Egyptian song - My mother

مارس 24th, 2008

This is a song by Tamer Hosny, Yara, Ramy Ayash, Ganat, and Haytham Shaker, called أمي ثم أمي (My mother, and then, my mother). Like many songs, this one is sung in Egyptian colloquial dialect, which helps to highlight differences in Egyptian colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic.

Here are the lyrics for the first line:

بعد الحب ده ايه الى تعمل كل ده تستاهل ايه بعد الحب ده ايه الى تدى حنان كده من غير حساب نبوس التراب الى مشيه عليه

بعد (ba’da) - after

الحب (al-hub) - love

ده (da) - does, is (in questions), such as “does she?”, “is it?” - this is different than standard Arabic

عمل (’amal) - work

كل (kul) - all

تستاهل (tastahalla) - she deserves

إدى (ihda) - give; or تدى (tahda) - she gives

حنان (hunan) - affection

غير (gher)

حساب

بوسة (busa) - kiss; نبوس - we kiss - this word is different than standard arabic

التراب (al turab) - the ground, earth, dirt

مشية (mashia) - walk

عليه (a’lia) - upon

With these words, the first line of the song roughly translates as:

“After this love
What does she does all of this deserve
After this love, what
She who gives affection like this without asking for anything in return;
We kiss the ground she walks upon”

Learning Arabic through song

مارس 22nd, 2008

Another site that I have found very useful is http://www.arabicmusictranslation.com/, which has lyrics to songs in Arabic, with translations to English.

Songs include different types of phrases, some that are used in day-to-day speech. Many of the songs are also sung in a dialect (often Egyptian colloquial). For example, the phrase ايه يعني (aaya ya’ni) which translates as “so what?” in English.

The person behind the Arabic lyrics site recently started a second web site, http://egyptianarabiccourse.blogspot.com/ where he focuses on the Egyptian colloquial dialect with examples from song and more detailed explanations of the lyrics. This looks very useful, since colloquial is the day-to-day spoken language and is essential to learn these types of phrases.

Kazem al-Saher - Impossible Love

فبراير 13th, 2008

الحب المستحيل (al-hub al-mustahil) is the title song by Kazem Al-Saher, on his album released in 2000. حب (hub) means love or affection and مستحيل (mustahil) means impossible.

Ali Hussein video

يناير 15th, 2008

أغنية حزين جداً سعيد

أغنية (ughniya) - song, melody, tune

حزين (hazin) - sad

جداً (jidaan) - very

The word جداً is spelled with a ج (jim). In Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), it is pronounced like the g in “gem”. However, in some dialects including Egyptian Arabic, it is pronounced as a hard “g” as in “gate”. In this song, Ali Hussein pronounced ج with a hard “g”.

I’m not sure what سعيد means here.

Ahmed Saad

ديسمبر 24th, 2007

Ahmed Saad is an Egyptian singer, with a new song out, يا خسارة (ya kh-saara). يا خسارة means “What a pity!”
Here is the music video:

About This Blog

I am studying Arabic at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, and will be in Egypt in the summer. This site covers Arabic grammar, vocabulary, and other aspects of the Arabic language, and makes frequent use of YouTube videos, news, and other Arabic language resources on the Internet.