Saturday, September 30, 2006

Rubbing Off On Friends & "Takhreeb"

Sometimes, I lose my American accent for whatever reason and dive into sporadic Arablish talk with my friends here in the US.

I usually say the usual “Yallah, inshallah, mashallah, ya Allahhh, ee, la2, ta3al, roo7 (zain!), wa3ok, haaaw!, weee ghobra!, oo ba3dain, agool, inzain, shoof 3ad!” and the like.

I tell them what it means when they ask me.
But I think I am using my handy words too frequently because a while ago, my friend called me while he was co-oping at a firm.

Me: Hala…
Friend: You won’t believe what just happened.
Me: Ha?
Friend: My supervisor stopped by my cubicle and told me to come to the meeting.
Me: And?
Friend: I said, “Yallah, okay.”
Me: Hahaha! No way!
Friend: Yeah! You’re rubbing off on me!
Me: Ahh good good! Bravo!


Of course, everyone is more interested in learning how to pronounce cuss words. One of my friends was so eager to learn how to say
“Sh!t” in Arabic.


Me: It’s from your throat! Do it from your throat!
Friend: Hhhhhhhharrraaa!
Me: NO! Again! Throat!
Friend: Hhhhhhh…
Me: Look, just imagine that you’re hocking out a loogie all right?
Friend: Khhhhh…
Me: YES! YES! MORE!
Friend: Khhhhhhhhhhh@rrrrrr@@@@!!!
Me: AYWAAAA!!!
Friend: Khhhhhh...Khhhh…
Me: Okay that’s it for now…




MP3's:(yeah you know who you are! these are downloadable songs!)
Early Jazz/Rock'n'Roll

Etta James - Good Rockin' Daddy
Richard Berry - Oh! Oh! Get Out the Car
Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - She Moves Me
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - Keep on Pushing
BB King - Ain't Nobody's Business
Little Richard - Directly From My Heart
The Chanters - She Wants to Mambo
Shirley Ellis - The Nitty Gritty
The O'Jays - Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)

at 5:36 AM

18 Comments

  1. Blogger MiYaFuSHi posted at 9:57 AM  
    LOL bada3tay!

    Eww at the hocking out a loogie, but still a good way to get the point across.

    So would the full translation be:

    'Shit in your looks' ?
  2. Blogger Delicately Realistic posted at 11:21 AM  
    Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
    you had me in tears!
    Especially when u said "Aywaaa"
    Madry laish it makes me laugh when i hear someone say aywaaaaa
    sij its a great word to use for encouragement :>
  3. Blogger Eve posted at 11:44 AM  
    lol! that was funny! I have a tcheque friend, so i did learn all the cuss words in tcheque, even before learning the "i love you" part.
  4. Blogger Yazeed posted at 12:19 PM  
    lol 3ad it happened to me today, we made some rice for fu6oor, my american roomate like the smell, so he was like:
    "hey guys, you got any rice left"
    so i reply:
    "sure, there is some in the jidir"

    the funny thing is that he knows some arabic, he had an iraqi girlfriend when he was in highschool
    when i first met him, he said the following:
    "ana a3raf atakalam il 3arabeeya al qaleel al qaleel"
  5. Blogger Cuteberry posted at 12:37 PM  
    LOL! You reminded me of my good times back in the states. My latino friends were suppose to help me out in my spanish class but instead ended up learning all arabic words.

    I remember the day when my brazilian friend wanted to say "Hey, wassap dog" to a kuwaiti guy and he said "Salam ya kalb" LOL! hehehehe ahhh if I can only see that guy's shocked face again! Heheheheheeh
  6. Blogger The Krispy Dixie posted at 12:40 PM  
    hehehehehe

    my mom does the kkkhhhhh kkhhhhhh bit as well :P

    americans *scoffs*
  7. Blogger Purgatory posted at 5:03 PM  
    I do not understand how your post is talking about world hunger, am confused!!
  8. Blogger Lola posted at 7:00 PM  
    Hahahahahaha! Today I had the American and Canadian teachers that I work with asking me how to pronounce 'girgean' (their spelling). I said it in all its gutteral glory. They did not even try ;) They asked for an Americanized version! My O's British friends say 'ikil khara' like natives!!!
  9. Blogger Erzulie posted at 10:09 PM  
    Proletarian: You should!

    Miyafushi: Ahh...well you already have "Sh!tfaced" but that has an inebriated connotation. I know that "Eat sh!t" is used here though i.e. "Ikel kh@r@."

    DR: Hehehe :P I have to give my friend credit though. He couldn't stop saying "Khhh..." for the longest time. He can say that word fine, but he elongates the "Khhh..." part to get it right :P

    Eve: It's so strange how we zero in on the bad before the good :P I'm forgetting my French cuss words...My Frenchie friend taught me and I kept saying it out loud. Although no one knows what it means, he kept saying "Shhh! Not loud! Not loud!" And that's what I say when my friends here say Arabic cuss words!

    Yazeed: I won't be surprised if he knew what you were talking about! It's a strange instinct. I was sitting with my grandmother in a cafe in France. She told the waitress,"3afya yibeeli kirsee." The waitress, who obviously does not understand Arabic, promptly placed a chair before my grandmother before she put her feet up! :P

    Cuteberry: Lol ouch! Literal translations don't go too well!

    Krispy: Haha! Adorable :))

    Purg: I don't know whether to laugh or feel annoyed by your irrelevant comments. NO MORE SUSHI FOR YOU!

    Raine: Well, I think one has to have a psuedo-Kermit the Frog voice to say the "3ain" in "Girgai3an." Btw, I think you should tell the teachers (the foreigners) about Arabic cuss words. I felt really bad for one of my American teachers in high school. They guys kept calling her "el bgara" to her face and she thought it was something good!
  10. Blogger Caffeinated posted at 11:39 AM  
    There is something else we do...(I know I do it): We tend to gesture more than our American friends.

    For some reason they think I am super-animated whenever I tell I story!

    I know what you mean about the Arabic slipping in…so much is habit. We have a lot of responses to different things (Na3eman, La sami7 Allah, Salamtick, 3leyna oo 3leyk, etc) and they all come out of our mouths before we can stop them. So the regular ones (Yallah, la2, inzain, etc) are completely automatically programmed in our minds.

    I guess the best way to compare the auto-response (when explaining to your friends) is how they respond when someone one says, “Hey, how are you?”…Immediately, the answer is fine. It was always a bit embarrassing when someone answers “fine” to “what’s up”, though.

    Keep up the mix of Arablish. Or Engarab. You will soon completely program them…*insert evul laughter*
  11. Blogger 1001 Nights posted at 1:19 PM  
    You're spreading our culture. Good for you! I can't help saying Yulla and ya3ni even when Im speaking English theyre much too useful. But "wee ghobra" and "shoof 3aad"!!??
  12. Blogger Dr.Lost posted at 2:15 PM  
    looooooooooooooooooooooooool

    the khhaaaaaaaaaaa part was "freakin" hilarious :p hehe..
    "YES! YES! MORE! " you soooo dont wanna know what that sounded like :p
  13. Blogger 3abeer posted at 8:29 PM  
    SOOO funny :)

    I guess it's by nature that whenever anyone wants to learn a new language, the first thing they want to learn are the cuss words.. I wonder why? :)

    I learned some pretty nasty ones myself.. from a german friend :P

    cool post..keep it up
  14. Blogger Erzulie posted at 8:52 PM  
    Caff: I use my hands A LOT. One time I did the "Wait" hand sign (curl fingers toward thumb) during a presentation. I noticed everyone staring at the gesture!

    1001: Lama azifhom aw I make a point, I usually say "Shoof 3ad..." or "Haaaa..." When something goes wrong (dropped ice cream cone) and I say "Weeee!/ghobra" In both cases, they sense what's up by the tone :P

    Dr.Lost: Oh doctor! *covers mouth with hand* :P~~~

    3abeer: Lol German sounds even harder than learning Arabic cuss words! The language is so...harsh!!
  15. Blogger Angelo posted at 12:33 AM  
    I know what you mean...I do that sometimes. Once happened while I was giving a presentation on my biology class...during the presentation I saw "ya3ni"...I died laughing on my partner's turn of the presentation.
  16. Blogger Erzulie posted at 9:48 AM  
    Fallen: "Ya3ny" is an everyday thing. But whenever it slips out I only realize that I said it when everyone in the class focuses on me :P
  17. Blogger Cixousian Panic posted at 12:20 PM  
    LOL!

    Arabic cuss words are the best. You know they're cuss words without knowing the language.. 6al3een mil il galb. Like the difference between sh!t and its arabic counterpart. If you dont know english bil mara its just another word, but if you were being yelled at bil 3arabi .. you'd KNOW its a cuss word regardless of knowing arabic or not. :D
  18. Blogger Erzulie posted at 5:09 PM  
    CPanic: I know! The cuss word comes from the throat AND heart!

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