Wow, it’s been a long time!
For our first post in over a year, let’s look at a political song that feels particularly relevant now (or maybe is always relevant): رئيس الجمهورية (‘President’) by خالد الهبر Khalid Il Habre (that’s how he spells it in English, don’t look at me), a Lebanese protest singer. I hope his lyrics make up for the dryness of my content. The video is available here. If you prefer, you can watch a version performed live on a TV show with two extremely pained-looking hosts – one of whom, Adel Karam, you may remember as the star of one of my earliest posts (although he had a better hairline then).
كنت هيدا البلد رجعتو للتأسيس
kǝnǝt hayda lbalad rajja3to la-tta2siis
I’d’ve have taken this country back to its founding
This whole song uses counterfactual conditionals. As I’ve already mentioned elsewhere, these are less strict in Arabic than in English: kaan + a past generally corresponds to ‘would have Xed’, but can also be interpreted as simply ‘would’ in the right context.
هيدا hayda is a distinctly Lebanese/coastal Syrian form for ‘this’.
Note the fronting of hayda l-balad and the –o standing in for it on rajja3t as well as the position of kǝnǝt before the whole thing. This order is slightly unusual – and here is used in order to make the rhyme and rhythm work rather than for emphasis – but still possible even in normal speech (have a look at this if you like).
بعت الوطن كلو دورة محو أمية
bǝ3t ǝlwaTan kǝllo dawret ma7w 2ummiyye
Sold the whole country an anti-illiteracy drive
This bǝ3t takes its conditional meaning from the kǝnt in the last sentence.
دورة محو أمية is the first of many political cliches and buzzwords. محو الأمية is ‘eradicating illiteracy’, دورة is a very versatile word that means all sorts of things but here is probably in the general vicinity of ‘course’ (as in ‘a writing course’).
لو عملوني أنا فخامة الرئيس
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana fakhaamet ǝrra2iis
If they’d made me His Excellency the President
Note that there’s no difference here between ‘if they had made me’ and ‘if they made me’. Both are law 3ǝmluuni. The use of the independent pronoun 2ana here expresses contrast – i.e. if they’d made me President (instead of X).
فخامة الرئيس – fakhaamet is one of many abstract nouns combined with titles to express respect (like ‘his majesty’ and ‘your honour’ in English, although Arabic has a lot more of them).
لو عملوني أنا رئيس الجمهورية
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana ra2iis ǝljumhuuriyye
If they’d made me President
Pretty much the same structure, with ‘President of the Republic’ (the full title, as opposed to رئيس الوزراء ra2iis ǝlwuzara ‘the Prime Minister’).
وما كنت خليت لا ورقة ولا هوية
w maa kǝnǝt khalleet laa wara2a wala hawiyye
I wouldn’t have kept papers or ID cards
maa… laa… wala… is similar to structures we’ve seen with wala elsewhere. It literally means ‘I wouldn’t have kept neither papers nor ID cards’.
لا محبة ولا شعور بالوحدة الوطنية
laa ma7abbe wala shu3uur bilwa7de lwaTaniyye
brotherly love or a sense of national unity
These are more objects of khalleet, within the same structure: ‘I wouldn’t have kept…’ These are obviously political buzzwords.
ولا شقفة دستور ولا شقفة جمهورية
wala sha2fet dustuur wala sha2fet jumhuuriyye
or this silly constitution, or this silly republic
The same structure again. شقفة sha2fe is literally a ‘rag’ or a small piece, but here (and commonly elsewhere) it’s used to express derision, which is slightly difficult to capture in English.
لو عملوني أنا رئيس الجمهورية
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana ra2iis ǝljumhuuriyye
If they’d made me President
كنت رفعت شعار عليك ومش عليي
kǝnt ǝrfa3ǝt shi3aar 3aleek w mish 3aleyyi
I would have made my watchword “better you than me!”
رفع شعار is literally ‘hold up the slogan’. It’s a very common phrase meaning to make something your watchword or to be a supporter of something. Note his Lebanese dropping of a short a – both Syrian and South Levantine would have rafa3t here.
عليك ومش عليي – this is a set phrase, meaning something like ‘if something bad has to happen, they should happen to you and not to me’ (i.e. it describes a person who will screw you over to avoid being screwed over themselves).
روح مسح باللي عندك حاج تمسح باللي فيي
ruu7 masse7 bi-lli 3ǝndak 7aaj tǝmsa7 bi-lli fiyyi
This line defeated me and all the native speakers I asked. My best and most unpleasant guess is that it’s supposed to mean ‘go and wipe yours, stop wiping mine’, with the بـ serving as an intensive marker and اللي عندك and اللي فيي both being euphemisms for ‘arse’ (the whole thing would then be playing on the idiomatic use of مسّح to mean ‘flatter’ or ‘suck up to’). But if anyone has any better ideas please let me know.
مسّح – on its own can mean ‘wipe (your arse)’. A nice counterpart to the غسّل ghassal / غسل ghasal distinction, where the latter is ‘washing’ generally and the former is washing your hands, face etc.
خليني تخليك يا روحي ويا عينيي
khalliini ta-khalliik, yaa ruu7i w 3ayneyyi
To each his own, kiddo!
خليني تخليك khalliini ta-khalliik – something like ‘leave me so I can leave you’, ‘stop bothering me and I’ll stop bothering you’.
يا روحي ويا عينيي – two generic terms of endearment (‘my soul, my eyes’) that are a bit difficult to translate in this context because the effect is probably to express exasperation or be patronising (and because these sorts of terms are generally a bit difficult – maybe we should do a post on them).
لو عملوني أنا رئيس الجمهورية
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana ra2iis ǝljumhuuriyye
If they’d made me the President of the Republic
كنت الغيت الحوار وصلحت الأبجدية
kǝnt ǝlghiit ǝl7iwaar w Salla7t ǝl2abjadiyye
I’d have done away with dialogue, fixed the alphabet
لغي ‘abolish, cancel’
صلحت الأبجدية – this is probably a reference to the long-running dispute over Latinisation of (colloquial) Arabic.
لا هدنة لا مهادنة ولا مواقف مبدئية
laa hǝdne laa muhaadane wala mawaa2ef mabda2iyye
No truce, no ceasefire and no principled stances!
لا هدنة ولا مهادنة is a protest slogan referring to peace with Israel.
بشيل اللي بدي شيلو بشيل الديموقراطية
bshiil ǝlli baddi shiilo, bshiil iddimuqraaTiyye
I’d get rid of whatever I wanted to, I’d get rid of democracy
The conditional structure here is just the b-present, which as I’ve said elsewhere normally corresponds to ‘I would X’. We probably wouldn’t switch between ‘I would have’ and ‘I would’ in an English song, but Arabic’s greater flexibility in its conditional syntax means this isn’t jarring.
شال يشيل shaal yshiil is a very common verb meaning ‘pick up’, ‘take out’, ‘get rid of’, ‘remove’ etc.
اللي بدي شيلو – this is a relative clause structure meaning ‘what I want to remove’ or, in this case, ‘what I wanted to remove’, with the conditional meaning taken from the sentence as a whole. Remember Arabic doesn’t do English tense-shifting!
لو عملوني أنا رئيس الجمهورية
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana ra2iis ǝljumhuuriyye
If they’d made me President
كنت الغيت النقاش وريحت البشرية
kǝnt ǝlghiit ǝnni2aash w rayya7t ǝlbashariyye
I’d have got rid of debate and given everyone a rest
النقاش ni2aash (as opposed to niqaash) is a distinctively Lebanese pronunciation. Lebanese speakers are generally more given to pronouncing q as 2 even in high-register words than speakers of other dialects.
ريح rayya7 is the causative of ارتاح rtaa7 ‘relax, have a rest’.
بلا كل يوم خطاب وبلا سياسية يومية
bala kǝll yoom khiTaab w bala siyaase yawmiyye
No more speeches every day and no more daily politics
بلا bala – this is the same use discussed here. It means something like ‘get rid of X’ or ‘screw this X’ or ‘forget about X’
روح تكتك ع الشباب حاج تتكت عليي
ruu7 taktek 3ashshabaab 7aaj ǝttaktek 3aleyyi
Take your “tactics” to the young people, stop “tacticsing” me
تكتك – obviously from English (or French) “tactics”, but this is a verb.
حاج – ‘stop Xing’
لو عملوني أنا رئيس الجمهورية
law 3ǝmluuni 2ana ra2iis ǝljumhuuriyye
If they’d made me President