# EA: يلا بينا نملا ونحلب لبن الجاموسة



## gbasfora

Hi, what does mean نملاه and whai is its root ?
I've found four roots : مَلا ، مَلو، مَلّى ، مُلّي

Context :
طلعت يا محلا نورها شمس الشموسة
يلا بينا نملاها ونحلب لبن الجاموسة

The shinning sun is up . How beautiful is its light
Let's go *????* And milk the buffalo's milk

Thanks in advance

​


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## Sun-Shine

نملى (to fill)
The root is (م ل أ (ملأ


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## gbasfora

Thank you ya Shams Esh shamuse but how would you translate the second verse ?

Let's go fill it ( The sun) and milk the buffalo's milk this one doesn't make sense to me


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## Sun-Shine

Fill (the containers with milk).


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## elroy

I heard يلا بينا نملا, without ها.


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## Sun-Shine

Yes, it's نملا
(sorry, I wrote it نملى with ألف مقصورة instead of نملا)


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## elroy

The construction is still unclear to me.

يلا بينا نملا ونحلب لبن الجاموسة

1.) Filling the buckets would presumably occur _after_ milking the buffalo.
2.) In Palestinian Arabic, نملا ("nimla") is intransitive: _to get filled up_.  The transitive version (_to fill something up_) is نمَلّي ("nmalli").  Is it different in Egyptian?
3.) Even assuming it's transitive, I would expect it to have an object.


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## Sun-Shine

In Egypt you can say:
نملا مايه and this means filling a container with water.
and here (نملا (لبن -> filling the buckets with milk.
No need to mention "buckets"
(Also it's not wrong to mention the container).
There isn't نمَلّي in Egypt.
بالنسبة لترتيب الأفعال فربما من أجل اللحن


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## elroy

Does نملا mean both "get filled up" and "fill something up" in Egyptian?


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## Sun-Shine

Fill up يِمْلَا 
يِملا مايه or يملا ال(نوع الوعاء) مايه are correct.
get filled up يِتْمَلَا


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## gbasfora

elroy said:


> I heard يلا بينا نملا, without ها.


Me too. But in all lyrics of this song that I googled , it was written نملاها


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## Sun-Shine

gbasfora said:


> But in all lyrics of this song that I googled , it was written نملاها


Not all but some.
without ها :
Here
and here


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## gbasfora

sun_shine 331995 said:


> Not all but some.
> without ها :
> Here
> and here



Thank you. Do you believe that نملاها  is just a typo?


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## Sun-Shine

Who wrote it with ها heard it نملاها.


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## gbasfora

sun_shine 331995 said:


> Who wrote it with ها heard it نملاها.



I apologize for the many questions, but do you have any idea why some  arabic  native speakers have written نملاها
rather  than نملا Even knowing that it's was wrong ?
Searching in two very old dictionaries I found these translation to the verb *ملا

1) Diccionario Arabe - Español. Instituto Hispano - Arabe de cultura . F. Corrientes Madrid - 1977
*
ملّى  - to enjoy for a long time
ملا - to take a brisk walking

*2) Arabic - English Vocabulay - For the use of english students of modern egyptian arabic. Beekard quaeitcii, 15 Piccadilly  London 1892*

ملى، ملا - mala, he walked.

Could someone tell me if the above translations do
any sense? 

Thanks


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## Sun-Shine

gbasfora said:


> do you have any idea why some  arabic  native speakers have written نملاها
> rather  than نملا Even knowing that it's was wrong ?


Maybe they heard it نملاها and they aren't Egyptians ??
نملاها itself is not wrong.
نملا: we fill
(نملا(ها: we fill (it)


> ملّى  - to enjoy for a long time


Can you put the vowels, please? 
Could it be مَلِيّ or مَلَّ?


> ملا - to take a brisk walking





> *ملى (The vowels?) *
> ملا  - mala, he walked (quickly)


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## gbasfora

مَلا / مَلْو     - To take a  brisk walking
مَلَّى / أمْلَى  - To bring joy for a long time
 مُلِْي           -To enjoy for a long time


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## cherine

Hi,

At the risk of repeating something that was said before, I'd still like to answer some of the questions posted here:



elroy said:


> 1.) Filling the buckets would presumably occur _after_ milking the buffalo.


Logically and in natural speech, yes. But this being a song, there's need to respect the meter, sometimes على حساب الترتيب المنطقي و/أو الترتيب المعتاد في  الكلام.


> 2.) In Palestinian Arabic, نملا ("nimla") is intransitive: _to get filled up_.  The transitive version (_to fill something up_) is نمَلّي ("nmalli").  Is it different in Egyptian?


nemla is transitive in EA (even if the object is dropped in this song). The intransitive form is yetmala (in Alexandria, and maybe other places) and yetmeli in Cairo (and also other places). Both forms don't have doubled laam. The verb يَمَلِّي means "to dictate", from the fuS7a يُمْلِي, while our يَمْلا is from the fuS7a يَمْلأ.


gbasfora said:


> I apologize for the many questions, but do you have any idea why some  arabic  native speakers have written نملاها
> rather  than نملا Even knowing that it's was wrong?


I only learned it's نملا from this thread, I always heard and sang it نملاها even without understanding the reference of the pronoun ها. As for the reason, it's certainly because the elongated last vowel (for the music/rhythm/meter) followed by the waaw that make it sound very much like nemlaahaw'ne7leb instead of nemlaaaaw'ne7leb.


> Searching in two very old dictionaries I found these translation to the verb *ملا
> 
> 1) Diccionario Arabe - Español. Instituto Hispano - Arabe de cultura . F. Corrientes Madrid - 1977*
> 
> ملّى  - to enjoy for a long time
> ملا - to take a brisk walking
> 
> *2) Arabic - English Vocabulay - For the use of english students of modern egyptian arabic. Beekard quaeitcii, 15 Piccadilly  London 1892*
> 
> ملى، ملا - mala, he walked.
> 
> Could someone tell me if the above translations do any sense?


This is very interesting. If we take into account the period of the dictionary and the writing of the song, it could well be "to walk" indeed. But this meaning is now out of usage. I don't think any Egyptian would understand the verb yemla to mean to walk, unless this meaning is kept somewhere in some rural areas.


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## Sun-Shine

cherine said:


> But this meaning is now out of usage. I don't think any Egyptian would understand the verb yemla to mean to walk, unless this meaning is kept somewhere in some rural areas.


I agree. I don't think anyone would understand yamlu (to walk).
There was an idiom I heard somewhere : جاي على ملا وشّه. I don't know if ملا is related to the verb mala , yamlu (to walk quickly).


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## elroy

I feel like "take a walk/stroll" is quite likely to be the intended meaning, even if it's dated.  This is a pretty old song, isn't it?  And while I understand meter and rhythm can make poets and songwriters use unusual word orders, etc., I do think "Let's fill up our buckets and milk the buffalo" is so  bizarre as to probably exceed the limits of poetic license.   يحق للشاعر ما لا يحق لغيره، ولكن ضمن حدود.


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## cherine

elroy said:


> I feel like "take a walk/stroll" is quite likely to be the intended meaning, even if it's dated.


Yes, that's what I came to realize while I was writing my post (which could look contradicting as I talk about meter's necessity in the first part, then the plausibility of the "walking" meaning in he second part).

But yes, it is highly probable to me now that نِمْلا in this old song does indeed refer to walking rather than filling up.


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## gbasfora

Thank you Sun`shine , Elroy and Cherine. Since the beginning the translation of the second verse sounded really weird to me .  That was the reason for this thread. But now I think the question is almost clear.

Do you think it could be translated in this way :

The shinning sun is up, how beautiful its light!  
Let's go enjoy it (its light /نورها) and take milk from buffalo


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## Sun-Shine

I still see نملا as "fill".


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## elroy

gbasfora said:


> Let's go enjoy it (its light /نورها)


 I would go with "Let's go take a walk."


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## gbasfora

ok. Thank you Elroy


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## cherine

I too believe that the right meaning here is walking, not filling. But not "let's take a walk", just "let's go".



gbasfora said:


> Do you think it could be translated in this way :
> 
> The shinning sun is up, how beautiful its light!
> Let's go enjoy it (its light /نورها) and take milk from buffalo


I don't see we're you get "let's enjoy it". And نحلب is simply milk (the verb): Let's go and milk the buffalo.


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## gbasfora

cherine said:


> I too believe that the right meaning here is walking, not filling. But not "let's take a walk", just "let's go".
> 
> 1) I don't see whe're you get "let's enjoy it".



* Diccionario Arabe - Español. Instituto Hispano - Arabe de cultura . F. Corrientes Madrid - 1977*
 ملّى  - to enjoy for a long time
ملا - to take a brisk walking

"let's enjoy it" should not be the  the correct translation of the lyrics and I don't have enough knowledge to argue with all of you about it. But,
sometimes,the literal translation of lyrics is not always the best solution.  I believe that this eternal dilemma between a literal translation or a  free translation  will never end .


> 2) And نحلب is simply milk (the verb): Let's go and milk the buffalo.



*According Oxford learner's dictionaries *:  To milk something --> to take milk from a cow, goat, etc.

Thank you Cherine for your answers and comments.


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## cherine

gbasfora said:


> * Diccionario Arabe - Español. Instituto Hispano - Arabe de cultura . F. Corrientes Madrid - 1977*
> ملّى  - to enjoy for a long time
> ملا - to take a brisk walking
> 
> "let's enjoy it" should not be the  the correct translation of the lyrics and I don't have enough knowledge to argue with all of you about it. But, sometimes,the literal translation of lyrics is not always the best solution.  I believe that this eternal dilemma between a literal translation or a  free translation  will never end .


I'm not arguing, and it's not about literal or non-literal translation.  It's just that here you used the meaning of malla ملّى when the verb we have is mala ملا. Different pronunciation, spelling and meaning.


> *According Oxford learner's dictionaries *:  To milk something --> to take milk from a cow, goat, etc.


Correct. So you took the meaning of the verb (to take milk) instead of the verb itself (to milk), which I find strange. It's like saying in Arabic ناخد لبن من الجاموسة instead of نِحْلِب (لبن) الجاموسة.
By the way, the natural expression in Arabic is نحلب الجاموسة. I belive لبن (which is the Egyptian word for milk, not yogurt as in other dialects) is only added for the meter.


> Thank you Cherine for your answers and comments.


You're welcome.


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## elroy

I agree that "take milk" is not idiomatic here.

I suggested "go for a walk" based on the dictionary definitions gbasfora provided.  I think it makes sense.


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## cherine

Farmers don't "go for a walk". This is why I don't think it's the appropriate translation here. The way I understand it is the traditional depiction of farmers' life (more precisely, women): when the sun rises, they start their work: women milk the cows, sheep and/or buffalos, prepare breakfast, do the other house work, and men go to the fields. No time for leisurely walks.


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## elroy

Oh, is the song about farmers?  I wasn't aware.


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## cherine

Who else would milk buffalos? The song is even sung in a لهجة فَلاّحي.


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## elroy

cherine said:


> The song is even sung in a لهجة فَلاّحي.


 Is that why they say “šammūs*i*” (which sounds very Levantine!) instead of “šammūs*a*”?


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## cherine

Yes.


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