# All dialects: Hospital



## Hemza

Hello, how do you call "hospital" in your dialect(s)?

In Morocco, people usually use a Spanish distorted word which is سبيطار (sbeyTar). But there is a word which used to be used, coming from Persian I think (through Andalusian dialect) it is مارستان (Maristaan).

In Hijazi, it is مستشفى.

Thank you in advance.


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## analeeh

In Syrian مستشفى and مشفى are the usual ones.


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## djara

In Tunisian, سبيطار sbiTaar


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## barkoosh

مِستشفى in Lebanon


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## elroy

In Palestinian, مُستشفى.  I've heard سبيطار (pronounced as in Tunisian) a few times, by elderly people.


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## djara

elroy said:


> I've heard سبيطار (pronounced as in Tunisian) a few times, by elderly people.


Amazing! Andalusian influence as far as Palestine!


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## Alfaaz

Hemza said:
			
		

> But there is a word which used to be used, coming from Persian I think (through Andalusian dialect) it is مارستان (Maristaan).


 Relevant thread and quotes: Persian: muristan - بيمارستان


			
				arbelyoni said:
			
		

> In some Arabic dialects "muristan" means madhouse (and it is also a name of an area in Jerusalem in which there was an asylum during the days Saladin).
> Is the origin of the word Persian as it is implied by the suffix "stan"? What is the literal meaning of the word, and what does "muri" mean?





			
				arsham said:
			
		

> The Persian word beemaarestaan (hospital) is also a loanword in Arabic in various forms. muristan could well be a contraction of the latter. (Cf. maaresaan/maarestaan as contractions of beemaaestaan)





			
				Faylasoof said:
			
		

> مارستان _maaristaan_ is indeed a Persian loan word in Arabic and is a contraction of بيمارستان _biimaaristaan_, as Arsham says.
> 
> Incidentally, it isn't just a word used in dialects. You'll find مارستان _maaristaan* _(_but _not _muuristaan_) in Classical Arabic lexicons too!
> 
> The meanings are as above (hospital / lunatic asylum) and the word can be broken up into two parts:
> *
> مريض = بيمار*
> 
> مكان/ أرض/ مشتقة = *ستان* <- Link.
> 
> (* In Persian مار = snake; which would make مارستان = land / place of snakes! But of course no such problem exists as the word is used in Arabic).





			
				cherine said:
			
		

> ... As for the usage in Classical Arabic, yes: both maaristaan and bimaaristaan are used/found in Arabic texts. ...


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## WannaBFluent

Iraqi: 

مستشفى، قصطخانة، خستخانة


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## Hemza

Thanks @Alfaaz .

@djara : How do you know that سبيطار comes from Andalusian influence? I tought it may have been Spanish/French/Italian more recent influences? Also, مارستان probably exists in Algeria and Tunisia, doesn't it?

Thank you all for your input and the thread is still widely open.


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## djara

Hemza said:


> How do you know that سبيطار comes from Andalusian influence?


Sincerely, I think I was too hasty in assuming it is Andalusian. My bad.
This being said, I don't think it is a recent borrowing and certainly not from French (the phonetics don't tally). We may have borrowed the word from Italian (ospedale) through Maltese (isptar)


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## Hemza

Actually, I was thinking about this borrowing as something like:
Morocco=Spain
Algeria=Spain/France
Tunisia/Libya=Italy
. But you're right, it doesn't suit the French pronunciation so it's probably Spanish/Italian.


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## WannaBFluent

Here is what I found on a discussion on Wikipedia about the French 'Arabe Algérien' page.



> _Des mots utilisés partout en Algérie, comme "sbitar", sont d'ailleurs aussi utilisés au Maroc et en Tunisie. Le mot sbitar est d'origine francaise et est une déformation du mot français "hôpital". Il ne pourrait venir de l'italien, car il ne serait pas utilisé au Maroc._


_Words used *everywhere in Algeria* such as 'sbitar', also used in *Morocco and Tunisia*. The word sbitar *has French origin* and is a *deformation of the French word 'hôpital'*. It could not come from Italian because it would not be used in Morocco._

In fact, it's very common that French words with letter L are distorted into Arabic as R, and P as B.
sbitar ► spital, looks very close to the French hôpital 

Another person says that the word سبيطار was not used in Algerian poetry before French colonisation.

And another one:


> _une autre possibilité pour L’origine du mot "sbitar" remonte à la période de la présence musulmane en Espagne, et ce mot est tiré du mot arabe baytara or baytari qui veut dire vétérinaire. Les gens qui habitent en compagne et qui ne peux aller à l’hôpital en ville ou pour voir un médecin, il s’oriente vers des endroits ou en soigne des animaux (baytara) ou des vétérinaires (baytari). Apres ça le mot « sbitar » veux dire hôpital._


_Another possibility for the origin of the word سبيطار comes from the pre-Islamic presence in Spain, and that word comes from the Arabic baytara ou baytari which means 'veterinary'. People who were living in the countryside and that could not go to a hospital in town, would go to places where we treat animals (baytara) or to veterinaries (baytari). After that sbitar means hospital._

Someone called Lallou, also says that سبيطار comes from the French word hôpital on a Yahoo discussion.


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## analeeh

I'm dubious that it has a native origin - it almost certainly comes from something Romance. If it's from French though it would have to have been borrowed before words like 'hospital' lost their _s_.

There's a surprising amount of borrowings from Italian even in areas without any Italian colonisation in almost all dialects of Arabic.


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## Hemza

WannaBFluent said:


> Here is what I found on a discussion on Wikipedia about the French 'Arabe Algérien' page.
> 
> 
> _Words used *everywhere in Algeria* such as 'sbitar', also used in *Morocco and Tunisia*. The word sbitar *has French origin* and is a *deformation of the French word 'hôpital'*. It could not come from Italian because it would not be used in Morocco._
> 
> In fact, it's very common that French words with letter L are distorted into Arabic as R, and P as B.
> sbitar ► spital, looks very close to the French hôpital



Thank for your effort my friend . One advice: ABSOLUTELY avoid wikipedia's pages on Maghrebi arabic (at least) because it's a disaster, a big gathering of jokes.
And in that case, the argument is one of the most irrelevant I've ever seen, the person seems to forget about Spain.
Italian, French and Spanish languages are very very similar but only Spanish and Italian kept the "s", the one you find in "سبيطار" while French got rid of it by replacing it with l'accent circonflexe (ô). Spanish had influence over Morocco and to a lesser extent, over Algeria. Italy had influence over Tunisia and Libya. I really think سبيطار do come from those two languages rather than French. The problem is that many Maghrebis people are very very limited and think that in the world, there are two things: their country (if not only their town/village) and the rest of the world which is France so when they hear something which sounds "foreign", it's automatically French... Also, سبيطار is used in Libya which knows no French influence (first step: make some Maghrebis understand that Libya is in the Maghreb and not on the moon).



> Another person says that the word سبيطار was not used in Algerian poetry before French colonisation.



Other words may have been used, like in what became Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.



> And another one:
> _Another possibility for the origin of the word سبيطار comes from the pre-Islamic presence in Spain, and that word comes from the Arabic baytara ou baytari which means 'veterinary'. People who were living in the countryside and that could not go to a hospital in town, would go to places where we treat animals (baytara) or to veterinaries (baytari). After that sbitar means hospital._



This is something I didn't know and it's interesting. But the word "bayTari" itself looks like a borrowing from a Latin language into Arabic. It looks akin to "vétérinaire/"bétérinaire" ("v" and "b" sound close to each other).


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## Aliph

مرحبا بكم

رأيت فيلماً سورياً يتحدث باللهجة العامية وسَمعتُ كلمة مَشفَى.  ما هو الفرق بين مَشفَى وَمُستَشفَى؟  هل الكلمة مَشفَى مستخدمة في لهجات أخرة وبالفُصحَى؟


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## analeeh

لا فرق بينها من ناحية المعنى. كلمتا مشفى ومستشفى مستخدمتان في اللهجة السورية كما هي موجودتان في الفصحى المستخدمة في سوريا على الأقل.


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## Aliph

شكران جزيلا analeeh


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## Mahaodeh

Hemza said:


> I really think سبيطار do come from those two languages rather than French.



Could it not have come from Latin directly? I mean Vulgar Latin of course but if it was used in Andalusian Arabic, could it not have been adopted at a time when, although Romance Languages have started to diverge, were still seen by the populous as Latin rather than having different names. It was about two or three hundred years after the arrival of the Arabs that Romance languages were established as separate languages with specific names.

Of course this is just a thought, but I would think that the impact of VL on Andalusian would be stronger than any Romance language.

I'm just thinking out loud here.


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## Aliph

Mahaodeh said:


> Could it not have come from Latin directly?


According to András Rajiki’s (2005) “ etymological dictionary of Arabic” “baittari”comes from the late Latin word veterinarius. BTW the dictionary isn’t written in Arabic script.


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## elroy

Aliph said:


> هل الكلمة مَشفَى مستخدمة في لهجات أخرة وبالفُصحَى؟


 كلمة مشفى مُستخدمة بالفصحى، أما في اللهجة الفلسطينية فلم أسمعها من قبل.


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## Aliph

شكرًا لك يا اِلروي على هذه المعلومات


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## bamia

There's_ bimaristan _(archaic Egyptian, a loan from Persian). This one is longer used if I'm not mistaken.


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## Hemza

Mahaodeh said:


> Could it not have come from Latin directly? I mean Vulgar Latin of course but if it was used in Andalusian Arabic, could it not have been adopted at a time when, although Romance Languages have started to diverge, were still seen by the populous as Latin rather than having different names. It was about two or three hundred years after the arrival of the Arabs that Romance languages were established as separate languages with specific names.



That may be possible but to be sure, we must know when the word entered the dialects and if something else was used before. And we must know when the concept of hospital appeared in the Maghreb. That also supposes to know when we cease to talk about Latin (whatever its form) and talk about Romance languages. Latin itself knew various versions across the lands where it was spoken. But I'm not knowledgeable enough to give a reply . Well at least, we know the word had been borrowed from Latin and its siblings/descendants


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