Arabic Language Blog

!لا تَفْجَعُـــــــــــــوا يا أَصْدِقَــــــــــائي (Don’t panic, my friends!)

Today’s post is not yet another vulgar compilation of الكلام الفاحش (profanities) such as the ones you can often run into on the Web in almost any language… Not at all.

What you will find here is a quick intro to rather “classier” examples and paradigms of how insults are proffered in classical Arabic: العَرَبِيَّــــــــة الفُصْحَــــــــــى.

Let us for now focus on “الأبجديــــــــــــات” (“the basics.”)  

Probably the most common swear word in classical Arabic is “تَبًّــــــــــا” (read “Tabban”), which can come alone, as in the interjection “! تَبًّــــــــــا” (“damn!”), or “اللَّعْنَــــــــــــة” (literally “damnation.”)

Before we go further, notice with me one particularly interesting observation about the word “لعْنَــــــة“, which, to my knowledge, has never been picked up anywhere: Its trilateral root, “ل–ع–ن” is intrinsically linked to its anagram “ن–ع–ل“, which forms the word “نعل” meaning a “shoe.”

In addition to the fact that a shoe may ordinarily step on dirty things (نجاســــــات), such a linguistic connection between the Arabic words of “damnation” and “shoe” may help explain why throwing it at someone is culturally tantamount to a strong insult within the Arab world.

You may recall the images of a group of Iraqis throwing their shoes at a falling statue of صدَّام حُسين (Saddam Hussein) in the Spring of 2003, or more recently the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at جورج بوش الإبن (George W. Bush Junior) during a press conference in Baghdad in 2008, prompting a huge buzz and countlessly many political jokes at a time when the former US President was about to end his second term, and leaving many Americans and Europeans wondering: Just why the shoes?!

Even today, in the دَارِجَــــــــــة (informal Arabic) spoken in the Maghreb countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, you will find people saying “يَنْعَـــــــل ” (a verb that sounds like the Arabic word for “shoe”) instead of “يَلْعَــــــن” (the properly designated word for “damn.”)

At any rate, these expressions can also be directed towards someone who, for one reason or another, earned your wrath. For example:

• “تَبًّــــــــــا لك” or “اللَّعْنَــــــــــــة عليك” (“Damn you/Get lost”)
• “لعنـــــــة الله عليك” (“God damn you!”), which is essentially telling someone “!اذهب الى الجحيـــــــم” (“Go to hell!”)
• “! ويــــــحك” (“Shame on you!”)

But then, why stop there?

You can, of course, still with style, be even more explicitly descriptive about your target by adding:

• “…يا أيُّهــــــــــــا” (“O You…”): 
• If the person is acting stupid:
  

  "أخبار الحمقـــــــى والمغفليـــــــــن" ("Stories of Fools and Imbeciles"): A prodigious work of أبو الفرج بن الجوزي (Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi) who lived in the 12th century in Iraq: It establishes an entire abstract hierarchy composed of fools, imbeciles, and other "dim-witted" individuals within the different fields of society, and raises the question of whether stupidity is a psychological feature that is فطــــــــــرية (innate) or مُكتـــــــــسبة (acquired)---a long time before the issue was to be tackled by modern social behaviorists!

• !المغفـل… (…imbecile!)
• الأحمـــق… (…fool)
• الأبله… (…idiot/feeble-minded)
• الغبي… (…moron)
• البليـــد… (…dunce)
• المُتَخَلِّــــــــــف عَقْلِيًّـــــــــــا / …المعتوه (…mentally retard)
• الأرعن… (…cretin)
• المُهَرِّج… (…buffoon)
• البَهْلَـــــــــوان… (…clown)
• الجَـــــــاهل… (…ignoramus)
• المُنهزم فِكْــــــــرياً (“intellectually defeated”, close to the English “intellectually challenged”)

Example:  ”!تَبًّـــــا! دَعْنِي وَشَأْنِي يا أيُّهَا الأرعن، إن تَصَرُّفك هذا يَلِيقُ بِبَهْلَوَان“

  (“Darn! Spare me, you cretin, your behavior is truly worthy of a clown!“)

• If the person is acting very low:

• الصُعْلوك… (…rascal)
  
• الوَغـــــد… (…scoundrel)
• البغيـــــــض… (…creep)
• الحقير… (…lowlife)
• الفاشل… (…loser)
• النذل… (…depraved)
• أسفل السَّـــــــافليـــــــن / …السافل… (literally “the lowest of the lowest”; scum of the earth)
• عُرَّة القوم (“the shame of the nation”, “national embarrassment”)
• اللئيم… (…ignoble person)
• القَذِر… (…dirty wretch)
• المعفن… (…rotten)
• المنحط أخلاقِيًــــــا… (…immoral)

• If the person does not have a bad personality—just no personality at all

• التافه… (…petty person)
• السخيف… (…silly person)
• الساذج… (…simpleton)
• الفارغ… (literally “empty”)
• من لا خير فيك / …معــــــدوم الجدوى / …معــــــدوم الفـــــــائدة… (…good-for-nothing) 
  

  They did not launch ""حروب عنكبوتيـــــــة" ("cyberwars") back in the Umeyyad Califate, but they sure waged psychological warfare through a medium of choice: الشِّـــــــــعر العَرَبِـــــــــــي (Arabic poetry)... This book titled "الهجـــــــاء عند جريــــــر والفرزدق" ("The Satirical Poems of Jarir and Al-Farazdaq") by Dr. Khaled Yusuf describes the long literary wars pitting two major figures of Arab poetry

• السفســــــــــاف… (…pettifogger)
• المتذلل (…sycophant) 

 Example: “!يا له من فيلم سخيــــف، لقد ضيَّعتُ ساعتين كاملتين من عمري“

• If your target is deceitful:
• المنافق… (…hypocrite)
• المداهـــن / …المتملِّق… (…adulator)
• ذو اللونين /  ذو الوجهين (double-faced, double-dealer—Notice that when preceded by “…يا” (“O…”), the right spelling becomes “ذا اللونين / ذا الوجهين“)
• الدَّجٌّـــــــــــــال / المُشَعـــــــــــوذ (…charlatan)
• عين الخداع (…”snake eyes”, but here literally “eye of deceit”)

 Example: “لقد كُنتَ مخطئاً حينما وضعتَ كل ثقتك في هذا المُشعــــــوذ“