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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It's fairly common cross-linguistically to have a preposition that means "in front" spatially but "earlier" temporally... because if you're behind something (=it's in front of you), you're preceding it sequentially/before it. Persian پیش is the same.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

dawwār is more common these days. That goes for a lot of these words. I've never heard عمبلوص except in the context of "Haha Bahrainis are so wacky they say عمبلوص for إسعاف", it's become kind of a joke. I think nobody below age 80 actually says عمبلوص.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

When it (the عذق) first comes out, it's called ṭalʕ. Both in Gulf Arabic and MSA, and in the Quran too, as I just found out. Apparently, it's called 'spadix' in English. In Persian, it's tārūna (spelt طارونه!)

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This one's a general Gulf and even Iraqi word

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Always wondered where طربال came from

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I don't think it's colonial given the Hijaz thing I mentioned. But at the same time, this is just Ibn Battuta transcribing a foreign Indian word, and not necessarily a direct ancestor of the word in Egyptian.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Ibn Battuta describes كشري in Indian cuisine as a dish of rice with mung beans

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Kushari is also a Hijazi dish. It's called مغازلية كشري where كشري indicates mung beans, I think. So it's different from the Egyptian one and not derived from it. I'm thinking it came to Egypt via the Hijaz, maybe brought by Indian pilgrims. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKDp...

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

My own dialect of Achomi has 1s enclitic -om and 1s verb ending -em. The 1s enclitic is always -om for us, but the verb ending can be -em, -am, -om depending on dialect. I'm think in some Dari dialects, they have it in reverse too (1s enclitic -em, 1s verb -om).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Well, both are used, but ḥagg is more like 'for'. In Bahraini: hāy ḥaggi 'this is for me' hāy māli 'this is mine'

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I'm fairly sure this māl is an influence of Persian (even if māl is ultimately Arabic) as it's used the same way in Persian as in Gulf/Iraqi. Like certain specific uses (using it to say someone is from a region/city, انا مال المنامة "I'm from Manama" etc, happens in both languages).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Also, I'm pretty sure māl is used throughout Gulf Arabic, including Kuwaiti. It's Saudis/Najdis who use ḥagg instead (and also decline it: ḥaggat etc).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

mālīl-? 😯 in Bahrain it's mālīn- for the plural, ماليني, مالينكم...

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

It's whatever this tree is. (it's a famous old tree growing alone in the desert here) If you search for articles in Arabic about this Tree of Life, several of them say "it's known locally as عوسج" ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B4%...

ar.wikipedia.org

شجرة الحياة (البحرين) - ويكيبيديا

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

In southern Iran, it's called kahūr كهور (kowr in Achomi), and there's even a region named Kahūrestān. I remember one of my older relatives saying it had some medicinal use.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Hmm, معجم الغاف looks interesting... I'm fairly sure we call that tree عوسج in Bahrain, but it seems عوسج is a different type of shrub in the UAE?

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

You mean like, learning times tables by repeating "two twos are four" etc? I don't know. My education was in Arabic/English. I'll have to ask around

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Bernard calls this problematic because there is no descendant of this genitive *nyahk in modern Iranian... ...excepting that, in Achomi, we actually have nak نَک 'good', which looks like it might fit the bill?

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Interestingly, he mentions a proposal by Klingenschmitt (which he ultimately dismisses) deriving it thus, from the genitive: Gen. *ai̯u̯ákahi̯a > *ēhákē > *ēáhkē > *ēáhk- > yak He derives نیک similarly, either: Nom. *nai̯u̯aka- > *nēhk > nēk or Gen. *nai̯u̯ákahi̯a > *nēhákē > *nēáhkē > *nyáhkē > *nyahk

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Only if the enclitic pronoun is there too. The independent pronoun is sort of there for emphasis. Like خود in Persian. كتابي انا = کتابِ خودم

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Think about how 'once' can be used conditonally in English. And surprise surprise, it was used that way in Old Persian:

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I wonder why many Arabic dialects borrow their word for 'straight' (Levantine uses دغري, from Turkish).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Hindi/Urdu. Coastal Iranian dialects (Achomi/Bandari) use it too, btw (though we also use rāst راست).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I think Baharna Arabic has this, but not to the same extent as Muslim Baghdadi. e.g. Baharna yiʕruf 'he knows' vs general Gulf yʕarf or yʕarif

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Never heard it in Gulf dialects

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Not just some, I think pretty much all Muslim Baghdadi speakers. It is one of the most distinctive things in Iraqi speech to me. I think some English dialects do it too? Irish and Caribbean dialects? Think of how "beer can" in Received Pronunciation sounds like "bacon" in a Jamaican accent.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Levantine zalame زلمة 'man' as well. The verb tazallama تزلّم is recorded as meaning 'to dismount/walk on foot', so I think zalame must come from that (I haven't seen a more convincing theory at least).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Kurdish/Luri pyāw/piā 'man' < payādag 'foot soldier; pawn'

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Wonder how they pluralize madīnah, mudun or madāʔin? I've only ever seen the latter in the name of Ctesiphon المدائن and Hegra مدائن صالح

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

The verb zambar/yzambər in Bahraini Arabic means to stick one's butt out, and I always wondered if it comes from the way a bee/hornet's behind looks. That's all I have to contribute here.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I think both are likely from ترى 'you see'. They seem related enough (one questions whether something is true and the other asserts something as true). For some reason, it's pronounced yā turā یا تُرى in MSA, as though it's a passive.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Becoming universal here too, even hear it in Arabic among the youth.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

For me it can mean both 'I warn you that...' and 'by the way'. It's just a way of introducing something you don't think the other person knows.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

ṣālūna صالونة in Bahraini is the generic word for a stew served over rice (synonym of مرقة). Pretty sure it's from an Indian language.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Yes. Funny example: Achomi tel تِل 'audible fart', from *tirr (cf. Balochi, Kurdish tirr 'audible fart'). -rr- regularly becomes -l- in Achomi: karr > kal 'deaf' tarr > tal 'wet' (both had geminate -rr in Mid.Pers.) But with tirr > tel, the onomatopoeic quality of it was completely lost.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

wabz > bawz might not actually be metathesis, but fortition of the w- and lenition of the b- (the first is a regular change from Middle to New Persian, and the second also a common change).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

I actually think it might be bōz > būz > bez, with /ū/ > /e/ being a regular change in some Achomi dialects.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

'in'. The full form of it is tek-e تِکِ. tek literally means 'interior', 'belly'.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

It doesn't, but my uncle pronounced it that way lol

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Uncle just said in Achomi: Starbucks te kone bez ham haste ستاربکس تِه کُنِ بِز هم هَسته "there's Starbucks even on a wasp's ass" i.e. you can find it everywhere bez بِز 'wasp' (probably onomatopoeic like English buzz, or from Middle Persian wabz 'wasp')

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I'm stumped by it too, my only guess is it means زنگ زده شوید ("become having-called")??

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

From what little I knew (I never looked deeply into Hazaragi), it is rather divergent. Dari and Tajik are closer to each other (both fall under Eastern Persian, while Iranian Persian is Western Persian and considered more innovative).

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Basically the Farsi and Dari differ only in word choice, and any Farsi/Dari speaker would understand both (there are some grammar differences between Dari and Iranian Persian but the big ones don't show up here). The Hazaragi is much harder to understand.

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Oh, so rapšum 'wide, broad' relates to Arabic فرش 'to spread out'. Although my first thought was to connect it to رفش rafiš in the Iraqi dialect (which means 'softshell turtle') 😶

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

🤯 This whole time I thought šahrabān in Arabic was just šahrbān with an epenthic /a/ inserted for ease of pronunciation

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kadxudā @kadagxwaday.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I can tell you how it is in Gulf Ar. (#2, #4): ما يقدر يتحچى = he can't talk (in general, perhaps due to some long-standing condition) مو قادر يتحچى = he can't talk (right now, due to some recent circumstance, like he was just injured, is currently choking, or is suddenly overcome with grief, etc)

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