# Lebanese Arabic: Ta'al andi, bidi a showef zoukmec!



## santiagobundo

So I took Arabic in school, but translating translitterations aren't easy and I'm just getting back into using Arabic for the first time in 7 years... Someone help:

Ta'al andi, bidi a showef zoukmec!

The person is Lebanese

Thanks!


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## ayed

santiagobundo said:


> So I took Arabic in school, but translating translitterations aren't easy and I'm just getting back into using Arabic for the first time in 7 years... Someone help:
> 
> Ta'al andi, bidi a showef zoukmec!
> 
> The person is Lebanese
> 
> Thanks!


Something like :
_Come over. I want to see your face(to meet and see you). All is based on that context and situation._


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## santiagobundo

Shukran sadiqi! I was far off enough...


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## santiagobundo

And Ayed - the context is perfect. We are talking about meeting for coffee on Saturday.


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## barkoosh

Sure the person is Lebanese? This is not how we talk and transliterate. I agree with ayed's post, but what's a "zoukmec"?


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## santiagobundo

Yes - he is Lebanese, but raised in the United States. We are both soldiers in the Army, but stationed at different camps. He cannot read Arabic script, and tries to transliterate as best as possible. I sometimes have no idea what he is saying. I learned Arabic through studying in the University as well as time spent in Iraq. "Zoukmak or Zouckmec" was a word that I could not figure out for the life of me...You're guess of what it is, is better than mine.


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## Kinan

zoukmenc is a mysterious word to me, I can't even think what it could be.


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## ayed

zoqom means " a nose" or "snout"


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## santiagobundo

Yes he explained it later - saying he was trying to say "your face"


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## ajamiyya عجمية

ayed said:


> zoqom means " a nose" or "snout"



Hello Ayed.  Would you be so kind as to put the word into Arabic script?  Is this a regular word in actual use or more of a pet-name sort of a word?  Where is it used? 

Hello santiagobundo.  Do you think your friend, having grown up with little exposure to formal Arabic and in an area where dialect immersion is quite difficult, is speaking not Lebanese so much as a very fluid ad hoc colloquial Arabic which is being resorted to for communication among Arabs from disparate backgrounds who are interacting with and raising children together in the US? 

Any thoughts?


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## santiagobundo

I would say this is generally the case. As is the case with most Americans who grow up with immigrant parents. My mother is from Spain, but I grew up in the United States, so I use many words from other dialects of Spanish. In a general sense I use whatever words I have heard the most of. That is why we call ourselves the melting pot. You take everyone and throw them in and get a distinct American flavor. I would say though that he hasn't regularly used Arabic since he was a young boy of about 10.


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## ayed

ajamiyya عجمية said:


> Hello Ayed.  Would you be so kind as to put the word into Arabic script?  Is this a regular word in actual use or more of a pet-name sort of a word?  Where is it used?
> 
> Hello santiagobundo.  Do you think your friend, having grown up with little exposure to formal Arabic and in an area where dialect immersion is quite difficult, is speaking not Lebanese so much as a very fluid ad hoc colloquial Arabic which is being resorted to for communication among Arabs from disparate backgrounds who are interacting with and raising children together in the US?
> 
> Any thoughts?



Surely, A3jamiyya.
In Najdi Badawi dialect, *زقم *is commonly used to mean" nose with the peripheral part of a face". Just imagine the mouth and nose of a wolf?It evokes *zoqom*. We sometimes say زلقوم *zilqoom *as well. It is said as a sort of jesting. It could hold a passive connotation when uttered by one who is angry with someonel else. All depends on that situation.


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## suma

*زقم *must be strictly dialect meaning snout or nozzle?


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## Schem

Oui, I've never heard/seen zugum used outside the Bedouin branches of NA.


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## ayed

suma said:


> *زقم *must be strictly dialect meaning snout or nozzle?


Yes, it evokes the connotation of a _nozzle_, Suma.


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## suma

So I'm also getting the sense that this word was used here as a cute/endearing way of saying "face" or "to see you", am I right?
Sort of how we say in English *"what a mug on that guy". *Mug being an endearing way of saying face, he has a funny face, or is a bit ugly, or a bit handsome.


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## ayed

suma said:


> So I'm also getting the sense that this word was used here as a cute/endearing way of saying "face" or "to see you", am I right?
> Sort of how we say in English *"what a mug on that guy". *Mug being an endearing way of saying face, he has a funny face, or is a bit ugly, or a bit handsome.


Exactly, Suma.
When we sometimes see a cute goat cub, we say:
_Look at the *zogame*(_deminiutive zogom)_of that little goat cub!How cute it is !
_


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