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“

Did you know that words like Adobe (nowadays of PDF Adobe Acrobat fame) and Safari (as in the Apple web browser) are actually Arabic? 

Of course, you already knew of the existence of so-called “loanwords” in English, meaning words which are originally French, German, Spanish, etc.

But were you actually aware that several of them also come from ARABIC?

 IN SCIENCE AND MATH:

• ALCHEMY and CHEMISTRY (الكيميـــــــــاء.)

• ALCOHOL (الكُحُـــــــــول.) 

• ALGEBRA (الجبــر: More on the eponymous founder of Algebra as an independent mathematical discipline here.)

• ALGORITHM (خوارزم: More on the eponymous founder of algorthimics here.)

• ALKALINE (القلوي: Meaning “non-acid, basic.”) 

• ALMANAC (المنــــــاخ: Literally meaning “climate”)

• AVERAGE (From Old French avarie, itself from the Arabic term عوارية, meaning “damaged goods”, from عور meaning “to lose an eye.”)

• AZIMUTH (السمــــــــت: This concept is used in several fields, such as الفلك/astronomy، هندسة الطيران/aerospace engineering، and فيزياء الكم/quantum physics.)
  

• CIPHER (صِفـــــــــــــــــــــــــــر: The term “cipher” is now mostly applied in cryptography—see الكَندي/Al-Kindi’s work.)
  

• ELIXIR (الإكسيــــــــــــــر: Something like a “syrup”—also an Arabic term, possibly borrowed from Persian.) 

• NADIR (نظيـــــــــــــر: It is the opposite of the zenith.)

• SODA (صـــــــــودا.)
  

• ZENITH (سمت الرأس: Literally the “azimuth of the head”، it is the opposite of the “nadir.”)
  

• ZERO (same as “cipher.”)

Names of many stars and constellations: 

The name of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice is an obvious pun on the Arabic-named star بيت الجــــــوزاء/Betelgeuse

From an Arabic-named star of a constellation to a Star of video games: Vega (the "Flamenco-styled" Street Fighter character hailing from Spain!)

(Altair: الطَّائـــــــــر meaning “the bird”; Betelgeuse: بيت الجــــــوزاء, meaning “the House of the Gemini”; Deneb: ذنب meaning “tail”; Fomalhaut: فم الحوت which means “the mouth of the Pisces”, Rigel: رِجـــــــل meaning “foot”, it stands for رجل الجبَّار, or the “foot of the Titan”, Vega: الواقع meaning “the Falling”, refers to النسر الواقع، meaning “the falling eagle”, etc.)

• An entirely separate post is necessary to list all of the astronomical terms which are of Arabic origin.

 TECHNICAL TERMS (ENGINEERING, MILITARY, BUSINESS, COMMODITIES, etc.)

• ADMIRAL (أميــــــــر الرحلة, meaning commander of the fleet, or literally “of the trip”) 
  

  الرايس حمِّيـــــــــــدو (Rais Hamidou): A legendary Admiral who led the Algerian Navy before the invasion of his country by France

• ADOBE (الطوب: meaning a “brick.” Next time you use an Adobe Acrobat product, you will remember that Adobe is originally Arabic!)

• ALCOVE (القبة: meaning “the vault”, or “the dome”)

• AMBER (عنبر: Anbar, “ambergris.”)

• ARSENAL (Do fans of F.C. Arsenal today, including those living in the Arab world, know where the name of their favorite team came from? دار الصناعــــــــــــــــة : “manufacturing house”)

• ASSASSIN (Just like the word MAFIA, it is of Arabic origin: It either comes from “حشَّــــــــــــــاشين”, referring to the medieval sect of the same name famous for the heavy hashish consumption by its knife-wielding members, or “العسَّاسيــــــــــــــــن”, meaning “the watchmen.”)
  

  It seems that the medieval Assassin sect has made quite a comeback with "Assassin's Creed", the historical fiction action-adventure video game series featuring the character "Desmond Miles", a descendant of one of the leaders of the sect named "Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad" (literally "Bird Son of No One"---as mentioned above, "Altair" is the name of a constellation still identified by its Arabic name)

• CALIBER (قـــــــالب: meaning “mold”) 

• CANDY (from قندي, itself from Persian for “hard candy made by boiling cane sugar”)

• CHECK (from صکّ, also from Persian meaning “letter of credit.” It would give the Chess expression “Checkmate”, from “الشيخ مات”, or “the Shaikh is dead.”)

• CORK (القورق)

• COFFEE (قهوة: For long snubbed by Europeans as the “wine of the infidels”—that is, many centuries before the age of Starbucks and instant coffee!)

• COTTON (قُطْـــــــــن)
  

• GAUZE (either from قَــــــــــزّ, meaning “silk”, or from غَــــــــزّة, “Gaza”, the Palestinian city.)

• GUITAR (just as LUTE, العود, a musical instrument known to Europeans through the Arabic قيثارة, itself possibly borrowed from a word of Ancient Greek.)

• HAZARD (الزّهر: “the dice”—Think of an Arabic TV series hazardly titled “The Dukes of Al-Azhar”…) 

• LAZULI (As in “Lapis Lazuli”, لاژورد: Arabic word for a semi-precious stone famous for its intense blue color. The Arabic word is said to come from a Persian city where the stone was mined.)

• MASCARA (Just as with the English “masquerade” and the French “mascarade“, mascara comes from the Arabic word مسخرة, an event during which people wear masks, such as carnivals.) 
  

  "مسخرة/Mascarades": A 2008 prize-winning comedy by Algerian director إلياس سالم (Lyes Salem)---Not fully exempt from stereotypes and distortions, yet much preferrable to many comparable "made-for-Western-audiences" movies, such as the calamitous "turkeys" so typically served by a Merzak Alloueche (to name only him!)

• MATTRESS (مطـــــــــــــــــــرح.)

• MONSOON (موسم: Arabic for “season.”)

• MUMMY (مومياء: Originally from Persian root “موم”, meaning “wax”.)

• RACQUET (As in a “tennis racket”. Some point to an Arabic origin of Tennis. The word racket comes the Arabic word “راحـــــــة”, as in “راحـــــة اليد”, meaning the “palm of the hand.”)

• REAM (as in a “ream of paper”, it comes from Arabic رزمة, meaning a “bundle.”) 

• SAFARI (سفـــــــر: “travel”—As in Apple’s Safari web browser)

• SASH (شــــــــاش.)
  

• SATIN (زيتــــــــــــوني: “Olive-like”, perhaps related to modern Tsinkiang in Fukien province, southern China.) 

• SOFA (الصُفــــــــة)
  

• TALCUM (التلك)

• SWAHILI (Comes from سواحــــــــــل: Plural of ساحــــــــــل, meaning a “coast.”)

• ZIRCON (زرقـــــــــــــون: “golden-colored.” Zirconium is a chemical element with the symbol Zr and atomic number 40) 
  

  The English word TARIFF either comes from the Arabic term for "fee" (تعريـــــــــــــــفة), or "تعريـــــــــــــــف/identification", as in "بطاقــــــــة التعريـــــــــــــــف", meaning "Identity Card."---After the whole media fuss regarding his birth certificate, it seems that President Obama's real Identification Card was finally located: It says: "Nationality: Tunisian - Real name: Hussein bou'Omama - Date of Birth: Not too long ago"

• TARIFF (تعاريـــــــــــــــف, plural of تعريـــــــــــــــفة, meaning a “fee”, or simply تعريـــــــــــــــف, as in “بطاقــــــــة التعريـــــــــــــــف“, meaning an “identity card.”)

Finally, to close this list, it is fitting to greet everyone by saying “SO-LONG” (an English expression which, according to The Penguin Dictionary of Historical Slang, may come from the Arabic word ســـــــــــــــــــــــلام/SALAAM!)

Most of the readers of this blog are actively trying to learn Arabic at some level.  We’ve got many great free language resources to help you learn Arabic free, including our vocabulary builder, Byki Express. Many other language learning programs start by teaching grammar. Byki leverages the fact that adults learn foreign languages fastest by first collecting a pool of words and phrases to draw upon. The bigger your pool, the better equipped you are to communicate in your foreign language.

! حــــــــــــــــذاري يا شبـــــــــــــــــاب (Watch out guys!)

Don’t be too silly to go try these stunts on your own—and then say that you’ve seen them here on The Arabic Blog!

Forget all the car stunts you watched on Jason Statham‘s “TRANSPORTER” and other heavily CGI‘d Hollywood ”action-packed” movies…

If you were still under the impression that people in Arab countries only stick to الجِمـــــــــــــال (camels) to get by in the desert—then you may want to revise that opinion a bit:

When its comes to “spicing it up” a little during a “joy ride” in the desert, it’s pretty much مــــــــا تـــــــــــــــراه هو ما تحصـــــــــــــــل عليــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــه (What You See Is What You Get)!

MIA’s “Bad Girls“, self-released only two weeks ago (31 January 2012) 
(translated in the video as “الفتيـــــــــــات المتمرِّدات“, meaning literally “the rebellious girls”)

Sarcastic Saudi says: MIA, the British-Sri Lankan girl who features crazy car stunts in her video, does not necessarily promote women’s right to drive in places like the Saudi Kingdom! 

The music video was filmed in the predominately Berber-speaking village of ورزازات‎ (Ouarzazate) in المغــــــــــــــــرب (Morocco), where several other Hollywood movies were also shot: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Message (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Mummy (1999), Gladiator (2000), Alexander (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005.)

It was directed by the new “bad boy” of French cinema, founder of the French label “Kourtrajmé“, Romain Gavras, who is the son of the Greek-French movie director Costa-Gavras, notably famous for his 1969 “Z“, filmed in الجزائـــــــر العاصمـــــــة (Algiers) and produced by Algerian director Ahmed Rachedi. Romain Gavras also directed MIA’s 2010 highly controversial video “Born Free“, as well as “Signature” of the late Tunisian-born DJ Mehdi, who died only a few months ago when the skylight of his Parisian apartment suddenly collapsed.

!”تَزَلُّـــــــــــــــــج السيــــــــــــــــــــارات“ “Car Skating“: A purely Saudi-flavored specialty 

Please “Bark” It Like It’s Hot!
An incredibly simple yet ingenius parking idea—only in Cairo, Egypt

Now off to Mauritania for…

!تفحيــــــــــــــــط” موريتانــــــــــــــــي” … some Mauritanian “drifting”!
Things turn a bit mad (“Need for Speed“-style) starting 0:55

What is “تفحيــــــــــــــــط” (“drifting”)? It means that the driver intentionally turns the car in one  اتِّجــــــــــــــــــاه (direction) while the wheels are pointed in  الإتِّجــــــــــــــــــاه المُعَـــــــــــــــــــاـكِس (the opposite direction)

“Whirling Dervish” technique in Morocco—applied to a convertible BMW! 

Unbelievable 200km/h (drifting) in Saudi Arabia—and equally unbelievable nonchalance on the part of المتفرجيــــــــــــــــــن (the spectators)

The sort of تَهَـــــــــــــــوُّر (recklessness) which, alas, can often lead to very costly consequences… (see the video below)

On the “flip side” (literally), those stunts can unfortunately prove to be deadly, as shown in this video

Warning: While the images are not too strong, they can be unsettling for some people (Your viewing discretion is advised)
The lyrics of the song “بَعد بُعـــــدي” (“After My Distance”) featured in this video are written by Syrian poet د. عبد المعطي الدلاتي