# linguistic importation/inventiveness



## clevermizo

In various varieties of colloquial Arabic it is often common to import vocabulary and Arabize it. Like in the Levant, there is the verb *narvaz, binarvez* to mean to make someone nervous upset/angry (_thanks elroy)_. I think there is also a verb "tdapras" to "get depressed" that a friend of mine mentioned to me once.

How far can you take this? I understand limitations: if it's brand new, then the people you are talking to have to have some understanding of French or English or wherever it is you are borrowing from. Also, as a non-native speaker, one doesn't have the same kind of intuition as to what sounds ok and what doesn't.

What if I made up a verb "guugal" to "Google" something (as is commonly invented in modern English for searching something on Google). If I was with other people and at a computer, and there was something I wanted to search and I just uttered, "Ra7 aguuglo", and they knew what Google was say, would that be understood? More importantly, would that be considered _legal_ - in other words, not strange or out of place? Even comedic perhaps?

Thanks


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## elroy

This reminds me of that other thread of yours about comedy. 

As usual, there's not an easy answer to your question.  It depends on the individual neologism.  I would understand "ra7 aguuglo," and I don't think it would sound out of place, but of course the same cannot necessarily be said of other creations you might try.

As you may suspect, importation occurs quite frequently in the context of computers - for example, we say "sayyav" ("bisayyev") to mean "to save" as in "to save a document."

By the way, while "narvaz" comes from "nervous," in Arabic it actually means "to get/make angry" i.e. "to get on someone's nerves" (transitive sense).  The fact that the word has acquired a different meaning in Arabic leads many Arabic natives to mistakenly use the English word "nervous" to mean "angry" or "upset." 

We do not use "tdapras" in Palestinian Arabic.


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## clevermizo

I guess my best plan of action is whilst in an Arabic speaking environment to just try things out on occasion with friends and see what happens. A friend of mine in Amman mentioned using tdapras (or tdabras), like "ana mitdapres" for "I'm depressed." That might have been an inside joke among her friends though; I don't know how widespread it is. Edit: It seems the verb dapras, dapres definitely exists, at least in Lebanese. tdapras might actually just be a misquotation on my part. But you can say, ah inti mdaprse?

Edit: I guess my question really was, do people make up neologisms on the fly? Or do they have to really be something common before someone would use it? Like would _you_ spontaneously generate "ra7 aguuglo" or would it not even occur to you to do?


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## cherine

Interesting question 

In Egypt we say:
(ye)narvez= to make angry, to upset
narvuuz = عصبي someone who easily gets angry 
We use the computer terms like:
sayyev = to save
Sattab = to set up (a program)
farmaT = to format
We the computer hangs down/up(?) we say that it's hanneg
....



clevermizo said:


> How far can you take this? I understand limitations: if it's brand new, then the people you are talking to have to have some understanding of French or English or wherever it is you are borrowing from. Also, as a non-native speaker, one doesn't have the same kind of intuition as to what sounds ok and what doesn't.


I think that people better have some knowledge of foreign language, but I assure you that not all of those who say sattab, farmaT... know the language, even those who know it don't necessarily know the source of every arabized neologism (for example, I don't know the exact source of hanneg  I read it somewhere once but forgot it). So people learn those words as they are, understand what they refer to and start using them as if they were there for ever 
The problem with non-native is, I think, the same problem with those who don't know the foreign source of the neologisms: they don't get the meaning at first. But suffice it to ask once, if not for the source then at least for the meaning, and problem's over.


> [..] If I was with other people and at a computer, and there was something I wanted to search and I just uttered, "Ra7 aguuglo", and they knew what Google was say, would that be understood? More importantly, would that be considered _legal_ - in other words, not strange or out of place? Even comedic perhaps?


Very legal  New words show up almost every day. If you lived in Egypt, say 10 years ago, and came back these days, you'll notice a big change in the everyday language, specially that of younger generations. Even if a word sounds comic at first, it doesn't take long before it become "natural".

Here's a word that showed up a year ago: "fanfan"
3ayziin nukhrog nefanfan shewayya.
In case you couldn't guess, it's "to have fun" 



clevermizo said:


> I guess my best plan of action is whilst in an Arabic speaking environment to just try things out on occasion with friends and see what happens.


Exactly, this is what I was going to advise you. Invent the word you want. Worst thing that can happen: people will tell you it sounds weird or odd or bad... normal reaction: either they'll guess it (from context or because they know the language) or they'll just ask you. If they like it, they'll use it too, if not they'll simply forget about it.


> Edit: I guess my question really was, do people make up neologisms on the fly? Or do they have to really be something common before someone would use it? Like would _you_ spontaneously generate "ra7 aguuglo" or would it not even occur to you to do?


Yes. On the fly it is.
ya3ni momken nediscass el kelma elly 3ayzinha men gheir beroblem


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## jdibrahim

These new creations show that a need arises for terminology when new technology or sceintific concepts (psychology) are introduced or invented  in other parts of the world. This is a problem facing companies when they want to translate their manuals into Arabic. Translators are then simply either lost for words or don't know which arabised words to use because there is no standardisation ie a general database despite official Arab language institutes (currently there is some work being done to fill this gap). Everybody uses his/her own translation.This was the same with talfana (phone) until a word like xaabara was created. Whether we use arabised words or translate them (after all) they remain foreign concepts which some of them might not be understood in the Arab world. Experience shows that spoken Arabic favours borrowings to translations (loan translations) as with talfana. No wonder what linguistic problems come up when internet technology reachs the Arab world . The English concept: a price ceiling is translated into Arabic as saqf. But who understands it? Such translations cannot be integrated into Arabic so easily as some might think or try by dictating.

Sometimes people use Arabised English words like broblem (problem) either as a matter of convenience (laziness) or just to sound modern or trendy.


Jamshid


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## al-sirbi

Is it true that in the Lebanese dialect exists word *mshannas*- meaning *lucky* - derived from french "*chance*" ?
It sounds very funny to me.


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## clevermizo

jdibrahim said:


> No wonder what linguistic problems come up when internet technology reachs the Arab world .



I don't think there seem to be any linguistic _problems_ at all. It seems after my own study, what I've heard myself and this discussion here that spoken Arabic, at least, has very robust ways of incorporating foreign lexicon. It's quite a neat process in my opinion. The verbal 2awzaan system especially with the increased forms فعلل, تفعلل etc. allows easy incorporation and Arabization. It rivals the English verbal system, although the latter uses a different methodology entirely - but it still very readily and easily incorporates new items, and has simple processes to make verbs into nouns into adjectives and back again.

It's very unlike, say, Spanish which does not important foreign lexicon into the verb system nearly as often, or with which it is simply not considered "legal" to do so often by native speakers. (Although, as a caviat, I will say that among us as heritage speakers in the U.S., we, under the influence of English perhaps, invent new verbs all the time like "mapiar" for "to mop" or "hablar por atrás" to "call smn. back," as our first language is actually Espanglish ).


> Sometimes people use Arabised English words like broblem (problem) either as a matter of convenience (laziness) or just to sound modern or trendy.



Trendy is an argument one could make I suppose - but laziness I doubt. I don't think any native speaker of Arabic necessarily finds it "easier" to say "broblem" than mishkle/mushkila.


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## Josh_

Just some musings...

If 'google' was rendered into Arabic it would be a quadriliteral verb based on the pattern فعلل -- lجوجل .  As far as the Egyptian dialect goes it might be guugal (past tense), yiguugal or yiguugil (present).  I can't speak for other dialects, but in Egyptian, as far as I know, the vowel after the third radical in a quadriliteral verb is not elided when a pronominal suffix is added.  So 'I google it' would be 'aguugilu' and not 'aguuglu.'

Edit:  Speaking of creating new words I heard a little Egyptian kid once say what sounded like 3aTsham عطشم which I thought was kind of cute, when referring to a sneeze. He said 3aTsham, I suppose, as the word itself kind of sounds like a sneeze and he may not have known the correct word. From that I came up with the verb 3aTsham عطشم, yi3atsham يعطشم meaning 'to sneeze'.   Of course an argument could be made that the real word for sneeze عطس، يعطس l3iTis, yi3Tas (Egyptian pronunciation), is itself an onomatopoeia of the sound of a sneeze and that is how it came into existence.


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## elroy

al-sarbi said:


> Is it true that in the Lebanese dialect exists word *mshannas*- meaning *lucky* - derived from french "*chance*" ?
> It sounds very funny to me.


 Close. It is "mshann*e*S," at least assuming the Lebanese pronunciation is the same as the Palestinian one. "mshannas" sounds Egyptian, so if they use the word in Egypt that's probably how they say it.

In Palestinian Arabic we also say "ShannaSat ma3aay" to mean "I got lucky" (no sexual connotations). We also use "shanS" as a noun, for example in the expression "inte wshanSak" (roughly "it depends on your luck," lit. "you and your luck").


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## Tariq_Ibn_zyad

Well,if I answered to this thread about Morocco or Algeria,I would beat the record of the longest reply in this forum
There are just so many and 99% of them are from french


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## Beate

Hey,

here some "importations" you find in Tunisia:

langare > train station from french "la gare"

ndawwisch > I will take a shower, tunisians made a verb out of the french word for shower "douche" 

dacourdou> okay, either of italian origin (d'accordo) or of french origin (d'accord) I am not so sure

bountou >goal, of italian origin "punto"

shanti > building site from french "chantier"

trissiti > electricity from french éléctricité


blasa > place from french "place"
bye Beate


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## clevermizo

Beate said:


> here some "importations" you find in Tunisia:
> 
> ndawwisch > I will take a shower, tunisians made a verb out of the french word for shower "douche"


I believe they use this word in Lebanese too, but it's dawwash, bidawwesh (I will take a shower: ra7 dawwesh). In Syria I think they say 2akhad duush instead of making a verb out of it.


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## Josh_

clevermizo said:


> In Syria I think they say 2akhad duush instead of making a verb out of it.


Just to verify, in Syria they pronounce the word as duush (دوش ) with a long waaw?  I know in Egyptian it is pronounced dushsh (دُشّ ) and I thought (possibly erroneously) that it was that way everywhere it is used.


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## clevermizo

In Syria and Lebanon I believe this word is pronounced دوش duush, from which arises the form دوّش dawwash as well. I could be mistaken, of course. My English-Syrian dictionary also lists the form as duush.


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## elroy

It's short in Palestinian Arabic: _dush_.  And we don't use the verbal form; we say "baakhod dush."

"Duush" actually sounds Jordanian to me, but what do I know.


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## Abu Rashid

jdibrahim,



> This was the same with talfana (phone) until a word like xaabara was created.



I've never heard of this word before. Isn't the official word for telephone actually هاتف?



> Sometimes people use Arabised English words like broblem (problem) either as a matter of convenience (laziness) or just to sound modern or trendy



I think it's definitely the latter, sounding trendy and Western-like. It also comes with some prestige in many Arabic countries too, if you integrate a lot of English (or other foriegn) words into your speech.

cleverizmo,



> I don't think there seem to be any linguistic _problems_ at all.



I think the linguistic problems he was referring to are the ones created by standardisation. I think it's definitely a big problem, and something which has to be sorted out.


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## clevermizo

Abu Rashid said:


> I've never heard of this word before. Isn't the official word for telephone actually هاتف?



He meant to "talk on the phone" or the verb "to phone." خابر is a verb that at least by the dictionary means to "communicate with someone by phone." I don't know how common this is, say in lieu of اتّصل بـ (is that even fus7a?  I think I wrote that in class once and it was ok...).


> I think the linguistic problems he was referring to are the ones created by standardisation. I think it's definitely a big problem, and something which has to be sorted out.


Ah yes, that is always an issue with importation. If you say everything is illegal, then as new imported ideas must be expressed, you simply have to invent neologisms for everything, but fus7a ones - which can be quite a task I would imagine. Otherwise, you have to be willing to accept and standardize the imported words as is. I think the current strategy is a mixture of both, no? Some words are standardized as is, like say the word for democracy, while others have new invented standards. I think there are other threads devoted to journalistic creativity, which is a different beast altogether, so I shall leave it at that. I feel like the whole thing is sorting itself out over time. I am no purist with regards to anything though so in my eyes it only seems of particularly problematic nature to purists.


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## ayed

We sometimes say :
# Have you formatted your PC?
*فرمت(تاء مشددة)جهازك؟*
*# اعمل لهذا الملف دليت*
Delete this file


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## cherine

ayed said:


> We sometimes say :
> *اعمل لهذا الملف دليت*
> Delete this file


We say: dallet el fayel 

Speaking of which, "files" is "faylaat". But some people use malaff and malaffaat ملف - ملفات instead of فايل - فايلات


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## jdibrahim

Abu Rashid said:


> jdibrahim,
> 
> I've never heard of this word before. Isn't the official word for telephone actually هاتف?
> 
> I think the linguistic problems he was referring to are the ones created by standardisation. I think it's definitely a big problem, and something which has to be sorted out.



1. Haatif is the device but the verb is xaabara (maybe Iraqi Arabic only) or ?ittaSSala bi. 

2. What do you know about standardisation? You seem to be aware of the problem. Do you know Lisa (localisation Industry Standards Association? http://www.lisa.org/

Regards
Jamshid


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## Abu Rashid

jdibrahim,



> 1. Haatif is the device but the verb is xaabara (maybe Iraqi Arabic only) or ?ittaSSala bi.



I've only ever heard the latter used in this situation. Both in MSA textbooks and also in colloquial and formal speech, but then again, I've not really spoken with many 3iraqis.



> What do you know about standardisation? You seem to be aware of the problem. Do you know Lisa



Well I don't really know anything about the details of the problem, just that such a problem exists. I am not aware of Lisa, but I will check out the website, shukran.


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## cherine

jdibrahim said:


> 1. Haatif is the device but the verb is xaabara (maybe Iraqi Arabic only) or ?ittaSSala bi.


khaabara is correct and not only Iraqi. But there's also haatafa هاتَف as a verb.
Another alternative for the same meaning: ajraa mukaalamtan أجرى مكالمة and ajraa 't-tiSaalan haatifiyyan أجرى اتصالاً هاتفيًا

To be closer to the thread topic, the Arabized or invented word is talfen تلفن but it's not widely used.


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## cherine

Hi,

Taken from this thread, I think it's time to post a couple of new words 
baltes= to send via bluetooth
karyet (used in the field of IT/computer)= to create a directory/folder...
massej (not very common, but I think I've heard it a few times)= to send [many] messages/SMS



clevermizo said:


> I recall your Egyptian  _fayyal _ _farmaT_ and _sayyav_, this is probably _shannaSat._





elroy said:


> What's "fayyal" by the way?





clevermizo said:


> I don't remember exactly, maybe "to file" (as in catalogue something in a file?)?


Exactly, or "to archive", "to do filing works": 3andy wara2 ketiir 3ayez yetfayyel. (the "f" is مفخمة by the way, so it sounds like the English word "file"). And the pronunciation is fayy*e*l.


> I was thinking of [Cherine's] example of _farmaT_ and apparently mentally invented a "fayyal" (which could exist, I suppose).


You got it right ya Mizo, and this means that you have an excellent sense for colloquial.


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## londonmasri

cherine said:


> Interesting question
> 
> In Egypt we say:
> (ye)narvez= to make angry, to upset
> narvuuz = عصبي someone who easily gets angry
> We use the computer terms like:
> sayyev = to save
> Sattab = to set up (a program)
> farmaT = to format
> We the computer hangs down/up(?) we say that it's hanneg
> ....
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a word that showed up a year ago: "fanfan"
> 3ayziin nukhrog nefanfan shewayya.
> In case you couldn't guess, it's "to have fun"
> 
> Yes. On the fly it is.
> ya3ni momken nediscass el kelma elly 3ayzinha men gheir beroblem


 


Just as a side note for anyone else that might come across this post at a later stage I think Hanneg = to freeze.


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## Ansari84

Speaking of loan words - the word مكوجي in Egyptian as well as Iraqi dialect, meaning "dry cleaner": my guess is that the ending "جي-" is derived from the Turkish ending "-ci", meaning the 'doer' of the activity indicated by the verb to which it is appended. A linguistic vestige of the Ottoman Empire?

Also, it seems like these Turkish constructions are most prevalent in Egyptian and Iraqi dialects. Are there others, though?

* Hang on - just thought of one: Doesn't one often hear "Belki" meaning "Maybe" in Lebanese as well as Syrian dialects?


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## Finland

Hello!



Ansari84 said:


> Speaking of loan words - the word مكوجي in Egyptian as well as Iraqi dialect, meaning "dry cleaner": my guess is that the ending "جي-" is derived from the Turkish ending "-ci", meaning the 'doer' of the activity indicated by the verb to which it is appended. A linguistic vestige of the Ottoman Empire?


 
You are right. This is one of the most-used Turkish loan elements. There are heaps of words in Arabic dialects using the ــجي ending to indicate the actor.



Ansari84 said:


> Hang on - just thought of one: Doesn't one often hear "Belki" meaning "Maybe" in Lebanese as well as Syrian dialects?


 
Yes one does. There are several forms: berki, belki, balki, barki. At least I always thought it comes from the Turkish "belki", although I don't know what its original origins are (the -ki ending makes it sound like it might have Persian origins as well...).

HTH
S


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## Mahaodeh

Ansari84 said:


> Speaking of loan words - the word مكوجي in Egyptian as well as Iraqi dialect, meaning "dry cleaner": my guess is that the ending "جي-" is derived from the Turkish ending "-ci", meaning the 'doer' of the activity indicated by the verb to which it is appended. A linguistic vestige of the Ottoman Empire?
> 
> Also, it seems like these Turkish constructions are most prevalent in Egyptian and Iraqi dialects. Are there others, though?
> 
> * Hang on - just thought of one: Doesn't one often hear "Belki" meaning "Maybe" in Lebanese as well as Syrian dialects?



In Iraq it can be belki or belket.

However, the these are rather old, so old they became an integral part of the dialect.


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## cherine

londonmasri said:


> Just as a side note for anyone else that might come across this post at a later stage I think Hanneg = to freeze.


I remembered this word "hanneg" when I was browsing the internet and got this short message: "server hangup", so I thought I'd come to record the original English word here.


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## إسكندراني

Out of all the words mentioned the only one I like is هنّج  - the truth is all others can be replaced by clearer Arabic versions, and often are. شيل الملفّ دا instead of اعمل للفايل دا ديليت - and I've never heard دلّت


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