Shami and Egyptian are not so far apart. In fact, thanks to Team Maha and my own adventures in Egypt, I’ve discovered to my disappointment that many of the expressions I thought were quintessential Syrianisms were in fact perfectly normal Egyptianisms as well. Since going back through all the posts ever and editing them to include a section about their Syrian relevance would be a lot of effort, this post is intended to be a super quick one-stop shop for all of the expressions that have turned up on here which have direct Shami equivalents. ...

A transcription of the short Egyptian film el Qonbela, with bombs, street theatre and pickles.

Guest Post by Christ Hitchcock for #TeamNisreen This expression – اسم على مُسَمّى – is apparently found everywhere in the Arabic-speaking world and is an excellent go-to compliment – as long as the person you are speaking to has a nice name. It basically means ‘your name describes you exactly’. If you meet someone called نادرة (rare), وسيم (handsome), باسم (smiler) or جميلة (beautiful), this will probably go down pretty well. I wouldn’t suggest citing it in response to a surname like عدوان (aggression), though, or to someone called غيث (light rain). I’m still working on finding out if this proverb was used in the days when people were called things like معاوية (bitch in heat). ...

الجو نار “el gaw nar“ Sometimes I’m not even sure that this one is an exaggeration because there is literally no other explanation for how hot it is right now. A7777a.

كبر دماغك “kabbar dma3’ak” How about some guesses as to what this actually means for those unfamiliar with the phrase? Perhaps a concise statement about the value of education, maybe a colloquialism praising the benefits of expanding your mind…something logical like that, right? Nope, nerp, incorrect, not even a little bit close. It actually means, “take it easy.” Even Google Translate (!!!) was able to figure it out, and they’re usually pitiful with anything even remotely dialect related. ...

Today’s guest post includes a very exciting announcement made by our new friend Chris. Nisreen frustrated about the perennially high degree of humidity in her native New York This is Nisreen. Nisreen is a chronically lonely Syrian-American living in New York, with a Syrian father and a Palestinian mother. She is, in fact, Maha’s doppelganger – and Maha’s falling in love with her cousin out of sheer loneliness, and Nisreen’s parallel love story with her own paternal cousin, might well have been avoided if they’d only managed to meet one another instead of spending all their time looking woefully into a camera and monologuing about their respective misery. ...

Back when I first decided to study abroad and realized that my FusHa would soon be absolutely useless, I stumbled on www.thearabicstudent.com, a blog that dissected media from a solid cross-section of dialects. I loved the way the author pulled out helpful vocabulary words, provided pronunciation videos, and generally explained grammar, syntax, and idiomatic constructions in colloquial Arabic. It was one of the only such resources I could find at the time. ...

ابو شنب “abu shanab“ This literally means ‘father of moustache’ but in reality is just a convenient way to point out an unknown man with enviable facial hair, aka ‘that guy with the moustache’ in English. If you’re referring to a guy walking down the street wearing a red shirt, for example, he may similarly become “abu a7mar,” and sometimes the phrase has a comical, “I’m kind of making fun of this person but not really,” type of feeling. ...

We took a bit of a break for travel and are back with arguably the most important post you have ever encountered & maybe WILL ever encounter on this blog: proper use of popular Egyptian swear فشخ (fashkh). I’ve heard rumors that the original meaning of this word refers to the exact moment where a woman opens her legs, which, honestly, sounds about right. There are a multiplicity of forms of and uses for this word, with the basics explained below. As always with curse words, use with caution. ...

I’m absolutely certain that you, dear non-native Arabic speaker currently located in Cairo, want no part in anything that could jeopardize the delicate, spotless reputation that foreigners living in Egypt have worked so hard to maintain over the years. In the spirit of this sentiment, TeamMaha has compiled the following brief guide to commonly used titles in Egypt to help smooth out your day-to-day interactions with the population of om al-dunya. ...