# Levantine Arabic: hometown



## bwac14

Hello,

I'm trying to translate this sentence:
_More than half of my university friends went back to their hometowns after graduation._

My attempt for the rest of the sentence:
اكتر من نص صحابي بالجامعة رجعوا ... بعد التخرج.

Thank you


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## Jordan89

I would use "على مدنهم " or "على قُراهم" or "على بلادهم/ بلدانهم" or "على بيوتهم"

"their cities, their towns/ villages, their countries, or their homes"; depending on where it is they're going back to. Of course there is an equivalent for "hometown" in Arabic, but if you're using dialect, I wouldn't use "مسقط رأسهم" here, as it would sound too formal.


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## WadiH

What about ديارهم?


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## Jordan89

Wadi Hanifa said:


> What about ديارهم?


I'd also use it if I were to use MSA rather than Levantine


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## WadiH

There must be some dialects have the word دار، ديرة، ديار etc.  I find it hard to believe that it is only known through MSA.


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## Schem

Would لضيعاتهن work?



Wadi Hanifa said:


> There must be some dialects have the word دار، ديرة، ديار etc.  I find it hard to believe that it is only known through MSA.



I believe these are used only in peninsular-type dialects. Maybe some Iraqi ones as well.


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## Jordan89

Schem said:


> Would لضيعاتهن work?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe these are used only in peninsular-type dialects. Maybe some Iraqi ones as well.


Definitely! I know it could be used in Syria. I'm not sure whether it'd be better to say لضِيَعهن though, or if both could be used interchangeably.


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## wriight

ضِيَع would be great and was my first thought too, but of course not everyone is from a village... maybe رجعوا على منطقتهم/مناطقهم, "to their (home) regions/areas"?


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## cherine

Wadi Hanifa said:


> There must be some dialects have the word دار، ديرة، ديار etc.  I find it hard to believe that it is only known through MSA.


دار is used in rural Egyptian Arabic, and means home. The house of the head of the village, being bigger and more important is call dawwaar دَوّار العُمْدة.

In Urban EA, I'd use رجعوا بلادهم because we use بلد for country and also for home town.


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## WadiH

What about the old Egyptian song: 

غريب الدار عليا جار زمانى اسى وظلمنى
مشيت سواح مسا وصباح ادور عالى راح منى
غريب الدار
سافرت بلاد وطفت بلاد ومين عالشوق يصبرنى

I don't think he means 'house'.

Maybe the word is obsolete in the modern 'Levant', but I'd be careful to dismiss it out of hand.  This type of vocabulary that people nowadays associate with 'bedouins' extends much farther north than modern borders suggest.  In 'Bab Al-Harah' the neighborhood's wartime commander is called _3agiid_, which is a bedouin word.


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## cherine

Wadi Hanifa said:


> What about the old Egyptian song:
> غريب الدار
> […]
> I don't think he means 'house'.


No, he doesn't  غريب الدار as a set expression means to be foreign or a stranger in a place.


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## elroy

Palestinian:

رجعوا كل واحد على بلده

Conveniently, we don't tend to use بلد for "country" (we use دولة instead), and بلد can be used for a city, town, or village, so it works well here.

مدن and قرى are too specific ("cities" and "villages," respectively).
بيوت and ديار are not used with this meaning.
ضيع is Northern Levantine (and not used in Southern Levantine), and it means "villages," as noted.
مناطق is not idiomatic in this sense.

By the way, مسقط رأس doesn't work because it means "place of birth," not "hometown."


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## WadiH

cherine said:


> غريب الدار as a set expression means to be foreign or a stranger in a place.



Precisely, so there was a time when this meaning was known.


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## Jordan89

elroy said:


> Palestinian:
> 
> رجعوا كل واحد على بلده
> 
> Conveniently, we don't tend to use بلد for "country" (we use دولة instead), and بلد can be used for a city, town, or village, so it works well here.
> 
> مدن and قرى are too specific ("cities" and "villages," respectively).
> بيوت and ديار not used with this meaning.
> ضيع is Northern Levantine (and not used in Southern Levantine), and it means "villages," as noted.
> مناطق is not idiomatic in this sense.
> 
> By the way, مسقط رأس doesn't work because it means "place of birth," not "hometown."


As far as I know, hometown also means place of birth.

Cambridge dictionary definition of hometown is: the town or city that a person is from, especially the one in which they were born and lived while they were young.


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## elroy

Jordan89 said:


> As far as I know, hometown also means place of birth.


 It doesn’t. 


Jordan89 said:


> Cambridge dictionary definition of hometown is: the town or city that a person is from, especially the one in which they were born and lived while they were young.


 The key word is “especially.”


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## momai

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Precisely, so there was a time when this meaning was known.


دار and ديرة to a lesser degree are used in Levantine Syrian, probably much more among Mesopotamian and Beduin-like Syrian dialects.


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## elroy

momai said:


> دار and ديرة to a lesser degree are used in Levantine Syrian


 To mean “hometown”?  And what is Levantine Syrian?


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## momai

elroy said:


> To mean “hometown”?  And what is Levantine Syrian?


No, دار means home as in رايح/رجعان عالدار or باب الدار, but in Damascene and aleppine they probably prefer باب الزقاق, instead.
ديرة was the older word which was replaced by منطقة.


Wadi Hanifa said:


> Maybe the word is obsolete in the modern 'Levant', but I'd be careful to dismiss it out of hand.  This type of vocabulary that people nowadays associate with 'bedouins' extends much farther north than modern borders suggest.  In 'Bab Al-Harah' the neighborhood's wartime commander is called _3agiid_, which is a bedouin word.


Yes, and note also that even Syrian and Lebanese singers alike in many traditional 3ataabah songs or otheres prefer to pronounce words with gaaf instead of qaaf/aleph.
In addition, there are many words which are simply pronounced with gaaf, for example: عقال and جلابية. It would be interesting to know the reason, indeed.


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## elroy

دار is used very frequently in Palestinian Arabic, but not to mean “hometown.”  I thought @Wadi Hanifa was only referring to that meaning.


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## WadiH

In fuSHa and bedouin-type dialects (for lack of a better term), دار has a broader range.  It basically centers around 'residence' (similar to the English word 'abode'), which can range from a house (or even room) to a whole country and anything in between.


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## Schem

It's possible دار was used more frequently in relation to place names sometime in the past as evidenced by Diyarbakir at least. This isn't to say, however, that the word and its derivations were used in the same capacity or frequency as in Arabia; ديرة (pl. ديّر) to refer to village or town seems to be an Arabian development not paralleled in the Levant or Egypt.


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## WadiH

Schem said:


> It's possible دار was used more frequently in relation to place names sometime in the past as evidenced by Diyarbakir at least. This isn't to say, however, that the word and its derivations were used in the same capacity or frequency as in Arabia; ديرة (pl. ديّر) to refer to village or town seems to be an Arabian development not paralleled in the Levant or Egypt.



Momai has already confirmed that the word is known in much of Syria and Mesopotamia.  Not sure what you mean by 'Arabian', but terms like 'Arabia' and 'Levant' are vague and shouldn't be conflated with 20th borders (I personally avoid using the term 'Arabia' now and prefer 'Arabian Peninsula' but that's another thread).  There has always been a cultural/linguistic continuum extending from the Arabian Peninsula into Jordan, southern Palestine, Sinai, Iraq and central and northern Syria and even places like the Biqaa' plain, ironically only interrupted by modern political borders.  The oldest recorded examples of Nabati poetry that we have come from the Syrian Hawran and eastern Egypt (at the end of Ibn Khaldun's _Muqaddimah_).  And indeed based on some googling I've found songs like حوران يا ديرة هلي and references to various _diirahs _in Iraq and Jordan, so what Momai said makes sense to me.


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## WadiH

momai said:


> Yes, and note also that even Syrian and Lebanese singers alike in many traditional 3ataabah songs or otheres prefer to pronounce words with gaaf instead of qaaf/aleph.
> In addition, there are many words which are simply pronounced with gaaf, for example: عقال and جلابية. It would be interesting to know the reason, indeed.



In Iraq you have essentially two sets of words, gaaf words and qaaf words, the latter believed to represent an older, medieval layer.  Perhaps in Syria (by which I mean geographic Syria), you had a similar phenomenon but apparently much less extensive.  It might have to do with the concentration of migration and settlement from the deserts and steppes in the last few centuries.  That's my conjecture at least but it sounds like an interesting area of research.


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## Hemza

I can't think of anything for Moroccan, else than بلاد or دار to mean hometown... It doesn't exactly correspond but I think these two could be understood this way within the appropriate context.


cherine said:


> دار is used in rural Egyptian Arabic, and means home. The house of the head of the village, being bigger and more important is call dawwaar دَوّار العُمْدة.


This is exactly like the Maghreb the only difference being the meaning of دَوّار which means "village" (beside قرية and دشرة to my knowledge).  Also in some Maghrebi areas, the word نجع is used as well but I can't find an equivalent in English.


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## Schem

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Momai has already confirmed that the word is known in much of Syria and Mesopotamia.  Not sure what you mean by 'Arabian', but terms like 'Arabia' and 'Levant' are vague and shouldn't be conflated with 20th borders (I personally avoid using the term 'Arabia' now and prefer 'Arabian Peninsula' but that's another thread).  There has always been a cultural/linguistic continuum extending from the Arabian Peninsula into Jordan, southern Palestine, Sinai, Iraq and central and northern Syria and even places like the Biqaa' plain, ironically only interrupted by modern political borders.  The oldest recorded examples of Nabati poetry that we have come from the Syrian Hawran and eastern Egypt (at the end of Ibn Khaldun's _Muqaddimah_).  And indeed based on some googling I've found songs like حوران يا ديرة هلي and references to various _diirahs _in Iraq and Jordan, so what Momai said makes sense to me.



Diyarbakir itself was settled by the Bakr confederation (who were pushed there from Najd) since late antiquity. Obviously Arabs have roamed the Arabian plate sans barrier for very long millennia but their presence and "Bedouin-type" dialects as well as lexicons remain concentrated within Arabia, including much of Jordan and southern Iraq, in addition to pockets in upper Mesopotamia. When we say Levant here, we're referring to the historically largely Greek-Aramaic speaking region whose inhabitants today mainly speak urban Arabic dialects and where دار and its descendants meaning 'village or town' are absent or obsolete.


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## WadiH

Syria (by which, again, I mean Geographic Syria) is not just urban dialects, and those urban dialects certainly do not map onto any supposed Greek or Aramaic-speaking areas, which I don't see as relevant to modern Arabic dialects.  Most of Syria is a continuum of rural dialects, which share similarities with both urban and bedouin-type dialects.  What I'm saying is that these dialects are full of vocabulary, expressions and proverbs that are shared with dialects from the Peninsula, and it seems words like ديرة and ديار were known (and in some regions are still known).  It also seems to be a common word in Iraq generally.  In fact, this continuing influence through migration and settlement helps explain why modern Arabic dialects (so-called 'Neo Arabic') are closer to each other than any of them is to FuSHa, and it's a much better explanation than the influence of FuSHa or the Quraan.


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## Hemza

Schem said:


> Their presence and "Bedouin-type" dialects as well as lexicons remain concentrated within Arabia, including much of Jordan and southern Iraq, in addition to pockets in upper Mesopotamia.


I think that seeing things this way is (I may be wrong though) more of a modern way than the "usual one" (if I may call it this way), since Levantine urban areas are usually more exposed in media at the expense of "remoted" areas (أرياف/بوادي) which may give us the feeling that the whole of Syria looks like Beirut or Jerusalem or Damascus  (I know it's cliché). I think "bedouin type" (if we mean the same thing) are more present than you think. A big part of Syria being covered with steppes and deserts, I suppose that it's more than pockets (and not only in upper Mesopotamia but across Syria). Even in Palestine, the "bedouin type" is more present than people often expect. All of this is only according to my modest observations from abroad. From a non used eye/ear, it's hard to distinguish a bedouin speaker from the Levant from its Northern Arabian counterparts, this proving how merged are both areas and that borders may influence the way you perceive things . But @momai messages also show that you're not wrong that is to say that this bedouin type seems threatened by its urban counterpart as people tend to merge more and more hence this either gives birth to new ways of talking or one way turning the other extinct.

I forgot: ديار (along ديور) is merely the plural of دار in the Maghreb.


momai said:


> Yes, and note also that even Syrian and Lebanese singers alike in many traditional 3ataabah songs or otheres prefer to pronounce words with gaaf instead of qaaf/aleph.


Not that it means anything but when I listen to old Lebanese/Syrian songs (up to the 70's), I often hear "gaaf" while if you listen to more modern songs, you mainly hear ء.


> In addition, there are many words which are simply pronounced with gaaf, for example: عقال


I guess it's because it's mainly worn by peasants/bedouins and part of their culture more than the urban one (not that there are always clear distinctions and boundaries) hence this explain why the word is pronounced with a "g"? Similarly, I can't think of any place in the Maghreb where بقرة is pronounced with a "qaaf". It's always said with a "gaaf" even in urban places for the (I guess) same reason which explains why عقال is pronounced with a "gaaf".



Hemza said:


> This is exactly like the Maghreb the only difference being the meaning of دوّار which means "village" (beside قرية and دشرة to my knowledge).  Also in some Maghrebi areas, the word نجع is used as well but I can't find an equivalent in English.


@cherine a small correction: دوّار means مجموعة من ديار so it's much smaller than a village. Also, a village in the Maghreb is much smaller than a village in the Egyptian Delta . What you call "village" is already a "city" in the Maghreb (we don't have villages with 100 000 inhabitants  ).


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## Schem

Hemza said:


> I think that seeing things this way is (I may be wrong though) more of a modern way than the "usual one" (if I may call it this way), since Levantine urban areas are usually more exposed in media at the expense of "remoted" areas (أرياف/بوادي) which may give us the feeling that the whole of Syria looks like Beirut or Jerusalem or Damascus  (I know it's cliché). I think "bedouin type" (if we mean the same thing) are more present than you think. A big part of Syria being covered with steppes and deserts, I suppose that it's more than pockets (and not only in upper Mesopotamia but across Syria). Even in Palestine, the "bedouin type" is more present than people often expect. All of this is only according to my modest observations from abroad. From a non used eye/ear, it's hard to distinguish a bedouin speaker from the Levant from its Northern Arabian counterparts, this proving how merged are both areas and that borders may influence the way you perceive things . But @momai messages also show that you're not wrong that is to say that this bedouin type seems threatened by its urban counterpart as people tend to merge more and more hence this either gives birth to new ways of talking or one way turning the other extinct.



You're unnecessarily reading too much into my posts. We don't all share the same experiences here. I've known Syrians from Barzeh to Manbej and most Syrian dialect groups, including "rural" dialects, fall under urban Arabic and the same goes for Lebanon. Speakers of Arabian-type dialects are easily recognizable within the Levant itself and they do not form a silent majority as you seem to suggest. So far the only evidence we have of ديرة being used in historic Syria comes from Mesopotamian dialects.

The southern Levant may be different by its very nature but urban centers there, which account for the majority of its population, share more with the northern Levant than they do with Arabia.


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## fenakhay

Hemza said:


> Similarly, I can't think of any place in the Maghreb where بقرة is pronounced with a "qaaf". It's always said with a "gaaf" even in urban places for the (I guess) same reason which explains why عقال is pronounced with a "gaaf".


This is wrong. In my dialect, it is pronounced _baqra _and this is true for all northern dialects and many other urban dialects.


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## Hemza

fenakhay said:


> This is wrong. In my dialect, it is pronounced _baqra _and this is true for all northern dialects and many other urban dialects.


My bad I wasn't expecting that . Sorry for my hasty assumption. How do you pronounce قربة? Qurba? Or gerba?


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## momai

Schem said:


> urban Arabic dialects and where دار and its descendants meaning 'village or town' are absent or obsolete.


دار is as elroy and I have said is frequently used. From d-w-r we have دير (ديورة pl.) for monastery ( and for example the city of دير الزور) and ديرة meaning منطقة for example we say كل ويحد من ديرة شكل أو كل شخص بديرة and of coarse ديار as in أرض الديار. I don't have to tell you that not every single Arabic word has to be equally used. Some words simply have limited number of usages. That is not to say that Arabian dialects are not unique and very distinct from Levantine dialects, but rather the contrary.


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## Abbe

In Syria a lot of places are called كفر followed by a word كفر سوسة for example. Is kafr another word for town or village?


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## momai

Abbe said:


> In Syria a lot of places are called كفر followed by a word كفر سوسة for example. Is kafr another word for town or village?


Not only in Syria but in the whole Levant and Egypt, too. It is an Aramaic loanword and is not used today anymore.


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## WadiH

Cities tend to dominate the cultural landscape and exert a strong pull, especially in the era of the modern nation state and mass media.  But we shouldn't project this influence back into the past when the influence was more reciprocal with the steppes and countryside and at times even dominated by them.  Cities were also much smaller as a proportion of population than they became in the 20th century.



momai said:


> Not only in Syria but in the whole Levant and Egypt, too. It is an Aramaic loanword and is not used today anymore.



Yes though it should be noted that it is related to the root كفر (meaning to sow or cover with soil), which does exist as a productive root in Arabic.


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## cherine

momai said:


> Not only in Syria but in the whole Levant and Egypt, too. It is an Aramaic loanword and is not used today anymore.


I didn't know it's from Aramaic. But the word is still used in Egypt for small villages. The plural is kofuur كُفور. And by still in use I mean that I village whose name is كفر كذا is still called like this, its name hasn't changed. But I don't think new villages get the title kafr, but qaraya (qaryet kadha).


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## Schem

cherine said:


> I didn't know it's from Aramaic. But the word is still used in Egypt for small villages. The plural is kofuur كُفور. And by still in use I mean that I village whose name is كفر كذا is still called like this, its name hasn't changed. But I don't think new villages get the title kafr, but qaraya (qaryet kadha).



It must have remained in use for some time after the Arabization of Egypt since we have cities like كفر الشيخ which combine both Arabic and Aramaic elements.


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## WadiH

Schem said:


> It must have remained in use for some time after the Arabization of Egypt since we have cities like كفر الشيخ which combine both Arabic and Aramaic elements.



At that point كفر had already become an Arabic word (albeit originating as a loan from Aramaic like many other common Arabic words).


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## fenakhay

Hemza said:


> My bad I wasn't expecting that . Sorry for my hasty assumption. How do you pronounce قربة? Qurba? Or gerba?


Is this the water bag?


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## Hemza

Yes. How do you pronounce it?

By the way, do you have any idea for hometown apart from دار or بلاد? I have no idea...


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## fenakhay

Hemza said:


> Yes. How do you pronounce it?



qarba



Hemza said:


> By the way, do you have any idea for hometown apart from دار or بلاد? I have no idea...



Me neither. I use بلاد for that.


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## WadiH

momai said:


> دار and ديرة to a lesser degree are used in Levantine Syrian, probably much more among Mesopotamian and Beduin-like Syrian dialects.



Was listening today to some Palestinian folk songs (which are great btw) and the word ديرة came up in two songs:

شمالي يا هوا الديرة شمالي على اللي ابوابهم تفتح شمالي

يا طير الطاير يا رايح ع الديرة تحميك عيوني وتصونك عين الله

So I think it's safe to say the term is known in Palestinian Arabic.


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## Hemza

I just remembered I heard in two or three Libyan songs about a lost love,
قلوا لي وين ديارها
يا ناس دلّوني
قلوا لي عن أخبارها
قلبي صار حزين
Or
قلوا لي وين دياره
ما وافتني أخباره
قلوا لي وين نلقاه
وين طريق نجيبه


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