, she went all van Gogh on your shit, ripped her ear off, and then threw it in your general direction.

It is times like these I wish TeamMaha had a cartoonist.

This guest post was written by Hossam Abouzahr, the man behind The Living Arabic Project (www.livingarabic.com), a compilation of multiple dialect and Fusha dictionaries that contains the largest Egyptian dialect dictionary and (what will hopefully soon be) the largest Levantine dialect dictionary. A half-breed (Arab-American), he found out that Arabic is actually beautiful after escaping from Arabic classes and meeting cool teachers who introduced him to the fun side of the language.

Anis Freyha, the famous Lebanese linguist and professor of Semitic languages, wrote that he actually planned to make his dictionary of Lebanese colloquial dictionary, معجم ألفاظ العامية اللبنانية., English – Arabic, but then felt that it was important for Arabs to know the origin of their language, and made it Arabic – Arabic instead. I’m translating his dictionary now for The Living Arabic Project, and what I’ve noticed is that at times the dictionary focuses more on the origin of the words than it is about their meanings.

The origin of words shows how languages are interconnected, and how they’ve come together to form what are the present-day Arabic dialects. While beautiful in and of itself, word origins are also practical. They help learners tie words together and place them in social and historical contexts, making language learning easier and more fun.

To prove my point, here are some words that you probably won’t forget after reading about their origins, and you might also learn something about history and Arab cultures in the process.

 

شَرْمُوطة، ج شَرامِيط.

Meaning: Whore

Origin: From the French “charmante,” meaning lovely, charming. French soldiers used the word during the French occupation to refer to escorts and prostitutes, or the lovely women who responded to their needs.

 

فَلافِل

Meaning: Falafel

Origin: Though commonly thought to simply be the plural of the word فِلْفِل, meaning pepper, there is a another camp that claims that it is Coptic in origin. No, this is not just an Egyptian consipiracy to steal Falafel from the Lebanese. The argument is that in Coptic, the three words fa-la-fel mean “of many beans.” Coptic Christians invented Falafel as a substitute for meat during fasts. Whatever the origin, it sure is tasty, especially when obtained from a dirty, greasy دكان — in fact, the dirty the tastier.

 

مْؤَيَّر

Meaning: dick-ish, dick-like

Origin: From the base word أَيْر, which means dick, or as Lisan al-Arab defines it, “one of the crudest words for the penis.” أير actually comes from the Greek “eros,” but here the Levant folk improved on it. مْؤَيَّر commonly means “dickish,” but is probably literally translated as “one turned into a dick.” This is mainly a Levant word, and generally Egyptians won’t know it. I once had to define it for an Egyptian professor, much to her horror, and told her it means لقد جَعَلَ اللهُ منْهُ زُبًّا.

 

بِخّ

Meaning: boo!, and commonly used as peek-a-boo! With kids.

Origin: Coptic. I mainly wanted to include this word to point out that almost every Arab country and often even sub-regions has a different word for peek-a-boo. In Palestine I’ve heard بَقُّوْسِة, and in Lebanon دَقَّانِة. Children’s language, especially rhymes, tends to preserve ancient words.

 

كُشَرِي

Meaning: Kushari, that wonderful Egyptian street food consisting of noodles, rice, beans, lentils, fried onions, and sauce (and sometimes other random things depending on the region).

Origin: It’s actually from Hindi, from the word “kitchiri.” The meal is quite different in India and Pakistan, where it tends to consist of rice cooked in broth with some meat and a شوربة added on top. Kushari probably came to Egypt from India through the British during the 1800s. For the British soldiers, this would have been not only a tasty and cheap food, but also a safe food. The noodles that are added to it in Egypt are probably from an Italian influence.

 

عَرْص

Meaning: Pimp (commonly used as an insult)

Origin: Supposedly this was the name of an official position in the Egyptian Ministry of Interior during the English occupation. At that time, prostitution was legal, and the عَرْص was the police officer who was responsible for conducting patrols and ensuring that prostitutes had their licenses in order. It now is now commonly used as an insult in most Arab countries.

 

تَبْصِيْرَة

Meaning: snack

Origin: 100% Arabic – not all fun words have to come from another language. تَبْصِيرة is from the root صبر, meaning patience, because تصبيرة gives you the patience to wait for the main meal. Although this is entirely proper Arabic in its pronunciation and derivation, it is only used in Egyptian colloquial.

 

سَحْلَب

According to Oxford’s English dictionary, the English word sahlep is of Arabic origin, from خَصْيَتَيْ الثَعْلَب, meaning the fox’s testicles. It was actually the name of the orchid from which sahlep is made. The word ثعلب probably entered into the Levant area and what is now modern Turkey, where many languages don’t have a th sound and transform it into a t or s sound. Then along the way the ع became a ح (since the ح is simply the unvoiced form of the ع). The final “p” in English might be from the Turkish influence, where many voiced consonants, when they are the final letter of a word, become unvoiced. For instance, the word طالِب becomes Talip in Turkish.

 

حَمْرَن / اِسْتَحْمَر

Meaning: to act like a donkey / ass

Origin: 100% Arabic, from the word حمار (donkey). Although completely Arabic, and the derivation rules that they follow are also perfectly good Fusha, these words are only used in colloquials (حمرن being Lebanese, and استحمر being more Egyptian but broadly understood across the Arab countries).

 

مَرَدَ

Meaning: to be rebellious, recalcitrant.

This word, being Fusha, is actually from the shared Semitic root م ر د .The root may be tied to the name Nimrod (نمرود), known in the Bible for disobeying God and being oppressive. In the Levant dialects, the word تْنَمْرَد is used to mean to act like a tyrant (although in Egyptian, according to Badawi and Hinds’ dictionary, it means to make worldly wise).

 

بَنْشَر

Meaning: to puncture

Origin: Probably from the English puncture. In the Levant countries you can go to the بَنْشَرْجِي to get your tires repaired. Here you can see how the Turkish جِي is added to an English word to form a purely Arabic creation.

 

بُوْبْرَيْص

Meaning: common gecko

Origin: the phrase is probably from the folk belief that the gecko causes a skin disease (either vitiligo or leprosy, depending on who you ask). بوبْرَيْص is the Lebanese pronunciation of أبو بَرَص, the father of leprosy.

 

مَصَأري

Meaning: Money

Origin: This is the plural of the word مَصْرِيَّة. Under the Ottoman empire, the Levant area used the currency known as the عُثْمانِي. When the Empire was broken up after World War I, the عُثْمانِي was replaced by the Egyptian Guinea, الجنية المصرية, which was shortened to مصرية. The plural is now commonly used in the Levant countries to mean money, even though the currency is now the لِيْرة. On a few rare occasions one might still hear the singular used, but this is not common.

 

طز

Meaning: to fart

Origin: I don’t know the origin of the word, but the root طز is quite useful for referring to the ass or things that come out of it. طيز means ass (I still remember my wife’s Arabic teacher getting mad at her for using it instead of مؤخرة , which is the more polite word for the rear). طَزطَز means to do many farts. Across the Arab countries one can hear the phrase طُز في, often translated as “to hell with…” The word طَوْبَز, used in Lebanon, is probably also from this root. طوبز means to behind over so the ass is exposed, and can be used to mean to bend over and fart or to bend over and get shafted.

 

As obnoxious as I was with my word choices, I hope you do actually remember these words. Studying word origins shows the richness of the languages and the history that has developed them. Many Levant words are derived from or shared with Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic. Studying word origins also shows the linkages between the Arabic dialects and the strange divergences that occur between them (the brave amongst you can search for the root قلط in the Egyptian and Levantine dictionaries on the Living Arabic Project). Arabic, in its full complexity, is rich and deep, but only by exploring it will you really find it enjoyable.

I’m going to posit that بتاع – ‘thingy, thingamajig, whatever’ – is one of the most important words in Egyptian Arabic. It has several flexible grammatical uses and is thrown around constantly; the word is especially important for Arabic learners because you can expand your vocabulary tenfold by just replacing words you don’t know with this convenient linguistic evasion. Yes, it is a cop out, but whatthefuckever! Egyptians use it copiously anyways and you’ll fit right in. Anyways. How it works:

 

The word بتاع can be used both as a noun, and as a particle.

As a noun, بتاع replaces the name of an object you’re too lazy to remember the name of; hence, ‘thingy.’

[pointing to something]: هات البتاع دا – Give me the thingamajig.

هاخلص البتاع واجيلك – I’m going to finish the thing and come to you.

جربت بتاع التكيلا مبارح؟ – Did you try the tequila thingy yesterday?

انا هنجوفر فشخ عشان البتاع دا – I’m super fucking hungover because of that thing. (note: if anyone knows a word for hangover in colloquial Arabic other than the English, get at me. I am so curious.)

 

As a particle, بتاع \ بتاعة expresses ownership. The gender of بتاع matches the gender of the object being described, and you stick the pronoun indicating who the object belongs to onto the end of the word, much as you would with عند.

الموبايل دا بتاع ابو شنب دا ولا بتاع مين؟ – Does this phone belong to that guy with the moustache, or who?

.الشنطة دي بتاعتي, شكرا – This bag is mine, thank you.

 

In a more abstract sense, you can use بتاع to express a person’s inclinations or something they do often. For example:

الراجل بتاع النظافة- The cleaning guy

 

It can also be used as a filler word meaning something close to ‘whatever/and so on’:

قالتلي انا مش عايزة اضيقك وبتاع – She said, ‘I don’t want to upset you,’ and whatever…

A synonym for this would be مش عارف ايه, which is often combined with بتاع in a series like so:

قالي النهارده لازم تنظف الاوضة وتلم الزبالة ومش عارف ايه وبتاع – He told me today, you need to clean the room, pick up the trash, yada yada yada…

 

Finally, بتاع can also be a euphemism for a penis (just like ‘thingy’ in English – epiphany ooooooh ahhhhh!) and thus طلّع البتاع = to whip it out.

And please, dear reader, don’t ever say the above out loud in real life – it’s just kind of an FYI thing. Although I genuinely hope you’re never in a situation where there is surprise whipping out involved and this expression comes up.

Both Levantine and Egyptian dialects are filled with phrases and idioms that reference food, and in some cases, the word used to describe a certain food item can have an entirely different meaning in other contexts. Because it is understandably confusing the first time you hear a person’s sleeping patterns compared to a dead, fermented fish, we’ve compiled some of the most common food words/phrases in both dialects here.

كوسة – kosa: Egyptian

You’ll probably recognize this word as describing a zucchini (or ‘courgette’ for our British friends), but in Egyptian dialect, kosa can also refer to useful personal connections (or وسطة – wasta) you have. In practical terms, if you have enough kosa/wasta at Mogamma El Tahrir, you can get yourself a longer visa extension or even avoid waiting in the stamp line entirely, saving yourself hours of misery in your own personal hell.

بتنجان – baatengan: Egyptian

بتنجان is the Egyptian version of باذنجان, the MSA word for eggplant. However, a baatengan can also mean a bullshit excuse or explanation. If you’re trying to convince your friend to skip an obligation for example, you could press them to come up with اي بتنجان (any old excuse) to get out of it.

عنب – ‘enab: Egyptian

This literally means ‘grapes,’ but my soccer (football?) coach always says it when I’m doing something right (which, unfortunately, is not very often).

زبيب – zabib: Egyptian

In the kitchen, a zabib is a raisin, but it is also the term used to describe the greyish blackish bump you find on some Muslims’ foreheads (apparently in English this is called a ‘prayer bump,’ which is a significantly lamer term, in my opinion). It is basically developed from lots of praying, but can also be a sign of insulin resistance, fun fact.

In Syria, this is rather more blandly called الطبعة السودا ‘the black imprint’. Cultivating it was apparently never as popular a fashion in Syria, though.

 

A man with a gnarly beard and zabib.

A man with a gnarly beard and zabib.

عوجا – ‪3ooja: Syrian

This is a pretty obscure kind of Levantine finger food which is apparently a kind of green almond (?) soaked in water. Some people pronounce it 3ooje (and probably spell it عوجة). Apparently along with kuusa (less often), Syrians use this to describe chaos or mess: الدنيا عوجا. This is probably related to the word a3waj ‘bent’ (whose feminine is 3ooja too), maybe from the plant that it grows on, I don’t know.

بطيخ baTTiikh: Syrian and Egyptian

Used to call someone an idiot in a way that isn’t swearing but is nonetheless kind of offensive: yaa baTTiikh! To be fair, watermelons don’t have particularly developed cognitive skills.

Relatedly, in Syria: لا… ولا بطيخة laa… wala baTTiikha ‘neither… nor a watermelon’ means ‘neither X nor anything else!’ For example, if somebody calls you his 7abiibti, you might respond laa 7abiibtak wala baTTiikha!

ما حدا بقول عن زيته عكر maa 7ada bi2uul 3an zeeto 3éker: Syrian

Literally ‘nobody says their olive oil isn’t pure!’ There are apparently lots of local variations, including maa 7ada bi2uul labano 7aamiD ‘nobody says their laban is sour’. This expression means something like ‘nobody says that stuff they’ve produced is bad’, and is usually used to demonstrate somebody’s honesty when they’re saying bad things about projects they were personally involved in – I believe what he’s saying, because nobody would say their own oil wasn’t pure unless it wasn’t!

مهبر méhber: Syrian

From la7@m habra ‘high quality (red) meat’ or ‘de-boned meat’. Someone who is méhber (maybe this means that he only eats red meat?) is rich.

بله وشراب ميته béllo w shraab mayyto: Syrian and Egyptian

In Egyptian, bellha wishrab mayyitha

‘Wet it and drink its water!’ There used to be an amazing video from an Egyptian talk show demonstrating exactly what this meant, but it seems to have been taken down. It means ‘forget about it’, ‘it doesn’t matter’ or – with the right context, I guess – ‘you can take that idea and stick it up your arse!’

(OK perhaps this one only marginally counts as food but whatever, billo wshraab mayyto imo)

خبز وملح khébz w mél@7: Syrian

‘Bread and salt’. Usually used in the expression في بيناتنا خبز وملح fii beenaatna khébz w mél@7 ‘there’s bread and salt between us’. This means that you owe the other guy some loyalty because you’ve eaten together! I guess this was originally a reference to hospitality norms, but now it often means ‘we’re friends’ or ‘we know one another’. I might’ve done you a favour, but don’t mention it – there’s bread and salt between us!