Saim - Arabic (Levantine & MSA)

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Saim - Arabic (Levantine & MSA)

Postby Saim » 2016-10-17, 18:15

Here I'll write notes on Levantine Arabic, mostly trying making sense of song lyrics.

Nancy Ajram - Ma tegi hena

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBBxGHvjNFM

ما تيجي هنا وانا احبك عشان اعيش على حسك
حبيبي دانت الدنيا وانا اموت لو غيري يمسك
ما تيجي هنا خد فكره دانا بالنسبه لك بكرا
استاذه في الدنيا مذاكره كمل روحك دانا نصك
دا غرامنا مابينا وخده انا بالي دانا مش ننه
بكرا اهو باين قدامنا وانا اكتر وحده تحسك

حبيبي نيتي صافيه وانت هتيجي هنا بالعافيه
تهرب وتروح فين مني دانا دكتوره فى الجغرافيه
ماتيجي قوم واعقلها قولي بحبك ماتقولها
حبيبي دانا وحده عاديه بالكلمه الحلوه تاكلها
دا غرامنا مابينا وخده انا بالي دانا مش ننه
بكرا اهو باين قدامنا وانا اكتر وحده تحسك

Translation: http://lyricstranslate.com/sr/ma-tegi-h ... -here.html

علشان - because
يمس - touches
لو - if
بالنسبة لك - for you
ده - ?
مذاكرة - ?
نص - half
غرام - love
بينا واخدة انا بالى ده انا مش ننة ?
Last edited by Saim on 2017-09-16, 6:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby eskandar » 2016-10-18, 6:36

I'm sure you know this, but this song is in Egyptian, not Levantine.

Saim wrote:ده - ?
مذاكرة - ?
بينا واخدة انا بالى ده انا مش ننة ?

ده - this (demonstrative). I think ده غرامنا ما بينا gives the sense of "this love of ours" or "this love between us"
مذاكرة - studying, revising one's lesson

As for the last part, I didn't totally get it either but you can see a couple of translations for the line here.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2016-10-18, 9:04

Yeah, at first I thought it was Egyptian because of the presence of /g/, but then I saw that the singer is Lebanese and got a bit confused. I heard that it's common for Arabs from other countries to sing in Lebanese; I didn't realise the same is true of Egyptian. I'll do some Egyptian input anyway because I don't think I'll get to confused if I make sure my active use is all limited to one variety (Syrian).

Thanks for the help. :)

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby eskandar » 2016-10-18, 9:43

No prob! Here are some other things in the song that can help you realize it's Egyptian, not Levantine:

  • The demonstrative ده is also very distinctively Egyptian; it would be هاد or هادا in Syrian, or هايدا in Lebanese. (I don't remember what Palestinians use).
  • The pronunciation of the taa marbuTa in العافية : in Egyptian it's realized as [a] whereas in Syrian/Lebanese it's more like [e] and in Palestinian it even gets close to [i].
  • Egyptian uses هنا for 'here' whereas in Levantine it's هُن.
  • We have the word هتيجى ("you will come") here, using هـ as a future tense marker. This is actually used in some Levantine dialects as well but it's more typically associated with Egyptian whereas the Levantine equivalent would be راح .
It's common for Arab singers to sing in many dialects nowadays, but I'd say Egyptian is actually the most popular, even moreso than Levantine. If there's one dialect understood throughout the Arab world--sometimes even more than fuS7a--it's Egyptian!
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2016-10-19, 13:33

Thanks Eskandar, that was really helpful!

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby n8an » 2016-10-21, 8:12

Please post some more here! I'd love to help out where I can :D I love talking about Arabic dialects! I know way too much about the differences between them, even the ones I don't speak haha.

Everything eskandar said is correct. There really are a lot of differences between Levantine (which itself is a LOT of different dialects that differ greatly) and Egyptian, let alone other dialects.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby voron » 2016-10-24, 15:40

ده غرامنا مابينا وخده انا بالي ده انا مش ننه

Let me attempt a word-for-word translation:
ده - this
غرامنا - our love
ما - that
بينا - between us
وخده - single
انا - I
بالي - ???
ده - this
انا - I
مش - not
ننه - child (?)

Can it be 2 separate sentences?
This love that is between us is unique... بالي ... I'm not a child.

Can "da" be used as a conjunction in Egyptian? For example for saying "I know that you are not here":
Ana 3arif da anta miş hena. :?:

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-04, 7:41

Trying to work on vocab from the first, second and third chapter of Syrian Colloquial Arabic, a Functional Course.

sétti armale
My grandmother is a widow.

at-tazkara mésh rkhiiSe
The ticket isn't cheap.

ana raa7t lil-yunaan b-3étle
I went to Greece on holiday.

fii siyara sghiire béT-Tariiq
There's a small car on the street.

él-boliis bél-ma5far
The police are at the police station.

bél-mat7af fii russuum
In the museum there are paintings.

maa lii shahaadet swaaqa, izan ana maa busuuq
I don't have a driver's license, so I don't drive

haadi shanta smiike
This bag is heavy.

haada kitaab rqiiq
This book is thin.

haada bi5sh 3aariiD
This hole is wide.

ar-rawaaq Dayyeq
The corridor is narrow.

haadi madiine béshe3, ma fiiha shajraat
This city is ugly, it doesn't have trees.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2017-01-15, 9:06

Talk in Arabic: Aleppo girl introduces herself

The expression كنت عايشة بحلب (I lived in Aleppo) surprised me. I would have expected كنت ساكنة.

عاصمة - capital
صناعي - industrial

درست لسنة ونص

جيت على مصر

-أنا مشتاق ل - I miss

حوال - around
حواليها - around her/it

عقدة- place to sit?

باتمنى - I wish

نوعاً ما - sort of, kind of (from نوع - type, kind sort)

Talk in Arabic: Day plans in Jordan

احزر (sounds like e7zar to me) - guess (imperative)
According to Living Arabic's Levantine dictionary:

ح-ز-ر
حَزَر حِزِر - to hit the mark, have one's assumption be true
حِزِر، حزَّر/يِحْزَر - to guess
حِزِر - assumption, supposition (ظَنٌّ)
حَزَّار - intuitive, one whose intuition is true (صادق الظَنّ)
حِزِّيْرَة - puzzle, riddle

شِلة - group (of friends)
تان (MSA: تأن) - "well..." (while thinking)
مش متخيل - I don't imagine
تتركيني بحالي - you leave me alone
مغطس - bath, in this context it means "baptism site"

عمرك رحتي قبل هيك
"Have you ever gone there before?"
(Doesn't عمر mean age? What does it mean in this sentence?)

مستحيل - impossible, no way!
بسيط - simple
يا عيب الشوم عليكي - shame on you
دافي (MSA: دافئ) - warm, hot
نجم, نجوم - star, stars
مُمِل - boring
قصدي - I mean (why doesn't this start with ba-?)
وجه الصبح - early in the morning (lit: the face of the morning?)
بكير - early
متأخر - late
ضاع - to get lost (تضيع علينا كل النهار - we lose the day)
السباحة - swimming
مَرّ - to pass, pass by (اذا مرينا - if we passed by). Perhaps this is related to مرّة (time as in occasion, once).
فطر - to have breakfast
تغدى - to have lunch
زاكي - yummy, tasty (shows up on Wikitravel's Jordanian phrasebook but not in Living Arabic Levantine, and almaany gives its meaning as "pure"; perhaps limited to Jordan?)
بَلَّش - to begin, start
التكاليف - expenses (false friend of Urdu تکلیف; trouble, difficulty, hardship)
ارجوك - I beg you, please
حاضر - present. In this dialogue it means something like "OK", as shown in the meaning described by Living Arabic: shows a willingness to comply with an order or request, like saying “I'm present and at your service”.


From examples like تان<--تأن,دافي<--دافئ and شتا<--شتاء, it seems that Levantine both removes hamza in some places and (in some varieties) creates new hamza through the pronunciation of qaf as a glottal stop in most words (formal terms like قاموس retain the pronunciation /q/).

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby n8an » 2017-01-15, 10:21

Saim wrote:عمرك رحتي قبل هيك
"Have you ever gone there before?"
(Doesn't عمر mean age? What does it mean in this sentence?)


قصدي - I mean (why doesn't this start with ba-?)



"3omr(+suffix)" in this way means like "in my life (I have)"

In Egyptian:
3mri ma shoftesh 7aga zay keda = I have never seen anything like this




2asde = it is my meaning, etc. It's a noun rather than a verb in this case, as I have always understood it.

shu 2asdak = what do you mean?

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby eskandar » 2017-01-15, 10:43

n8an wrote:In Egyptian:
3mri ma shoftesh 7aga zay keda = I have never seen anything like this

In Egyptian, "7aga keda" (without zay) sounds better to me for "like this".
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2017-01-15, 10:52

n8an wrote:"3omr(+suffix)" in this way means like "in my life (I have)"

[...]

2asde = it is my meaning, etc. It's a noun rather than a verb in this case, as I have always understood it.

shu 2asdak = what do you mean?


فهمت, شكراً . :)

(How would I write your name in Arabic? نقان? :P)

eskandar wrote:
n8an wrote:In Egyptian:
3mri ma shoftesh 7aga zay keda = I have never seen anything like this

In Egyptian, "7aga keda" (without zay) sounds better to me for "like this".


What does "zay" mean? Why isn't "keda" just "da"? I thought هاذا was just دا in Egyptian.
Does "7aga" mean "like"? If so, would that be -مِتْل in Levantine? In Moroccan it's b7al.

Sorry for all the questions. :lol:

EDIT: Just saw Living Arabic also has Egyptian. According to them حاجة means "thing" and زَيّ is "like". So I'm guessing in Levantine this sentence would be something like:

3mri ma shuuft shii mitl haada

iodalach93

Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby iodalach93 » 2017-01-15, 11:14

Saim wrote:EDIT: Just saw Living Arabic also has Egyptian. According to them حاجة means "thing" and زَيّ is "like". So I'm guessing in Levantine this sentence would be something like:

3mri ma shuuft shii mitl haada

Yes, but more like "shuft" or "shift" (depending on the variety), with a short vowel. I've also seen "7ayaati" instead of "3umri" with the same meaning, but maybe it's used more in Syria/Lebanon than in Palestine/Jordan.

I think that "zayy" is used in Levantine Arabic as well, in Palestinian Arabic for sure.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby eskandar » 2017-01-15, 11:21

Saim wrote:What does "zay" mean? Why isn't "keda" just "da"? I thought هاذا was just دا in Egyptian.
Does "7aga" mean "like"? If so, would that be -مِتْل in Levantine? In Moroccan it's b7al.

Sorry for all the questions. :lol:

"zayy" (زى - Egyptian Arabic tends to leave off the dots on the yaa, just like Urdu and Persian) means like. It's the equivalent of classical مثل or Levantine متل .

"keda" (كدا or كده) means "like this" and derives from classical هكذا . It's different from دا which means "this" (cf. هذا).

"7aga" (حاجة) means "thing" in Egyptian Arabic and some other dialects (شيء in classical, شي in Levantine). Actually "thing" is one of the meanings for حاجة in classical as well, though more often it means a "need".

Edit: iodalach93 beat me to the punch. I agree that I've heard zayy in Levantine as well, though less often :?:
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

iodalach93

Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby iodalach93 » 2017-01-15, 11:22

Also, I would like to recommend this online dictionary for Egyptian Arabic, it's quite rich in terms and gives also semantically or phonetically related words.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby n8an » 2017-01-15, 11:28

eskandar wrote:
n8an wrote:In Egyptian:
3mri ma shoftesh 7aga zay keda = I have never seen anything like this

In Egyptian, "7aga keda" (without zay) sounds better to me for "like this".


Nah, that sounds really weird to my ears without "zay"...I hear people saying "7aga zay keda" all the time, actually :hmm:

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby eskandar » 2017-01-15, 11:48

n8an wrote:Nah, that sounds really weird to my ears without "zay"...I hear people saying "7aga zay keda" all the time, actually :hmm:

I heard it without "zay" far more frequently when I lived in Cairo, though I do hear both. Just Google each term in quotes. Whether you do it in Arabic or in transliteration, the phrase without "zay" gets way more results.
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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2017-01-15, 11:58

iodalach93 wrote:Yes, but more like "shuft" or "shift" (depending on the variety), with a short vowel.


Oh of course! IIRC Colloquial Levantine Arabic transcribes it as shuft (Colloquial Syrian Arabic: A functional course had shéft maybe?).

iodalach93

Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby iodalach93 » 2017-01-15, 13:49

Saim wrote:Oh of course! IIRC Colloquial Levantine Arabic transcribes it as shuft (Colloquial Syrian Arabic: A functional course had shéft maybe?).

Yes! Damascene Syrian has something very close to /ʃəft/, Lebanese /ʃeft/ or /ʃɪft/ and Southern dialects have definitely /ʃʊft/.

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Re: Saim - vernacular Arabic notes (mostly Levantine)

Postby Saim » 2017-01-15, 14:26

Thanks to all of you for all the help and explanations so far. :D

iodalach93 wrote:Damascene Syrian has something very close to /ʃəft/


Yeah, I think that's what <é> is supposed to be in my Syrian textbook. They describe it as "half the length of earn".

Talk in Arabic: Jordanian climate

مناخ - climate
البييض المتوسط - the Mediterranean
تركيز - focus
برَة - outside
تشتي - it rains
(From Living Arabic; rain = شِتِة / شِتَا. In MSA it is مطر, which was also in a dialogue in my Syrian textbook.)
تبر - it gets cold
عادي - normal
-قريب عل - similar (near) to

كلمات "ولع" (First verse, chorus)
نشيد - anthem
سفينة - boat (Hebrew ספינה)
لمجرّد - solely
نكد - testy, peevish
زعل - to huff
سعر - price
مش حنبيع - we're not selling (to sell باع، يْبِيْع)
تحول - transformation, to transform
تجول - stroll
مش قادرين نتجول - we are not able to stroll [not able-pl weprefix-stroll]
مريع - terrible
نبرة - tone
جريح - wounded
تلقيح - vaccination
تصريح - declaration, statement
صريح - explicit, outspoken
تلميح - hint, allusion
فظيع - horrible
خلونا نطيع - they made us obey (to obey أطاع)
جُثْمان - corpse
ثروة - wealth
قيد التصنيع - in process
عقد - decade
قبضة - fist, grip, control (قبضہ is often used in Urdu to mean "occupation, holding territory")
حديد - iron
بقبضة من حديد - under an iron fist
قرية - village
تمديد - extension
تجميد - freezing
رؤوس أموال - capital funds
رؤوس ونووية - nuclear warheads
مصلحة - interest
شعلة - flame
قلع - to remove, take off
ولّع - to light, ignite


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