# All dialects/MSA: Work shift



## raful

[Mod note: This post was moved from *this thread *about EA. Cherine]

Is شفت used in all dialects? Is there another term for work shift?


----------



## cherine

There's another word used in Egypt, both colloquially and fuS7a: wardeyya وردية.

Some countries use مناوبة (physicians in Egypt use it as well, pronounced: menawba, monawba) and there was the word nabatsheyya, but I don't know if it's still used, and it could be a loan from Turkish. In the police, they use it for officers staying/working night shifts in police station: الظابط النباطشي/النوباتجي.


----------



## analeeh

It is a Turkish loan - from _nobetçi _'watchman' < _nobet '_watch, shift' which is obvious related to مناوبة.

وردية is also used in Syrian. It's from Italian, possibly via Turkish.


----------



## akhooha

What Italian word is وردية  from?


----------



## momai

From guardia, but probably through many languages.


----------



## akhooha

Thank you, momai


----------



## elroy

Palestinian:

As is so often the case, three different words are used: one Arabic and two from English and Hebrew, respectively.

مناوبة (_mnāwabe_)
شِفت (_šift_)
مشميرت (_mišmēret_)


----------



## Mahaodeh

analeeh said:


> It is a Turkish loan - from _nobetçi _'watchman' < _nobet '_watch, shift' which is obvious related to مناوبة.


I don't think it's Turkish. I believe it's probably from Classical Arabic ناب ينوب نيابة = to switch or replace or proxy.


----------



## analeeh

Mahaodeh said:


> I don't think it's Turkish. I believe it's probably from Classical Arabic ناب ينوب نيابة = to switch or replace or proxy.



The نوبة part is obviously from Arabic originally, yes, but it absolutely is a Turkish loan in its form _nobetçi _(see here). Loans can go in multiple directions. It's quite common for an originally Arabic word to be borrowed into Turkish, given a new significance or additional suffixes (and sometimes a new pronunciation) and then borrowed back into Arabic. There are cases where this is more ambiguous, but the addition of the suffix as well as the specific meaning (plus the prominence of Turkish terminology in Egyptian military/police contexts historically) make this pretty certain. I'm not sure why you'd say you don't think it's Turkish.


----------



## Mahaodeh

analeeh said:


> Loans can go in multiple directions. It's quite common for an originally Arabic word to be borrowed into Turkish, given a new significance or additional suffixes (and sometimes a new pronunciation) and then borrowed back into Arabic.


I completely agree with this statement. In fact, I can give you several examples from the top of my head. However, the web page you gave does not prove such a thing or claim it, it's just a listing of multiple meanings of the word in Turkish and their translation into English.


analeeh said:


> I'm not sure why you'd say you don't think it's Turkish.


Well, for one, the word borrowed was نوباطجي not مناوبة. It's used to refer to a specific police rank - I'm not sure but I think it's a low ranking officer. Some dialects use نوباطجية to refer to a shift, it's obviously a loan but most likely derived from نوباطجي directly not borrowed as is although the latter is still possible. In Any case, I doubt that most who use this word know of its relation to مناوبة.

Another reason is that the word نوبة is used in many dialects to refer to a repetitive action or time that is, something that happens again. The form مفاعلة is used to create nouns that require more than one party to take turns or do something to each other and it still exists in dialects. I've heard people do it on the spot.

A third reason is that in the late 19th and early 20th century many words were coined by properly using an existing Arabic root with the appropriate form to express ideas that did not exist earlier or to replace some loanwords that just don't fit into Standard Arabic neatly. There is no reason to think that مناوبة is not one of them.

Having said the above I'm open to the idea of it being a borrowing, it's just that I don't see it and you didn't really provide any proof or even the claim of an authoritative figure.


----------



## cherine

I actually find analeeh's words sensible. In "pure" Arabic, we have مُناوَبة for shift and مُناوِب for the person working a shift.
Then, loaned form Turkish (who had borrowed it from Arabic) we have nabatshi wish I imagine would be written like this in Ottoman: نوبةجي or نوبتجي (which is still used sometimes) = the person working the shift, and we made the word nabatsheyya to refer to the shift itself.

Edit: The word nabatsheyya is also still written the Ottoman way (if my guessing of the original spelling is correct: نوبتجية).


----------



## tounsi51

Tunisian Arabic might use the French word "poste" 

شفت   is an English word that is not used in North African dialects due to French colonization


----------



## analeeh

Mahaodeh said:


> Well, for one, the word borrowed was نوباطجي not مناوبة. It's used to refer to a specific police rank - I'm not sure but I think it's a low ranking officer. Some dialects use نوباطجية to refer to a shift, it's obviously a loan but most likely derived from نوباطجي directly not borrowed as is although the latter is still possible. In Any case, I doubt that most who use this word know of its relation to مناوبة.



Ahh, I think there's been a misunderstanding - I was talking about نوبتجي and not about مناوبة, which I agree is a native word (and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise).


----------



## Mahaodeh

analeeh said:


> Ahh, I think there's been a misunderstanding - I was talking about نوبتجي and not about مناوبة, which I agree is a native word (and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise).


Ah, I see. Looking back at the original posts, I think I made an inaccurate assumption.


analeeh said:


> وردية is also used in Syrian. It's from Italian, possibly via Turkish.





momai said:


> From guardia, but probably through many languages.


But is it usual that g turns into w? I mean, why didn't it become غردية or (maybe less likely) جردية


----------



## momai

Mahaodeh said:


> But is it usual that g turns into w? I mean, why didn't it become غردية or (maybe less likely) جردية


الكلمة حتما من لغة أساسها لاتيني لكن كما أردفت، الكلمة غالب الظن ولذات السبب الذي ذكرتيه قد مرت عبر لغات أخرى قبل وصولها للعربية


----------



## analeeh

I think that it might have been borrowed via Turkish in the 19th century. In Turkish _gw _is an impossible initial cluster and the form is _vardiya_ - the _gw _would I guess just have been borrowed as _v_, which typically got borrowed into Arabic as _w. _There seem to be a couple of other terms borrowed from Romance languages where gw > v: _guardacabo > vardakavo_, 'guard rope', _guardacosta > vardacosta_ 'coast guard',  Or it may be that both the Turkish and Arabic forms represent the original form in a different dialect of Italian, or something. But it wouldn't be surprising given the prominence of Turkish in the 'modernising' workplace of the 19th century in both Egypt and the Levant if it was borrowed via Turkish.


----------



## Mahaodeh

analeeh said:


> In Turkish _gw _is an impossible initial cluster and the form is _vardiya_ - the _gw _would I guess just have been borrowed as _v_, which typically got borrowed into Arabic as _w._


OK, this makes sense. v is almost always borrowed into Arabic as w (at least until the 20th century when it started to be borrowed as f).


----------

