Assorted Bahraini Arabic

Introduction

Since I’ve been living in Bahrain I’ve been trying to pick up some of the local dialect of Arabic, which is quite different to those with which I was previously familiar.

The dialect has a large number of quirks which distinguish it from those spoken by other Arabs, perhaps the result of the multitude of different cultures who have travelled through or settled here over centuries.

The country is culturally and linguistically similar to other gulf countries, in particular Kuwait for some reason, so these words and phrases may not necessarily be unique to Bahrain.

This article will be a somewhat stream of consciousness collection of tidbits I’ve learned here and there, which I will update periodically.

لا

Okay, so you might think that the word لا is quite straightforward.

It means no, right?

But there is a peculiar way in which people use it here which is the opposite of many other Arabs.

Notice the way that I ended the the sentence before last, well Arabs often use the same expression, صح in Aamiyya, however in Bahrain people tend to use لا instead for the same purpose.

رحنا قبل أسبوع، لا؟

The use of this word in this context is so ubiquitous here that I’ve even noticed people who don’t speak a lick of Arabic using it to emphasise a point.

سِيدَا

The word سيدا means in front or forward.

It is akin to قدام in other dialects.

Apparently it originates with Hindi or something.

كَشْخَة

I gather that this is like fancy or refined but I’m not 100% certain.

اِستِكَانِة

This one has a verrrrry interesting backstory, although I’m not sure how much I believe it.

Apparently it originates in the days of British rule in Bahrain when it was common for people to drink imported cans of iced tea.

Then over time the term ice tea can became more and more general in its usage and adopted as a word for a vessel from which one would drink.

So now استكانة شاي carries the same meaning as كاس شاي.

I believe Iraq has something similar with their word for rice, but I can’t recall the details.

Anyway, it’s a good story, but I’m somewhat skeptical.

تو

In formal Arabic the word تو literally means now.

Typically it’s used in combination with لل, to form للتو meaning just now.

In the Bahraini dialect we drop the definite article and instead give possession of the now to a person.

For example you might say توني رجعت, I just got back, or more literally my now got back;

تو الناس

There’s a slight variation of this used to complain that something is happening too early.

I’m not even sure how it comes about, but it’s something like too early for the people.

Sometimes with عامية it’s a good idea not to overthink things.

أجگّر

A word meaning أدخّن, derrived by slightly corrupting the word سيجارة.

تلويص

A word I learned recently which supposedly is very specific to Bahrain.

The most familiar way I can describe it is work that has been half-arsed.

مُلَوِّص

The person who does this kind of shoddy work.

A half arser so to speak…

ناطِر

This carries the same meaning as منتظر.

It’s easy to see how it has been derived by extracting the root ن ظ ر, then relaxing the pronunciation of ظ to ط, and then constructing a form I اسم الفاعل.

There is a common phrase used to express frustration with someone who’s taking too long, شنو الناطر؟,

مو

This is definitely not exclusive to Bahrain, I believe it’s used in most gulf countries, but it’s still very important to know.

It’s used to negate جمل فعلية, the same as ليس in فصحى and مش in other dialects.

واجِد

When I first heard this one it really confused me because I assumed that it was just a local variation of موجود.

This resulted in some misunderstanding when I would hear someone express something like في زحمة واجدة. Of course the traffic exists, I can see it right in front of me.

Why even bother expressing something so banal?

Anyway it turns out that واجد is just the way of saying كثير or جدا.

وايد

Because of the way that the letter ج is often silent in some Gulf dialects some people pronounce it this way.

This has led to a very common misunderstanding that this word originated from the English word wide, and somehow wide became used as the word for a lot.

It is particularly common among Kuwaitis and some Bahraini dialects, although I am not yet familiar enough with the different accents that exist around the island to know in which it occurs.

خوش

Meaning great / the best.

e.g. خوش فكرة - great idea

خوش سيارة - nice car

عيال

Family/families

Obviously it is a highly distorted version of the عائلة/عائلات which exists in fusha and other dialects.

ريوق

Breakfast

يتريّق

The form V verb derived from the noun above