Beginner - Levantine Dialect: What Do I Know?

how do you say Philippines? Iloilo City?

In Arabic the Philippines are called ﺍﻠﻓﻠﺒﻴﻦ. I don’t know the Arabic equivalent of Iloilo City, but “Iloilo” is probably transcribed as follows: ﺍﻴﻠﻮﺌﻴﻠﻮ.

Thanks, DESMOND. Yes, YHAN, the less widely known the city among Arabs, the less likely it is to have an 'Arabic' name. While there is no real letter p in the Arabic language, many Arabs can and do pronounce the 'p.' So don't think you have to say "alfilbeen" ;-)

what do you mean of "saba al nur habibi" in english?

Dear Yhan,

In English you could say “Good morning, dear”. You might also drop the adjective and say “Morning, dear.” The translation equivalents of ﺤﺒﻴﺒﻲ are heavily context-dependent. If a woman is addressing a small boy she can use words like “honey” or “sweetie”. If a man is addressing a small boy he’ll use the boy’s name or just say “Morning!” If he were to use words like “sweetie” or “darling” people might think he was a pedophile. If the speakers are lovers all kinds of words might be used (e.g. “dear”, “darling”, “love”, “honey”). If the speakers are both heterosexual males the vocative might be “mate”, “matey”, “old chap” or a first name. The word choice will be determined by factors such as age, class or geographical origin. In many cases the word ﺤﺒﻴﺒﻲ will remain untranslated since vocatives are much less common in English than in Arabic.

I’ve just re-listened to the podcast entitled “Don’t touch that”. In this case ﺤﺒﻴﺒﻲ could be rendered as “son” since the man is the boy’s father. I’m not surprised that the use of the word “darling” in this podcast raised a few eyebrows!

It’s important to remind translators that there are very few one-to-one equivalents between languages. Proper names (e.g. the names of cities and Greek or Roman authors) are exceptions.

What do you mean of "masa al ker, wen enta, slon alhin?" in English?

Thanks for a very useful lesson! I know that this is after all a specifically Levantine dialect lesson, but is شو بعرفني an exclusively Levantine phrase, or is it used elsewhere at all? Is there a more general way of saying "what do I know?" شكرا

How shall we say “What do I know?” in MSA? Let’s replace ﺸﻮ by ﻤﺎﺬﺍ and translate “I know” as ﺃﻋﺮﻒ. I think that ought to work. The native speakers will correct us if we’re wrong.

That's true, Desmond, but it might sound strange to use MSA for a phrase like this. I don't know. شو بعرفني. :)

Sooner or later the native speakers will respond. They always have the last word in such matters.