# Iraqi Arabic: لعد - لا عاد



## Eternal student

Hello everyone,

I'm interested in the word لعد, used to mean 'then, so' in a similar way to Egyptian ba2a. I know لعد is used in Iraqi Arabic in this way. What about other dialects? And is it used in any other dialects with other meanings?

Most importantly, does anyone have any thoughts on its etymology, i.e. where it comes from?

Thanks.


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## إسكندراني

I have never heard this, but I'm not very familiar with Iraqi. Might it be بعد?


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## dkarjala

Eternal student said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> I'm interested in the word لعد, used to mean 'then, so' in a similar way to Egyptian ba2a. I know لعد is used in Iraqi Arabic in this way. What about other dialects? And is it used in any other dialects with other meanings?
> 
> Most importantly, does anyone have any thoughts on its etymology, i.e. where it comes from?
> 
> Thanks.



Yes, this particle is well known and means حتى/بعد ذلك etc. Whenever a word is 1) Specific to Iraqi 2) Identical to an Aramaic word with a similar meaning (which this is), you can almost assume that it's an Aramaic borrowing. This is my hypothesis until I look into it further.

Edit: I regret my initial enthusiasm for Aramaic, but I still think it's a possibility, though for simplicity's sake, لا عاد and related particles make for a plausible story


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## Arabic_Police_999

we use it meddle and east of Saudi too



> Yes, this particle is well known and means حتى/بعد ذلك etc. Whenever a word is 1) Specific to Iraqi 2) Identical to an Aramaic word with a similar meaning (which this is), you can almost assume that it's an Aramaic borrowing. This is my hypothesis until I look into it further.



I don't think لعد is of Aramaic orgin

I think لعد is derived from لا عاد
لا عاد تروح
لعد تروح


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## dkarjala

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> we use it meddle and east of Saudi too


I don't think لعد is of Aramaic orgin


> لا عاد تروح
> لعد تروح



ما معنى ذلك بالفصحى لو سمحت؟


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## إسكندراني

أرجو أن تفيدونا بببعض الأمثلة وشرحها


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## Schem

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> we use it meddle and east of Saudi too



The only person that I've ever seen use it is my Zbairi grandmother. Najdi speakers don't use it. (not like Iraqis do anyway.)


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## Eternal student

It strikes me that there might be two different types of لعد. One is used in various places outside Iraq, including many Bedouin dialects, where it seems to be derived from لا عاد and mean the same thing ('no longer', 'not anymore'). The other is used in Iraq and maybe elsewhere and means 'then' or 'so' or 'in that case'. (Can it also mean 'until', Djarkala? I didn't know that). It is hard to think of some فصحى expression that it could be derived from, given this meaning. So Djarkala's suggestion that it might be an Aramaic borrowing is interesting to me. Djarkala: can you point me in the direction of a source that can demonstrate that the same form is used in the same meaning in some relevant variety of Aramaic?

Then again, thinking about it a bit more, I realise that عاد can be used in the same way in Iraqi, so maybe it's just a contraction of this + ل?


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## dkarjala

Despite my exuberance initially, it would be foolish to completely discount لا عاد as the source, as was suggested above. I know that it is hard to connect the meaning of "then/until" to "no longer/stop". In an addendum to an edition of a play in Iraqi Arabic published in the 1960s by Jean Lecerf, he discusses the origins of _la'ad_ as a synonym of Egyptian _ba2a_. He refers to a few scholars' work on dialect at the time, showing that _'ād* _and _baqa*_ were used syntactically for the same meaning in different dialects of Lebanon, one or the other being prominent in different locales. A French dictionary gave _'ād_ as a Syrian and _la'ād _as a "Mesopotamian" form of the same particle.

It seems that _lā 'ād _is used as well to mean "stop!" "enough!" etc. in some dialects as well. The Kuwaiti _munshid _مشارى العفاسي has a song called لا عاد that begins لا عاد تصرخ meaning, I believe, "Quit yelling". So far all these meanings can be relatively easily attached to the classical idiom لم يعد as well as the positive version (at least in the 20th century, used like _baqa_ in Egypt from Morocco all the way to the Levant).

I think that since _'ād _shows up across dialects with the meaning of 'then/so' it would be hasty to look for other origins based on what I can see. Many of the sources that were pointing me toward the meaning 'until' seem to be authors who are already convinced of a Mandaic origin.


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## Eternal student

Thanks for this very informative and interesting reply!


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## إسكندراني

This expression does not seem to correspond to Egyptian بقا, but I would like some examples because I'm not familiar with it.


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## Arabic_Police_999

إسكندراني said:


> This expression does not seem to correspond to Egyptian بقا, but I would like some examples because I'm not familiar with it.



I think it has two meaning, one is original and the other one I can see how it is derived to mean *then/untill/so*

لا عاد/لعد تروح عندهم= it means to stop continuing in doing something or doing something as a habit, 
لا عاد/لعد تاكل هالأكل = don't eat this kind of food any more

the other meaning could have both the first and second meaning at the same time, & would eventually mean the same thing

تراهم يحشّون فيك من وراك *لعد *تروحلهم= they are gossiping you, stop going to them/*so* don't go to them


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## dkarjala

إسكندراني said:


> This expression does not seem to correspond to Egyptian بقا, but I would like some examples because I'm not familiar with it.



Feghali wrote a book about Lebanese dialect in the 1920s. Therein, he describes the use of adverbial frozen verbs _baqa_ and _'ād_ for the same sense of _so/then_, and that these were used differently from place to place, but one tended to predominate over the other. He records both _uskut baqa_ "so shut up" and _skot 'ād_ 'so shut up' in Lebanon. The use of _'ād _was clearly more widespread at one point, at the time it was also attested as far west as Morocco.

In a dictionary of Syrian composed not much later than that, Barthelemy lists _'ād _as a Syrian/Jerusalem term for 'so/then' and _la'ād_ as a Mesopotamian equivalent. Both _'ād_ and _baqa_ are of course auxiliary verbs that can form composed structures with other verbs, but as in Egypt, they became frozen in the perfective form as adverbs.

My inclination is to think that the form _lā 'ād _and derivations of them (equivalent to Egyptian بطّل/بلاش) is so common in the East that it 'contaminated' the _'ād _already in use in many places, resulting in a similar sound but different usage. I don't think that _lā 'ād _developing into _la'ad, _as Arabic Police suggests, is necessarily the best solution because, again, we know that already 100 years ago, _'ād_ was already used to mean 'then/so'. It is easier for me personally to imagine the _la_ being added by false analogy than to imagine that 'stop' becomes 'then'.


			
				Arabic_Police_999 said:
			
		

> تراهم يحشّون فيك من وراك *لعد *تروحلهم = they are gossiping you, stop going to them/*so* don't go to them


 
I considered a similar development; however, I really feel the lack of the negation in the second part. We'd like to see لعد *لا تروحلهم*, no?


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## Arabic_Police_999

dkarjala said:


> I considered a similar development; however, I really feel the lack of the *negation* in the second part. We'd like to see لعد *لا تروحلهم*, no?



it doesn't make any sense to say لعد لا تروحلهم, and it's not classical Arabic, it's in Najdi dialect, it's like saying: don't continue don't go to them.
the negation is in لعد which is the short form of لا عاد


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## dkarjala

You misunderstand. My point is that if the meaning changes to "so/then" you would *need* another لا. This is why I don't think it is the most likely development.

I.e. "_stop _going there/ _then_ *don't*go there".


dkarjala said:


> You misunderstand. My point is that if the meaning changes to "so/then" you would *need* another لا. This is why I don't think it is the most likely development.
> 
> I.e. "_stop _going there/ _then_ *don't*go there".



I should have added, I think since عاد was already in use across the Arab world meaning "then/ba2a" that it is either the asseverative _la-_ or that it simply joined forces with the local لا عاد by contamination.


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## Ihsiin

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> it doesn't make any sense to say لعد لا تروحلهم, and it's not classical Arabic, it's in Najdi dialect, it's like saying: don't continue don't go to them.
> the negation is in لعد which is the short form of لا عاد



In Iraqi لعد لا تروحلهم makes sense; it means: "then don't go to them".
In Najafi the word چا (chaa) is a synonym of لعد and is commonly found before interrogatives (چا ليش، چا شلون، چا وين, etc.).


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## إسكندراني

dkarjala said:


> I should have added, I think since عاد was already in use across the Arab world meaning "then/ba2a" that it is either the asseverative _la-_ or that it simply joined forces with the local لا عاد by contamination.


I'm not sure any of this is true.

It seems that لعد is a synonym for إذن 'therefore'. In this sense it seems peculiar to Iraq.

بقا isn't used in this way either, maybe يبقى can be used in some situations but not all.

so taking the examples given to me so far (and examining the Egyptian usage for comparison)

Don't eat this food any more - ما تبقاش تاكل الأكل دا

If you find it bad, then don't eat it. ما دام إنك بتقول إن طعمه وحش،  (يبقى) ما تاكلش منه


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## Arabic_Police_999

dkarjala said:


> You misunderstand. My point is that if the meaning changes to "so/then" you would *need* another لا. This is why I don't think it is the most likely development.
> 
> I.e. "_stop _going there/ _then_ *don't*go there".


 it could have this meaning, but not all the time, how is it used determine that


Ihsiin said:


> In Iraqi لعد لا تروحلهم makes sense; it means: "then don't go to them".
> In Najafi the word چا (chaa) is a synonym of لعد and is commonly found before interrogatives (چا ليش، چا شلون، چا وين, etc.).



I was talking from my dialect point of view, 
but it' a very strange usage, are you Iraqi to confirm that, and is a wide spread usage
in my dialect we would say, 
 لعد أشوفك *ما *تاكل
( it could have the meaning *then* or *don't habituate, *it depends on the situation


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## rayloom

It's also used in Hijazi Arabic, as in:
لا عاد تعمل كدا
Don't do this anymore.


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## dkarjala

We mentioned this above, but it is *not* the same as لعد in Baghdad, which means إذاً


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## Ihsiin

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> I was talking from my dialect point of view,
> but it' a very strange usage, are you Iraqi to confirm that, and is a wide spread usage
> in my dialect we would say,
> لعد أشوفك *ما *تاكل
> ( it could have the meaning *then* or *don't habituate, *it depends on the situation



Yes, I can confirm this. In Iraqi لعد has no negation contained within it. It simply means: 'in that case'. Thus:

لعد روح : then go.
لعد لا تروح : then don't go.


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## Arabic_Police_999

Oh thanks that's interesting
in najdi and east saudi, it could mean *then* or *don't habituate*
but the use it very differently when it means* then*
as far I know we don't use it like this *لعد روح = then go*
but my question, could لعد in iraq means also *don't habituate*; *don't continue in doing something*?


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## AbuAla7arith

لعد = Never repeat this behavior 

لعد  = لا عاد

عاد: مأخوذة من "الإعادة" أو "التكرار"؛ بمعنى لا تعيد أو لا تكرر هذا الفعل.


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## dkarjala

AbuAla7arith said:


> لعد = Never repeat this behavior
> 
> لعد = لا عاد
> 
> عاد: مأخوذة من "الإعادة" أو "التكرار"؛ بمعنى لا تعيد أو لا تكرر هذا الفعل.



كلامك مضبوط لكن يدور الحديث هنا حول حرف "لعد" البغدادي الذي معناه "إذاً" او لذلك


Arabic_Police_999 said:


> Oh thanks that's interesting
> in najdi and east saudi, it could mean *then* or *don't habituate*
> but the use it very differently when it means* then*
> as far I know we don't use it like this *لعد روح = then go*
> but my question, could لعد in iraq means also *don't habituate*; *don't continue in doing something*?



That's a good question - I haven't found it used this way yet, but hopefully a native speaker can enlighten us. It would probably be hard for them to coexist, being so similar and having such different meanings, but stranger things have happened.


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## Ihsiin

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> but my question, could لعد in iraq means also *don't habituate*; *don't continue in doing something*?



No.


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## Hemza

I don't know if it can help but in Moroccan, it's used with the meaning "then". "baqa" means "to stay, to continue", and the examples provived by *اسكندراني* in Egyptian are somewhat similar in Moroccan ("ma tibqash", like "don't do it anymore").


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## WadiH

I think it's related to the Najdi/Gulf particle عاد.


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## dkarjala

Nice to see you, WH.

Above I was discussing the used of 3aad as a flavor particle similar to Egyptian ba2a - is this how it's used in the gulf? Could it somehow be an asseverative la- or is it some analogy with another word? If you have any ideas, I'm fascinated by this.


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