# Tunisian: توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب



## Nikola

توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السفر
tusgu lelajnebi bila 7sab wasg ed dwab el farg benu wa ben
el bagar jwaz esafar​I want to see if I understand it completely.
This is an extract about Arab immigrants traveling to Europe for jobs:
They load the foreighners without an invoice as the loading of beasts.The difference between him/them and cattle is a passport.​ 
Should حساب be invoice or bill here?الدواب beast or animal?
Why بينه not بينهم , singular vs. plural?​


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## ayed

Welcome Nikola.
They loaded an immigrant as though they were loading a pack animal.The difference is bewteen him(singular) and cows(plural) is a passport. 
بلا حساب=no wage
I hope this could help you.If you have more questions, then shoot them


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## Mahaodeh

I understood it differently: you drive for the foreigners without questioning (thinking about it, having anyone question you about it) making the difference between him (the driver) and cows is a passport.

Indicating that he (immigrant) works hard abroad for nearly nothing in service jobs while he is treated so badly that he is only above cows because he has a passport.

OK, maybe I'm wrong, maybe a Tunisian can help here.


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## MarcB

Mahaodeh said:


> I understood it differently: you drive for the foreigners without questioning (thinking about it, having anyone question you about it) making the difference between him (the driver) and cows is a passport.
> 
> Indicating that he (immigrant) works hard abroad for nearly nothing in service jobs while he is treated so badly that he is only above cows because he has a passport.
> 
> OK, maybe I'm wrong, maybe a Tunisian can help here.


Isn't سوق drive and وسق load?


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## Nikola

I  agree with Marc, load from the spelling and the fact they are moving to Europe. From Ayed's suggestion pack animal and beast of burden both work for me.بلا حساب=no wage or as Mahaodeh works for nearly nothing vs without an invoice or shipping bill I am not sure. The dictionary I looked at doesn't show  حساب as wage but you know better. No wage only sounds right as a small wage since they are going to work so they would get paid even if it is very little.
I am open to any more suggestions,since it is dialect I suppose it may not be clear.


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## cherine

Hi Nikola, 

I'm afraid I can't help you much with this sentence, because I'm still having trouble getting the meaning of "tusgu". Who's the subject of the verb? أنتم or هم ? do you have any further sentences to clarify the context more? 

So, I'll only try to answer your question to the best I can: 



Nikola said:


> توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السفر​
> 
> tusgu lelajnebi bila 7sab wasg ed dwab el farg benu wa ben
> el bagar jwaz esafar​
> 
> 
> Should حساب be invoice or bill here?



I don't think it has much to do with either. بلا حساب is a set phrase. I'm not sure how it is translated in English, but it means something like "too much", "without counting".
If you have an English translation of the Qur'an, try to see how بغير حساب is translated. (you can search here)


> الدواب beast or animal?


 
Beast is الوحش - الوحوش but الدواب is animals in general. I think catle can be good translation here.


> Why بينه not بينهم , singular vs. plural?


 
Because the sentence speaks about الأجنبي (singular form). So, even if the meaning refers to the plural, the pronoun still has to go with the mentioned word, not the inferred meaning.​


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## ayed

Here is another explanation :
The immigrants boarded Babur that was bound to /heading to foreigners(means to a foreign country)destitute(no money)as though they were cattle boarded. The difference between the youth(collective noun) and cows(plural) is the passport.


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## cherine

ayed said:


> Here is another explanation :
> The immigrants boarded Babur that was bound to /heading to foreigners(means to a foreign country)destitute(no money)as though they were cattle boarded. The difference between the youth(collective noun) and cows(plural) is the passport.


I don't know from where you got "Babur". But your translation reminded me of something I was thinking of this morning (yes, I was thinking about this sentence since morning  ) :
If the subject of the verb is the emmigrants, and the word توسقو has anything to do with تثقوا (trust) then the meaning could be: the emmigrants were trusting/(running towards) the foreigners/(all that's foreign) blindly, like catle. Only the catle doesn't have passeports.


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## Nikola

Thanks everyone, I think Ayed has it. Cherine I didn't want to use more lines because I understand them, and in case I had more questions. I still think توسقو is loading the people/person.After a search I found that it is on the net here.


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## ayed

cherine said:


> I don't know from where you got "Babur". But your translation reminded me of something I was thinking of this morning (yes, I was thinking about this sentence since morning  ) :
> If the subject of the verb is the emmigrants, and the word توسقو has anything to do with تثقوا (trust) then the meaning could be: the emmigrants were trusting/(running towards) the foreigners/(all that's foreign) blindly, like catle. Only the catle doesn't have passeports.


Cherine, in Arabic , when we say ركبنا الطائرة doesn't mean that we boarded the airplane in reality.We were commanded by the airport officials(we were boarded) and so does the word"tawassaqu" mean the same connotation if I am not mistaken.


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## Mahaodeh

حساب is also accountability (verbal noun); it refers to both money and actions. You would say, as an example, رئيسي في العمل يحاسبني على مستوى الإنتاج meaning that my boss at work would hold me accountable for the level of production.

So I think that حساب here has nothing to do with wages, bills or any money.
---------------------
From the link I would amend my translation to: _You drive him to the foreigners without deliberation/consideration like cattle, the only difference between him and cows is his passport._

ساقَ as a verb would mean to "make someone (or some animal) walk in front of you while you control the way he/it goes", I think it translates to drive also in English (drive the cattle). At least this is the case in Classical Arabic, MSA and many other dialects, I assume here too. Other examples would be: ساق الشرطي المجرم إلى السجن or ساق الراعي الغنم إلى المرعى.

Also, I understood تسوقو here to be (in MSA) تَسوقُهُ where the subject is ضمير مستتر تقديره هي and the object is the هـ in the end of the word and not تسوقون where the subject is ضمير مستتر تقديره أنتم especially that there is no object in the second case (when considering the above sentence) and ساق is فعل متعدي بمفعول واحد, which requires an object or else the sentence would be incomplete.


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## ayed

*هنالك فرق بين توسق وساق:الأول يعني (حمله حملاً مثلاً)والثاني (يسوق الماشية مثلاً إلى المرعى )لعلك اكتشفت الفرق*​


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## gfra

توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السفر

فهمتها على هذا النحو:

توسقو (أي تسقوا) للاجنبي (لاحظ أن اللام هنا تتسق مع معنى السقاية أكثر من معنى السواقة) بلاحساب (أي بلا حدود) وسق (ما يسقى به) الدواب. ولكي يستقيم المعنى نقول :أنكم تكلفون الأجنبي - من العمل الشاق وخلافه - ما تكلفون به الحيوانات بلا حدود. 
والجمله الثانية تقول أن جواز السفر هو الفارق الوحيد بين الأجانب والبقر.
ودمتم،،،


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## Mahaodeh

I have no idea why I keep reading it تسوقو.  Sorry, my mistake.


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## Mery_Dian

Nikola said:


> توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السفر​
> 
> tusgu lelajnebi bila 7sab wasg ed dwab el farg benu wa ben
> el bagar jwaz esafar​I want to see if I understand it completely.
> This is an extract about Arab immigrants traveling to Europe for jobs:
> They load the foreighners without an invoice as the loading of beasts.The difference between him/them and cattle is a passport.​
> Should حساب be invoice or bill here?الدواب beast or animal?​
> Why بينه not بينهم , singular vs. plural?​


 
This is how I understand this sentence in MSA : 

تُحَـمِّـلون الأجنبي (المهاجر) أعباء لا حصر لها، وكأنه دابة، والفرق بينه وبين البقر هو جواز السفر. 

Meaning that, in (European) host countries, jobs reserved for immigrants are real chores. They are overloaded with (degrading) work as if they were cattle. The only difference between them and cows is that they have a passport.


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## Taalib

Sorry, I'm a bit confused.  I understand the meaning of the passage but: does the original post mean to suggest it is written in Tunisian dialect and thus is not "proper" MSA?  Or would this sentence pass as MSA, but was just heard in Tunisia...?


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## clevermizo

One of the clues that it is dialect Arabic is that توسقو is written without "otiose alif" at the end (توسقوا).


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## Nikola

Taalib said:


> Sorry, I'm a bit confused. I understand the meaning of the passage but: does the original post mean to suggest it is written in Tunisian dialect and thus is not "proper" MSA? Or would this sentence pass as MSA, but was just heard in Tunisia...?


Yes Taalib this is Tunisian not MSA. Clever's comment plus qaf is pronounced as g. when written Tunisian is similar to MSA but the pronunciation is different. Vowels are shortened,although it keeps th sounds lost in many dialects. Northern and Urban keep qaf as q.


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## Taalib

Thanks for the responses.  I guess I should have clarified, though, that my question was really about style rather than pronunciation.  The sentence cited makes sense but seems a bit like what we might in English call a run-on.  Yet perhaps that's too harsh since that connotes a severe grammatical mistake, so let me clarify.  In the original post the sentence was:

توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السف

So with the pronunciation and clipped vowels aside, I wondered whether, for instance, that ought to be some sort of conjunction or connector between " حساب" and "وسق"... or perhaps a period or another conjunction or connector between " الدواب" and "الفرق".  

So in other words, if the spelling and pronunciation were proper, would the sentence as it stands be considered an acceptable sentence in MSA?

My instinct is that no... but that's probably because almost all of my MSA experiences these days fall in the realm of business and political language, where the sentences tend to be fairly regular, short, and of the more Westernized S-V-O order.


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## cherine

Taalib said:


> Thanks for the responses. I guess I should have clarified, though, that my question was really about style rather than pronunciation. The sentence cited makes sense but seems a bit like what we might in English call a run-on. Yet perhaps that's too harsh since that connotes a severe grammatical mistake


I think it looks like a run-on because it doesn't have punctuation marks.


> توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السف
> 
> So in other words, if the spelling and pronunciation were proper, would the sentence as it stands be considered an acceptable sentence in MSA?


With the only exception of the alif in توسقوا , the spelling is correct.
It makes a perfect جملة فصيحة .
If I am to punctuate it, I'd put it like this:

توسقوا للأجنبى بلا حساب وسقَ الدواب. الفرق بينه وبين البقر: جواز السفر.​​ 
or maybe:

توسقوا للأجنبى -بلا حساب- وسقَ الدواب. الفرق بينه وبين البقر: جواز السفر.​​


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## gfra

Cherine, I agree with your comment about the punctuation, however I disagree about the spelling one.

I believe that توسقو should be written like this تـُسقوا


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## cherine

gfra said:


> Cherine, I agree with your comment about the punctuation, however I disagree about the spelling one.
> 
> I believe that توسقو should be written like this تـُسقوا


Thanks Gfra, and welcome to the forum by the way 

I think I didn't get the meaning of your first post until I read your second one. So, here's a belated comment:

I don't think that توسقو - تسقوا - تسقو is from سقاية (to give water to) because the maSdar wouldn't have been وسق but سقاية which is not the case in the sentence we have.



gfra said:


> توسقو للاجنبى بلا حساب وسق الدواب الفرق بينه وبين البقر جواز السفر
> 
> فهمتها على هذا النحو:
> 
> توسقو (أي تسقوا) للاجنبي (لاحظ أن اللام هنا تتسق مع معنى السقاية أكثر من معنى السواقة) بلاحساب (أي بلا حدود) وسق (ما يسقى به) الدواب. ولكي يستقيم المعنى نقول :أنكم تكلفون الأجنبي - من العمل الشاق وخلافه - ما تكلفون به الحيوانات بلا حدود.
> والجمله الثانية تقول أن جواز السفر هو الفارق الوحيد بين الأجانب والبقر.
> ودمتم،،،


 
It's a good explanation, but I'm not sure about "wasq" being ما يسقى به Are you sure about this?


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## Taalib

Thanks for the clarification cherine.  Yes, with punctuation the passage would sound a bit clearer but the underlying structures are coherent and correct.  Thanks again!


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## cherine

You're welcome, taalib.


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## gfra

cherine said:


> Thanks Gfra, and welcome to the forum by the way
> 
> I think I didn't get the meaning of your first post until I read your second one. So, here's a belated comment:
> 
> I don't think that توسقو - تسقوا - تسقو is from سقاية (to give water to) because the maSdar wouldn't have been وسق but سقاية which is not the case in the sentence we have.
> 
> 
> 
> It's a good explanation, but I'm not sure about "wasq" being ما يسقى به Are you sure about this?


So do I, I think the ma9dar of سقاية is سقى . However, the sentence is slang Arabic الدارجه so the classic and the MSA Arabic rules may do not apply to this sentence in particular. 
What I did is that I read the sentence millions time and the only meaning that I understood is the one that I posted.


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## Saleh Al-Qammaari

Mery_Dian said:


> This is how I understand this sentence in MSA :
> 
> تُحَـمِّـلون الأجنبي (المهاجر) أعباء لا حصر لها، وكأنه دابة، والفرق بينه وبين البقر هو جواز السفر.
> 
> Meaning that, in (European) host countries, jobs reserved for immigrants are real chores. They are overloaded with (degrading) work as if they were cattle. The only difference between them and cows is that they have a passport.



I do agree with this post of Mery_Dian. It gives sense.

Thanks


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