Arabic-L:LING:Arabic idiom query response

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 20 Jan 2010
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1) Subject:Arabic idiom query response
2) Subject:Arabic idiom query response
3) Subject:Arabic idiom query response

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1)
Date: 20 Jan 2010
From:David Wilmsen <david.wilmsen at gmail.com>
Subject:Arabic idiom query response

Have a look at these:

Farghal, M. (1993a). “Euphemism in Arabic:  A Gricean interpretation”, Anthropological Linguistics 37/3: 366—378.
 
Farghal, M. (1993b). “Dysphemism in Jordanian Arabic”, Zeitschrift fur arabische Linguistik, 30: 50—61.
 
Farghal, M. (1993c). “The Translatability of Arabic Death Terms into English”, Koiné. Annali della Scuola per Interpreti e Traduttori <<San Pellegrino>>, III:  15—29.
 
And my own

“Understatement, Euphemism, and Circumlocution in Egyptian Arabic:  Cooperation in Conversational Dissembling,” in Owens, Jonathan, and Alaa El Gibaly editors, Information Structure in Spoken Arabic. London: Routledge. 2009, pp. 243 — 259.

David Wilmsen
Associate Professor of Arabic
Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages
American University of Beirut

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2)
Date: 20 Jan 2010
From: "Dr. Saeed Alwakil" <alwakil at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:Arabic idiom query response

Dear All,
In ECA (Egyptian colloquial Arabic) we use the expression: Te3ish enat (or Ente ..etc..) . We can also say: te3ish enat baqalo 15 sanah. 
Best,
Saeed Alwakil

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3)
Date: 20 Jan 2010
From: "Alturki, Abdulaziz" <a.alturki1 at lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject:Arabic idiom query response

[moderator's note: note that the responses are interspersed throughout the original text]

Hello there,

please find my responses below.... I think it's not that benefitial but I just tried to answer the quistion.

Best ,
Abdulaziz

With a student of mine, I'm currently looking at an idiom that purportedly exists in Iraqi Arabic, but possibly other varieties of Arabic as well (as some colleagues inform me, it certainly exists in Lebanese Arabic, for which I have some relevant data). In Lebanese Arabic it's: Samiir ?at?aa-k/ki/kun ?imr-o and the idiomatic meaning is 'X died' (similarly to the English idiom 'X kicked the bucket') and it is literally translated as 'X gave his life/years to you' (where in this case, X is Samiir). So far, the second person pronoun is the only one allowed according to our informants: *'X gave his years to them/to Bill'.

Some questions we have for which we're looking forward to receiving answers are the following:

1) Is there any variant of the pronoun for male/female addresses in the plural form in Iraqi Arabic (or another variety)?

I think it is perfectly ok to say --- X gave you(+plural)+(+fem or +mas) his life. Samiir ?at?aa-kum/kun ?imro ......etc.  I know this is ok in my dialect (I'm from the eastern part of saudi arabia - Al ahsa) and I think this is the case with the whole of the arabian gulf countries.

2) Is there any variant of the idiom in any Arabic variety that allows for anything but a second person pronoun there?




I am not sure that I understood the difference betweeen questions 1 and 2 --- it's my bad english ^_^


3) Can the idiom be used in a context like "John? Oh, he gave his years to you 15 years ago...", similar to its corresponding idioms in other languages like English and Greek ("John? Oh, he kicked the bucket 15 years ago...")?

I think yes..... it sounded so natural to me...... Ahmed gave you his (life-years-age) 15 years ago..... the word that is used in Arabic which comes after @his@ is --?imr-o- which is the same word as the arabic equivalent of AGE.... but it refers to his life as well.

4) In reported speech, if somebody informs me that Bill passed away ('gave his life to me'), does it eliminate idiomaticity to say 'Mary just said that Bill gave his years to me/us'?

I think I wouldn't accept that as native !!! I would get the meaning though but personally I think it is not native like.

5) Are there any other idioms in Arabic that involve only the first or second person pronoun and are fixed for that?

I think the majority of proverbs in the gulf area are fixed to how they are recieved regardless of the addressee/s and their gender/number

so a proverb including a second person pronoun can still be used to give the meaning (but not in that idiomatic use)

however, one could change the number/ gender morphology and it will still be acceptable but funny and clear that you changed that proverb -- so usually no change but the proverb is said to describe the situation regardless of the addressee.

e.g. Halima returned to her old habit

which is said when someone abandons a bad habit they have and then do it again. we use it even if the doer was a male (halima is a female name)



((((just realised this is not what you were intested in -- sorry ^_^..... idioms are different 

hmmmm, we say --- X completed the other half of his-religion - which means he got married ^_^

mohammed  kammal            nos         deen-oh
mohammed  completed       half         religion/his 

we can say mahammed and ali completed the other half of their religion...etc

I'm not 100% sure but I think that most of the idioms can change in accordance to the addresse's number/gender ........ hmmmm, I don't think that I heared " X(+fem) completed .......etc... !!!!! either that I'm a man and women say it between them or I can say that usually the man takes the first step and proposes formally and that's why people will normally say that HE completed the other half of his religion (got married).


hmmm, we say..... (find your(+singular)+ (+Fem or +mas) friends) which means go away !.... usually we say it if someone says something unacceptable...e.g. A: do you know that my father is invited by the king for the banquete ... B: find your friends ( go away ) here it works as if you don't believe it.

in plural, I would say find your (+singular)+(+fem or +mas) friends you and her/him/ .

I think the majority of idioms can be changed in accordance to the addressee's number / gender but not in all cases...... !

after all this is what I thought and as a native I have implicit knowledge but no explicit knowledge of my language ^_^

I hope this was useful
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End of Arabic-L:  20 Jan 2010