# All dialects: jeans



## elroy

I'm curious: how do you say "jeans" in your dialect?

In Palestinian: "kawbōy", "jinz", or "jīnz"


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## ayed

جنز= jinz


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## Sun-Shine

In Egypt: some says jeans as in English (including me)
Others: jenz


elroy said:


> In Palestinian: "kawbōy"


ربما ترجع هذه التسمية إلى بداياته
حيث أن أول من ارتداه كانوا عمال المناجم ثم *رعاة البقر*
وذلك لمتانته


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## normordm

Same as Egyptian for us


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## Hemza

To my knowledge in Morocco, "jinz" or I've also heard سروال جينز
(سروال being the generic word for trousers).


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## elroy

Yes, we also say بنطلون جينز / بنطلون كاوبوي, but بنطلون isn't (usually) necessary.


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## Sun-Shine

elroy said:


> بنطلون isn't (usually) necessary.


So the word jeans has the meaning of trousers in it?


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## elroy

Yes.

لابسة جينز = She’s wearing jeans.
لابسة تنورة جينز = She’s wearing a jean skirt.​
So it’s like English.


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## Sun-Shine

In Egypt(according to my knowledge)
Jeans refer to jean (cloth), we need to specify: trousers ,skirt, jacket,... .


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## djara

In Tunisian دجين with no 's' (borrowed from French) is now the most current term.
A type of jeans is called دنقري pronounced "dingree" 
In the old days, we had another word for jeans: شنقاي pronounced "shang-I" (probably after the Chinese city)


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## Ghabi

djara said:


> شنقاي pronounced "shang-I" (probably after the Chinese city)


Which city?


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## Sun-Shine

Shanghai?


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## bearded

sun_shine 331995 said:


> In Egypt: some says jeans as in English (including me)


No possible confusion with the Arabic word meaning ''sex''? Just a difference in the length of the i...


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## Sun-Shine

What do you mean ? 
You are asking or what ?


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## bearded

sun_shine 331995 said:


> What do you mean ?
> You are asking or what ?


Since you said that the pronunciation of 'jeans' in Egypt is like in English, and since 'sex' in Arabic sounds similar (jins), I was wondering whether in conversation a confusion might ever arise. For example, if a person says 'jinsi' (my sex) could he/she be misunderstood as saying 'jiinsi' (my jeans)? Perhaps in fast speech?


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## Sun-Shine

The English word "jeans" is not similar to jins (sex) 
jeans (jiins)
sex(jins)
Other people prounce jeans as "jenz"
and this resemble jins(sex)
BUT in Egypt -we say أنا بنت/ أنا ولد directly
and the word jinsi (my sex) in Egypt is pronounced with g not j.


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## bearded

sun_shine 331995 said:


> the word jinsi (my sex) in Egypt is pronounced with g not j.


You are right  (I had forgotten that). Thanks for replying.


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## Sun-Shine




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## djara

Ghabi said:


> Which city?


Shanghai (Chinese: 上海, Shanghainese pronunciation: [zɑ̃.hɛ], Mandarin pronunciation: [ʂâŋ.xài]
Source: Wikipedia


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## elroy

bearded said:


> No possible confusion with the Arabic word meaning ''sex''?


 I actually thought about that as I was composing my first post.  I personally say "jīnz" with a long vowel, but I know some people say it with a short vowel.  I paused for a second because my first instinct was that the short-vowel variant was in fact "jins," which would in fact be (almost) homophonous with the word for "sex" (I say "almost" because the vowel quality might be slightly different), but then decided that it was "jinz," with a voiced sibilant.  But I'm not actually 100% sure of that and it may very well be "jins" (or maybe both occur), but even if that's true, I would say that as is often the case with these things, 99% of the time context would of course indicate whether "jeans" or "sex" is meant. 

Back to "kawbōy": So far we've had replies about Saudi, Egyptian, Sudanese, Moroccan, and Tunisian, and no one has said that "kawbōy" is used in any of these.  Maybe it's a Palestinian peculiarity, but I hesitate to draw that conclusion even tentatively before hearing from speakers of other dialects of Levantine.  Hopefully @momai, @barkoosh, @wriight, or other speakers of non-Palestinian Levantine dialects can weigh in!


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## momai

It is only جينز in Syrian Arabic as far as I know. If I were to describe anything as _cowboys,_ then this would be the hat or maybe the leather jacket which you see in movies.
As for the pronunciation, جنس (jines) has a schwa before the s in SA, while جينز (pronounced similarly to genes in English) doesn't, which already makes what is meant very clear.


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## Ghabi

djara said:


> Shanghai


Ah, I see (they didn't sound close to me when I first read your post; in fact shang-i sounds like the word for "business" 生意). Do you mean jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?


elroy said:


> Maybe it's a Palestinian peculiarity


Not Arabic, but we call jeans "cowboy trousers" in Cantonese, and I remember the TV commercials for jeans I saw when I was a kid actually feature cowboys! So my first reaction when I read your post was: _what else_ can it be called?!


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## elroy

Ghabi said:


> Do you mean jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?


 Yeah, I'm also curious as to what the connection between jeans and Shanghai could be! 


Ghabi said:


> elroy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe it's a Palestinian peculiarity
> 
> 
> 
> Not Arabic, but
Click to expand...

 Oh, sorry, I meant it might be a Palestinian peculiarity within Arabic dialects, just like it seems to be a Slovenian peculiarity within Slavic languages. 


Ghabi said:


> we call jeans "cowboy trousers" in Cantonese


 So we have Slovenian, Palestinian Arabic, and Cantonese so far.   Who would've guessed!


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## bearded

Ghabi said:


> jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?


As far as I know, ''jeans'' was originally a deformation of the English adjective ''genoese'', meaning ''from Genoa'' (_Genova_, the Italian town).
jeans


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## Sun-Shine

bearded said:


> ''from Genoa'' (_Genova_, the Italian town).


Yes, from a name of a city.


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## barkoosh

In Lebanon, it's the same as in English. Nothing related to "cowboy" is used.


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## djara

Ghabi said:


> Do you mean jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?


Frankly, I don't know, but that's how we called jeans in my hometown in the 1950's and 1960's.
Our pronunciation of Shanghai is a borrowing from French (with plenty of local color!) Another possible way of representing this pronunciation would be: 'shun-guy' (the stress is on the second syllable)


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## tounsi51

Ghabi said:


> Do you mean jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?



It is the Chinese traditional blue workwear. In French it is called bleu de Chine and dengueri/shanghai in Tunisian Arabic.


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## cherine

bearded said:


> No possible confusion with the Arabic word meaning ''sex''? Just a difference in the length of the i...


In the Egyptian Arabic, there's no possibility for confusion, not because of the vowel length (as some people pronounce both words with short "e") but because we pronounce جينز with a j and جنس with a g. 

Also regarding pronunciation: some people pronounce the final consonant as a z while others (I'd say most people) pronounce it with an s. It shows in the plural جنسات (jensaat).


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## Ghabi

djara said:


> Our pronunciation of Shanghai is a borrowing from French (with plenty of local color!)


Yeah, it makes sense now.


tounsi51 said:


> In French it is called bleu de Chine


Thanks *tounsi51*. _Bleu de Chine_ is a colour, right? So jeans is called shang-i because of its "Chinese blue" colour?


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## djara

Ghabi said:


> Do you mean jeans used to be produced and imported from Shanghai, thus the name?


I've done some research. In this article (in French) it is claimed that, in the 1930's, a Frenchman decided to import and sell a traditional Chinese costume for men under the trademark 'anti-cher', also known as "bleu de chine" and "bleu de Shanghaï".


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## tounsi51

Ghabi said:


> Thanks *tounsi51*. _Bleu de Chine_ is a colour, right? So jeans is called shang-i because of its "Chinese blue" colour?



It WAS called during the 50's and 60's according to Djara . It is not called like that anymore


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## Ghabi

Thanks. So it appears that in Tunisian شنقاي is used to refer to a kind of male costume originally imported from China, and the word was also for a time used to mean "jeans", presumably due to its blue colour and its being worn by the working class. Interesting.


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## djara

Ghabi said:


> So it appears that in Tunisian شنقاي is was used to refer to a kind of male costume originally imported from China, and the word was also for a time used to mean "jeans"


In both senses, the word has disappeared from Tunisian vocabulary. 
Today, the blue costume (originally from China) is called dingree, from English dungaree, from Hindi डूंगरी ‎ḍūṅgrī. For more about its etymology you may see here


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## Mahaodeh

bearded said:


> No possible confusion with the Arabic word meaning ''sex''?


There was, at least in Iraq and at least until the 1970s. I'm saying this because my father told me a story about such a confusion with an Iraqi friend of his who wanted to buy a pair of jeans. He said بنطرون جنس, there was some funny confusion until everyone understood what was meant.

I've never personally heard it pronounced this way though.



elroy said:


> Back to "kawbōy": So far we've had replies about Saudi, Egyptian, Sudanese, Moroccan, and Tunisian, and no one has said that "kawbōy" is used in any of these. Maybe it's a Palestinian peculiarity,



I've heard it in Iraq, but it's a little outdated today. It may have fallen out of use when people started to pronounce jeans as جينز rather than جنس .


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## I.K.S.

There were a type of jeans used to be seen worn by the working class during the 70s and was called دجين المطرقة (it was a pants with its long blouse as described by a relative)
also "dungree" and  "لواز "


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