Arabic-L:LING:mozza responses

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 30 Jun 2008
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:mozza response
2) Subject:mozza response
3) Subject:mozza response
4) Subject:mozza response

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1)
Date: 30 Jun 2008
From:Mustafa Mughazy <mustafa.mughazy at wmich.edu>
Subject:mozza response

  hope this will not offend anybody

mozza is a case of true word coinage. It has nothing to do with mooza  
(banana/a meat cut) or yimazmiz (to nibble).

Just like there are many “inappropriate” words in English that refer  
to women (e.g., broad, chick, and doll), Egyptian Arabic has its share  
of these words (e.g., mara, farda, waZwooZa, oTTa, mihallabiyya,  
balooZa, and mozza). Typically, these are lexical extensions of words  
for animals and food items. It is important to note here that there  
are similar terms for men, and they are equally offensive, e.g., faHl,  
helf, and ge3err. There is nothing unique about the existence of such  
lexical items. Those who are interested in a complete list can check  
out qaamoos riwish TaHan. The stigma associated with mozza has nothing  
to do with being a borrowing from a stigmatized dialect, as is the  
case with niswaan and mara), and it is no longer a teenage slang word.

I was fortunate enough to witness the development of mozza, since it  
came about when I was in high school (perfect sociolinguistic  
environment for slang). Naturally, every generation of adolescent boys  
has to come up with their vocabularies that separate them from other  
age and gender groups. In my days, the new lexicon included mozza  
(girl friend), nafkh biDaan (lit. inflating the testicles, i.e., to be  
boring), and raafi9 el-iryal (lit. raising the antenna, i.e., to be a  
pimp). Of course, these were considered inappropriate, and only  
adolescent males at the time understood what they really meant.

Here is the sociolinguistically interesting part. These words, unlike  
their predecessors in former generations, quickly changed their  
meaning/form and became part of the lexicon of teenage girls as well.  
The new meanings are: mozza (a broad/chick), nafkh (uncool) with the  
rest of the expression deleted, and raafi9 el-iryal (turning a blind  
eye to corruption). A few years later, adults started using these  
words, and now they are commonly used in the media, of course with new  
meanings. I think the rapid spread of these linguistic innovations  
across sociolinguistic divides can be attributed to the fact that  
these words were not associated with a particular social classes or  
communities. Describing a woman as a mozza has no connotations of her  
social background, whereas mara suggests a low class background.

What is even more interesting is that there is a new masculine form,  
e.g., waad mozz, which refers to a “pretty boy” with no connotations  
about sexual orientation.

Hope that helps

ps. I never used mozza in my life

Mustafa Mughazy

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2)
Date: 30 Jun 2008
From:Alexander Stein <alharaka at gmail.com>
Subject:mozza response

Mr. Parkinson,

This does not surprise me at all. I had a good many friends in Cairo,  
and almost all of them were college students and male. Several of them  
frequently used this word (mozza, with the ironic plural of mozzaz/ 
mozzas with the AUC crowd), to the point where non-native speakers in  
the group, myself included, quickly learned its meaning without being  
told. When I used it with male college students, many were impressed  
to hear an American say it. Notice the demographic. I would never have  
used this word in the street with a male outside of this age range  
(maybe barring high school students) and certainly never in front of  
elder male or female Egyptians. It became quickly apparent that this  
word is demeaning as referring to a woman in the street as "babe" or  
"chick" in a most unwelcome way in English. Addressing a woman with  
"hey, chick" or "hey, sexy" would get me in an equal amount of trouble  
in the streets of America.

I would love to know how recent this word is in the ever-popular  
Egyptian lexicon. I do not know how many generations it spans.

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3)
Date: 30 Jun 2008
From:Farouk Mustafa <f-mustafa at uchicago.edu>
Subject:mozza response

Mozza=babe

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4)
Date: 30 Jun 2008
From:Marwa Hussein <marwahsn at hotmail.com>
Subject:mozza response

Hello,
I am not sure about how this word came to be part of the language, but  
I do know it is quite offensive. It's a word that some guys would use  
among themselves to talk about girls ..I do not know its exact  
meaning, but I think it is referring to women as some sort of sex  
object. And I haven't heard a (self- respecting ) guy telling a girl  
to her face " I think you are a 'mozza'", as some sort of praise  
statement. I am a bit curious, though, is this term also used in other  
Arabic dialects, or is only in the Egyptian one?
Hope this helps.
Marwa Hussein.

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End of Arabic-L:  30 Jun 2008
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