# All dialects: شطح، رقص



## Hemza

Hello,

شطح is used to mean "dance" in Maghrebi dialects (as far as I know). Is it used somewhere else with the same meaning?

Thank you.


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## elroy

In Palestinian Arabic a شطحة is an outing or trip, and I think شطح could be used for "go on a trip," although what I normally hear and say is راح شطحة.


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## Hemza

Thank Elroy for your contribution. I found this in Al maany:

الشَّطْحَةُ: 
الشَّطْحَةُ الشَّطْحَةُ يقال لفلان الصوفي : له أحوال وشطحات

I guess there is a link with the Maghrebi meaning. I suppose, according to what you said that this word isn't used by Levantine speakers with this meaning. Any help from Egyptian/Sudanese or Arabian speakers?


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## momai

No,it's not used in Syria this way.


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## djara

Please see Dozy (Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes) under شطح. Both the Palestinian and the Maghrebian meanings seem to be attested. In Sufi usage, it means the overflow of feelings. It also means water overflowing from a stream (going out of the stream). 
*Arabic @*
أهلاً و سهلاً في موقع الوراق  - resource for arabic books
*French @* Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes. Tome 1 / par R. Dozy,...


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## Hemza

يعيشك يا سيد دجارا 
و شكرا أيضا للسيد موماي على المشاركة

The topic is still open to other replies of course


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## ayed

In Saudi, it means when one is off topic or speaks of something is completely irrelvenat to that topic


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## cherine

In Egyptian Arabic it's about going too far, like saying things that are crazy or far fetched شطح بأفكاره he had crazy ideas/dreams.


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## be.010

^ Also in Syrian, شطح is about going too far.


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## elroy

This is interesting.  Usually if something occurs in both Syrian and Egyptian it also occurs in Palestinian!  Maybe شطح has that meaning in Palestinian but I've never heard it?  "Go on a trip" does seem to be related, so maybe it originally had the "go too far" meaning and then developed the other meaning.  Do you have شطحة meaning "trip" in either Syrian or Egyptian?


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## cherine

No, here a shaT7a is a crazy idea or something nonsensical.


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## be.010

Nore in Syrian. The most common usage of شطح here is probably شطح بأفكاره or شطح بخياله...
شطحة here is not as common as the verb.
By the way, in many Syrian regions the word شوطة is used for "little trip" but it's very informal.


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## elroy

Very interesting.  My guess is that originally it only meant "to go too far" in all three countries but then acquired a new meaning in Palestinian Arabic only.  I'm curious whether the word is used in Lebanon and Jordan, and what it means there if so.


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## barkoosh

شطح in Lebanon means the same as in Syria and Egypt, mainly used in شطح بأفكاره/بخياله. Some use the verb شطح if, for example, a speaker exceeded the allotted time for his speech.

As far as I know, شطحة is generally not used.


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## ayed

Post #7 is included


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## Hemza

As it is used by all Maghrebi speakers to mean "to dance", I guess it has been brought by either bani Hilal/Sulaym/7asan tribes? But if it's the case, it should have this meaning (or at least, something close) in some Najdi or Hijazi or even Yemeni dialects (Ayed or Wadi Hanifa, any idea?). I have no idea why this word has this meaning only (perhaps) in the Maghreb... Or it might be linked with Sufi movements?
Someone has an idea about Chad? I guess Sudan is like Egypt.


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## I.K.S.

Hemza said:


> Or it might be linked with Sufi movements?



Absolutely this .as it has been said earlier  "شطح " originally is the action of saying or thinking about a far fetched and surreal ideas and not a mechanical action .  the correlation between the concept of "شطح " and dancing goes back IMHO to the rituals of meditation and dhikr that Sufis and dervishes used to perform accompanied by those movements similar to the act of dance,the tying of the two rituals made people think of dancing as the real pith of the "الشطح"_ over the time_.since it's the apparent ritual .
but a requisite question crop up here ! why "شطح " has overwhelmed as a dance meaning instead of the indispensable word "رقص "? .
Perhaps because historically the dance wasn't a genuine Moroccan/maghrebi habit, unlike the art of "العيطة",which has been always an essential artistic performance in their ceremonies and rituals that depended on voice only. However the word  "رقص " occurs in the moroccan dialect under a form of derivation which is "رقاص" was who used to deliver letters from city to another before the postman job .


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## Hemza

Thanks a lot for all these information. But I think العيطة is typically Moroccan right? What about the rest? Or dance wasn't too a genuine habit there? I can't think of a place where music exist and dance doesn't, it seems odd to me. Not that I disagree with you, you seem to know much more about it than me but it's hard to figure out. For example, just to talk about Morocco, there is ردح and many other kind of dances or at least, movements which go with songs?


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## I.K.S.

Hemza said:


> Thanks a lot for all these information. But I think العيطة is typically Moroccan right? What about the rest? Or dance wasn't too a genuine habit there? I can't think of a place where music exist and dance doesn't, it seems odd to me. Not that I disagree with you, you seem to know much more about it than me but it's hard to figure out. For example, just to talk about Morocco, there is ردح and many other kind of dances or at least, movements which go with songs?



yes,actually good point ,it was just a hypothesis ,I jumped to that conclusion based on the rule that says :The absence of the term means the absence of the activity ,of course i don't mean the individual need or tendency to the spontaneous dance, but as a dominant folkloric theme (i exclude here some local traditional dances such as Ahidous and Ahwash) .
and yes with regard to the term we can say العيطة  is a moroccan invention ,yet we would find a similar styles in Algeria ,Egypt ,yemen with the same morphology but with different labels .
I don't think that ردح is a kind of dance ,it's just a caricatural depiction of the dance performing ,usually to criticise the dance for being exaggerated ,especially if i told you that is normaly used in the moroccan dialect to mean ( kicking ركل ).


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## Zoghbi

> As it is used by all Maghrebi speakers to mean "to dance"



Libyan arabic: _yurguṣ_(wiki)
Hassani arabic :_yerges_(_Catherine Taine-Cheikh_ p14)
Wahrani arabic :_rges_(Jairo Guerrerop 231)
Nayli arabic:_ragsa_(youtube)

Soufi (Oued Souf) and Southern tunisian should definitely share this verb instead I don't have any source to link.



> I guess it has been brought by either bani Hilal/Sulaym/7asan tribes?



As you see actually most of bedouin influenced dialects in Maghreb retain the رقص root, the pan-maghreb use of a term is not necessarily linked with the hilalian migration, and for what i've read it's rather the oposite that we find (ex:البارح pan-maghreb, but some areas with a great bedouin influence do use امس or اليامس)


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## Aloulu

In Tunisia we use both frequently. There is (now I'm thinking of it) a small difference in usage however. شطح is much more used it seems to me when dealing with Tunisian folkloristic music (mezoued); or sha3biyya music. Where we also have our typical Tunisian dance. This is "shat7a tounsiya". 

But when we talk about dance in general or related to "sharqi music" (eastern Arabic music) such as Egyptian/Lebanese etc we would use رقص. It is used as a more much general term covering non-Tunisian dances on non-Tunisian music.


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## Hemza

Zoghbi said:


> Libyan arabic: _yurguṣ_(wiki)
> Hassani arabic :_yerges_(_Catherine Taine-Cheikh_ p14)
> Wahrani arabic :_rges_(Jairo Guerrerop 231)
> Nayli arabic:_ragsa_(youtube)
> 
> Soufi (Oued Souf) and Southern tunisian should definitely share this verb instead I don't have any source to link.
> 
> 
> 
> As you see actually most of bedouin influenced dialects in Maghreb retain the رقص root, the pan-maghreb use of a term is not necessarily linked with the hilalian migration, and for what i've read it's rather the oposite that we find (ex:البارح pan-maghreb, but some areas with a great bedouin influence do use امس or اليامس)



I should have erased the "all" from my sentence . I know that in Mauritania they use رقص but I thought شطح was also used. As for اليامس, this term was frequent in Morocco (even in urban areas) but it disappeared to the benefit of البارح while in the South and in Mauritania, it's still prevalent.


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