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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Iraqi Arabic tǝmman تمن ‘rice’ Used in Baghdadi Muslim, Christian and Jewish dialects. In the Jewish dialect (and maybe others?) it refers to raw and sometimes plain rice. Cooked rice dishes use other words eg: plaw پلو eg: plaw b-ǧīǧ (rice with chicken) ġǝzz غز eg: ġǝzz b-ᵊḥlīb (rice pudding)

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

My Iraqi Arab friends have never heard of some of the most famous Iraqi Jewish foods, but I wonder if they just use different names for them? بعبع بتمغ بعبع بشكر بعبع قدرسي تبيت (this one I’m certain is only Jewish) پلو بدجيج (this may be known as تمن دجاج)

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I chipped my front tooth maybe 10-15 years ago and have had it repaired many 5 times because it always breaks. It broke again this morning, and my dentist was able to squeeze me in to fix it this afternoon. It broke again less than 3 hours later🥲🫠

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What do you mean I can’t just go through life learning random languages one after the other as I please?

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Very sad to learn of the death of a friend - one of the wisest and most encouraging speakers of Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic I’ve had the luck to learn from. A loss for loved ones and for all who will never be lucky enough to hear the wisdom my friend imparted.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic Ways of saying ‘be quiet!’ - ᵊnčab انچب (seems like a loan from the Muslim dialect with the č; plus my Bahraini friend uses this word) - skǝt سكت - ᵊlǧǝm-u l-ḥalq-ak (apparently this is very offensive)

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I was born and raised in Melbourne and have spent plenty of time in Sydney/with Sydney people. I could absolutely never distinguish the accents and nobody has ever distinguished mine. There is a famous “Melbourne” pronunciation of the vowel e before l, but it’s far from universal (I don’t have it).

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I didn’t intend to specialise in Jewish languages - it kind of just happened that way. But now people assume I know lots of Jewish languages, and ask me if I can speak to their elderly relative in Ladino, Yiddish and Bukhari. I wish I could😭

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Why does my pronunciation and overall proficiency in BJA decline dramatically as the conversation progresses🥲

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

‎Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic ‎Yom Kippur-related vocabulary ‎bdāl-ak בְּדַאלַכּ بدالك ‎‘my dear, please’ etc ‎Entirely Arabic vocab - literally ‘in place of you’ - its significance is Jewish. The speaker means that they will take accountability for the other person’s sins on Yom Kippur.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The fast is over! As I was fasting, I decided to read the memoir of a very special man who fled Baghdad in his late teens. I am privileged to call him a friend, and one of my main educators in Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic. It was a great way to spend the fast.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

גמר חתימה טובה❤️ I find Yom Kippur very stressful mentally as well as difficult physically. As a non-religious Jew, this is the one day of the year I try to follow somewhat closely. I think about how these holidays were observed in Baghdad, Damascus, Warsaw, Thessaloniki, Minsk and others.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I’m translating a Jewish woman from Baaqouba (Iraq) and her speech is the closest thing I’ve heard to a genuine Hebrew/Iraqi Judeo-Arabic hybrid I’ve ever heard. Eg: tǝtaari lax ani hayiti…kǝntu b-ǝl-pardes wiya-l-axim māl-na. ratsiti liktof pǝrtqāl wu-mā qabal. ṣāḥ ˁalē-yi. qǝltō-l-u lama?

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Girl at the bar just tried to guess my background and went through Greek, Italian, French and Iranian before I just told her.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

שנה טובה ומתוקה🍯🍎🐝 Happy Jewish New Year to all my friends and family of all backgrounds and beliefs. As an Australian Jew, I remember the members of my community murdered in the Bondi massacre on Hanukkah who won’t be with us in the new year. May their memories be a blessing.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I don’t know anybody who speaks Yiddish natively among millennials/Gen Z, but in my community people still casually use Yiddish words or even adapt them to Australian-style slang: - neb (short for nebbish) - mazels (short for mazel tov) - shabs (short for Shabbat/shabbes) - balagan - shlemazel

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It finally happened - I fell asleep on a work call🫠

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I hear Assyrian Neo-Aramaic somewhat frequently and know many speakers, but it’s commonly omitted when public information is translated into other languages. The assumption seems to be that all speakers can natively speak either Arabic, Persian or Turkish, or that they speak fluent English.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

How many people know about Maltralian - the dialect of Maltese spoken in Australia (but not in Malta)? Maltralian (Il-Maltraljan) differs from Standard Maltese and has been spoken since before 1929.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

“Translating” Christian Baghdadi (CB) -> Jewish Baghdadi (JB) ‘That woman whom you used to dislike, I saw her yesterday in Rashid St’ CB hāy ǝm-maġa l-kǝnti tǝkġahǝ-ya šǝftǝww-a mbēġḥa b-šāġǝˁ ǝġ-Ġašīd JB hāyi l-maġa l-kǝnti tǝkġahī-ha ˁayǝntū-ha bōḥi b-šārǝˁ ǝr-Rašīd

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I love the Christian Baghdadi (CB) dialect so much. It’s almost the same as the Jewish (JB) dialect, but just foreign enough to be fascinating. I also love how it has its own similarities to the Muslim (MB) dialect which JB lacks, but lacks some of the JB/MB similarities. So cool.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The Syrian Jews I’m translating are often significantly younger than the Iraqi and Lebanese Jews I’m used to translating, and it’s making me realise how different it feels to translate each age group

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The pleasant surprise of randomly finding a TikTok of a Kuwaiti who makes videos about living in Melbourne in Arabic

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Questions for Arabic speakers 1) how do you say ‘try’ in your dialect? 2) what are the main words derived from the root حول in your dialect? I ask after using the word aḥāwǝl for ‘try’. Two heritage BJA speakers didn’t recognise it; one said that he exclusively knows aǧaġǝb.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Kinda surreal hearing Baghdad-born Jews talk about their dialect being something that doesn’t exist anymore. None of the people I know passed it onto their children, most married Jews from other traditions and very few do anything traditional beyond some foods.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Eating fish on Friday night (Shabbat) is very important in some communities (Moroccan, Tunisian etc) but rare in others. Obviously this can be partly attributed to local availability, but my Moroccan friend gave a religious argument for fish at this meal which it seems other communities don’t have.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Hebrew-speaking friend said to me: יש מצב שתרצה לאכול איתי דינר? I have never been so amused by an English loanword before😭

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Another thing: He was confused by the existence of BJA, which I’m used to, so I shared some of the differences. He “corrected” me a few times, eg: Me: aḥki- Him: aḥči! č! Me: lā, nǝḥna nǝḥki ḥkiyyi, mā “nǝḥči ḥčāya” Him: ???😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😅😅😅

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic l-ǝṣ-ṣabǝġ llǝ-nu ḥdūd לִצְצַבִּע׳ לְלִנוּ חְדוּד للصبغ للنو حدود ‘patience has limits’ Note: llǝ-nu The form llǝ- ‘to+pronominal suffix’ might be unique to BJA; it is ǝl- in both the Muslim and Christian Baghdadi dialects.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Just met an Emirati guy and spoke Arabic w him. I was very surprised to hear him use the word mal- مل He claimed that this word is used in the UAE. Can anyone confirm?

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I read that linking r and intrusive r are very prominent in my English dialect and now I can’t stop trying to avoid doing it🥲

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Reconnected with an acquaintance from Basra and wow - the Basra dialect is quite different to the Baghdad dialect. On the other hand, the Jewish dialects of Baghdad and Basra are basically identical.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I’ve been using ChatGPT as a personal trainer since December and the results have been way better than I could have expected

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Damascus & Beirut Jewish dialects of Arabic liḥna לִחְנַא لحنا ‘we’

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hot take! Slavic languages are harder than Semitic languages for speakers of English (Obviously this is super generalised but I’m basing it on my experiences as well as what I’ve observed over the years)

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The majority of BJA speakers use Hebrew as their primary language and write BJA in Hebrew letters. Because they mostly have no Arabic education and don’t know etymological roots and pronunciations, reading can be tricky. Eg: - אנשאללה קאלבק פרחן וביתק מליאן - קלטולק אריד אשראב קחוה

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Arabic dialect question! Is ع pronounced differently - more strongly, maybe? - in some dialects than others? A non-Arabic speaking friend noticed this, and I think I’ve always wondered it subconsciously too. I can almost picture a scale between dialects of strongest -> softest ع

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Spotify algorithm giving me Assyrian wedding songs I haven’t heard in years. This is one of those times where, as a Hebrew speaker, you can pick out words in an Assyrian song that you understand but the rest of the song is unintelligible. Kinda cool!

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic l- ל ل ‘to, for’ Unlike some other dialects where multiple prepositions are used (eg: ˁǝnd, ˁala, ˁa, ǝla, etc) , l- is always used for movement towards location. ġǝḥtu l-bēt Ḥǝsqēl ‘I went to Hesqel’s house’ ǧō l-ǝs-sūq ‘they came to the market’

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Apparently people can’t hear a difference between Australian and New Zealand accents😅 As an Australian, this is very difficult to comprehend 😱

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Baghdadi Arabic dialects Christian (C) Muslim (M) & Jewish (J) Abu-Haidar (1991) gives examples of CB plus MB versions. Gonna try “translate” them to JB. ‘my brother is getting married tomorrow’ C: axū-yi ġaḥ-yǝtkallal ġada M: axū-ya raḥ-yǝtzawwaǧ bāčǝr J: axū-yi ġaḥ-yǝtzawwaǧ ġada

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Beirut Jewish Arabic ana, masalan, b-aˀūl “ana bidd-i aġūḥ”, w-ǝl-Masīḥi b-īˀūl “badd-e ġūḥ”. hūwi b-īfham-ni w-ana b-afhám-u. I, for example, say “I want to go”, and the Christian says “I want to go”. He understands me and I understand him.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I wonder what Iraqi Judaism would have looked like in the 20th century if Babylonian Jews had not adopted Sephardic Judaism in the 18th century. At the same time, I wonder what Iraqi Judaism would have looked like today had it not been ended in the 20th century.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic lāx(i) לַאח׳ لاخ ‘other, different’ lqētu ġǝǧǧāl lāx ‘I found a different man’ with the definite article, it can be ‘the other’ or ‘next’ qad-amši wiyyā-nu sbūˁ ǝl-lāx ‘I’m going with him next week’

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I heard an older American recording today, and I was struck by how much more similar their vocabulary and pronunciation was to my own than how American English seems today.

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The other day I embarrassingly called someone מבוגרת instead of בוגרת by mistake🥲🙃 Since childhood I’ve been self conscious speaking Hebrew because I read, write and understand better than I speak. As a result, I only speak when I really have to…which makes the problem worse🥲

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic Expression w Hebrew aḅēl ˁa-l-ḥaṯān wu-ˁa-l-kalla w-ǝl-sawwǝt ǝd-dlāla אַבֶּיל עַלְחַתַ׳אן וּעַלְכַּלְלַה וּאִלְסַוְוִת אִדְדְלַאלַה ابيل علحثان وعلكلة والسوت الدلالة ‘Shame on the groom and bride and the one who matched them’ Used to describe an unsuitably matched couple

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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic @pharyngealschwa.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Arabic speakers: does anyone know who جاسم Ǧāsǝm is in the following expression? sawwa nafs-u abu Ǧāsǝm סַוְוַא נַפְסוּ אַבּוּ גַ׳אסִם سوى نفسو ابو جاسم It means something like ‘he made himself out to be a hero’ or ‘he bragged about his strength’.

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