Welcome to a new post 🙂 Today is Mother’s Day in the Arab world اليوم هو يوم الأم / عيد الأم في الوطن العربي. To celebrate this day, I’d like to share with you a lovely song, in Egyptian Arabic, by the amazing singer: Hisham Abbas هشام عبّاس. The song is short and not quick-pacd at all – so it should be fairly easy to follow 😉 The song is titled: أمّي الحبيبة Umm-i Al-Habeebah< My beloved mother. I end the blog with focusing on a few idiomatic expressions in the lyrics and their meaning.

 

Mother’s Day عيد الأم

Instead of saying يوم الأم, it’s expressed  in Arabic as> عيد الأم ‘Eid Al-Umm’.

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The song الأُغْنِيَة

The song is basically a letter from a son ابن to his mom أمّه. This son, who is currently living abroad يَعِيشُ  فِي الخَارِج and feels homesick يَشْعُرُ بِالغُرْبَة, is telling his mom how much he misses her and that he can’t wait to come back.

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Let’s watch the clip below >>

 

 

أمّي الحبيبة 

My beloved mom

 

من ابنك حبيبك

from your son, beloved one

 

اللي مكنش بايدو

Who wouldn’t, if he could,

 

لحظة يسيبك

 leave you, for a moment

 

أخبارك إيه؟

How are you?

 

وحشاني يمّا

I’m missing you, mom

 

وكلّكم وحشينّي

and I miss you all

 

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وعاملة إيه؟

And how are you doing?

 

البعد عنكم والله

Being away from you is, I swear

 

غصبِن (غصبًا) عني

is against my will

 

إخواتي وصحابي وجيراني

My brothers (and sisters), and my friends, and my neighbours

 

ناديهم 

Call them

 

وحياة عنيكي

Please

 

سلّميلي عليهم

send them my regards

 

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يمكن بعيد عنكم أوي

maybe I’m very far away from you

 

لكن قريب منكم أوي 

but very close to you

 

الدنيا مهما فرّقتنا

No matter how far life separated us

 

عايش بقلبي

I’m living with my heart

 

وفي حضن بيتنا

in the bosom of our house

 

ما بعدني غير حكم القوي

I’m far away from you, only because I’m forced to

 

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وسلّميلي يمّا

And mom, send my regards

 

علي اللي بالي بالك

to ‘you know who’

 

واقريلها كل كلمة.. يا أمي

And read every word to her, mom

 

عنها كتبتهالك

I wrote to you about her

 

وقوليلها إنّي راجع

and tell her that I’m coming back

 

والفرحة قريبه

and that joy is close

 

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Interesting phrases:

There are 4 interesting Egyptian idioms in the lyrics that can’t be understood from their literal meaning. Below, I will give you the literal meaning as well as the indicated meaning.

 

اللي مكنش بايدو *

The literal meaning is: ‘Who wasn’t in his hand’. The equivalent expression to this in English is: ‘It’s not in my hands’, i.e. it’s beyond my control، which is the intended meaning here.

 

وحياة عنيكي*

The literal meaning is: ‘For the life of your eyes’. The intended meaning: ‘I swear by your eyes’ or ‘For the love of God’. It’s used to ask someone a favour and so you swear by the most precious thing they have, e.g. their eyes, in this case.

 

 حكم القوي*

The literal meaning is: ‘The rule of the the strong’. This phrase is taken from a longer idiom that goes like: حُكْمُ القَوِي عَلَى الضَّعِيف, i.e. ‘the rule of the strong over the weak’. It’s used as a reply to mean that ‘I have no control over this’. It’s very similar to the first idiom above.

 

اللي بالي بالك *

The literal meaning is: ‘That which is on my mind, your mind’. The literal meaning is almost funny and confusing! However, the intended meaning is simple. It means: ‘You know what/whom I’m talking about’. It’s usually used to refer to something that the speaker doesn’t want to explicitly say.

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