# عيد الفصح المسيحي (Easter)



## Sara Lee

*Hi, everyone~

عيد الفصح المسيحي

Q1. *
Is it grammatically correct?

*Q2. *
What does this Arabic expression mean? Does it mean *Christian Easter？  *
If not correct, feel free to explain it.


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## elroy

It means “Easter.”

عيد الفصح is ambiguous because it can mean either “Easter” or “Passover.”  So you can add المسيحي (“Christian”) or اليهودي (“Jewish”) to disambiguate:

عيد الفصح المسيحي: Easter
عيد الفصح اليهودي: Passover


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## Sun-Shine

So, just Easter?
If I want to add the word Christian in English, should I say Christian Easter or Easter Christian ?


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## elroy

We don’t do that in English, because “Easter” only means the Christian holiday.


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## momai

elroy said:


> عيد الفصح is ambiguous


In Syria الفصح is always the christian holyday, unless you mean the jewish Pesakh, then you'd use yahuudi to indicate that. I guess, it's the same in Egypt. Palestine is probably different for reasons we all know.


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## elroy

momai said:


> Palestine is probably different for reasons we all know.


 Actually, for those very reasons , عيد الفصح is 100% unambiguous in Palestinian Arabic.

We say عيد الفصح or عيد الكبير for "Easter" and الپيسَح (il-pēsaḥ) for "Passover."  Note that in Palestinian Arabic, the latter is pronounced with a "ḥ" and not a "x."

In my response, I was only referring to MSA, where عيد الفصح is ambiguous -- in Palestine and I would have assumed elsewhere.  Or are you saying that عيد الفصح unambiguously means "Easter"_ in MSA _in Syria?  If so, then you're right that there's a difference in MSA usage between Syria and Palestine.  In Palestine, المسيحي/اليهودي would be added unless it was perfectly clear from the context which one was meant.


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## momai

elroy said:


> Actually, for those very reasons , عيد الفصح is 100% unambiguous in Palestinian Arabic.





> Or are you saying that عيد الفصح unambiguously means "Easter"_ in MSA _in Syria?


Exactly! Unfortunately, we have no syrian christian here in the forum to confirm this, but as far as I know the official designation for Easter doesn't contain any supplement to عيد الفصح. Afterall Syrians don't celebrate the jewish holyday and don't need to make this distinction, anyway. I could find though some Syrian websites which use yet another thing, namely عيد القيامة


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## elroy

momai said:


> Afterall Syrians don't celebrate the jewish holyday


 Palestinians don't either, obviously, but many of them work for Israeli companies, for example, and might get some days off for Passover.  In that context, one might say, for example, الشركة مُغلَقة يوم الاثنين بمناسبة عيد الفصح اليهودي (to make it clear which holiday is meant) or, for example, عليّ أن أطلب إجازة بمناسبة عيد الفصح المسيحي (this sentence might be confusing without the addition, if the company is already closed for Passover and the listener knows this).


momai said:


> I could find though some Syrian websites which use yet another thing, namely عيد القيامة


 Interesting!  I've never come across that before.  I wonder if Syrians also say عيد الكبير (in dialect)?


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## momai

elroy said:


> I wonder if Syrians also say عيد الكبير (in dialect)?


For us Muslims, العيد الكبير is عيد الأضحى since you get 4 days off and العيد الصغير is عيد الفطر (only 3 days).


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## elroy

Right, what I meant was I wonder if Syrian Christians say عيد الكبير/العيد الكبير for “Easter.”


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## cherine

momai said:


> Afterall Syrians don't celebrate the jewish holyday and don't need to make this distinction, anyway. I could find though some Syrian websites which use yet another thing, namely عيد القيامة


Egyptians don't celebrate the Jewish one either, and the only way to know for sure how it was called by Jewish Egyptians/Egyptian Jews is to search old newspapers or books. But I'm pretty sure عيد الفصح was the term used. And this could be why the Christians in Egypt do not use عيد الفصح (as far as I know) as the word for Easter is عيد القيامة. And yes, to them it is العيد الكبير.

By the way, there's a previous thread about Easter greetings, for those interested.


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## elroy

Interesting, so in Syrian MSA عيد الفصح unambiguously means "Easter," and in Egyptian MSA it unambiguously means "Passover"?


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## cherine

elroy said:


> in Egyptian MSA it unambiguously means "Passover"?


It don't want to be categorical before checking. But what I'm sure of is that عيد القيامة المجيد (the full name) is the term used for Christians Easter in MSA. For the dialect, there's both عيد القيامة (pronounced 3idel-2eyaama) used "universally", and العيد الكبير used by Christians.


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## elroy

cherine said:


> عيد القيامة المجيد (the full name) is the term used for Christians Easter in MSA


 Interesting, so المجيد is actually part of the official name? 


cherine said:


> العيد الكبير used by Christians


 Is it actually pronounced العيد?  In Palestinian it's عيد الكبير, not العيد الكبير.  It's one of those rare cases in which an adjective-noun phrase "turns into" a genitive construction.


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## cherine

elroy said:


> Interesting, so المجيد is actually part of the official name?


Yes. If you google it you'll find many instances, most if not all of them are from Egypt.


> Is it actually pronounced العيد?  In Palestinian it's عيد الكبير, not العيد الكبير.  It's one of those rare cases in which an adjective-noun phrase "turns into" a genitive construction.


I found عيد الكبير strange and thought it was a typo 
Yes, we pronounce it العيد الكبير el3id elkebir.


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## elroy

cherine said:


> I found عيد الكبير strange and thought it was a typo


 It's like مرة الجاي and سنة الجاي (see this thread).


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## cherine

Yes, another structure that sounded very weird to me.


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## elroy

عيد الكبير probably arose because we say عيد الميلاد، عيد مار جريس، etc.  So it was probably due to paradigm leveling.


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## Sun-Shine

أعتقد أنه يسمى العيد الكبير وليس عيد الكبير


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## cherine

في مصر بنقول العيد الكبير، في الشام بيقولوا عيد الكبير. فرق استخدام، نفس المعنى


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## elroy

cherine said:


> في الشام بيقولوا عيد الكبير


بفلسطين أكيد. بعرفش عن بلاد الشام التانية.​


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## Sun-Shine

استخدام عيد الفصح/عيدالقيامة للمسيحيين
(و العيد الكبير للمسلمين (عيد الأضحى
يطلق على عيد الفصح (العيد الكبير) ولكن لا يستخدم كثيرًا لتفادي الخلط بينه وبين عيد الأضحى​


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## cherine

المسيحيون في مصر يطلقون على عيد القيامة "العيد الكبير"، ولا مجال للخلط لأن السياق والمتحدث يساعدان على فهم أن الكلام ليس على عيد الأضحى.


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## Malki92

elroy said:


> بفلسطين أكيد. بعرفش عن بلاد الشام التانية.​



I think that عيد الكبير is widespread throughout the Levant. I've heard Lebanese and Syrian Christians use it as well.

I've also seen عيد الفصح المجيد in Palestinian MSA.

Edit: I've also seen الفصح المقدس used in prayer books. For example: خدم أسبوع الآلام والفصح المقدس.


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## elroy

Malki92 said:


> I've also seen عيد الفصح المجيد in Palestinian MSA.


 Sure, but المجيد is just an adjective; it’s not part of the official name.


Malki92 said:


> I've also seen الفصح المقدس used in prayer books.


 Same with this one.


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