# All dialects/MSA: bottle



## djara

What is your preferred word for bottle in MSA: ... قنينة، زجاجة، قارورة ?
And what are the words you use in your dialect?
In Tunisian, the most commonly used word is دبّوزة dabbouza, sometimes pronounced دبّوسة dabbousa.
I know that in Algerian it is قرعة qar3a and in Egyptian أزازة azaaza. (Please correct these if I'm wrong)


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## Hemza

Hello,

In Morocco as in Algeria, it is قرعة (qar3a).
زجاج (zjaaj) is used as well but it only mean "glass" (i.e a glass panel of a window, not the one for drinking) and doesn't necessarily refer to a bottle but we may say قرعة زجاج for a bottle made of glass.

I don't know if bedouins have a word in Morocco for bottle but they use شكوة and قربة for a kind of goatskin where they store milk/water. I guess all bedouins use those two words across Arab countries.


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## tounsi51

In Tunisia also we use قزاز for broken pieces of glass


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## cherine

djara said:


> What is your preferred word for bottle in MSA: ... قنينة، زجاجة، قارورة ?


The one used in MSA in Egypt is زجاجة. We use قنينة mostly for alcohool bottles, but it's not that common, we still use زجاجة for that.
قارورة is mostly used for medicine and perfumes, but again isn't that common anymore.
So, to sum up: the word mostly used in MSA in Egypt for bottle is زجاجة.


> I know that in Algerian it is قرعة qar3a and in Egyptian أزازة azaaza. (Please correct these if I'm wrong)


You're right, but we pronounce it ezaaza إزازة. The plural is azaayez أزايز.

The word إزاز ezaaz means glass (the material) which is زُجاج is MSA.


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## Golden-Rose

In Syrian قنينة, pronounced 2niiné.


Hemza said:


> In Morocco as in Algeria, it is قرعة (qar3a).


You use the same word for "bottle" and "courgette"?


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## analeeh

Golden-Rose said:


> In Syrian قنينة, pronounced _2niiné._



Pronounced_ 2anniine_, not _2niine_.


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## tounsi51

Golden-Rose said:


> You use the same word for "bottle" and "courgette"?



They pronounce with qaf for bottle and g for courgette


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## Hemza

tounsi51 said:


> They pronounce with qaf for bottle and g for courgette



True although some people may call both "qar3a" but the context helps to distinguish of course, like in French, you have vers, verre, vert pronounced the same way but people know which word is used.


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## elroy

In Palestine:

قنينة in colloquial 
زجاجة in MSA


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## djara

Golden-Rose said:


> You use the same word for "bottle" and "courgette"?


I think it makes sense. It is the same word. There is a type of long-shaped pumpkin not a courgette that is cored (emptied) and properly dried and then used as a sort of bottle for drinking.
*Edit*: According to etymonline, the English word calabash has a possible similar etymology
calabash (n.) 


1590s, "dried, hollowed gourd used as a drinking cup," from Spanish calabaza, possibly from Arabic *qar'a yabisa* "dry gourd," from Persian kharabuz, used of various large melons; or from a pre-Roman Iberian *calapaccia.


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## Hemza

Which probably gave "calebasse" in French, and serve for the same purpose of drinking .


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## I.K.S.

djara said:


> I think it makes sense. It is the same word. There is a type of long-shaped pumpkin not a courgette that is cored (emptied) and properly dried and then used as a sort of bottle for drinking.


...and to this day ,very few "traditional" people still use it to preserve certain medicinal herbs against humidity as far as i know .
ps : we call that long-shaped pumpkin  السلاوي


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## djara

Thank you all for your contributions.


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## Mahaodeh

Just to add a couple.
In Iraq it's بُطُل, Arabised from the English bottle.
I've heard غرشة used in the U.A.E., but I don't know it's origin.


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## Golden-Rose

Mahaodeh said:


> In Iraq it's بُطُل, Arabised from the English bottle.


And I thought that Iraqi guy was purposefully using English to accomodate me


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## Hemza

Mahaodeh said:


> Just to add a couple.
> In Iraq it's بُطُل, Arabised from the English bottle.
> I've heard غرشة used in the U.A.E., but I don't know it's origin.


 You mean that bottles didn't exist in Iraq or there was no word for them before Gertrude Bell came? No way, it seems impossible. May be an Arabic word used to be used or a Persian word like شيشة ? What elder people say?


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## Ihsiin

Of course there were words for 'bottle' before. New words are not borrowed into languages only when no word already existed. Many times new words are imported into languages, sometimes replacing perfectly fine pre-existing words, sometimes going on alongside them. It's just the way of things.


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## Mahaodeh

Hemza said:


> You mean that bottles didn't exist in Iraq or there was no word for them before Gertrude Bell came? No way, it seems impossible. May be an Arabic word used to be used or a Persian word like شيشة ? What elder people say?





I'm sure there was. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is and I doubt many people do. You see, the British first set foot in Iraq exactly 100 years ago this year. So I doubt anyone is alive to remember. Also, they may have actually borrowed it earlier - it's not like they didn't know England existed!

It's definitely not شيشة, because that one is used for a jar not a bottle. If I were to make guesses, it could either have been قزازة or قنينة. Or, maybe they used whatever the Turks used (the Persian equivalent is used in a different way as you see).


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## analeeh

The Turks use _şişe_ for bottle, so it probably wasn't that. But presumably there was something used.


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## Hemza

Ihsiin said:


> Of course there were words for 'bottle' before. New words are not borrowed into languages only when no word already existed.



Indeed, I was just being ironic .



Mahaodeh said:


> I'm sure there was. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is and I doubt many people do. You see, the British first set foot in Iraq exactly 100 years ago this year. So I doubt anyone is alive to remember. Also, they may have actually borrowed it earlier - it's not like they didn't know England existed!



I didn't mean someone who was born in one of the Ottoman ولاية  but may be, someone old enough to know another word? But I guess the English borrowing is used since a long time. I wanted to know if this borrowing was recent or old that's why I asked.



> It's definitely not شيشة, because that one is used for a jar not a bottle. If I were to make guesses, it could either have been قزازة or قنينة. Or, maybe they used whatever the Turks used (the Persian equivalent is used in a different way as you see).



I see, thanks .


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## Mahaodeh

Hemza said:


> but may be, someone old enough to know another word?



Well, my mum is 74 and she's used بطل all here life, she doesn't remember what her parents used to say.



Mahaodeh said:


> It's definitely not شيشة, because that one is used for a jar not a bottle.



On second thoughts, I may have been mistaken. شيشة is used specifically for a glass or ceramic jar, an earth-ware (made of clay or something similar) jar is still called جرة. So maybe this distinction started around the beginning of the 20th century and prior to that all of them were called شيشة. I'm saying this because I just remembered that a bottle of perfume, in particular, is called شيشة ريحة not بطل ريحة.


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## Hemza

Mahaodeh said:


> Well, my mum is 74 and she's used بطل all here life, she doesn't remember what her parents used to say.



So the borrowing isn't recent. I thought it could even be an American borrowing at first and not necessarily a British one.



> On second thoughts, I may have been mistaken. شيشة is used specifically for a glass or ceramic jar, an earth-ware (made of clay or something similar) jar is still called جرة. So maybe this distinction started around the beginning of the 20th century and prior to that all of them were called شيشة. I'm saying this because I just remembered that a bottle of perfume, in particular, is called شيشة ريحة not بطل ريحة.



I don't think Iraqis here (including you) are old enough to be able to tell us .

الله يطول عمرنا


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## djara

Mahaodeh said:


> Well, my mum is 74 and she's used بطل all here life, she doesn't remember what her parents used to say.


Old songs and dialectal poetry are usually a good repository of extinct vocabulary.


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