# يا هبلة



## faraula

What is the meaning of يا هبلة ?

Thank you in advance


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## djamal 2008

You fool.

 I mean not you Farula, welcome to the forum.


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## faraula

lol thanks this is what I got from the context but I needed confirmation 

and I heard once something like: tara ala hableen. Is it related?


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## Faylasoof

I’ve a question about this. The words in MSA for <fool> I know from the root  ه-ب-ل , are:

habeel  هَبيل = fool

OR

اَهبَل ahbal(m.), هَبلاء hablaa’(f.) , هُبل hubl(pl)

While, هِبَل hiball = tall husky man! 

So where does هبلة come from? Can’t be from هِبَل. Or is there another meaning to this than what I give above?


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## WadiH

faraula said:


> and I heard once something like: tara ala hableen. Is it related?



Can you put in Arabic characters?  I think you mean تلعب على حبلين (literally, "you're playing with two ropes," i.e. the person is "two-faced.")

Of course هبلة just means "fool" (feminine), as djamal said.


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## elroy

Faylasoof said:


> So where does هبلة come from?


هبلة is simply a colloquial variant of هبلاء.


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## WadiH

elroy said:


> هبلة is simply a colloquial variant of هبلاء.



Or it could be on the Classical pattern فَعِلة.


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## Josh_

It could be from the classical فَعِلة, but I am more inclined to believe, as Elroy intimated, that it is just from the _fa3laa2_ فعلاء pattern and that the hamza was lost and the alif shortened to fatHa, thereby becoming _fa3la_ فَعْلَة in certain dialects.  

This change is very common for words of this type, almost all of which are nouns referring to colors and physical disabilities.  

Some examples of other words that undergo this change in the Egyptian dialect:

Hamraa2 --> Hamra
zarqaa2 --> zarqa
khaDraa2 --> khaDra
3argaa2 --> 3arga


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## Faylasoof

Thank you all! 

Interesting (and useful) to note these MSA-dialect differences!


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## WadiH

Josh_ said:


> It could be from the classical فَعِلة, but I am more inclined to believe, as Elroy intimated, that it is just from the _fa3laa2_ فعلاء pattern and that the hamza was lost and the alif shortened to fatHa, thereby becoming _fa3la_ فَعْلَة in certain dialects.
> 
> This change is very common for words of this type, almost all of which are nouns referring to colors and physical disabilities.
> 
> Some examples of other words that undergo this change in the Egyptian dialect:
> 
> Hamraa2 --> Hamra
> zarqaa2 --> zarqa
> khaDraa2 --> khaDra
> 3argaa2 --> 3arga



Sure this phenomenon exists in practically every Arabic dialect because of the dropping of the hamza, but that doesn't mean that that is the origin of a word like هبلة.  In Arabia, there are many words on the pattern فَعِلة (pronounced فَعْلة in dialect).  Examples:
عجلة ("hasty")
خبلة (similar to هبلة)
قنعة (similar to MSA قنوع)
عسرة ("difficult", in contrast to عسراء, which means "lefty")

These words are much more likely to take a tanwiin (e.g. عجلتن, عسرتن) than words like حمرا, صفرا, etc, which, when they take the tanwiin, often appear as حمرن صفرن زرقن rather than حمرتن, etc.

It's possible that فعلة and فعلا have merged into one pattern so that it's hard to separate them except in the case of colors like حمرا صفرا, etc.


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## cherine

As far as I know the word in MSA is بلهاء and هبلة is a "transformation" of it, where the order of the letters is changed and the final hamza is dropped. I never heard هبلاء before nor did I know that it even exists.
The masculine is أهبل in 3ammeyya and أبله in FuS7a.  So, again, a matter of changing the letters order inside the word.


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## djara

In Tunisian, ملا هبلة used for both male and female means: What a crazy man/woman. هبلة  is also an instance of crazy behavior.


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## elroy

cherine said:


> As far as I know the word in MSA is بلهاء and هبلة is a "transformation" of it, where the order of the letters is changed and the final hamza is dropped. I never heard هبلاء before nor did I know that it even exists.


 That's what I thought too, but I assumed that Faylasoof's post was based on something from an authoritative source.


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## isabomma

may I be wrong... but I think I've heard it a lot when bus drivers address to passengers?! if possible what does it mean?
thanks


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## cherine

هبلة is an insult. If you've heard it "a lot", than it's more probably it was أبلة (abla) which is a loan word from Turkish. And it's used for "miss", but not everyone uses it, nor everyone likes it.


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## isabomma

thanks!
It definitely must be "abla". I had figured out it should be some way of addressing people like "afandem" but I couldn't understand the word it come from or the original root.


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