# All dialects: غصبًا عنك / غصبِن عنك



## elroy

Hello everyone,

In Palestinian Arabic, we say "ghaSbin 3annak" for "against your will."  I just found out that apparently the original expression is (probably) غصبًا عنك, which would make sense.

I'm intrigued by this because I can't think of any other examples of the "an" suffix mutating to "in" in Palestinian Arabic.  We have many words and expressions with "an" in them, and we pronounce them as in MSA (some examples are حتمًأ، صدقًا، فردًأ فردًا، أولاً).  I'm curious as to why this particular expression seems to be an exception.  (It's not like "ghaSban" is hard to pronounce!)

My questions:

-What other dialects use this expression?
-Do you pronounce the suffix "an" or "in"?
-Can you think of any plausible reasons for the Palestinian pronunciation?

Thanks!


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## be.010

Hello Elroy,
- In Syrian we use the term and pronounce it the same way.
- I'm not sure why. I'd think of it as a part of the normal development of colloquial. The term is said with a stress on the "ghaS" or the "3an", but never on the "bən". I _think_ this may have something to do with it.
By the way, the other examples you mentioned are rather modern colloquial, imported from MSA.. that's why they maintain the MSA pronunciation. We even say "SidKan" instrad of Sid2an. "ghaSbin 3annak" is much older...

Regards...


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## cherine

Hi,

It is also ghaSben in Egyptian Arabic. And like you, I don't know the reason why the -an became -en, nor can I think of other similar occurrences.


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## gino ginelli

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
What's the meaning of غصبن عنك
What does it mean and can it be used in different contexts?


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## elroy

It means "against your will," "whether you like it or not," "forcibly."  Where did you come across this?


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## gino ginelli

I see, that makes sense now. I came across it in a video. The context was something like "this is what we do here, ghasban alayk".


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## elroy

gino ginelli said:


> ghasban alayk


 

ġaSb*in* *3annak 

*


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## abdulwahid

elroy said:


> ġaSb*in* *3annak *



In what dialect? In standard Arabic it's gasban anka 

It's not غصبن but غصبا


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## analeeh

In Levantine dialects (and I think also Iraqi, Egyptian etc) it is _ghaSbin_. We've discussed this before elsewhere I think.


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## elroy

Yes.  The spelling غصبن obviously indicated that this was not MSA.


abdulwahid said:


> It's not غصبن but غصبا


 Yes, it is, in this case.


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## abdulwahid

Or the spelling was a mistake.


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## elroy

Or maybe it's actually a Swahili word spelled using Arabic characters. 

There is no good reason to entertain the possibility that this has anything to do with MSA.  First of all, the expression is incredibly common in spoken Arabic, but not in MSA.  Secondly, even Arabs with a basic level of education know that the ending _-an_ is spelled ـًا/ـاً; I don't think I've ever seen this spelling mistake.  Thirdly, even in colloquial, words with _-an_ are spelled as in MSA, so the spelling in this case supports the colloquial reading because it's pronounced _-in_ and not _-an_ in colloquial, making ـن the intuitive spelling.

There is absolutely no reason to bring MSA into this.  If someone asked about an MSA expression no one would say "Maybe it's colloquial and they just misspelled it."


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## pekka123

I think the more common synonymous in MSA is: شاء أم أبى and شئت أم أبيت for the second person


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## elroy

pekka123 said:


> شاء أم أبى


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## cherine

And also رغم أنفه/رغم أنفك.


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## Hemza

In Morocco, we do not use such expression but we say بالسيف على (seems we like violent expressions  ) which bears the same meaning, although I do not know how حسانية speakers would say it. Is it used somewhere else? (I guess in other Maghreb countries?).


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## Startinov

In Morocco, we use also ( بْزَّزْ منك ) ..


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## Ectab

1-We use ghaSban in Iraqi Arabic but we don't use 3annak instead we say 3alek (on you) or maa 3alek ( what is on you)
so it becomes:
ghaSban (maa) 3alek -male
ghaSban (maa) 3alech -female

2-We pronounce it -an and so are the other adverbs borrowed from Arabic (طبعاً, قصداً, دائماً...)

3-Sorry, I am not expert with other dialects, but in Iraqi Arabic we usally change the Arabic vowel "a" into "i", maybe your PA did the same!
but since it is the only word then it maybe irregular, right?
like in Iraqi Arabic, we use form CaaCiC for active partciple but some ones use CaaCuC for no reason (irregular)
ex: kaatib, saami3, raayiH... but Daarub instead of Daarib.


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