p J 
 
 6779 
 W55 
 1913 
 MAIN 
 
A KEY 
 
 TO THE EXERCISES IN THE 
 
 SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 
 
A KEY"" 
 
 TO THE EXERCISES IN THE 
 
 SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 
 
 BY 
 
 J. SELDEN ^ILLMORE, M.A 
 
 FORMERLY ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE NATIVE COURT Of 
 APPEAL AT CAIRO 
 
 3s. 6d. net 
 
 LONDON: DAVID NUTT 
 
 GRAPE STREET, NEW OXFORD STREET 
 
 1913 
 
• • • ■ 
 
 Ca 
 
 I 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 
 
MAIN 
 
 KEY TO THE EXERCISES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 
 
 THE STORY OF THE ILL-TREATED BURGLAR 
 
 There was a robber who went one day to rob the house of 
 a merchant. He climbed on the wall and took hold of the 
 window, (but) the window came out in his hand, (and) he fell 
 to the ground and broke his leg. He picked himself up, and 
 went limping to the Kadi, (and) said to him : " I was going to 
 rob the house of the merchant so-and-so ; I climbed on the wall 
 and took hold of the window, (but) the window came out in 
 my hand, and I fell to the ground (and) broke my leg." The 
 Kadi immediately ordered a soldier to go and bring the owner 
 of the house. (The soldier) went (and) brought him, and he 
 came before the Kadi. The Kadi asked him : " How comes 
 it, man, that your window was not properly nailed? See, this 
 poor robber was going to rob your house ; he climbed on the 
 wall (and) caught hold of the window, (but) the window came 
 out in his hand, (and) he fell, and broke his leg. Thus, you 
 are now in the wrong." The owner of the house said to him : 
 " And what have I to do with that, my lord ? Was it I who 
 fixed the window ? That is the business of the carpenter who 
 made it." Said the Kadi : " Bring the carpenter." They went 
 (and) brought him, (and) the Kadi said to him : " How is it that 
 you did not fix this window properly ? See, it is owing to you 
 that the robber, who was going to rob this man's house, fell 
 (and) broke his leg." (The carpenter) said to him : " And what 
 have I to do with that, my lord 1 That is not my business. That 
 is the business of the builder who put the window (frame) in the 
 wall." "Good," said the Kadi; " bring the builder." They went 
 and brought him. The Kadi asked him : " Why didn't you fix 
 this window securely ? " The builder said to him : " So help me 
 
 A 
 
 CQKIQ 
 
2 . //'/... K ! E .t..^°. : EXERCISES in 
 
 God, my lord*, as* 1' was '\m tiding 'this house, there was a sweet 
 girl passing by me, wearing a gown dyed with a beautiful dye. 
 I gazed at her and became unmindful of my work, and failed 
 to fix the window properly." The Kadi said to them : " Go and 
 bring the girl who was wearing this beautiful gown." They 
 went and brought her to him, (and) the Kadi said to her : 
 " Why were you wearing this dyed gown ?" She said to him : 
 " What have I to do with this ? The fault is with the dyer, who 
 dyed the gown which I was wearing." The Kadi ordered them 
 to bring the dyer. They went and brought him, but he was not 
 able to say anything. Then the Kadi ordered them to go and 
 hang him over the door of his shop. They took him to hang 
 him, but found that he was very tall and the door of the shop 
 too low. (So) they went to the Kadi, and said to him : " This 
 man is very tall, and the door of the shop is small. How are 
 we going to hang him?" The Kadi said to them: " Go and 
 look for one (of) shorter (stature, and) hang him." They 
 went (and) searched for a short one, (and) took him (and) 
 hanged him. 
 
 EXERCISE 1 
 
 My mother has come. Give me a pen. I saw a black horse. 
 The men (are) here. We wrote the book. The girls struck my 
 mother. The boy fell. The horse (is) pretty. The man (is) old. 
 The wind was strong. He went. The dog bit the girl. The 
 steamboat will come to-morrow. The chair (is) black. The 
 bread (is) fresh. A woman came (or has come). His father 
 (is) a good man. His dog (is) hungry. Her pen (is) bad. 
 
 EXERCISE 2 
 
 II wabur sughaiyar. II husan ga'an. II bet wiqi'. Sufra 
 kbira. Gih walad sughaiyar. Iddini qalam taiyib. Ir riggala 
 darabu 1 walad. Wabur kebir gih. II husan 'add il kalb. Gih 
 walad kebir darab il banat. Rasha kbira. 
 
 EXERCISE 3 
 
 The sugar basin (is) on the dining-table. The carriage (is) 
 very bad. The watchmaker will bring the watch to-morrow. 
 I saw the dog in the cucumbers. The gentleman fell off his 
 horse. The little dog bit the cat. The shoemaker brought (or 
 has brought) the pair of shoes. The man gave the horse (some) 
 -clover. A very old man has come here. The bachelor has gone 
 (or went) home. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 3 
 
 EXERCISE 4 
 
 II walad yegtb il kitab. II bauwab fatah il bab. Lefendi 
 ga'an qawi. II fatatri idda 1 walad baskawita. II kalb sluf il 
 qutta f6q ish shagara (or is sagara). II baqar sughaiyar qawi. 
 Iddinf moiya. It turshf 'as sufra. II fisqfya kebira qawi. Iddfini 
 shwaiya. Hat li sa'a. 
 
 EXERCISE 5 
 
 The man fetched the gun from the house and fired it in his 
 face. Bring the book which is on the dining-table. The master 
 of ceremonies wrote a long letter to his mother. I saw his 
 father, but where is his sister ? The mat-maker came yesterday 
 and brought the mats, and the trunk-maker will come to-morrow 
 with the boxes. The confectioner and the fruiterer went to her 
 house and brought the biscuits and the pears. The watchmaker 
 repaired the watch ; he is a very clever man. 
 
 EXERCISE 6 
 
 Is sitt we banatha rahu masr imbarih. Laqet qalam rusas 
 qusaiyar 'as sufra. Hatu hina we hat waraq kaman. A Huwa 
 tawil qawi ; kitfu yigi foq ish shibbak. Yigi bukra ? Ewa wi 
 yegib abuh we ummu kaman. Ish shibbak sughaiyar qawi, lakin 
 il bet kebir. II gumrukshi gih we fatah il bab. Shufte kalbe 
 zughannan fi s sikka. Wahid 'arbagi 'aguz gabni li 1 harbiya. 
 Idda 1 bint kummitraya. Ir ragil khulaqi qawi ; huwa darab il 
 walad is sughaiyar wi 1 binte keman. 
 
 EXERCISE 7 
 
 He bought a dining-table and a cheap chair and brought 
 them to the house. The chair is dearer than the dining-table. 
 Give me a long pencil. The door is prettier than the window. 
 The box is heavy but lighter than the barrel. The girl is 
 taller than my mother, and the boy is shorter than my father. 
 Beer is cheaper than wine, and water is cheaper and better than 
 both. The boy bought a shirt longer than a blanket. He (or 
 it) is the smallest and the prettiest. 
 
 EXERCISE 8 
 
 II baramil arkhas min is sanadiq. II gazmagi ill! kan ii 1 
 ginena imbarih atwal min il fakahani ill! gab it tiffah wi 1 kum- 
 mitra 'ala 1 bet. Ish sharqawi ashadde min il 'utuqi ; huwa shal 
 
4 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 kharuf fi sandiiq teqil <ala kitfu. Ik kursf kebir ketir, lakin it 
 tarabeza akbar kaman. It taman aqalle min gineh ; rikhis qawi. 
 II kummitraya akbar we aghla min it tiffaha. Iddint moz taiyib 
 we hat tiffaha we barquqa min ig ginena. Kalbu lakbar we 
 lahsan. 
 
 EXERCISE 9 
 
 I found the trunk-maker in the workshop. The boatman 
 brought a large skiff. The stove which is in his house is very 
 small, but it is larger than ours. I saw a hungry dog and a 
 wretched cat on the roof. The shoemaker bought a gun from 
 the cobbler, and carried it on his shoulder. Has the King 
 come ? No ; the Queen has come. Where is the ball ? It was 
 old, and the man threw it in the fountain. The winter has come, 
 but the sun is still hot. A girl sweet as the moon. The boy 
 threw the cat in the well, but a good woman pulled it out from 
 it. A man cook is better than a woman cook. The knife is 
 blunt. 
 
 EXERCISE 10 
 
 II walad rama gazma wiskha fi 1 6da ; tallahha barra. Hat 
 qizaza kbira we kubbaya ndifa. Is siggada kanit qadima qawi ; 
 huwa shtara gdida. Daqnu tawila u wiskha. Dukkanha bi'ida 
 qawi min hina. II walad darab il bint is sughaiyara 1 miskina 
 fi 'enha. Hutte futa ndifa fi 1 oda we shil il wiskha. Huwa 
 rama 1 kiira mish shibbak ; dakhkhalha gtiwa. II mara ill! gabit 
 il bed 'ala bitna tawila qawi, lakin guzha atwal. Ish shamse 
 kanit hara qawi imbarih. Tubha kwaiyisa qawi. 
 
 EXERCISE 11 
 
 Where is the man who was in the outer room of the cellar ? 
 The bookseller's son will go to the Austrian school. I found 
 a watch on the ground in front of the outer door of your house ; 
 whose is it 1 The water of the river Nile is sweet. The price of 
 the telegram is two pounds. Show me an ordinary (or common) 
 carpet, and a fine one too. Take a first-class ticket for me, 
 and one second-class too. The colour of Muhammad's horse is 
 black. Put the gentleman's luggage in the train ; the large 
 (heavy luggage) in the van, and the small (light) in the carriage. 
 The Austrian mail comes to-morrow. The wind has been strong 
 these two days. The English boat started yesterday, and my 
 father started (travelled) in it. The boy who drank the dirty 
 Nile water is ill of cholera. The boatman's son has come in 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 5 
 
 his father's boat, but all the gentleman's luggage which was in 
 it has fallen into the river (or sea). Bring me just a few more 
 pears, less than the first. 
 
 EXERCISE 12 
 
 Hat il burneta betaht il efendi min il oda t tahtaniya. Gih 
 fi 1 'arabiya betaht abuh. Lundra (Lundura) akwas w akbar 
 ketir min Masr. II kitab ill! kan 'ak kursi f udt is sufra wiqi' 
 fi 1 ard. II kalb is sughaiyar beta' it tabbakh saraq farkha min 
 dukkan il farargi. Ibn il khudari darab it talyaniya 1 maskina 
 we kasar dira'ha. Is sufra beta' betu 'alya 'an it tanya. Is 
 sa'atl sallah is sa'a 1 qadima we raggahha 'ala bet sahibha. Bint 
 il baqqal kuwaiyisa qawi, we hiya atwal min ibnu. Irmi 1 fak-ha 
 n naya j hiya battala qawi. Hiya mara dun battala. II kalb 
 beta' il walad shirib il laban beta' il qutta. ^ Sirdar (Sidredar) il 
 gesh il masri inglizi. Is siggada khulsit 1 Ewa ya sidi. Taiyib. 
 Sheyahha Mian 'al bet. Laqet il kitab beta' il walad is sughaiyar 
 'ala kursi fi 1 oda 1 foqaniya. Tabbakha frangiya mush tabbakh 
 'arabi. Masurt il bunduqiya betaht ir ragil kanit 'oga. 
 
 EXERCISE 13 
 
 Bring the lamps and prepare the room, for there are (people) 
 guests coming to-night. The water-carriers who brought the 
 water yesterday are very bad (men) ; they seized (some) girls 
 who were walking along the road, and beat them and threw 
 them on the ground, and robbed them of their money. 1 I saw 
 in the papers that the Egyptian Pashas who went to Stamboul 
 were pleased with the Sultan's reception 2 (of them). I bought 
 chests of drawers from the market, one of them higher than the 
 others. A cruel man struck the wretched cat which was in 
 Muhammad Efendi's cellar, three hard blows with an axe which 
 was in his hand, and killed it ; but the men of the English 
 Charitable Society, who were present, took him to the police- 
 station. The landlord has done the necessary repairs in my 
 garden. The post came yesterday, and brought me letters from 
 my sisters in England. The weather is better to-day; there is 
 a pleasant freshness. The sheets are dirty and the blankets still 
 dirtier. His wife went to market and brought him two eggs 
 and a bit of fresh meat. The telegrams of to-day are more 
 
 1 Lit., stole their money from them. 
 
 2 Lit., receptions. 
 
6 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 important than those of yesterday. The French and Austrian 
 Consulates are built in the middle of the town. The small 
 boys have come. Where are my father's books'? I found the 
 papers on the tables. The slippers are in the bedroom. Both 
 your father's boxes are solid. Send me two pens. I want 
 the two books and the paper which are in your hand. Are 
 both the clocks in your room right ? I have only smoked two 
 cigarettes to-day. I saw the two dog- carts in his shop ; both 
 are very nice. His daughters are all 1 lying ill in the house. 
 Both the trees in my father's garden are higher than yours. 
 
 EXERCISE 14 
 
 Hat il lambat we huttuhum 'at tarabezat fi udti. Khud 
 il 'ishriniyat wi ddini qirshenat bidalhum. Mistakhdimin il 
 hukiima 1 masriya tamalli mashghiilin. Rigleya bardin lakin 
 ideya sukhnin. II (or ig) gazzarin betu' Lundura ghalyin 'an 
 betiV Masr. Fih madrassa 'ashan il wilad 2 il fransawiyin u 
 wahda tanya 'ashan il wilad in nimsawiyin we fih me'allimln 
 ingliziyin fi litnen. Hutte futten fi 1 oda we shil il wiskhin. 
 Katabte talat gawabat li khwati nnahar da. Kitabatak 'ala 
 kursi f udt is sufra. II wilad wi 1 banat gum hawaleya we 
 miskii ideya. Lefendiya khadu 1 wusulat betu' il kitabat. II 
 meraslat gabu 1 wiraq 3 min il harbiya. II balakonat betu' il 
 beten betuhna mabniyin foq il gininten. 4 II wilad yehibbu 
 abbahathum w ummahathum. II gesh il masri darab is sudaniyin. 
 Darabu darbiten 'ala rasu bi 'asaya kanit f idu. 'Enek asghar 
 min betii'i. Kan fi talat balluwat fi 1 balad fi lela wahda. 
 Shufte talat ballonat tayrin fi 1 hawa. Yaqayen we talat 
 sideriyat naqsin. Misku 1 hiwanat fi g ganayin, we gabuhum 
 'al bet. Kulluhum kaddabin. Is sittat mesafrin in naharda; 
 sheya' il 'afshi btahhum 'ala 1 mahatta. Fih bimbashiyat we 
 yuzbashiyat betu' il gesh linglizi fi 1 gesh il masri. II gidarat 
 betu' gininti watyin qawi. II labban gab tasten laban bass. 
 II lugha 1 'arabiya ghanya 'an betti' Urubba. II behawat gabu 
 bahlawanat min bilad it Turk. Fi kam kitab fi 1 kitabkhana 
 betaht akhuk ? ulufat. 
 
 EXERCISE 15 
 
 The grandees dress finely and talk Nahwy, while the rest 
 of the people wear gallaUyas and talk Arabic ; 5 but the Ef endis 
 
 1 Lit., all of them. 2 Or aulad. 3 Or lauraq. 
 
 4 For gineniten. 5 See Preface, p. xi. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 7 
 
 also and even the Pashas talk Arabic in their houses. The 
 robbers entered the house of the carpenters and stole three 
 planes. The porters who carried the Bey's luggage from the 
 boat broke everything in it, and afterwards demanded their 
 pay. The gaolers opened the prison gate, took a couple of 
 piastres from the prisoners and set them free. The camel- 
 drivers struck the donkey-boys, and the wood-cutters rescued 
 them. The lawyers spoke at great length. The tailors bought 
 three lemons and two oranges and other fruit as well and put 
 them in baskets, and the porters carried them to their houses. 
 The commandants of police are pleased with the chief constables, 
 and the chief constables are pleased with the constables. Buy 
 us two boxes from the trunk-makers and bring them quickly. 
 The carpenters have brought the pieces of wood and are waiting 
 for their money ; and the porters too want their pay. Hospital 
 nurses, men and women, are good people. 
 
 EXERCISE 16 
 
 II kawaliniya gum sallahu kalunen il bab beta' beti. II 
 ghassala gabit il hidiim, lakin fen il yaqat wi sh sharabat? 
 Iddini qirshen 'alashan is saiyadin illi mistanniyin 'and il bab. 
 II imberatortya betu' Urubba qadrtn qawi. II khaiyatin sheya'u 
 s sideriyat ; humma kwaiyisin qawi. Ig ginninariya ikhtiyariya 
 lakin gamdin. II wilad khauwafa ktir. Iddihum burtuqana, 
 humma akkila qawi kaman. Ish shamse hara : ilbis burnittak 
 w uq'ud taht is sagar. Ig gammala kanu nayimin fi 1 ard 
 lakin ig gallaba sahhuhum we mishyu kulluhum. Rastablat 
 betCi' il be wiskhin qawi. 
 
 EXERCISE 17 
 
 The men who work in the workshops of the carpenters of 
 Cairo are some of them clever and some of them simple. Tennis 
 balls are white and large, and squash racket ones are red and 
 small. In the garden of Giza (Ghiza) there are big hyenas and 
 lions and tigers, and small animals as well. The guardians of 
 the fields of the fellaheen carry big thick sticks, and when the 
 robbers come they strike them. The convents of the Copts are 
 some of them very old. The chemist has sent the drugs and the 
 perfumes. The drivers are pleased with their customers. They 
 sell the sheep in the markets. The officers of the Egyptian army 
 are some of them English and some of them Arabs. The sheikhs 
 and the omdas give judgment in the villages. The crows walk 
 
8 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 in the gardens, and pick up bits of bread and other things from 
 the grounds. Mice are afraid of cats, and cats are afraid 
 of dogs. Take away the stones from the roads. The Arabs of 
 the pyramids speak English better than the donkey-boys of 
 Cairo.' The shafts of the three dog-carts were broken. Who 
 has mended them? The locksmiths' apprentices have come 
 and are asking for their masters' wages. The people from the 
 Fayoum mounted their donkeys and went and bought three 
 loaves from the baker. I have spent five pounds and three 
 napoleons in four days. My brothers' horses are unmanage- 
 able. The books in his library are all new. The mats are 
 placed before the doors of the rooms. My brothers are dumb, 
 and my father and mother are squint-eyed. Are your brothers' 
 ponies brown or black 1 There are some wretched dogs sleeping 
 in the stable ; turn them out. Our brothers (or comrades, 
 friends) have come and want to see the houses. The water 
 comes into the gardens from the pipes of the water-company. 
 The people have come riding on horses and mules and donkeys. 
 The bridegrooms took the brides to their houses. There are 
 large cafes in Cairo. Did you see (or have you seen) the 
 temples of the ancients in Upper Egypt 1 The buffalo-drovers 
 hit their buffaloes on their heads. The old women have gone 
 to their villages. The robbers were wearing cloaks and blankets. 
 The judges sat in the courts and acquitted the prisoners. The 
 centre doors are warped by the sun. 
 
 EXERCISE 18 
 
 Likwam betu' Masr qudm qawi. II wilad ga'anin ketir ; 
 ihnikithum tamalli maftiihin. 1 Is sagagld mittakla min il 'itat. 
 II banat likhwat misku 1 'imyan min idehum u waddiihum 'ala 
 buyuthum. II 'urban ramu hurabhum 'ash shubban. Fih gimal 
 we tiran we gamamis we mi'lz fi 1 hishan. II behawat ishtaru 
 bantalonat gahzin min 'and il khaiyatin betu' il Muski. II 
 'utaqiya yisallahu 1 gizam il qudam. It tuggar ishtaru sagagid 
 qudam wiskhin we ba'uhum ghalyin li s sauwahin. II mawadin 
 betu' il gawami' gidad. II hiwa yuq'udu fi 1 balakonat betu' il 
 lukandat. Hutt il kitabat wi 1 waraq 'ar ruf uf. II birak ghuwat 
 qawi. In naggarin gabu shawakis 2 -hum we mabaridhum we 
 rabohathum. II mashfiyikh diqunhum tuwal qawi. Ish shunat 
 betfi' iz zubbat fi 1 wabur. II hawa tari lakin ish shamse hara ; 
 nazzil is satayir wi ftah ish shababik. Hat talat hifan barsim 
 
 1 Or hanak-hum tamalli maftiih (§ 303). 2 See p. 80, n. 1. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 9 
 
 'ashan il khel. Hutt il ghutyan 'al balalis. Hitfin bet akhiiya 
 qudam lakin gamdin. II qudah sim'u sh shakawi betu' in 
 niswan. II yatama qussar. In niswan ad'af mir riggala. Fih 
 imberatorfya we muluk fi Urubba. II khel bard ana ; x hutti lhum 
 ish shilal. Dawafru tamalli tuwal wiskhin. II ukar betii' il ibwab 
 maksiirin. Ish sheyalin nas ghushme guhala. II fallahin yish- 
 taghalu fi 1 ghitan. Shufna diyul it tawawis il kuwaiyisin fi g 
 ganayin. II bahayim shirbu moiya min il hidan. Widan il 
 humar tuwal, atwal min betu' il husan. II meraslat gabu 1 
 bawalis. I'mamu wi khwalu shuraka. Fih isbila fi s sikak. 
 Ana shufte niswan gumal fi 1 iryaf. Baraqi' is sittat kanu 
 tukhan. 
 
 EXERCISE 19 
 
 The Berberis fled from the Dervishes. The Pashas' victorias 
 collided with the officers' dog-carts, and broke the splash-boards 
 and lanterns. Thousands of people came and listened to the 
 bands in the gardens. There are tramways in the street of the 
 Ministries and in all the large streets of Cairo. Horse saddles 
 are one thing and donkey saddles another thing. The table 
 servants working in the houses of the Europeans are some of 
 them Berberis and some of them natives of Dongola, and some 
 of them are clever and some are idle. The boatmen fell from 
 the boats and were drowned in the sea. The robbers stole 
 hurdas and rugs and gowns from their neighbours' cupboards. 
 Buy us three boxes of cigarettes from the tobacconists. Moslem 
 gentlemen wear tarboushes, but of the Christians some wear 
 tarboushes and others wear hats. I saw some Egyptians 
 abroad wearing black tall hats. The forks, spoons, and knives 
 are laid on the table ; please seat yourself. Where are the 
 keys of the balcony doors ? Take some pincers and hammers, 
 and pull out the nails from the hampers. The dragomans of 
 the hotels and inns know Arabic and English and French, 
 and other languages as well. The stairs of our house are high. 
 I saw some poor lame children walking with crutches. We 
 caught some mice in the traps. The scholars are contented 
 with the schools and the masters. The French and Russian 
 consuls travelled in the same boat. The birds are building 
 their nests in the shutters of our windows. There are bells 
 attached to our cat's collar. The trip would have been 
 pleasanter without the custom-houses. 
 
 1 Or bardanin (§ 318). 
 
10 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 EXERCISE 20 
 
 U'a 1 banadiq ! humma malyanin. II gawabat gum fi 1 wabiir 
 il fransawi wi 1 garantl fi t talyani. Shufte kharabish fi sawab'ak. 
 Ewa, humma min il masamir illi fi ghutyan is sanadiq illi gum 
 is subh. II barawiz betii' is suwar betfi'ak kuwaiyisin qawi, lakin 
 kubar ketir. II bet da maskun min il 'afarit. Hutt il maratib 
 'as sarayir. 1 Is sagagid illi fi 1 uwad il foqaniyfn atwal we a'rad 
 min il husr illi fi udt is sufra. Is sarasir til'um min il hufar wi 
 sh shiquq. Gibt il fanagin min bilad il ingltz lakin ishtaret 
 libriq beta' ish shay wi s sawani fi d dakakin betii' il iswaq. In 
 niswan yimlu 1 balalis min it tira' we yeshiluhum foq rashum 
 { ala 1 bilad. Ish shubban yetalla'u 1 moiya min libyar fi garadil. 
 
 11 hammara ba'u ga'arin li s sauwahin fi s si'id lakin kulluhum 
 mistana'in. II gumrukshiya misku s sanadiq f atahuhum laquhum 
 kulluhum malyanin ta'abin. Id dawawin maqftllin innaharda. 
 Gabu salalim we til'um foq is sutuh. II mehandizin banu qanatir 
 foq it tira' ik kubar. II fu'ala yilbisu baranit 'urad 'ashan ish 
 shams. II 'asakir is sudaniya shug'an qawi. Iftah kull ish 
 shababik wi qfil ish shamast. Hattet il 'usy wi sh shamasi fi 1 
 wabur ? 'Allaq is sakuwat (baltuwat) fi sh shanakil we hutt iz 
 zakittat, wi s sideriyat wi 1 bantalonat fi d dawalib. 
 
 EXERCISE 21 
 
 The workmen want three days' pay. My father came on 
 Thursday, and brought my four brothers. The robbers stole 
 six watches and five carpets and eleven blankets from our 
 neighbours' house. The police have seized the fifteen brigands, 
 who last year attacked the three towns in Upper Egypt and 
 killed twenty-one persons. They brought nine camels and four 
 hundred and one horses from Syria. How many Berberis are 
 there in your country ? Five thousand two hundred and ten 
 exactly. He spends every year more than two thousand and 
 five hundred pounds. The first day of the holidays the Moslems 
 go and greet their friends. Take down the books from the sixth 
 and seventh shelf, and leave those which are on the fifth and 
 fourth. To-day is the thirty-first of the month. A great fire 
 took place in London in the year sixteen hundred and sixty-six. 
 The present year is a.d. 1899. I came from abroad on the night 
 of the second of September. It is now 2 the fifteenth of October. 
 
 1 Or sara'ir (§19). 2 Lit., we are now at. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 11 
 
 The moon rises a quarter of an hour after midnight. At what 
 hour does the boat start? Probably it will start at 10.55 p.m. 
 Very good ; get the luggage ready. Where's the third port- 
 manteau ? Where were you 1 I have been to your house five 
 times. Five multiplied by seven makes thirty-five. 20 from 
 80 leaves 60. How many times does ten, and how many times 
 does eight, go into forty? His age is 41. My father is a 
 very aged man ; he is more than 100 years old. How much 
 are you ? x As to what ? the time ? No ; your age. Muhammad 
 is two years older than Hasan. Take the cheque and bring me 
 .£27 from the bank — 2 in silver, 4 in half-sovereigns, and the 
 rest in sovereigns.' 2 Two-thirds and five halves make three 
 and a sixth. To-morrow is Sunday, and that is the last day of 
 the month. Did you start at the first of August or at the end 
 of July? He divided 10 by 5. He deducted 18 from 66. It 
 was the 5th of the month when I started. What's the time 
 by you ? What's your time ? How much did it strike ? It 
 struck (or has struck) half-past eight. It is close upon 1 2. It 
 is past eleven. It is quite twelve and a quarter. It wants 
 two minutes to four. How old are you? I am past thirty. 
 She is about 12. He must be about 50 years old. I am just 
 twenty. He is nearly eighty. It is about half-past four. 
 
 EXERCISE 22 
 
 Fih tultemiya u 'ishrin kitab 'ar rufuf fi s sala. Alfen 
 rub'emiya u sabahtashar ragil matum fi 1 waq'a. Tuggar in 
 nibit ba'u khamastashar alf miyten qizaza u wahda fi khamast 
 ishhur. Is sauwahin ishtaru ziyada min tamant alaf siggada 
 fi 1 iswaq. Fih suttemiya w arbe'in kharuf u talata u tis'in 
 gamus u khamas baqarat u talat mi'iz fi 1 hishan. Is sana di 
 fih tis'a u 'ishrin yom fi fibrayir. Fih itnashar shahr wi tnen 
 u khamsin gum 'a we tultemiya khamsa u sittin yom u rub' 
 (or rub'e yom) fi s sana. Tamanya fi talatin tibqa miyten w 
 arbe'in. Get masr fi auwil sanat alfe tumnemiya sab'a u 
 tamanin. Safir fi tani gum'a beta' yanayir we rigi' fi akhir 
 ish shahr. Abivya akbar min ummi ; 'umru sitta u khamsin. 
 II kitabat humma s satit wi s sabi' fi rabi' raff". Huwa r ragil il 
 wahid we 'ishrin fi s safT. Disambar akhir shahr is sana. Kunte 
 'ashar marrat fi Bariz we khamastashar marra fi Lundura (or 
 
 1 Lit., how much with you 1 ? which may mean either, how 
 old are you ? or, what time do you make it. 
 
 2 Lit., whole ones. 
 
12 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 Lundra). Rigi'na 'ala Masr fi tamanya u 'ishrin nufambar. 
 Itnashar min sitta u 'ishrin tibqa arbahtashar. Fih ziyada min 
 talata malayin nafar u nuss fi Lundra. Tisahtashar rub'e sitta 
 u sab'in. Nuss itnen u nuss yibqa wahid u rub'. Is sa'a talata. 
 Yigi fi s sa'a knamsa u nuss. Naqsa talat daqayiq li s sitta. 
 Nam fi s sa'a 'ashara ilia rub' we qam tis'a ilia tilt. 
 
 EXERCISE 23 
 
 Her mother is sitting on her chair and her children are 
 around her. My father looked in her face and said to her : 
 " My daughter, you are the very image of your mother." Where 
 are your cigarettes ? I have them in my pocket. Come, young 
 men, I am waiting for you. The man is very rich, and I am 
 pleased, my sister, that you are marrying him (or have married 
 him). He has no brother alive. Her husband divorced her, 
 and she has taken her rags 1 and gone to her father's. Did he 
 beat your brother ? No, he beat me ; and I and my brother 
 gave him a good blow. The pen you have is my brother's. No, 
 it is mine ; our brother gave it me. She is a bad woman, and 
 her husband is just like her. The man by her side is her sister's 
 husband, and the one behind me is her cousin. She came with 
 her. The dish which has no salt in it is not good. Have you 
 seen my overcoat ? No ; I'm looking for it too. The lady wants 
 you in the drawing-room. His wife struck my daughter. Did 
 they give it to your father. No ; to me. Did she give it to 
 you or to me ? To you. Is the boy in front of you (/.) your 
 son? Have you any children, woman? No, I haven't. Go to 
 my bedroom and take the carpets which are there on to the 
 roof (terrace) and shake them well. The robbers came to our 
 house in the night and stole our money from us. You left your 
 overcoat in our house. Our poets are more celebrated than those 
 of your country. The coachmen of Cairo are better than its 
 donkey-boys. The lady came with me, and her father was with 
 us too. They are my countrymen, that is to say, we are all from 
 the same country. My brother (or my friend), I told you I was 
 ill. Where are her veils ? I gave them her yesterday. I washed 
 my hands in your fountain. They struck the boy several blows 
 on his feet. One of your eyes is smaller than the other. You 
 have taken my writing-book (or ledger), and I want it for to- 
 morrow. Send it me to-night. 
 
 1 I.e., the few old clothes she has. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 13 
 
 EXERCISE 24 
 
 Shuft id dawaya betahti 1 Dauwar 'aleha ; hiya kanit imbarih 
 'at tarabeza fi 1 maktab. Wiqi' min 'ala husanu wi nkasaru 
 diri'tu litnen. 1 'Ammitha binte wahid shaqi mashhiir. Iftah 
 idek w ana kubbe (akubbe) 'aleha 1 moiya. Rabatu dira'eya 
 wara dahri we ranmni fi 1 ard we darabiini bi riglehum 'ala rasi 
 wi ktafi. Gibte tuffaha 'aslian bintak is sughaiyara we kum- 
 mitrayten talata 'ashan akhuha ; iddihiim luhum is subh. Gibte 
 qalamak waiyak? Is sitt ill! safrit waiyah hamatu. Shufte 
 'asayti? Ewa, shuftiha fi r rukn wara shamsiytak. Hattet 
 mahfadti fen ? Hattetu 'ala 1 bashtakhta betahtak bi 1 waraq illi 
 kan fiha. Walad sughaiyar hatte tdu fi gebha we talla' minnu 
 kis-ha, lakin hiya miskitu min yaqah we sallimitu 1 bulls. 
 'Andak ard ? La, bihtiha le akhiiya. Zara'na 1 bizr (or it 
 taqawi) fi ginenitna {or g ginena beta'itna). Ishtaret barsim li 
 khelak. Taiyib ! iddih luhum (or liha). Uqaf 'and it bet illi 
 quddamak. II 'agala betahti agdad min betahtak. Nisit ismiha. 
 II khaddam zeye sidu. Ish shamse hara qawi ; tuq'ud fiha leh 1 
 Fen kursiya? Wahda sitt qa'da 'aleh. II khawaga (let'endi) illi 
 mihha iddah li. 
 
 EXERCISE 25 
 
 Every day I gain (for myself) two piastres. This is what I 
 have to say. 2 Everybody speaks extremely well of him. Each 
 one is sitting on a chair. Shall I give him five tariff (piastres), 
 or what ? Give him anything. Where is the man who was with 
 you (or in your house) ? What has happened to him 1 What has 
 brought you here ? I came of myself. They came alone. Every 
 one gets. (or will get) his pay. Here we are coming down. This 
 is a servant I have. Is this your son, or whose son is he 1 Of 
 whom do you speak % (Of) this (man) here at our side. Did 
 you learn the name of this village 1 Yes ; its name is Qina 
 (Keneh). Here's the letter which came by to-day's post. Such 
 and such a night of the month. Who is that man standing 
 there? In the interior of the town, in the "city/' that is, 
 in Sidna 1 Hisen and the Gamaliya, and their environs, they 
 say ir rdgil ddh and il liurma diya. Do you see those people 
 who are standing there 1 Who is it that has come (or came) ? 
 The King himself. The Berberis whom I have as servants (or 
 who are servants at my house) quarrelled with one another 
 
 i§74, n. 2. 
 
 2 Lit., this is the word which is with me. 
 
14 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 yesterday ; and one of them struck the other in the eye and 
 knocked it out. And you, what did you do 1 I called for the 
 doctor, (and) he came and put it in again ; and I deducted 
 the doctor's fee from the wages of the one who knocked it out. 
 Truly, 1 you did well. One must go and look into the matter 
 oneself. At what time does the boat leave Cairo ? He comes 
 to us every two or three days. Everybody, whoever it be — 
 women or men. His tongue was tied by the shock which he 
 received. 2 Bring me a little bread, whatever it be. Those 
 there standing by the door. Everybody says that he is a 
 good man. At what time will you come? Which of them is 
 this village 1 ? I was walking along the road, and found myself 
 thirsty, so I went and drank some water from the fountain be- 
 hind your (/.) house. Suppose such and such a person came 
 to you, what would you say to him 1 Whatever road you take 3 
 will bring you to the village. 
 
 EXERCISE 26 
 
 Ahumma dol ir riggala ill! kanu waiyaya fi 1 babiir. Nimte 
 fi ani oda? Akhiiya yenam fi Hi wara betaht ummak. Kulle 
 manhu yi'raf shughlu. Qabilte wahid imbarih fi 1 kelubb yi'raf 
 abuk. Kunte dafi' 'an nafsi. II walad illi get waiya abuh min 
 is si'id dilwaqti khaddam 'andi. Huwa miggauwiz wahda akbar 
 minnu bi khamastashar sana. Get fi anhi babiir 1 Kulle minkan 
 henak kan mabsiit. Leh f utti li dol we khadt il ahsan li naf sak 1 
 Ligwaz wi z zogat lazim tamallt yehibbu ba'd. Illi yishrab 
 'ashar sagayir fi 1 yom yishrab ketlr. Fi liadde hina ? II kalam 
 bashqa wi 1 fi'le bashqa. II akhkhen yiskunu fi bet wahid. II 
 wahid yeshuf giiwa 1 uwad. Tamalli beyikkallim 'an nafsu. 
 G6t liwahdak walla bi ahlak ? Get ma' abiiya w ummi we 
 qaraybi kulluhum. Qaret il kitab kullu min il auwil li 1 
 akhir. Iddet lak ahsan ma kan mi'i. Seyibtu leh ? 'Ala shan 
 'addi sba'i. Beta' min il husan da? Beta' ir ragil illi nsaraq 
 betu mbarih. 
 
 EXERCISE 27 
 
 Have you sown the seeds in your garden or not yet ? We 
 sowed them in the month of Tuba. They recognised the man 
 
 1 Lit., By God. 
 
 2 Lit., by the violence of what happened to him. 
 
 3 Lit., by whichever road you go. For the use of the past 
 tense ruht, see § 473. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 15 
 
 by his face. You sat on my chair and I sat on yours. Why 
 do they tie the lambs' legs? When the gentlemen go out in 
 the summer they open their umbrellas lest they should get a 
 sunstroke. 1 Do you know what time it is now? I sit every 
 day for two hours in the downstairs room, and afterwards go 
 up and sit in the room upstairs until midday. Why, woman 
 (or lady), did you strike this little boy ? This girl is like her 
 father. The wife cooks for her husband and his children. The 
 work will be finished the day after to-morrow. Why do you 
 sit here every day, girl ? Your shoes are worn out. He who 
 steals the egg will steal the hen. 2 When you stumble across a 
 good horse let me know. 3 He who eats well grows fat and thick. 
 The Moslem breakfasts in Ramadan at sunset. Good, I accept 
 this condition. The clothes will dry in the sun. Will you re- 
 main in the house or go out? When they seize the robbers they 
 imprison them. He who sits up at night lies down in the day. 
 A mosquito has stung me on my finger. Boys ride donkeys and 
 men ride horses. When you break a glass or anything in the 
 house just tell me so, that I may know. When a person sneezes 
 he says : " Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds." Was this 
 house inhabited ( = let) last year or not ? Whenever a man speaks 
 to her she is shy. She fell from the donkey and broke her leg. 
 When the servant comes and knocks at the door I get up and 
 dress at once. You must separate the good ones. Where did 
 you learn this story from? You (pi.) must not deny the truth. 
 The wretched people perished of hunger. When we heard the 
 bell we went out and opened the door. He has got well, but 
 his intellect is impaired by the severity of his illness. 
 
 EXERCISE 28 
 
 Qa'dit 'ala kursi fi 1 matbakh. Lamma tikbarum tishbihu 
 ummukum litnen. Til'um min il bet fi s sa'a itnen ilia 'ashara 
 we yirga'u ba'de sa'a. II bint khatafit il 'asaya min id akhuha. 
 Fi ani sa'a fitirt imbarih. Tinkir kulle haga. Lamma n niswan 
 yisrukhu wi r riggala yidrabu banadiqhum yihrabu 1 haramiya. 
 Lamma tunfukh bi 1 minfakh in nar timsik fi 1 fahm. Ish 
 shamse tihraq il hashish. Lamma yidrab il garas lazim tiftah 
 il bab. Qafalit il bab fii wishshi. Ish shamse tequm fl s sa'a 
 
 1 Lit., lest the sun take (strike) them. 
 
 2 I.e., he who steals a pin will steal a greater thing. 
 
 3 Lit., give me news. 
 
16 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 arba'a u tilt. Huwa ragil yishhat fi s sikka. Ti'rafih, ya binti ? 
 lilt yihzan x innaharda yidhaq bukra. Is sakakin dol qudmum u 
 tilmum. Mln ghulut, ana walla nta ? Yin'am ba'de shuwaiya. 
 Lazim tishrab in nibit innaharda lahsan yihmad. Warrlni r 
 ragil illi yishhad bi 1 haqq. Iza qa'adte ganb ish shibbak tibrad. 
 Lamma yihkumu 1 quda kulle min kan yihinidu hikmithum. 
 Lamma tiktib If aktib" lak. Hutt iz zibda fi s sanduq beta 4 it 
 talg 2 'ashan tibrad u tigmad. Kasarna karaf we kubbayten. 
 Min yidmanak? II moiya fitrit, ba'de shuwaiya tibrad. Dihkit 
 <aleh we harabit. In naggar ik kuwaiyis yiksab kulle yom 'ishrfn 
 au khamsa u 'ishrin qirsh. II wilad yif dalum fi 1 bet li wahdu- 
 hum. II 'aiya yizman waiyah. Lazim tizra'u taqawiku fi 
 sibtimbar. 
 
 EXERCISE 29 
 
 Why are you hitting the horses? When they were firing 
 the guns were you lying down or not 1 She goes out every 
 day at two o'clock in the afternoon. The horse is getting fat 
 on the barley. At whom are you laughing? I am laughing 
 at you. Why ? Because you are riding your horse like a man 
 who is riding for the first time. What were you doing, my girl, 
 in our neighbour's garden ? The work was finished before we 
 returned. Had you (pi.) gone out when the doctor came or 
 not yet 1 We were returning, and still on the road. The more 
 we cried, the more she kept silent. He was running away 
 from his father's house when they seized him. If you come at 
 six o'clock I shall still be out playing with the balls, 3 but if 
 you come at seven I shall have returned to the house. When 
 are you going out ? I shall be going out at twenty minutes past 
 four. Are they going to ride (or drive) to-day or not? No,- 
 only the lady will ride. Get away from here. Drink (/.) 
 clean water. Stay in the house till I come. Let us open the 
 window. Will the shops be open to-morrow morning ? No, 
 they will be closed on account of the holidays. There is a 
 glass broken; who broke it? It's just broken of itself. We 
 were drinking coffee. It was raining and thundering and 
 lightening all day. 
 
 1 For weeps read is sad. 
 
 2 Ice-box may also be translated by talldga. 
 
 3 This might be understood to be tennis or any other game 
 played with balls. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 17 
 
 EXERCISE 30 
 
 Kunte betuq'ud fun? Kanit betidhak 'ala eh \ Harabte- 
 minnu lamma shuftu beyiz'al. Fi bilad lingllz kanu beyishnuqu 
 
 I harami} T a, lakin dilwaqti yihbisiihum. II moiya kulle yom 
 betinqas. Beyitma'um fi malha. Kanit betitla' 'as salalim 
 sallimten. Kanu beyidrabu buya fi 1 but lamma got. Yekiinu 
 qa'din fi 1 matbakh beyidhaku waiya t tabbakh li liadde waqt 
 il 'asha. Tekuni ya bittt rigihti qable ma nikhrug. Ray bin 
 nishhat kam sigara minnak. II hamde ha yihraq il buya. Ha 
 tit'ab. 1 Hiya rayha titla' fuq il haram. Khisara ; iah tit'ab. 
 Is sitte mabsiita min khaddaminha % Hlya mabsiita min wal^id 
 minhum, lakin it tanyin tamalli beyiskarum. E illi yiskirhum ? 
 'Ala shan eh kunte betuq'ud barra min il bab bidal ma ti'mil 
 shughlak? Rah timtur (id dinya). Dakhkhal il husan fi r 
 astabl, rah yibrad barra. Ighsil idek qable ma tutbukh haga. 
 
 II husan kan beyihrab. II farran beyiqfil il hadd lakin id 
 dakhakhni fatih. Iqfil ish shababik wi ftali likwab. Kanit 
 is sa'a betidrab itnashar lamma tlihna barra. Tiil in nahar 
 baqras bi n namus. Kanit l-ayha tikhbat 'al bab lamma fatahitu 
 1 bint. Ha yifdalu hina lamma yiiga'u wiladhum 1 Khalliha 
 tidkhul we tuq'ud. 'Ala shan eh zi'lit? 'Ala shan qafalti 1 
 bab fi wishshiha. Kunna benikhrug lamma kanu beyidkhulum. 
 Kunte betiktib fuq we kanit 'ashwitak betibrad taht. 
 
 EXERCISE 31 
 
 They are not small. There is nobody but ourselves in the 
 house. A room in which there are no carpets is not nice. 
 Perhaps we shan't hear it. I don't know him either personally 
 or by name. I don't know her, nor does she know me. He 
 neither eats nor drinks. You drink without eating. Have 
 you no brothers? I pay you three pounds every month, and 
 yet you don't do your work properly. Don't you remember 
 this thing ? I never in my life heard such a thing as this. 
 Don't you (/.) understand what I say? No; what you say is 
 by no means clear. Weren't you (/.) calling to me? We are 
 not going to beg anything of you. Wasn't your son here before 
 midday? Nothing has happened to them. Isn't she going out 
 all day ? Don't do such a thing again. Shan't we sweep a little 
 before we sit down ? Have you two piastres ; I have neither 
 
 Or ha tit'ib nafsak. 
 
18 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 brother nor sister. It is not I who broke the cups; it's the 
 man who was painting the house who broke them. The stingy 
 man doesn't spend money unless by force (he is compelled). We 
 didn't know that you gained no more than that. If you (/'.) 
 don't call him, how will he know that you want him? She 
 hadn't appeared when her father came. Don't ride a horse 
 which is lame. 
 
 EXERCISE 32 
 
 Ma tisharshe ba'd is sa'a hidashar. Illi yenam badri ma 
 vindamsh. Ish shughle ma yikhlusse qabl il maghrib. Ana 
 mush rayh ahraqu. Ummak ma tirkabshe? Ma raqasitshe 
 abadan. Ma ti'tasse (or ti'tasshe) quddami taman. Ra'adit id 
 dinya u baraqit lakin ma nataritshe. Ma kaltish wala shiribtish 
 tul in nahar. Ma yil'abshe bi 1 bilyardu ahsan minnak. Mush 
 tiftah lu 1 bab 1 Ma fish fi 1 bet 'esh. Ma haddish misik fihum 1 
 Mush tuq'ud u tiskuU Talla'it kis-ha min gebha wala ti'rafshe 
 hiya. Ma tinzil luhumsh. Ma tishtimsh ir ragil illi ma 
 shatamaksh. Ma simi'nahshe lamma gih. Ma tikhtaf ush minni. 
 Ma timturshe . ketir fi Masr. Ma yinshaf ush abadan. Ma 
 tisma'ush. Ma nirga'she qable yom ig gum'a ba'd id duhr. 
 Ma ghalabtish wala ghilibtish. 
 
 EXERCISE 33 
 
 I am going to bind two books at the binder's. His head is 
 hardened. 1 Go North for a year, and don't go South for a day.' 2 
 The stove is smoking very much ; we must clean it to morrow 
 morning. Throw me one ball, don't throw me them all. Re- 
 member me to your children. 3 You who have learnt the story, 
 tell me about it. All right ; I will explain it to you. You seller 
 of clover, why are you loading your donkey so heavily ? Why 
 do you ill-treat it, you brute? God ill-treat you as you have 
 ill-treated it. Bring us the paper to sign. Didn't you employ 
 these Berberis in your house 1 ? Gardener, don't water too much ; 
 you'll spoil the roses. Fetch up rubble, boy, for the builder. 
 The camel-driver was going to make his camels kneel. Get an 
 upholsterer 4 to make us two mattresses. She is going to speak 
 
 1 I.e., he is a blockhead. 2 A popular saying. 
 
 3 Lit., salute your children for me. 
 
 4 Naggid means " to furnish," or " to card wool," or " to 
 make a mattress," &c. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 19 
 
 to you (/.) about the matter. Bring down this table from the 
 terrace. Don't you (x>l-) take it outside. These people consider 
 the dog unclean. 1 
 
 EXERCISE 34 
 
 Shahhilii ; ma tsabbarfinash. Bittaffish is riggala dol leh? 
 II qutta kanit biddauwar ( ala wiladha till in nahar. Ana rayh 
 a'allimak 'arabi. Ma bat'abshe min in nuzul ; ill! yeta'abni 
 t tulii'. Inta saraqte qalami ; ragga'u li. Tisallif li khamsa 
 gineh? Is sikka mush meballata. II liikaya tedahhakak (or 
 tekhallik tidhak.) Mush rah tifassah il walad ? Ana ma sad- 
 daqshe (asaddaqshe) kalamak abadan. Ana nafst rah afassal 
 il qumash. Ba'd il ghada rah nefarragak 'ar rastablat. 
 Beti'mili eh, ya bint? Baqashshar (fi 2 1) bisilla. 
 
 EXERCISE 35 
 
 He quarrels with me every day. We are going to meet 
 them at the station. Who is attending him ? The doctor 
 who attended me when I was ill last year — he it is who is 
 attending him. God bless you. Is he in business alone? 
 Xo ; he has associated some one else with him (or taken some 
 one into partnership). He is newly married ; are you not going 
 to congratulate him 1 ? Whenever she's passing by here these 
 children annoy her. Those two boys there are going to run a 
 race. Look out, lady. We are betting money with one an- 
 other on the race. This girl is always contradicting me (or 
 opposing what I say). They were insulting one another in 
 front of our house, when a policeman came and took them to 
 the station. Are you never going to leave me alone? Why 
 do you quarrel with that boy, girl ? We beat them at tennis. 3 
 Do you say (i.e. did you say) khanquh (they quarrelled with) 
 him or khanaquh (they strangled him) ? God blesseth the hairy 
 man and blesseth not the hairy woman. 4 
 
 EXERCISE 36 
 
 II wilad kanu beyila'bu 1 banat. Ana qablak (aqabilak) barra 
 d dukkan. Ma darabtiish ; kutte basse badafi' 'an nafsi. Iza 
 'amalte kede ma samhak (asamihak) abadan. Tisafril emta ? 
 
 1 7.e., an unclean animal. 2 See § 570, p. 317. 
 
 3 Or any other game played with balls. 
 
 4 Popular saying. Cf. Reading Lesson XIX. 
 
20 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 Ana msafir ma' il babiir illl yequm is sa'a tnen u nuss we sitte 
 daqa'iq {or itnen we sitta we talatin) ba'd id duhr. Ma kaniish 
 bisa'dima (beyisa'idima) ; 'amalnah binafsina. 'Adiik mush ta- 
 malli yigi sahbak 'alashan ti'amlu taiyib. Mush rayhin yi'ardu 
 {or yi'arraduj buda'ithum fi sh shababik betii' id dakakin. Isrif 
 il fuliis min gebak w ana ahasbak ba'den. Lamma tkhanqum 
 sfdihhum akhivya. Inta mas'iil we lazim tehafiz 'an kulle haga. 
 
 EXERCISE 37 
 
 It wasn't possible for me to get my letters ready before 
 the post left. 1 I charge 2 you to remain here ; that is, you will 
 be responsible and answerable for everything. You must make 
 the cooking rather nicer to-day, as there are guests. When they 
 caught the robbers they were running away in a hurry. When 
 you came to my house did I not treat you with honour 1 Per- 
 haps we will ride {or drive) together to-morrow. 
 
 EXERCISE 38 
 
 Kutr ir rusum kan beyifqir il bilad. Mush rah yimkinak 
 tiktib li bukra? Huwa ragil muhsin qawi ; kulle yom beyihsin. 
 Kuwarak betu' it tanis ma zmanus ziyada 'an shahren talata. 
 Lazim tikhbirhum qable nahftr ig gum 'a. Yimkin nitla' barra 1 
 lela. Humma mas'ulin, mush ana. Lissa fih mushrikin ketir fi. 
 d dunya. Ma kramimish ketir. 
 
 EXERCISE 39 
 
 The outer door of our house locks from the inside. A great 
 deal of wine was drunk at our house to-night. Speak to us in 
 Arabic, so that your words may be understood by everybody. A 
 bad servant is dismissed. This stone must be lifted away from 
 here. We were bumped by a carriage in the street in front of 
 your house. A very great deal of money was spent on this 
 building. The sun used to be worshipped among the Persians. 
 When the total is added up we shall know the whole amount. 3 
 That man is very quick-tempered and quarrelsome; he gets 
 angry whenever you speak to him. He is recognisable by his 
 foolishness. She is asking of God that our Lord bless her with 
 a child. 
 
 1 Lit., before the starting of the post. 
 
 2 For the use of the past tense see § 473. 
 
 3 Lit., the amount of the whole. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 21 
 
 EXERCISE 40 
 
 Ithabasii fi 1 ginena betiVithum. Itmasakit qable ma wislit 
 'ala bet bintiha. II baben betii' udt in nom betahti yitfithu li 
 giiwa. Iz zaketta kaman, hatta t taqme kullu lazim yitghisil. 
 Ma tuq'udshe henak lahsan titrifis min wahid min il khel dol. 
 Itrafad 1 leh 1 ? 'Alashan ma tlafatsbe li 1 bet lamma ghibna. 
 Iza li'ibte mihhum titghilib. Izzey titkhidim iza kan ma fish 
 fi 1 bet khaddam. II wilad ithamalu 'ala dahr ig gamal. Hitta 
 zughaiyara tshatafit. Shil ik kubbaya di lahsan titqilib. 
 
 EXERCISE 41 
 
 The horse was rolling in the grass because he 2 was hot, and 
 might perhaps get cool. We were blessed with this horse ; I 
 mean we were lucky (with it). His wife was spying on him 
 when he was smiling at somebody from the window. God be 
 praised, 3 this charlatan has now left me in peace, and gone away 
 from me. The road is now covered with a little sand ; there is 
 no water or mud on it. He was once a friend of mine, but 
 from the day that he was advanced in the government (service), 
 he has given himself airs and looked down upon me. Our horse 
 has only been ridden with the saddle ; he hasn't yet been tried 
 in the carriage. He is a cruel man, (and) deals roughly with 
 people in talking (to them) ; I mean he speaks harshly to them. 
 After he had recovered from his illness, the pain returned to 
 him again. He dealt arbitrarily with me, and said to me, " Do 
 this and that." He is much annoyed with himself about what 
 he has lost. 
 
 EXERCISE 42 
 
 Kanu beyikkallimu zaman tawil ma' ba'd. II kitab ithaffaz 
 'andu sinin. Iza ghalabtu fi 1 li'b hayithammil minnak. Ish 
 shababik itrakkibu mbarih bass. II ardiya lazim tissabbin taiyib 
 we titghisil bi hamd il finik. Iz zaketta betahtu tfassalit lu min 
 il khaiyat. II kutub itrattibu 'ar rufuf. 4 Itfaddal uq'ud. II 
 gazma tnaddafit kulle yom is subh. Rayhin nitfassah shuwaiya 
 ba'd il 'asha. II baltiyat it'allaqu kulluhum wara 1 bab. Hiya 
 rah titfarrag 'al bet. 
 
 1 Or itrafat. 
 
 2 Lit. , his body was hot, ifcc. 
 
 3 Lit., the praise (is or be to) God. 
 
 4 Or 'al urfuf. 
 
22 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 EXERCISE 43 
 
 The woman was blessed by the presence of the sheikh at her 
 house. He was winking to me to seize him. That (or this) 
 man spoke very roughly to me, so that I was annoyed * at what 
 he said. 2 This driver not only refused his fare, but took liberties 
 with me, and struck me with his whip. My servant doesn't 
 quarrel with anybody. Why do you revile these people, and 
 insult them without reason ? This man, who has been assisted 
 in all his work by me, didn't even say " Thank you " to me. His 
 brothers are partners with him in the house. They were wrang- 
 ling with one another behind the mosque. If you chance to 
 meet Salim, remember me to him. 
 
 EXERCISE 44 
 
 Betitkhaniq kulle yom waiya guzha. Issfidifna waiya khuk 
 (akhuk) imbarih ba'd id duhr. Kami beyitbahsu waiya ba'd \\\\ 
 in nahar. Rayhin nissabiq waiya ba'd. It'ashirna waiya ba'd 
 zaman tawil. Huwa mishsharik waiya 'ammiha 3 fi shughl. Be- 
 tiddakhil inta leh ? Da mush shughlak. Yimkin nitqabil waiya 
 khuk il lela 'and ish shekh. 'Alashan eh tamalli betishshakil 
 waiya 1 'agilza di 1 maskina ? 
 
 EXERCISE 45 
 
 This is not my pen ; mine has got changed in your hands. 
 His feet (or legs) sprawled apart, each one going in a different 
 direction. 4 Shoes, the leather of which 5 isn't good, soon get 
 torn apart. He (is) much pleased with what you say. Bring 
 the pretty vase which came from abroad. No ; 6 I have it in 
 the pantry, broken. He is a good man and humble, trusting 
 in God. When the robber was seized did they find the money 
 with him 1 No ; it had been swallowed by him. That man is 
 always gazing fondly at his wife, and she, too, is devoted to him. 
 The food should be cooked with a little more precision. She 
 will be sorely vexed at what has befallen her. This rope is old 
 
 1 Lit., anger came upon me. 2 Lit., his words. 
 
 3 Or (and more usually) mesharik 'ammiha fi shughl. 
 
 4 Lit., and each one went. The expression is used of a 
 person tripping and sprawling on the ground. 
 
 5 For the construction see § 381. 6 I.e., I can't. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 23 
 
 (and) won't twist. What's the matter ? Hasn't the dinner been 
 dished up yet ? We sat lounging against the back of the car- 
 riage. He turned over on the other side. Has the bread been 
 baked ? No ; it hasn't been baked yet. 
 
 EXERCISE 46 
 
 Ma nbasattish ketir qawf imbarih min it tiyfitru ? II baqara 
 nia tinhilibshe qabl il maghrib. Sa'ten we tultemit gineh taqri- 
 ban insaraqii min wahid min idragi. Ihna mabsfitin ketir leinne 
 rastablat itnaqalu min quddam beti. Talata min in niswan il 
 masakin inqatalu u wahda ngarahit. Kull in nas betii' il 
 balad ingama'it barra bet il 'umda. 11 khashab hayintiqib 
 fen? Hatinliibis talat shun. Igginena kan lazim tinhhis mush 
 bass il bet. Sitte kubbayat w arba' fanagin inkasaru n naharda. 
 Tmmasak fi 1 mahatta lamma kan rayh yequm. 1 Gawabatu ma 
 kanfish inkatabu qabl id duhr. Idman betak lahean yinhiriq. 
 
 EXERCISE 47 
 
 Every night they gather together and chat until after mid- 
 night. I honoured your brother for your sake. Where is he ? 
 Here he is, working in the garden. His statement is contra- 
 dictory (or varies) ; at one time he says one thing and at another 
 time another thing. The dough is about to rise now. We 
 have latterly given up drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. 
 He has acquired great wealth, and has become richer than his 
 brothers. I trusted that you would lend me these books. He 
 was living together with us, but he lias now gone to be by him- 
 self. Attend to your business. 
 
 EXERCISE 48 
 
 Betirti'ish K'h? 'Andak himma? 2 La', ana barti'ish min il 
 barde bass. Huwa mirtifr talatt imtar min il ard. Kanit 
 betirtikin 'ala il het. Hiya miqtidira. Lazim astilif kam ginOh 
 min akhiiya. I 'timid 'ala 11a. Inta mishtirik waiya 'ammak 
 wala la 1 ? Ma tishtighilshe abadan ba'd is sa'a hidashar bi 1 lei. 
 II bab infatah lamma kunte bastinid 'aleh fe wiqi'te fi 1 ard. 
 
 1 It would be more idiomatic to say miskuh fi 1 mahatta we 
 huwa rayh yeqiim, or qayim (§§ 505, 575). 
 
 2 Or sukhfmiva. 
 
24 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 Ana rah artaga' 'an shurb ish shay. Tisallif li khamsa gineh ? 
 La s , ana nafsi ma'ziir. Hiya kanit zaman ghanya qawi lakin 
 dilwaqti ftaqarit. Kunna mashghiilin ketir till innahar. 
 
 EXERCISE 49 
 
 When the clothes are washed they turn blue. Bluish flowers 
 will come out of this tree. The colour of the paint of our house 
 has somewhat faded ; that is to say, it is not what it was origin- 
 ally. When I was in England my colour was white intermingled 
 with red, but I now seem 1 to have got browned by the frequent 
 sun. 2 I thought this tree was dead, but now all its leaves have 
 become grgen. The eyes of the children of the fellaheen became 
 affected with ophthalmia, because they don't wash their faces or 
 keep the flies away from them. When the paint dries it will 
 get dark. 
 
 EXERCISE 50 
 
 Gismiha kullu sfarre min il 'aya. Wishshu hmarre min 
 kutr ig gary. Ismarrena ktir mish shams lamma kunna 
 benirkab kulle yom fi 1 khala. II biiya Hi fi 1 heta di, hatis- 
 farre lamma tiqdam. II qumash da ilwanha igraddit taman ; 
 lazim yinsibigh. Wishshiha baqa mizridde qawi ; baftikir 
 yekim 'andiha sukhiiniya (or sukhima, or himma). 
 
 EXERCISE 51 
 
 When we went out of the house our idea was to go on foot 
 as far as the citadel ; but when we were halfway we found the 
 walk too far for us, and got into a carriage. I was going to 
 say this 3 to him, but I thought it was rather too severe. See- 
 ing that you have spoilt his book, you must find him a good one 
 in place of it, even if you have to buy it. 4 She always takes me 
 for a donkey and a simpleton ; I mean she imagines that I am 
 inexperienced (and) don't know anything. These men are bad 
 (characters) ; be on your guard against them. Why did you 
 steal this thing? You see the devil got the better of me and 
 misled me, and I stole. They take oath against me, that when 
 they meet me in the road they will seek a quarrel with me. 
 
 1 Lit. t (it is) appearing on me (§ 330, Rem. 
 
 2 Lit., the excess of the sun. 
 
 3 Lit., these words. 
 
 4 Lit., even if with money. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 25 
 
 With whom (at whose house) is this woman employed? They 
 extract rose-water from flowers. The Moslem finds a blessing 
 in the presence of the Koran in his house. I have now got 
 to understand the work a little. Of course he wants to gain 
 something every day so that he may get his living. The lady 
 thought the man was nice, and took him into her service. We 
 are going to call these four men as witnesses in the affair. We 
 were much astonished at your statement. We made his ac- 
 quaintance long ago, and we got to know one another. Didn't 
 you hear me when I knocked at the door ? No ; I was fast 
 asleep, and didn't hear a single knock. I fathomed his intelli- 
 gence, and found it like a child's. 1 Which is the nearest 
 road — this or that? When he comes you must receive him, 
 and make him sit down. When they had acquired possession 
 of the land 2 they built it over with houses. He confessed 
 himself beaten by me. 
 
 EXERCISE 52 
 
 Ishtaretu leinni starkhastu. In nibit da ma yistahmilshe 
 ziyada 'an sana. Kunte mistakhdim 'ande min qable ma 
 khaddimak il Musyu A. ? Yimkin tistaghrab 'ala kalami, lakin 
 bardu sah ih. Itnen riggala starsadu li t tuggar barra 1 balad, 
 qatalu wahid minhum, we garrahu t tani. Ma stas-hilsh ish 
 shughla we 'ash an kede ma qiblush. Is sikka di mistab'ada 
 'an di. Ish shughle lissa ma stakmilsh. Istanzil 'an agaztu li 
 wahid min il mistakhdimin it tanyin. Min rah yistaqbil il 
 berins 'ande wusiilu fi skandariya? Ma 'him ma tistarzaqshe 
 lamma tekun kaslan. LGh betistaghshimni 1 Ana ma stagh- 
 shimtaksh, bass istaghrabte 'ala innak istaghlibte nafsak li" 
 walad sughaiyar. Ma tista'gilshe ketir ; lissa badri. Lazim 
 tista'gil ish shughli shwaiya. 
 
 EXERCISE 53 
 
 Look out ! don't splash me with the water. This man is 
 always bragging in his talk and speaks only of himself. They 
 shear the sheep's wool with shears. I must sound the man as 
 to the matter. Husbands and wives don't always love one 
 another. Moslems go on their pilgrimage in the month of 
 Higga. Your horse is getting very thin ; perhaps his fodder is 
 not sufficient. Has the clover been cut or not yet ? She had 
 
 1 See § 586. 
 
 2 Lit., piece, plot (of land). 
 
26 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 put (or was putting) her hat on the table. All the bottles are 
 put (ready) and arranged in rows on the sideboard. What 
 concern have you in this matter? It's not your business. Is 
 your mind deranged or what? You (/.) must mash the potatoes 
 and make them soft. I don't think he will come to-day. This 
 flannel (or flannel shirt, §c.) won't shrink in the wash. Drink 
 (/.) this medicine ; perhaps it will cure you. 1 It wasn't right 
 for him to beat these poor people. The ball, after it had sunk, 
 rose to the surface of the water. Mind that dog doesn't bite 
 you. Since you are ill, you must keep yourself from cold. The 
 horse coughs a little to-night. All right ; give him a bran 
 mash, and put the cloth on him. It is raining slightly. 
 
 EXERCISE 54 
 
 Micldi tdik ya bint we limmihum min <ala 1 ard. Leh ma 
 radditsh 2 il bab? Sahb il bet betti'i rah yerimm il bet min 
 foq li taht. Khallina nkubb in nibit fi qizaza fargha. Bihiddu 
 1 bet il qadim fi sh shari' gambina. Shuwaiyit nibit ma tdur- 
 raksh. Ba'de ma fakket ir rabta hutt id dubara fi wahid min 
 id durug betiV il bashtakhta bta'ti. Miskiih we huwa binutte 
 'ala 1 hot. Azinn is sikak masdudin. Min fadlak warrina 1 
 biyut il marmiimin. 3 Kanit bitbusse mish shibbfik il bahri ill! 
 yetulle 'ala ginenitna. II higgag ma yekiiniish rig'u qable akhir 
 ish shahr. Kullina kunna binshidde min giha wahda. Bashimme 
 riha battala nahyit il balla'a. II hitta di lazim tekun barrani ; 
 ma trinnish abadan. 
 
 EXERCISE 55 
 
 This servant is new in my house. They confessed against 
 themselves. This poor woman is deserving of charity. I con- 
 tinued at the work all day. The rope was pulled from both 
 directions. I felt myself much injured by your words. Take 
 yourself off! Get away from before me! He is a very great 
 friend of mine. This matter is driving me mad. The fields are 
 bounded on all sides. Has the matter been verified or not yet ? 
 The binding of the book was scratched by me. God grant you 
 compassion. 4 I was inquiring for your house. We were keep- 
 
 1 Lit., you will get well (or better) on it. 
 
 2 For raddetsh (§11). 
 
 3 In the original for were burnt down yesterday read have 
 been repaired. 
 
 4 Said to a beggar (§ 583). 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 27 
 
 ing out of the cold. The books were stowed on the shelves. 
 Was the door put to or open? We all collected in the road. 
 Do you (/.) frequent his uncles'? She considered the money 
 insufficient. 
 
 EXERCISE 56 
 
 Ma yistihaqqish qirsh. Hatitballe madum ma fish ma'ak 
 (or ma ma'akshe) shamsiya. II bet lazim yitramm. Ukhtak 
 bitgannini. 11 khirfan yingazzii bukra. II liusan inkhadde we 
 shabb. Qizfizit hibr inkabbit 'ala siggadtak. Yistaqlilu 1 
 mahiyat betulihum ketir. II hashish ma nhashshish is sana 
 di. Ma kanitshe misti'adda lamma nadahte 'aleha. Istigan- 
 nOtak lamma hattet riglak fi n nar. Lissa ma haqqaqnash il 
 mas'ala. II qizaza mush lazim tinhatte 'as sufra. 
 
 EXERCISE 57 
 
 My brother has been annoyed with me for a long time, (and) 
 doesn't speak to me. 1 This cat is now getting accustomed to 
 us. I blamed him very much in this matter. Why? Don't 
 blame him ; he is excusable. She is always getting annoyed 
 without reason. You must keep yourself a little back. They 
 were keeping back and sitting at a distance from me. The 
 me'addin 2 calls to prayer every day at noon. My father 
 doesn't allow me to frequent people at night. Who has given 
 him this book ? I. The Egyptian army has made prisoners 
 some of the soldiers of the dervishes. 3 The binding (cover) of 
 this book is marked. Stand a little way off from me, because 
 the weather is hot. You must insist 4 upon his taking the money 
 to my house. She risked her life and threw herself into the 
 river (or sea). I will venture 5 with you, let come what may. 
 He never shows any leniency to his servants (in exempting 
 them) from work. He will see me without my seeing him. 
 Do harm to him as he has clone harm to you. They make fun 
 of me all day long. She wasn't harming you (/.) 
 
 1 The original should be yikallimnish. 
 
 2 Nahwy mu'azzin. 
 
 3 Lit., soldiers from those of . . . 
 
 4 In the original read ti'akkid. 
 
 5 For these uses of the participle see § 498. 
 
28 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 EXERCISE 58 
 
 Inta nafsak rah takul it tiffaha di walla hatiwakkilha 1 husan ? 
 Kanit mit'akkida 'ala innak ma khadtish id dawa. Allifit qamus 
 w agriimiya. Iza azal li, arfih. Is sagara ha titmir 1 lamma 
 ye s in awanu. Ma tistahilsh ugritak leinnak ma tishtighilsh. 
 Min khad il baskawit min id dulab 1 Nussuhum mittakil. Ana 
 rayh asta'zin minnu 'ala innl akhud hidma min hudiimu 1 qudam 
 w addiha li r ragil ill! kan beyishhat imbarih fi sh shari' beta'na. 
 II mahkama akhkharit sima' qadiytak li galsit bukra. II bet 
 mit J aggar li sitti. It'akhkhart. Ma frakhiznish, sa'ti mit'akh- 
 khara. Tigi twannisna 1 lela. Beyi'mil zeye ma yasha 1 . In 
 sha llah nira'ik 2 hina bukra. 
 
 EXERCISE 59 
 
 When the time arrives we'll go to his house. You won't 
 find anything like this with us. I was not present in the 
 stable when they stole the horses. They were going in the 
 direction of the river. The boat stops at a spot where 3 there 
 is only a little water and gets stranded. You will leave me 
 desolate when you go. He is a man who has become wild like 
 a savage beast. He stopped, entangled in his speech. She will 
 alone succeed to her father and mother. Put the door to a 
 little so that no one may discover us. They will obtain provision 
 from God. He has been living in Egypt for a long time, and 
 has had children and grandchildren there. This camel is laden 
 with a load too heavy for him ( = too heavily laden). This man 
 has grown wild in the hills. She has given birth to twins. 
 Has the tree put on its verdure or not yet ? You (pi.) shouldn't 
 have incited him to strike her. Be good enough to weigh this 
 letter for me. 
 
 EXERCISE 60 
 
 ^ Kan wishshiha mitwaggih qibli. <eni tuga'ni. Kanit hidumha 
 mitwahhalin. Rigliha kanit beturam min qurs (or qarsit) in 
 namusa. Khalli 1 bab mitwarib shuwaiya. Ma twiddihsh. 
 Kan lazim yitwizin il gawab. Uqafi ya bint, lahsan tuqa'i min 
 
 1 Or (as is more educated) titmir, or titmur. Titmar is also 
 said. 
 
 2 Better neshufak. 
 
 3 For the use of the pronoun see § 383. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 29 
 
 'as salalim. Hiya tiisif lak il bet. Kunna wisilna 1 haiam 
 qable ma til'u min il lukancla. Betusiqu himirkum ketir. Ana 
 twassat lak fi 1 mas'ala. Wassah li shuwaiya min fadlak. Ma 
 twaqqafsh il 'arabiya fi wust ish sbari'. 
 
 EXERCISE 61 
 
 The slackness of business 1 leaves the goods on one's hand. 
 When the bread became dry we soaked it in water. His mother 
 begged a few piastres of me, but I wouldn't 2 give them to her. 
 The queen succeeded her uncle (reigned in her uncle's stead). 
 My colleagues want to make me give up smoking. Cattle yawn 
 like human beings. Why didn't you call for assistance when 
 they struck you 1 Our cook (/) has married a deaf and dumb 
 man. I escaped from the hands of the police and jumped into 
 the river. You mustn't assault and insult people. She holds 
 her head high (or exalts herself) and imagines that she is some 
 one great. When you (/.) got up didn't you tell me to get 
 the breakfast ready 1 We were making him lie down on the 
 ground so that we might see him properly. The soldiery sur- 
 rounded the houses. He assisted me with a few (half) piastres 
 from his own pocket. Our room has turned quite black from 
 the smoke of our neighbour's stove. Whom are you engaging 
 for this work ? This woman squints with both eyes. Tell (/.) 
 me who struck you. This man doesn't fear God. There is 
 absolutely nothing that frightens him. Do you see this man r 
 or do you not see him ? 
 
 EXERCISE 62 
 
 Ma shuftihash we hiya fayta 'al bet ? Fauwitni min fadlak. 
 IS imna mbarih 'ashara u nuss we qumna tis'a ilia rub' ; nimna 
 kam sa/a ? Bust id is sitt ? Ma hushtish minna 1 kilfib 10h ? 
 Is sillim qusaiyar ma ytulsh ? Is sitte 'auzak ; ruh shufha. 
 Ma tkhafish ya bint; ma ye'addiksh. 3 Hutt idak quddam 
 hanakak lamma tittaub (tittawib). Kanu mehauwishin fulus- 
 hum min sintn. II hagar dih minbas min uluf min il mu'minin. 
 Katmit hawa 1 malikama dawakhit il quda. Shfdit ibniha min 
 
 1 Lit., the paucity of the market. 
 
 2 Lit., I wasn't willing to. 
 
 3 Or ye'uddiksh. 
 
30 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 'ala 1 ard we hattitu 'ala kursi. Kanu naymtn 'ala kanabehat 
 fi udt is sufra. Ma te'auwaqsh (or ma tetauwilsh). 1 
 
 EXERCISE 63 
 
 Wait until I explain to you the matter from beginning to 
 end. Go to the stable and tell the groom to harness the horses 
 to the carriage and bring them (it) at once. They don't know 
 what to do ; they are completely bewildered. God knows the 
 dishonourer from the dishonoured, and the wronger from the 
 wronged. He chose to play with me (and) not to play with 
 him. You must sew up the boxes in sacking before the journey. 
 All this mess will be cleared away from here. We slept yester- 
 day for the last time in our house ; we have sold it to our 
 neighbour. 1 didn't mean to hit him ; the stick slipped out 
 of my hand in spite of myself. It is clear from your appearance 
 that you haven't slept all night. She was carrying her little 
 girl on her head. Light the lanterns of the carriage. The 
 court debited him with (ordered him to pay) the costs of the case. 
 That man owes me a few piastres. He is always walking the 
 streets, believing himself to be a dandy. He was reproaching 
 him for not having shown me proper honour. 
 
 EXERCISE 64 
 
 Qulti lak tegib.li kursiyen ; ma gibtuhum lish leh? 'Ishte 
 'umrf kullu fi balad wahda we fi bet wahid. Ketir ma nbat 
 (or nebat ketir) fi 1 balad. II farkha 1 b'eda badit bidten. II 
 mas'ala di bithaiyarni khalis. Ana mush rah azauwidak ilia 
 lamma ykun sliughlak ahsan. In nil bizid kulie yom. Is sayis 
 illi ma yi'rafshe yesays husan mush ismu sayis. Rayhin neqiim 
 bukra s subhe badri we nistad fi 1 bahr. Kanit ras is sana we 
 kull in nas betii' il balad kanu ye'aiyidu 'ala ba'd. Ish shams 
 tesaiyah it talge fi g gibal wi tkhallih yesil fi 1 widyan. TJkhti 
 rayha 'and il khaiyata bukra teqts tubha 1 gedida beta' il ballu. 
 
 EXERCISE 65 
 
 How many piastres remain to your credit out of (on) the 
 account. She always begins speaking before (other) people 
 
 1 'Auwaq means to be long in coming or going; tauwil 
 ( = tauwil lisanu), be diffuse. Tauwil balu means be long-suffer- 
 ing, patient. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 81 
 
 speak. Be kind enough to sharpen me this pencil. We 
 wept much when we heard the news. They doubled the 
 piece of string so that it might be strong and not break. The 
 moon is eclipsed ; go (/.) and look at it before it comes out. 
 The girl is shy of us (and) is not willing to meet us. I ran till 
 I had no breath left, and overtook him at the station before 
 the train left. Tell me the whole story, so that I may know 
 what happened to you. 1 don't know why he is unwilling to 
 help me in the matter. They woke up exactly on the stroke of 
 the hour. This beer effervesces tremendously and keeps rising 
 to the top. We agreed together on that. Don't (/.) forget to 
 put out the lamp before you go. The horse became quiet after 
 being restless. Bend yourself down so that you may be able 
 to pass. You mustn't defy the police. 
 
 EXERCISE 66 
 
 Laqet il burneta betahti fen 1 Qui li 1 bint : imli ballasiki 
 min il bahr. Kanu garyin lamma shuftuhum ? Ma tkubbish il 
 moiya fi beta' ish shay ilia lamma tighli. Ma tirdash tigi 
 waiyana. Ma btirkhish sha'riha. Fi ani sa'a 'auz tisha bukra 1 
 II wilad ramu girdal moiya 'ala rasu. Ir riggala kanu beyirwu 
 ghitanhum min it tir'a. Leh ma taffetish ish sham'a qable 
 ma nimti ? Iza kan tiqra ktir bi 1 lei ha ti'ma. 'Auz tiqdi li 
 haga. It tabbakh kan betiqli * samak fi k kasarona. II buda'a 
 kulle yom betighla. Inta rayih mashi ('ala riglek) ? II bet da 
 ma kanshe mabni lamma get hina. Allah yihmina min sharr 
 a'dana. 
 
 EXERCISE 67 
 
 A thing which is of no use is thrown away. Don't let any 
 one in before five. Some Egyptians are brought up abroad. 
 Everybody finds Egyptian sweeter than foreign sugar. Go and 
 ask the name of the proprietor of this land. The robbers re- 
 mained hidden in the foliage of the tree until the lamp was 
 extinguished. He hasn't had a bath for three years. Go and 
 hide yourself away from here. 2 I don't want to hear this story 
 or to see your face. Go and disguise yourself in some other- 
 clothes different to those you have on. I said to the cook : 
 " Heat this bit (of meat) a little more on the fire." He con- 
 
 1 In the original read frying. 
 
 2 I.e., make yourself scarce. 
 
32 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 sented, but I was not willing. Will you let (your) hair grow 
 long again after cutting it ? . The master administered the boy 
 a bastinado to make him learn the board. Take care when you 
 open the champagne (lest) it effervesce and rise out of your 
 control. 1 You will get scorched by the heat of the sun if you 
 sit there. Where has he gone? I (/.) don't ( = can't) find him. 
 I'm not free; go yourself and receive them. Is the bottle 
 filled yet or not? The sheep is stuffed with almonds and 
 walnuts and other things. She is accusing me of having stolen 
 her purse. The boy was named Mahmud. God reward you (or 
 punish you) ! 
 
 EXERCISE 68 
 
 Riih iddaffa shwaiya 'and in nfir. Ruh is suq wi shtiri li 
 shwaiyit lahm wi hdar. * Auz tistabda mta ? Garrani fi kull il 
 balad. Ghalli 2 li shwaiyit moiya fi kasarona. Istikhabba 
 henak lamma tigi. Rah yisalli. II bet ha yinbini <ala hittit 
 il ard 2 illi quddam il ginena betahtak. Ma timlash il banadiq 
 qable ma qui lak (aqul lak). Mush lazim titkhaffi. 'Addena 
 1 bahr fi 1 ma'addiya. Illi yista'ta 1 hashish yindam. Istanna 
 shwaiya lamma ddi lkum qirsh li kulle wahid. Kan il bat at is 
 beyitqalla fi 1 matbakh. I sh tar On ahum kulluhum ; naqqi lak 
 wahid (minhum). Lamma tistihammi ma tinsish is sabiin. 
 
 EXERCISE 69 
 
 At whose hands were you (/.) treated? W^e agreed together 
 on that. These men conspired to beat my son. The eggs are 
 put in the saucepan and cooked. Don't eat this water-melon ; 
 it isn't ripe. Don't bend my arm ; do you want to smash it 1 
 The stick was bent behind his back. Bring me a chair, girl, 
 for me to sit on. Come here, boy, and show me what you have 
 in your hand. Shall I come to your house, or will you come to 
 mine 1 Hasn't any news reached you of your father ; I mean 
 whether he is coming or not ? Isn't she coming to-night ? No ; 
 it's we who are coming. The girl remained under the tree until 
 her father came. They continued walking, they and the men, 
 to their houses. Go on up with them. We all went straight 
 away together. The band went on playing in front of the 
 carriages. The women kept on till they reached the house. 
 
 1 For minnak, cf. the use of il walad mat minni, § 570. 
 
 2 Orighli. 
 
 3 Or il hitta simply. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 33 
 
 Why do you always keep in one place? Don't continue to 
 talk in this way. He is always muttering ; I don't know what 
 he says. The ground is soaked with water; you can't play. 
 We are going to publish this matter in the papers. He is a 
 lazy man and, moreover, one who has a great belief in himself, 
 imagining that no one else exists. We were rolling the ball on 
 the ground instead of throwing it up high. My brother has 
 turned into a dervish ; I mean he has become one of the (sect 
 of) dervishes. Bore me a hole here too, so that the whole piece 
 of wood may be pierced with holes. The fire burst out in 
 flames in the house. The horse became unmanageable when 
 the wheel (or bicycle) 1 fell under its feet. She clenched the 
 money in her hand — folded her hand over it. The illness has 
 greatly weakened him. His sight is weakened. Don't force 
 up your donkey's head in that way. Shame on you ! 
 
 EXERCISE 70 
 
 II wiraq 2 kulliha melakhbata ; ma nammartihash leh? Ta'ala 
 min fadlak tiqra li 1 gawab da. Ma titannikshe mashya tul il 
 lei. Tannuhum la'bin wi mghanniyin we raqsin lamma til'it 
 ish shams. Ma haddish itbartal minnu wala huwa bartal hadd. 
 Kan lazim tebarwiz wahda min is suwar dol. Kanit shayla s 
 sabat fi drahha lamma mbahtar ir ruzze fi 1 aid. Izzahlaqna 
 litnen we tannina middahdarin min ig gisr lamma wiqi'na fi t 
 tir'a. Shuftak waqif henak tirasras min il bard. II husan 
 kan beyitrahwin. Tamalli betissattit 'aleya. Ahsan tesogar 
 gawabatak madam fihum shakkat (or tahwilat). Ragga'u 1 
 waraq kullu mishsharmat. Ma 'anwintish gawabak. Ish shi'ir 
 lazim yitgharbil qable ma yit'iti li 1 husan. 'Auz yissaltan 
 'aleya. Ha yekartinu 'alena fi Burte Sa'id ? Rakhrakh il hable 
 dih shuwaiya min fadlak. Khud il mafrash min il wust wi 
 twih itnen. Kanit bitwashwish eh fi widnu? Ma gitshe leh 
 lamina nadahti lak ? Rah ti'ya iza kalti fruta mush mistiwiya. 
 II ghitan ha titriwi bukra ba'd id duhr. 
 
 EXERCISE 71 
 
 This coal is all soft (i.e. small pieces, dust) j make him bring 
 us (some) hard (lumps). Your handwriting is very difficult;* 
 
 1 The word bisiklett (from the French) is used for a bicycle 
 by the higher classes. 
 
 2 Or uraq, or auraq. 
 
 c 
 
34 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 who'll read it ? This priest is a greedy man ; instead of eating 
 a couple of bits, 1 he has eaten it all. I (/.) am very thirsty ; 
 give me a draught {or drink) of water. The bite of a spider 2 
 is worse than the sting of a mosquito. 2 The whole of your 
 statement is a lie from beginning to end. It is more difficult 
 to go in than to go out. 3 The bringing of the luggage was 
 previous to their departure. The price of barley, including 
 the carriage, is 90 piastres tariff. He is not my friend — only 
 an acquaintance of mine. If the police see you, they will put 
 you down for an offence. 4 Write me a receipt for the (receiv- 
 ing of) the money. At the time of sunset she was sitting in 
 her father's study. He is the Caliph's agent, (acting) in his 
 stead. The office of the saw is to saw wood. This is an 
 ignorant man, unable to read and write. 5 On the arrival of 
 robbers, flight is better than resistance. The concealment of 
 the truth is not rare among witnesses. Pay according to your 
 ability. I heard the explosion of the powder when the fire 
 caught it. The way in which you bend at prayer 6 is not quite 
 correct ; bend a little more. His face is bright, and it is 
 obvious 7 that he is a good man. Have you boiled the water 
 twice over or once only 1 The horse stumbled heavily. I have 
 married a little 8 girl — such a charming find. As to me, there 
 is no need for me to come. No, do come j your presence will 
 be useful. Hasn't he finished getting the carriage ready yet? 
 You have honoured us and cheered us with your society, and 
 your presence with us has brought us pleasure and diversion. 9 
 See, I have acted for you as you charged me, in accordance 
 with the order. Did he tell you that (as) a true statement? 
 We must engage some one to hang up the chandeliers and 
 candles required for the wedding festivities, and to prepare the 
 carpets for the benches, so that the people may sit on them. 
 
 1 Luqmiten is used of a small quantity of food. 
 
 2 Lit., spiders, mosquitoes, or the spider, the mosquito as a 
 class. 
 
 3 Lit., the entering is more difficult than the going out. 
 
 4 Lit., will inscribe you in the offences (" contraventions ") 
 
 5 Lit., he does not know writing and reading. 
 
 6 Lit., your bending to the prayer. 
 
 7 See § 330, rem. c. 
 
 8 Lit., a bit of a girl. 
 
 9 Lit., there has come to us pleasure and diversion with your 
 presence among us. This might be said to a caller when 
 leaving. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 35 
 
 Her husband bought her a habara to dress herself in. They 
 served the chicken with its stuffing. They continue to enter- 
 tain and amuse themselves and be happy and joyful until they 
 turn and go back to their houses. I had compassion on him 
 from the kindness of my heart towards him. From the malice 
 of her heart against us she got up 1 and beat us and throttled 
 us, 2 and my breath was squeezed (out of my body) by her 
 grip on my neck, and I began to cry out because of her 
 throttling and beating of me. 8 It is good to eat fruit for 
 breakfast. 4 There are people who like their food slightly salt 
 — about half-flavoured with salt. Look as far as your vision 
 extends. The five-piastre piece will not leave his pocket unless 
 his molar tooth is drawn. Take care the glass is not too full, 5 
 so that the wine may not be spilt on the table. Too much 
 talking is harmful. The boy being hardy and robust 6 went 
 straight and seized the man and threw him on his back. They 
 contracted with the upholsterer for the making up of the 
 mattresses. Leave it on the fire until it is cooked like butter. 7 
 When they finish crushing the beans they pass them through 
 the sieve, and after they have been sifted they put them in the 
 pot. I see that there is a leakage in this pipe. In what 
 street is his house ? The first turning on your right. 8 
 
 EXERCISE 72 
 
 Ba'de ma khluste min tandif il bet. Huwa nkasar min 
 nuzul hagar 'aleh waqte hadad il het. Min qillit 'ilmiha fi 1 
 'arabi. Ba'de nuzulu min 'al husan. 'amal luhum ihtiram keblr, 
 keinnuhum nas kubar (or kubarat). Naqql li 'arabiya kwaiyisa 
 min il mauqaf. Lazim teqaulu 'ala 1 bint. Hiya Hi rabbitni 
 min sugri li kubri. Lissa ma khlustish min mishtara Hi lazim 
 
 1 For the use of qam see § 559. 
 
 2 The Arabs generally seize their victim or adversary by the 
 throat if they can. 
 
 3 For the repetition see § 589. 
 
 *-Lit., the eating of fruit is good for changing the saliva. 
 Ghaiyar ir riq means " to breakfast." 
 
 5 Lit., that the filling of the glass be slight. 
 
 6 Lit., from his hardiness and robustness. 
 
 7 Lit., and its cooking (i.e. the condition into which it is 
 brought by cooking) is like butter. 
 
 8 Lit., your first turning to the right. 
 
36 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 li s sufra. Tat'im il aulad li 1 hifze min il gidrl. II furn 1 
 ifrangi ahsan li taswiyit il fitir min il furn il 'arabi. Allah 
 yegazihum hasab du'fe diyanithum. II higgag yifdalum yomen 
 talata fi tahdir il akl wi sh shurb lamma yeqarrab waqte qiyam 
 il mahmal. Khallih henak 'and il luziim. 1 Wisilna qable nuziil 
 ish shams we qumna qable tulu'u. Taman dabh il kharfif 
 khamsa sagh. Ihna mush mabsutin fi 1 akl wi 1 libs. Simihte 
 titakhbit il bab. Leh ma mana'tush min darbu flha. Ir rubat 
 as-hal min il fakk. Yi'milu 1 'amaliyat dol kulliha 'ashan dihk in 
 nas. II matara (or in natara) kanit khafifa fi auwil nuzulha. 
 'Andiha kuhha shdida. Iddini min fadlak shuwaiyit moiyit 
 shurb. Amar il malik bi qat'e rasu. 'Iriftu min il mashye 
 beta'u. Kanu mashghulin fi shurbuhum we ghunahum. Iza 
 kan il kalam min fadda yekim is sukat min dahab. Tamalli 
 'andu tawahan. II hafa fi sh shita yedurr is sihka. Shuftuh 
 fi fawatani 'ala Masr. 
 
 EXERCISE 73 
 
 Where are you going to? There are two pocket-handker- 
 chiefs in my room on the table; bring me one of them. I 
 haven't any money with me, not even a millieme ; have you 
 any 1 Go up and see whether he is coming down or not. Let 
 your voice be as big as your size. 2 It appears that I locked the 
 door in empty (space), that is, in the air instead of inserting 
 the bolt of the lock in the iron. 3 He works according to his 
 strength. Pull the bell for us. I am coming to you under 
 the tree. Why are you inciting these people against me? 
 Have they gone away from here, I wonder, or not yet ? We 
 must get up to-morrow early or else we shan't catch the train 
 (or the steamboat). No, I didn't strike him so hard, (only) 
 lightly. They are walking very slowly j make them hasten 
 their steps a little. 4 Up to now I haven't seen a single one of 
 them. No need to talk here ; be quiet ! When will you come ? 
 I will come in an hour and a half. We had hardly break- 
 fasted when the man suddenly came. The bottle was just float- 
 
 1 Or li waqt il luzum, or li waqt il <6za. 
 
 2 The Arabic expression means, " Speak in such a voice as 
 is warranted by your stature," so that it might also be used to 
 check a small person from speaking too loud. 
 
 3 Hadid is here used of the metal plate into which the bolt 
 is slided. 
 
 4 Lit., hasten a little in their walking. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 37 
 
 ing on the surface of the water. We were with him for about 
 two hours. We worked all night till daybreak. Why did you 
 act thus contrary to your custom 1 ? Your coat is torn at the 
 elbow. A man like you shouldn't be afraid of a small boy. 
 We sat up till three o'clock at night. Do you think he will 
 come 1 ? I don't know; perhaps he'll come, perhaps he won't. 
 Sit there till I go and fetch her (or it f.). The horse has got 
 a chill from standing without the cloth. In short, it is 
 evidently as I said. What is to me clear evidence of the truth 
 of your statement is the statement of your brother and sister. 
 Now as to this man, his statement is true, but his uncle is as- 
 suredly a liar. Instead of remaining here without occupation it 
 will be far better that you come and work with me in the field. 
 The two are living together as chums. By (the life of) your 
 moustache, my lord, 1 my statement is not false ; I am a poor 
 man, (and) it is unbefitting that I lie to you. 2 He loves her 
 exceedingly. I never heard this story till now. Increase my 
 wages or I shan't care to work. Well, tell any one (/.) of them 
 whoever it be 3 who has come down. He told me he would 
 come to-morrow morning. His head is exceedingly big, not 
 merely big. They told me to do this work myself. See that 
 you call at my house, and don't forget. We were amongst 
 them. Is she tall? No; she's only tall by you (/.). One 
 says " imshi," meaning hurry, and " mashshi," meaning walk. 
 Surely something has happened to him ; why, pray, has he 
 delayed ? But my father died long ago ! But come, pray, and 
 sit a little by us (or at our house). Oh, how dirty you are, boy ! 
 Ugh ! he's an abominable man. Shame on you for having 
 done this deed ! We can't demand much work of him since 
 he's an old man. However heavy the thing be it can (or will 
 be) moved away. We were here 1 We were not ! It was I 
 who struck him ! 
 
 EXERCISE 74 
 
 Biridt (or khadni bard or khadte bard) imbarih ikminni 
 ma lbistish il baltu. Inta min emta fi Masr? Ya tara, min 
 talla' il uraq dol min kitabi? Nawilni 1 qalam da min fadlak 
 
 1 Or master ; ya sidi is used as a polite term of address to 
 anybody. 
 
 2 Lit., against you. 
 
 3 Nihaytu (or nihaitu = French enfin. Wi s salam is used 
 similarly to dispose of a subject — " and there's an end of it." 
 
38 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 min 'ala d dulab (or 'ad dulab). Iza nimte badri mush lazim 
 tequm wakhrt. Wiqi' min 'ala g gisr fi 1 moiya we ya dob 
 kan yimkinhum yetalla'iih qable ma ghiriq. Kunti btistahza* 
 It wara dahri. Rigi'na min gher haga ba'de ma stadna yomen. 
 Qadde eh (or kam) il masafa min Masr li 1 haram? Yigi 
 sa'ten u rub'e li 1 mashi. Qal innu yi'milu 'ashan khatrak bass. 
 Girina warah hatta lihiqnah barra 1 balad. Lissa ma sa 5 altush 
 'ashan eh ma dauwarshe 'ala sa'ti, wala stafhimshe 'anna 1 ? II 
 moiya tigri hawalen il balad wi n nas (is saknin fiha) yistadu 
 minha samak. Tamalli 'auz yitkallim nahwi wi yequl masal, 
 " ir ragul allazi ga' 'indi ams," bidal " ir ragil illi gih 'andi im- 
 barih." Qui li bi t takhmin baqa lak 1 kam waqte fi khidmit 
 il hukiima. Fi ani sa'a yidrabu 1 garas 'ashan (or beta') il 
 'asha, ? It tiligraf ma gash ilia s sa'a tnen ba'd id duhr. Betu 
 ganb il busta walla qusadu ? Lamma yikhlas shughlina hanidrab 
 bulta li hadd is siiq. Khalbatt it taiyib bi 1 battal leh ? Kan 
 ahsan lau kunte talla't il bed mis sabat qable ma waqqa'tu fi 1 
 ard. Ya ret ! Imshi quddamak we hauwid 'ala 2 yeminak ba'd 
 il kinisa lingliziya. Telaqlh foq khalis. Hatta lau inniha gat 3 
 dilwaqti ma tilhaqsh il wabur. Tequl 'ala inniha qablitu mbarih 
 ma 'innu ma yhassalshe Masr ilia ba'de bukra. Yimkinni addih 
 lak halan lamma tigi, basse (or innama) lazim tiddini khabar 
 min qable, lagl ahaddaru lak. Is sitte guwa walla barra 1 
 
 1 See § 560. 
 
 2 'ala may be omitted. 
 
 3 For the past tense see § 510. 
 
EXERCISES ON THE SYNTAX 
 
 He was wearing the uniform of the ministry. The stirrups 
 are fixed in the straps and the bit in the leather bridle. Bring 
 me one or two bits of sugar. Can't you ask me a question 
 civilly? The good man is known 1 by his speech and by his 
 face. There was a man married to a woman named Sittabuha. 
 He opened a hasheesh house. You fellow, coffee-seller, bring 
 us a few cups of coffee. The French and Russian consuls. The 
 man who kept the cafe set before me the meat and the bread 
 and salt with it. Tell me about this girl's story. Where is the 
 brace of pigeons? They answered all three of them and said. 
 There was built over it a wall of steel. They agreed together 
 and said. It is not befitting that I should ride the horse on a 
 saddle of rushes ; such a one as I 2 does not ride on a saddle of 
 rushes. When you finish the work in the house. 3 He is now 
 in the prime of his manhood. It is the custom with them when 
 any one is entertained at their house to bring them coffee. 
 He put his hand in her pocket, in the pocket of her satin gown. 
 You will drive in the brougham and I will drive in the victoria. 
 On it are things of silver. He was wearing the levee uniform. 
 In her hand was a cone-shaped bag of sweets. The cone-shaped 
 bag of sweets remained in her hand. Put on your silk clothes. 
 We bought two or three gowns of muslin — moire muslin. Send 
 us twelve cane chairs or (twelve) of the common chairs which 
 are furnished with green straw, a large dinner tray, and a bath. 
 We presented her with a small bouquet of pretty roses. Two or 
 three large wash-tubs for clothes, and a brass cup-tray for coffee- 
 drinking and a stone mortar for the kitchen. These people 
 come originally from the west bank, that is, the one west of 
 Gtza. After he had divorced 4 her he gave 4 her the certificate 
 
 1 Lit., appears, is evident. 
 
 2 For zeyinna read zeyina (lit., such as we). 
 
 3 I.e., the work required to be done in the house. 
 
 4 In the original read tallaqha . . . iddaha. 
 
40 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 of her divorce. They brought him stuffed vegetable marrow 
 and stuffed aubergine and a bit of meat roasted on a spit (and) 
 cooked with melted butter. Were you in the Sudan expedition ? 
 The Arab stove is constructed of bricks and stones, but the 
 European stove is of iron. They cook in copper vessels, and 
 there are people who cook in earthen pots. Bring me a little 
 turnip oil. When mallows get cheap a pound of them costs 
 half a small piastre. 1 One brings two pounds of mallows for 
 five or six people to suffice them for supper and breakfast. 
 Leave the fire burning under the pot until the' water boils. 
 One boils eggs in water. Meat is minced on a wooden board or 
 log. Where are the two pounds of meat 2 which I gave you ? 
 Add to it a small portion of sugar and a small portion of melted 
 butter. The iron rings. Bring me the hair brush. 3 On her 
 finger (was) a ring of twisted gold. They pound the pepper in 
 the stone mortar, or in a marble or wooden mortar, and crush 
 the beans in the stone hand-mill. The dish of boiled beans. 
 They plunge the beans in the water and then strain off the 
 water, 4 when they boil. Every day they buy bread enough to 
 suffice the family. Have you two silver spoons'? Where did 
 you put the little salt and the few grains 5 of rice which you 
 brought from the market ? Buy me a few home-grown lemons. 
 Give him the mug of water. The cooked food was placed in an 
 earthen pan. Did you weigh the measure of maize 1 ? Bring us 
 the half measure of rice. The tomato of Alexandria is superior 
 in sweetness and in flavour and in size to the tomato of the 
 west, and is better than it in salads and in cooked dishes. 
 Haricot beans are sold at two or three piastres tariff 6 the 
 qadali. The sellers of spring onions cry of them in the streets 
 saying, " Onions sweeter than honey ! " There are no wash- 
 hand basins in his house. Are you fond of pastry made with 
 oil ? Very well, give me three or four tarts made with butter, 
 and two made with oil. People who have money have friends. 
 From year to year. He was girded round the waist with a 
 
 1 Fadda = para, the Turkish coin, of which the piastre con- 
 tains forty. 
 
 2 For khashab read lahm. 
 
 3 I.e., the brush made of hair. 
 
 4 Lit., strain them from their water. 
 
 5 Tumna is here used of a small quantity. 
 
 6 With Europeans the piastre tariff is the "big" piastre 
 (about 2Jd.), but with the Arabs the qirsh ta'rifa is the " small " 
 piastre (about 1 Jd.). 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 41 
 
 woollen belt. Some of them wear shirts of spun silk and put 
 the kerchief over their heads ; and some of them wear silk ones, 
 and others wear them of Indian cotton. A cup of plain coffee 
 is half a small piastre, 1 and a cup of sweet coffee, with sugar, 
 is a small piastre. Give me a delay of five days. It looks 
 like rain. They are sound asleep. Sleep overpowered him. 
 She took cold. 2 I was ill with a sunstroke. He spends his 
 time in gambling. Get yourself a little white 3 sand. We 
 are travelling by the afternoon train. She has entered on her 
 fiftieth (year). The wind has gone round to the south. The 
 children of evil know one another. That man has always too 
 much to say. We want some experts to examine the house. 
 They are two and he makes a third with them. He gave me 
 thirteen two-piastre pieces and three ten-piastre pieces. Every 
 son of Adam among us has forty likenesses. I haven't seen 
 him since my father went. Poor in what 1 ? They have piles of 
 money. The heat is very great, and there are many mosquitoes. 4 
 That's the reason why I didn't go. It is all in an approximate 
 sense. She had her face uncovered. I shall be down by the 
 time the eggs are cooked. A few of them came, and a few of 
 them didn't come. It's as cold as poison to-day. They are all 
 bodily ailing. He had with him a gun with a flint-lock. Look 
 at this advocate's face. We got up (or started) at five o'clock, 
 European (time). The lower rein, which is the one required 
 for the curb. This conversation was 5 on Sunday. He sat with 
 him for a time till the afternoon. A feather of silver and a 
 feather of gold. Which (/.) is the oldest of them 1 ? It is for 
 you to command, illustrious king. He brought them a cloth 
 of gold thread. The match-making woman came to them. And 
 as to the pair of horses, the harness on them (was) of brass, and 
 on the head of each horse was an embroidered cloth, that is to 
 say, two cloths on the two horses' heads, and the two grooms 
 were wearing a civil uniform, with the waistcoats of gold thread 
 and the waistbands and head-shawls of silk. They place all 
 the comestibles before the guests. 6 Fetch me a carriage with 
 a pair of tidy horses. Whatever be necessary for the wedding 
 
 1 I.e., 'ishrin fadda ta'rifa. 
 
 2 Lit., cold took her. 
 
 3 With a stress on the word white. 
 
 4 See § 269. 
 
 5 Or this statement, &c, was made. 
 
 6 Lit., the things, the comestibles, they place them, all of 
 them, before the guests. 
 
42 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 festivities. The bridal procession was on Monday evening and 
 Monday night. 1 (Of) these children one is senior to another, 
 that is, one is eight years old, another ten, and another twelve. 
 Bring me a chair or two (and) put them on the balcony. The 
 man is the husband of one of these women. They turned it (or 
 him) over on both sides. It is of a reddish-yellow colour. The 
 seller of carrots goes round the quarters and cries, saying : 
 "Carrots (like) Greek honey, sweet as sugar." The sugar-cane 
 is as high as a man, or a man and a half. How much do you 
 want in remuneration for it ? Is this bit of canal out of one's 
 depth, I wonder, or is it f ordable ? A one-horse carriage. He 
 was drenched all over. Better than it twice over. It is ex- 
 ceedingly hot weather. Increase of good fortune is good fortune 
 twice over. Falsehood is without feet. You ought not to have 
 told me that false story. That's a colleague 2 of his. It's very 
 cold these days. Call me a policeman. There were two aides- 
 de-camp following the Khedive yesterday. He returned with 
 his hands empty. The people (that is), the guests, were at that 
 moment seated in the visitors' room, and the Bey, whose 
 wedding it was, was sitting with them. Two little anklets on 
 her feet. The people of Upper Egypt have a peculiar dialect. 
 We saw a little bit of a girl just like a jasmine, (but) with a 
 pair of eyes and a pair of cheeks like crystal, just (as bright as) 
 a chandelier. Tell me what's your demand. 
 
 II 
 
 You show yourself to be an honourable lady from a house 
 of honourable people. A pretty Stamboul tray and china 
 dishes. There were some silk-stuffs wrapped round the whip. 
 Put these inside the china basin. Light the twenty wax- 
 candles. The new-born is a girl, not a boy. They served 3 the 
 dish to all the lady guests. There remain six sheep and three 
 or four buffalo calves not yet slaughtered. The people, natives 
 of the village, gathered together, all of them, rich and poor. 
 They put on their clean clothes and go round the village. 
 Bring a little pounded pepper. European salads are best of all. 
 The French and Italian people are waiting for you. A little 
 melted butter and a small quantity of flour will have been put 
 at the bottom of the pot. The clock was suspended from the 
 wall by long blacksmith's nails. Shall we make you a Greek 4 
 
 1 See § 110 n. 2 Or companion or mate. 
 
 3 Lit., they distributed. 4 Or European. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 43 
 
 salad or an Arab one ? The Turkish ladies drive in broughams. 
 Are the tents erected or not yet? We don't wear shirts of 
 spun silk. She always goes barefooted. They say that 
 Thursday and Monday are the happiest and most blessed of 
 all the days of the week, because the gates of heaven remain 
 open, and if a man rise, for instance, on Thursday night, at 
 midnight, and ask of God that he may be happy, he and his 
 wife and his children, may be our Lord will grant his prayer. 
 The walls of the Fellaheen ('s houses) are low, not high. Are 
 you a Russian subject? These sticks are all crooked. We 
 drove the horse at full speed. 1 It wants five minutes to noon. 
 Give me a little Greek cheese. Are these artillery or cavalry 
 officers? I bought some bracelets of a woman from Aswan. 
 They struck each of them a single blow. They went south. 
 These are Turkish people (Turks), and their language is Turkish. 
 A gentleman's cotton gown. This conversation is private, 
 between ourselves. Give me the few piastres you owe (me). 
 Bread white as cream. 2 
 
 Ill 
 
 You show yourselves to be honourable people and men of a 
 very good family. Do you get your salary at the end or at the 
 beginning of the month ? 3 The kindness and goodness which I 
 showed to you, you must show to these children. 4 It is very 
 muddy to-day. Who is the eldest of them? He has been 
 thirty years in the Government service. He was dressed in 
 white and riding his donkey with his face to the tail. He 
 passes his time uselessly. The road dips down low and rises 
 high, 5 I mean it's all holes. He is unequalled 6 as a smoker of 
 hashish. We are in this world to-day and to-morrow in the 
 next. You know Arabic better than I do. Bring some three 
 millieme stamps. Did you remain there long? No, only a 
 month or two, or so. She was driving a carriage with four 
 horses. 
 
 1 Lit. , at the last {i.e. the full-stretched) rein, the horse 
 being given his head. In the original read suqna. 
 
 2 A street cry. 
 
 3 In the original read auwilu for auwilha. 
 
 4 Or lit. , the kindness and goodness which I practised with 
 you, you must practise (them) on these children. 
 
 5 I.e., it is uneven — up and down. 6 A 1. 
 
44 KEY TO EXEKCISES IN 
 
 IV 
 
 You said to me yesterday, "You must remind me to- 
 morrow." x He was at that moment giving us instructions 
 (saying), " Get the boxes ready at six o'clock in the afternoon." 2 
 We (are) neighbours and their house is next to ours, and we all 
 live in the same quarter. Pray tell me about it — what this 
 matter is. That's all; this is what we want of you. There 
 now, you see this man, who is her uncle. He has come to work 
 with us, and indeed I am thankful to the man who sent him. 
 Good, I have now learnt what this matter is. What are you 
 going to make on the top of (or above) this wood ? He said to 
 him, " My friend, isn't there a place for me to sleep in 1 " He 
 said to him : "Why, sir 1 ? " He said to him : " I am a stranger, 
 and want a place to pass the night in." We have a strange 
 story. What is it? The tale of the Sultan and his donkey. 
 Who will do this job for me? I have some one who will do it 
 for you. Before him (were) the road of safety and the road of 
 repentance and the road from which he who goes (by it) does 
 not return j and he went by the road from which no one returns. 
 What the covetous collects is little. I heard the noise of 
 women quarrelling with one another. How is it you don't 
 know what they want? Haven't you (/.) forgotten anything? 
 No, there is nothing I have forgotten. Our horse she's riding. 
 A pebble got into the donkey's foot. We have given her of 
 everything she requires. Tell us about the dowry which you 
 require — how much. And it is we who are honoured by your 
 presence. 3 The hands of both of them were joined together. 
 They found all three of them there, one sitting on a chair, and 
 another sitting od a divan — all of them sitting. Isn't she 
 your (pi.) daughter? Yes, lady. Very good. I know of a 
 nice bridegroom for her. I hear everybody speak very highly 
 of him. He said to her : " What's the thing you (/.) have done 
 for us." In short, whichever one of them comes to you, it 
 doesn't matter which, 4 tell her. Whichever one of them comes 
 to you, 5 you will ask him about the matter. See what they 
 
 1 We should say, "You told me yesterday to remind you 
 to-day." Ana is placed first, being emphatic. 
 
 2 Or he was instructing us to get, &c. The person is care- 
 lessly changed from the plural to the singular. 
 
 3 Lina is omitted after hasal. 
 
 4 Cf. the similar expression in Exercise 73. 
 
 5 Minhum is repeated pleonastically (§ 589). 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 45 
 
 want. This place in which we are sitting. But I wouldn't 
 come, because (I was) shy. Then the boy's mother 1 went to 
 him and said to him. He said to me : " How many piastres 
 do you want?" Goodness gracious! my friend, these wages are 
 too high for me. There is some of the best and some of the 
 worst. And the drivers loaded the carts. These women's 
 evidence 2 is all false ; perhaps out of ten of them not one (of 
 them) will tell the truth. See that you (j.) don't carry anything 
 heavy, (anything which) is very heavy. On the first night after 
 the girl was born. The girl's family had no news. The thing 
 will remain with him till doomsday. Some of them ride horses, 
 and of these some are clad in canvas jackets and loose trousers 
 and others in European trousers ; and some of them ride mules, 
 and some of them ride donkeys. Whenever any one comes to 
 congratulate them on the fete, and says to them, " May you be 
 every year in health." There are some sheep with two large 
 horns which are seen protruding from the head. Each one of 
 them buys himself food according to his liking. Some fellaheen 
 were walking in the middle of one of the streets of Cairo 
 imagining that they were in their fields, and so were run over 
 by a carriage. Don't imagine that, if a man of the poor class 
 were wronged, his complaint would be of no avail. Give them 
 as much as they want. They strike them with whatever they 
 have at hand. They put some salt on the broad beans. Add 
 to it just a little pepper. Some Greeks quarrelled with him. 
 Go (/.) along the road on which my field lies. Everything neces- 
 sary, whether in the way of dishes or cups. Some people, those 
 to whom the newly-born is dear, wrap it in a few bits of old 
 clothes. The old lady who is standing in front of you. The 
 doctor didn't understand the malady from which he was suffering. 
 Enlarge (or he enlarged) the hole sufficiently for a man to pass 
 through it. The rain came down like the rubble falling from 
 the wall of a house which is being pulled down. They bide in 
 a bit of low ground which was originally a pond. Dogs always 
 love to follow their masters wherever they go. Go where you 
 like. There is a time for everything. Take it back to the 
 place from which you brought it. One is worse (or more 
 abominable) than the other. I say to you " bull," and you say 
 " milk it." 3 The heat (of) this year is excessive. Neither my 
 letter nor yours arrived. He that steals the egg will steal the 
 
 1 Lit., the boy his mother (§ 377). 
 
 2 I.e., evidence given by women. 
 
 3 Proverb. 
 
46 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 chicken. The ape is a gazelle in his mother's estimation. There 
 are some Effendis who use the colloquial language sparingly 1 
 for fear of people thinking that they are ignorant. I have 
 no money but this with me. Whether it be I or you is all one. 
 He didn't tell me who beat him. These are rich people. How 
 are they rich ? 2 People who have fifty (pounds) a month are 
 not called rich. I want to live in some house whatever it be. 
 I want you to buy me an inkpot. From what shop ? From 
 anybody — I mean, at whatever shop it may be. Get us a house 
 to live in, whatever it be. They are all dirtier than one 
 another. I want a labakh tree. Very good, this is a labakh 
 tree. We want to go into your garden to look for a ball which 
 went into it. That's a thing which God (only) knows. Am I 
 quarrelling with you ? That's a man who knows nothing at all. 
 Who's he ? This one here in Cairo. You must prevent him 
 from (doing) that. No, it's just the contrary. This is what we 
 want. Just a few came, and the rest didn't come. My brother 
 has eight hundred pounds. I hear that this is an invention (or 
 forgery). Possibly some one related to him murdered him. 
 The person who brought this wants a receipt. I hear every- 
 body speaking well of you. Get me a carriage (and see that) 
 it is a nice one and the 3 horses good. As soon as we knew 
 that the boy was contented. Which of them is the pretty one 1 
 Neither of them is pretty. That is a thing which we have 
 never seen with our eyes, but we have heard people tell of it. 
 Are they in the same place 1 No, these (or some) are in one 
 direction and those (or some) in another. The boy whose name 
 is not known. The pumpkin called idrdf, which is sometimes 
 crooked and sometimes straight and of a green colour and tall. 
 They were turning it (or him) round, first on one side and then 
 on the other. Cook me a little food, no matter of what kind. 
 There are some people with 4 whom the muzzle of the dog is 
 unclean, and there are others who consider the whole of its body 
 unclean. The good man is for himself and mankind, and the 
 bad man for himself alone. Drive these dirty people away from 
 in front of our house. I eat beans one night and lentils 
 another. You are thinking of one thing and I of another. 
 Every one is different from the other. Shall I give you the 
 box by itself or together with what is in it? Go with him 
 
 1 Lit., whose colloquial (language) is little. 
 
 2 I.e., how can you say they are rich? 
 
 3 Lit., its horses (§ 269). 
 
 4 § 570 ('and). 
 
SPOKEN AKABIC OF EGYPT 47 
 
 wherever he goes. Where did you see them? I saw them 
 in the place where they were sitting. They are two brothers, 
 each better than the other. There are certain donkey-boys 
 who prick their donkeys with a nail (fixed) in a stick called 
 nukhkhasiya (or a goad). There is nothing but has an end. 
 Every one begs me to go to him. Say what you like. 
 
 A pebble got into the horse's foot and remained in his hoof. 
 He gets on to his mount — whether a mare, or a horse, or a mule, 
 or a donkey, and goes on — he and his servant. Shut the win- 
 dows so no dust may come into the house, or anything get 
 broken. It so happened that 1 we met one another. See we 
 have arranged for you (/.) the matter of which we spoke to 
 you, and of which you spoke to us. As soon as the bride's family 
 had agreed to the amount, the bridegroom's mother and the 
 bridegroom and his father, all of them departed, and the woman 
 (also) took herself off and retired. Her mother and his 
 mother and his father and her father sat in another room. 
 Melted butter and sugar are added to it. There is a party of 
 visitors arrived at their house. Very well, we agree to the 
 dowry, namely, thirty pounds. The women then got down from 
 their carriage and went inside the door, and immediately 
 mounted the stairs. 2 The domestic raised the blind for them. 
 As soon as the women had gone upstairs. At that moment the 
 women were bringing lemons, and squeezing them till they filled 
 the glasses. 3 The shrill cries of joy 4 were going on upstairs in the 
 harem. He buys her some jewellery — a zatuna b or a libba. 5 The 
 drivers (or carters) lifted down the luggage from the carts. The 
 woman and her husband go to the Kadi's house and her family 
 also with her. Her complaint has been (or was) fruitless. When 
 the three months were completed. When the musicians had 
 finished playing, they had 6 supper and received their pay 6 and 
 some bakhshish. There remain only three or four days to the 
 end of the month. The butchers slaughtered the buffalo calves 
 
 1 Lit., fate happened or was fulfilled, and . . . 
 
 2 Tannuhum implies that the actions were completed, and 
 followed one another without interruption. 
 
 3 I.e., with lemonade. 
 
 4 For zaghruta, see Lane's " Modern Egyptians," chap. vi. 
 
 5 Different kinds of necklaces. 
 
 6 Historic presents. 
 
48 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 for the amount fixed. During the great feast the guns are 
 fired in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, 1 until the four 
 days of the feast come to an end. They light (only) a little fire 
 under the pot, so that the dish may not get over-cooked. They 
 split the marrow in two. They chop it into lumps or into 
 rings. They chop the marrows into pieces in the form of rings, 
 and then boil them two or three times on the stove. If they 
 are a family, who are going to dine. Light a small fire. They 
 will be filling (or will have filled) it at both ends. After 
 ploughing the land with the ploughshares, they furrow it into 
 ruts and throw the seed on the edge of the ruts. It is of the 
 nature of the tomato, that its seed delays a long time in the 
 earth before rising to the surface. 2 She feared he would give 
 her a thrashing. It kept thundering slightly, and the rain was 
 coming down hard. Your clothes are worn at the elbow. He 
 became violently angry. He was blest with a boy. What 
 brought you to Cairo ? Afterwards she became very seriously 
 ill. Give him a little meat to eat. So that the evil eye which 
 has fallen on him may depart from him. The tears fell from 
 his eyes. I am going out shooting to-morrow. A party of 
 friends came to us. Why do you take all this trouble 1 I 
 know him by sight. Don't believe all the idle nonsense which 
 he trumps up for you, nor all the frothy rant with which he 
 entertains you to my detriment. These clothes want well rins- 
 ing. His eyes were flashing like sparks of fire. Many thousands 
 of them went to the Sudan. Bending down as you are bending 
 will cause you to fall from the horse. Give the tree a couple 
 of shakes or so. 
 
 VI 
 
 My opinion is that there is no dust on them. His foot was 
 besmeared with mud. I am unable to take any one of you and 
 employ him. He examined the wall (and) found it split in two. 
 When you come to dine with me I will offer you something 
 nice. Do (me) the favour to instruct the men who are working 
 here, when they are pulling down (the building) to pull (it) 
 down cautiously. Where are you taking this wood ? We are 
 coming to work at your house to-morrow. Thanks to him who 
 is alone and 3 is looking after the work so efiiciently. We see 
 
 1 The 'isha is about 1J hours after sunset. 
 
 2 Lit., to its (the earth's) surface. 
 
 3 I.e., who by himself, &c. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 49 
 
 that you are a good man. We found them working the follow- 
 ing day, Tuesday, and they opened a hole in the wall. When 
 you (pi.) saw them building. He went and threw her to the 
 bottom of the well and left her. He ran away from the village. 
 He continued to sell and buy of everything until he acquired 
 great wealth. He continued walking about in the town 1 (or 
 village). He went to his house without knowing that this man 
 was her husband. He sat drinking coffee till midnight. I am 
 your servant ; sleep here at my house. Bring us some supper 
 (or dinner), but let the food be (of) one kind (only). They 
 entered and took a walk in the garden. Remain here three 
 days and then go to the Sultan and present yourself before 
 him, and kiss the ground, and draw back ; (and) he will say to 
 you : " Have you brought this thing ? " (Then) say to him : " I 
 will bring it to-morrow." They concerted together and said : 
 " We will slay him by the way, as he is coming from his father.'' 
 The Sultan had given orders that no one burn a light in the 
 town. I got up and started to run up to the top of the servants' 
 (back) staircase. I didn't think that you (/.) were saying this 
 to me. She had gone away thinking them to be four tariff 
 piastres. I found she had forgotten the book. He told me I 
 had galloped the horse too much. And you, uncle Mohammad, 
 what say you 2 about this matter % Take care 3 (/.) and don't 
 forget ; keep yourself thoroughly mindful. Let them come and 
 honour (us with their presence) at our house. I want you (/.) 
 to be contented. Very well, I will go down and inquire of him 
 about him. He held out his hand, and he straightway went 
 and kissed it. Please God, the Lord preserve you for me from 
 the eyes of the people. 4 Please God, the Lord hear your prayer. 
 At that moment his servant had brought his mare, and was 
 sitting ready with it and awaiting him. He forgot to ask 
 about that. Are you coming with us or staying here ? During 
 the bridal procession the carriage was covered with a shawl and 
 beautifully decorated all over. A bag for putting this and that 
 in. God forbid that I should lie to you (/). When the woman 
 came to be confined. The neighbours go and help them to 
 knead, and bake with them. The peasant people who come 
 here to Cairo, selling and buying, learn the news from the town, 
 that to-morrow is the fast. The butcher goes slaughtering the 
 sheep with his hand ; and before he passes the knife along the 
 
 1 Fi qalb is practically equivalent to gmva. 
 
 2 See § 473. 3 Lit., keep your mind. 
 4 I.e., from the evil eye. 
 
50 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 throat of the sheep he says : " In the name of God, God is most 
 great," and straightway draws the knife along twice over. After- 
 wards they cut the top of the cauliflower into slices. By the 
 time the beans are cooked they will have washed the ounce of 
 rice. They bring a chicken which they will have bought in the 
 market. You must water the ground until the seed in its time 
 germinates and comes up above the surface. When the boy 
 reaches the age of seven days. The man continued to sleep 
 while the dog watched over him, till at length the dawn broke. 
 Instead of sitting here you had better go and call for the doctor. 
 God grant you a long life ! There is a fine rain falling. We 
 didn't find anything wrong with him. Advise him (or he ad- 
 vised him) to come. I have brought her up from her childhood. 
 Keep on walking straight along until finally you get there, and 
 say to yourself "here I am." 1 Where did you buy it from? 
 We thought of the cat, and he came to us with a spring. 2 Is this 
 word pronounced with a te or a ta? He was going groping 
 around like a blind man. Don't tell any one that I did this 
 or that. She ought to have come. He hadn't time (or he didn't 
 manage) to come. We were talking as we went along. Did 
 you drive these people, coachman ? He had at that time ordered 
 me to put the horse in the carriage. Because I had told him 
 to throw the paper away. If you had directed him to (bring) a 
 carriage, we shouldn't have tired ourselves. Come to-morrow; 
 mind you don't forget. You get into a carriage, and we'll all go 
 off together. Have you had any children by her? You (/.) 
 must take care of yourself. We were fasting every day, and 
 breakfasting at sunset. If a man is loved by two, our Lord 
 will be a third with them. 3 But (or and) the hermit squeezed 
 pomegranates every day into the boy's mouth until he grew up 
 and became big. Whence have you a right to say such a thing 
 to me? Directly he had drunk it he went asleep. Who put 
 this here ? He is wandering about in search of his father. 
 
 VII 
 
 If I have told you that there is no employment 4 in the 
 ministry (or office) in which I am, why do you ask me about 
 a post? Whether he be your friend or your relation. I don't 
 
 1 Go straight on till you get there, without turning to the 
 right or the left. 
 
 2 Same as " Talk of the devil and he's sure to appear." 
 
 3 Lit., of them. 4 I.e., vacancy. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 51 
 
 know nor have I any information whether they want or not. 
 Shut the windows lest the dust come into the house or some- 
 thing or other get broken. Why are you angry ? What have 
 we to do (with it) ? It's all the same, whether it's of use or not. 
 Why are you angry, father? But for the bread and salt I 
 would not have borne with you. She said to him : " Supposing 
 your father knows that you were away from the house ? " He 
 said to her : " I would tell him that I went away." A girl (who) 
 if she laughs the sun emerges and if she weeps the thunder 
 thunders and the rain rains. If she should ask for me, see 
 that you (/.) call me. It's all the same whether it be he or 
 she. Although we haven't seen the girl, yet we believe your 
 assertion that she is pretty. Considering that we didn't know 
 them or they know us. Whether you gave (it) to me or not, 
 in any case it has arrived. 1 Don't be frightened, boy, or 
 ashamed ; there is nobody here but ourselves and your father ; 
 there is no stranger, only ourselves. It would be better if 
 you would be so kind as to leave us alone. If they ask about 
 carriages tell them to bring (some) for us. Very well. I am 
 going to make you a proposal once for all — ten pounds ; if this 
 satisfies you, well and good ; if it does not satisfy you, why 
 please yourself. And now I have told you the whole truth, 
 after which I have nothing more to say. Are these fifteen 
 piastres enough for you or are they not enough, and will you 
 be contented or not contented ? I haven't eaten or drunk 
 anything of his, nor have I stolen anything from him. W^hen 
 good pious people say to them : " That is wrong of you ; God 
 will punish you," they reply to them, " Wrong or right, whether 
 our Lord punish us or whether He do not punish us (it's all 
 the same), let Him do to us whatever He knows ; and as to you, 
 you have no business with us, whether we keep or break the 
 fast." If there are no home-grown lemons, because they are 
 not yet in season, 2 not having yet ripened on their trees or come 
 to be sold in the market, and at the same time there are to be 
 had barley-shaped adalia lemons ; buy some of them. If they 
 didn't find him (or it) couldn't you have searched 1 What will 
 they do then, if they haven't any news? It doesn't concern 
 me whether you are hungry or not. Do you see the mad dog 
 in the street. I don't know which pleases me. If you don't 
 believe me. A qirdt of luck rather than a fadddn 3 of wit. If 
 
 1 I.e., I have received it. 
 
 2 Lit., their season has not yet come. 
 
 3 The fadddn contains 4200 square metres, and is divided 
 into 24 qirdts. 
 
52 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 I go, you needn't go. If I had known that she was bad, I would 
 not 1 have approved the marriage. You once told me {or you 
 had told me) that you would remind me to send them him. 
 If I finish {or have finished) early, I will go. He said to me : 
 " Say they were sleeping with me." Can't you ask us a ques- 
 tion politely ? It's all the same whether it be sugar or figs or 
 pears. I once saw him here a long time ago. He has no mercy, 
 nor does he let the mercy of our Lord descend. He neither 
 came nor sent word. Ask one who has had experience, and 
 do not ask a doctor. 2 
 
 VIII 
 
 I went to the stable 3 and groomed the horse. He then 
 asked me, saying, " Where are you going ? " You must remind 
 me so that I may give you {or to give you) your wages to-morrow. 
 Why did you delay bringing me the key until Monday, that 
 is, yesterday, Sunday and Monday? I waited for him till he 
 had been and dressed. Afterwards I remained waiting till at 
 last he came. I have a letter which you must take to the post. 4 
 Go and take the horse to the stable, 5 and then come to the 
 house. When they ask for it I will tell you. So they awoke 
 in the morning, and the next day, Monday, the men came. 
 Well, my friend, we want to get up above it. He made {or 
 let) her draw from the well. Get up and fill me a pipe. Come 
 to me at the house at ten o'clock. This garden hasn't been 
 opened for three years. The man went away home angry. 
 How can I be the son of a pasha and ride a donkey 1 ? We 
 had better mark the house and send to them in the morning. 
 Where did you throw it? I threw it in the sea. I had hurried 
 till I had no breath left. 6 Till I was taking two or three stairs 
 at one step. And then his father came and sat beside him. 
 And so the bride became the bridegroom's wife. She went 
 
 1 For this use of lam see § 545. 
 
 2 Proverb : Experience (without learning) is better than 
 learning (without experience). 
 
 3 In the original read ruhte rastabl. 
 
 4 A mixture of construction for 'and! gawab lazim tiwaddth 
 il busta. 
 
 5 For ji r rastabl read fi rastabl. 
 
 6 Lit., I remained ( = 1 stood) driven to the end of (my) 
 breath. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 53 
 
 and wrapped herself in her plaid, 1 and put her shawl round 
 her, and departed and went her way. Suddenly as I was 
 drinking the coffee I looked and found a little girl. The 
 boy was very shy about going to take food with them. All 
 right, I will give it you when I have got it from my brother. 
 Come now, go down, if you're going. So the best thing now 
 and what we must do 2 is to ask for the man himself and ques- 
 tion him. You must be so good as to tell us now about the 
 contract — (for) how many piastres it is. He was sitting sing- 
 ing, and they were sitting listening to the song. The band 
 continued to play in front of the bride's carriage until they all 
 got round to the bridegroom's house. The shrill cries (of the 
 women) were going on in the streets. She went and took the 
 cloth of gold threads. If you tell the story falsely, sin will 
 lie at your door. He said to her: "You! lady!" but she re- 
 mained silent. Then he said to her : " You ! lady ! please 
 reply to me." They smeared the cloth with blood. When 
 it finally gets cold. When any one is going on the pilgrim- 
 age, he writes his name at the principal police-office (all doing 
 so) 3 in the presence of their sheikhs, (declaring) that they are 
 free of debts (and) owe nothing. I am assisting you in order 
 that you, when 1 have any need, may then assist me. Leave 
 it on the fire until it gets cooked. She continued for a 
 week getting work for herself like (respectable) people, and 
 pretending that she was an honest woman. And he, by reason 
 of the tenderness of his age, forgot his mother. It does not 
 please me that you (/.) should sit here with me. Like those 
 who are going to the Hedjaz (on pilgrimage). She continued 
 knocking at the door and ringing at the bell until the people of 
 the house came downstairs. He has been three days without 
 having a bath. This door has remained closed for fifteen days. 
 He went to bed ill. I am going to be (or play the part of ) a 
 fisherman. He had gone 4 fishing. He was looking from the 
 window. They informed the Pasha that we didn't find him 
 (or that they hadn't found him). 5 Beware of coming or of 
 showing me your face. He hasn't the courage 6 to spend 
 (money). Even if it rain. If there hadn't been an excuse, I 
 should have gone. Though falsehood save, truth is better 
 
 1 For a description of the milaya, see Lane, " Modern 
 Egyptians," ch.i. 2 See§589, note 1. 
 
 3 The singular is carelessly changed to the plural. 
 
 4 Nizil is often used in this sense without any notion of 
 descent being implied. 5 § 518. 6 § 558. 
 
54 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 Won't you behave yourself? 1 Isn't breakfast ready? Yes, 
 it's ready. Very well, bring it down. 2 The first choice which 
 one makes is the best. Howsoever it be, I must go. After 
 being on the point of giving her two pounds, she gave her five. 
 Don't tyrannize over me. In what are we going to tyrannize 
 over you? The door doesn't open from the outside. You (/.) 
 have forgotten the order I gave you. 3 He made a profit, 
 indeed oceans of money. It is he who put me on the scent 
 of the news. People say that eating the tops of native radishes 
 together with their leaves has a good effect upon the sight. 4 
 Let the owner of it come and ask me for it. He was one of 
 those who went away. He sprawled heavily on the ground. 
 I haven't seen him for two days. If you do this job overnight, 
 you'll be free in the morning. Go into the room. Take them 
 away in one journey. They take the stones from the hills and 
 bring them down to the sea. He has a loaf every day from the 
 Lord. We want you to be contented with us. Yery good, my 
 men, thank you all the same. We are going to put it up as we 
 like. How did you get to know me — that I am an honest man? 
 The boy asked the coffee-seller, saying to him : " Please take 
 some supper." They both ate and were pleased. After supper 
 he said to him: "Of what city are you, my friend?" When 
 you threw her into the well, I caught her. As they were strol- 
 ling in the garden, they found a pair of doves. He sent to the 
 mother of the girls, had her brought, and said to her. Then, 
 while she was talking to me in this way and calling for me, 
 I suddenly thought she said to me, " Come upstairs." The 
 words came to my ears as if it were she who was speaking 
 to me. I heard your (/.) voice when you were calling me. 
 Haven't you finished here yet? Won't you obey my orders 
 rather than those of these people? About an hour before 
 afternoon prayer. This horse is getting thin ; you must in- 
 crease his fodder. That man's a finished rascal. I am loth to 
 eat in any house but your house. It will be nice if you sit a 
 little here by me. The price of the telegram is fifty tariff 
 piastres; there was a double word. 5 His business is to sell 
 chairs. There is nothing between me and him. Every how 
 many days does he come ? Why were you running ? W T e were 
 
 1 Lit., Won't you walk in your good manners ? 
 
 2 § 546, Rem. b. 
 
 3 Lit., the charge with which I charged you. 
 
 4 Lit., advantage accrues to the sight from it. 
 
 5 I.e., a word which counts as two. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 55 
 
 afraid of the girl running away from us. These are cousins. 
 Each one of them tells a different story. This thing has got 
 lost between Zed, 'umar and Raghib. 1 Anyhow, it's better than 
 nothing. We fined him a good little sum. 2 Devise some form 
 of death for him. There remains a matter of some five minutes. 
 We were still in conversation when my father called to me. 
 If you excel me in the game it will mean that you have beaten 
 me. The pen is surer than the mind. 3 Riches bring friends. 
 A pocket dictionary. Did you see them? Yes, just as they 
 were passing by me. Up to the present moment he continues 
 to spend his money in playing and gambling. It's pitch dark. 4 
 The door opens to the north. I caught him up and found 
 him in the house. We are leaving to-morrow. Is this land 
 sown with potatoes or what 1 ? These are (only) approximative 
 statements. 5 I only saw two, which I have named to you. They 
 went by (or took) the road which lies in the direction of the hill be- 
 hind Aly Pasha's house. A pebble struck 6 his eye, but a pebble 
 of a very large size. She remained with him until he entered 
 the house. Put the rug on this horse lest he get cold. When 
 one of us is, for example, a boy of fifteen years. Very well, but 
 why, pray, do you ask me for a dowry when you've no money ? 
 We are your servants and your son's. This is what I had 
 to say (and) what was in my mind. It is the habit of the 
 Egyptians — the custom with them — for the Kadi to come and 
 write the (marriage) contract at the bride's house. So you say 
 this to me, and repeat it too 1 Each is worse than the other. 7 
 He was holding her feet that she might be bastinadoed. Bikhita, 
 who is a third sister of his. 
 
 IX 
 
 Give the lady a chair, so that she may sit down and rest. 
 She sat down ; after she had sat down they ordered coffee 
 for her. She considered that the dowry was too heavy, and 
 said : " This dowry is too much." When the man had heard 
 
 i § 457. a § 314. 3 I.e., the memory. 
 
 * § 296. 5 Lit., things. 
 
 6 The verb gih is very commonly used in this sense. Thus 
 we say gih fi rigli 'asaya ; rigll gat fi hagar, &c. 
 
 7 Lit., both are worse than one another. The word azrat 
 should not be used in " polite society." There is nothing exactly 
 corresponding to our "worse," but al'an, the comparative of 
 mal'un, accursed, is in common use. 
 
56 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 my story. They want to make your acquaintance, and you 
 don't want to make theirs. You (/.) didn't tell me whether they 
 were men or women. After each one of them had gone down. 
 I went up while you were standing in the door. We are going 
 to bring him here to write us the letter in our presence. When- 
 ever I bring anything into my house you take it. He said to 
 her: "How is it that your husband complains of you 1 ?" Let 
 your arms hang down by your side. Don't make a noise with- 
 out reason. You will see him as you go up and as you come 
 down. We said nothing to him, so he entered with his donkey. 
 I teach you to steal, and you put your hand in my pocket. His 
 heart burns on account of his relations who have died. All 
 this happened while she was looking. He opened (himself) a 
 shop. He has a cousin who is without a nose. Either advance 
 me 1 or (there'll be) no more work. I can't make up my mind 
 to anything. I want to take a short road (which) will be nearer. 
 I heard your step as you were walking. So his father betrothed 
 a girl to him, the daughter of an honest man, and made a condi- 
 tion with her father, and said to him — and said to her mother 
 too — he said to them. They sift it with the sieve. The radishes 
 grown from the Nile flood are better eating than the summer 
 crop. The tuwdla 2 is twice the length of the karaweta. 2 The 
 drummers drum and the pipers pipe. As soon as he attains 
 the object at which he is aiming. Don't get very greatly 
 angry with your husband ; indeed, if he should get angry with 
 you, you must restrain your anger ; for perhaps your husband 
 may come back tired from his work, and say to you : " Go, my 
 girl, and bring me something," and suppose you don't obey 
 him or listen to what he says, there may be a stick or something 
 by his side, and in his anger he will go and strike you with it, 
 or something. It is far the best, my daughter, to be obedient 
 to your husband. I, sir — may our Lord grant you a long life ! — 
 am a poor man, and it is not fitting that I should beat the 
 people or rob them or ill-treat them. After a week I shan't be 
 here. Do you call him uncle 1 ? I wish she had beaten you. 
 I mean to make this day a black one for you (or him). 3 The 
 poor people dig themselves a hole in one of the rooms of the 
 house, and get an earthen pot and tie their money up in a bit 
 of old clothing, put it in the pot, and let down the pot with its 
 contents into the hole, and cover it over with a flagstone, the 
 
 1 I.e., my wages. 
 
 2 The tuwala and karaweta are sorts of benches seen mostly 
 in the poorer houses. 3 § 587. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 57 
 
 flagstone being of the same kind as those of the room, and fasten 
 the flagstone with a bit of cement or a little gypsum. When 
 it is thundering and lightening they say that perchance, if at 
 that time a man ask of God, the gate of heaven may be open, 
 as on the night of Thursday, and our Lord may hear him. At 
 meal time, and before it is served, one says : " In the name 
 of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate ; " and when they 
 have had their fill of the food, they say : " Praise be to God, the 
 Lord of the worlds ; " and they tell with regard to the people 
 who do not say these words that God makes hunger to descend 
 into their bellies, and (they say) that inasmuch as they did not 
 pronounce the name of God over the food, or praise the Lord, 
 they swallow it indeed, but the devils take it from their bellies, 
 and they have no lasting satisfaction. 
 
 The Purchase of a Carpet 
 
 If any one wants to make a purchase in the market, for 
 instance, in the Khan il Khalill market, he goes to one of the 
 dealers and makes a bargain with him for a carpet, for example, 
 or anything else. He says to him : " I want to buy this carpet 
 of you." " Very good, sir," says (the dealer), " you are welcome, 
 and may I find a blessing in you." " God make you blessed," 
 replies the other. " Good," says the dealer, " examine what- 
 ever you want." The purchaser, after examining the carpet 
 which pleases him, says to the merchant : " Tell me now what's 
 the lowest price." The merchant replies : " Make any offer you 
 wish ; don't be shy." The other might say : " But you tell me 
 first what's the price of the carpet ; " and the merchant would 
 then reply : " Thirty pounds." The purchaser having taken a 
 seat in the man's shop, and the latter having ordered him 
 a cup of coffee, is ashamed to leave him and go and buy from 
 another ; and so, in consideration of his having drunk the cup of 
 coffee, he says to him: " No, we will divide things 1 by two; 
 does that suit you or not ? If it does, well and good ; I'll give 
 you the fifteen pounds, and will be your customer for all my 
 needs ; I will come and get everything from you." The mer- 
 chant replies: "Come and honour us, by all means, but this 
 price will not satisfy me ; I want to gain, not to lose." 
 
 1 Lit., the village. The idea seems to be derived from that 
 of two sheikhs having each charge of half of their village. 
 
58 KEY TO EXERCISES [N 
 
 Then the purchaser says : " Very good, I'll give you sixteen." 
 " God find me a better offer," 1 says the dealer. " Well, sixteen 
 and a half." "No, God provide (me with better)." "Very 
 well, sir, will sixteen and three quarters satisfy you?" The 
 merchant replies : " Do not continue to worry me, my friend ; 
 enough of this annoyance ; this is not the way to make a pur- 
 chase." The customer, when the man talks like that and gets 
 angry, puts on a quarter more and says : " Will you be satisfied 
 with seventeen or not ? " " Haven't you more then than these 
 seventeen pounds to give ? " says the merchant. " No," says the 
 other, "they've bought one at home for sixteen and a half, and 
 I've now given you half a sovereign more than the one we 
 have in the house." " Well," the merchant says, " I will say, 
 great is the consolation of God. 2 God give you profit. Give 
 (me) the money ; whether for loss or for gain we have sold, and 
 that is an end of it." 
 
 XI 
 
 A Cure for Sunstroke 
 
 When any one has had a sunstroke, the best thing is for him 
 to let some one massage him from the waist to the neck, passing 
 his hand along the spine, until he expels the sun, which then 
 remains in the forehead rolled up into a round body like a 
 grape. After the rubbing they put a handkerchief over this 
 " grape," and crunch it with their teeth ; the sun then bursts 
 and explodes like an egg which has been left cooking over the 
 fire too long. They next bring a little water in a coffee cup 
 and melt a little salt in the water, and put some of this salt 
 water into the man's ears. But before they pour it in, he turns 
 over on his left side while they put it into his right ear, and the 
 
 ear immediately begins to hiss like a steam-engine (shi sh) 
 
 or like an egg fizzing in butter over the fire. He then raises 
 himself on the left side, and empties the right ear, the water 
 draining out of it ; and he finds the water in his hand burning 
 hot, like water boiling in a pot on the stove, so great is the 
 power of the sun. Afterwards he turns over again and lies on 
 his right side, and the other ear hisses like the first, and his 
 
 1 The expression Yif tah Alia is for yif tah Alia 'aleya bi gherak 
 (or perhaps bi gher bl'u bi t taman da). It is commonly used 
 by the buyer when not satisfied with the price offered. 
 
 2 I.e., God recompense me for having sold so cheap. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 59 
 
 head, after it had been swimming and turning round, gets clear, 
 and he comes to himself again. Then they bring him a few 
 native bezoar * lemons, say two or three, and make him drink 
 them, and put him to bed and cover him up, and in the morn- 
 ing he wakes up feeling like a horse, and goes off to his work. 
 
 XII 
 
 The Snake as "the Guardian of the House 
 
 People say that as long as the snake who guards the house 
 remains in it, it is much better not to worry it so that it may 
 not worry us ; for if we worry it, or kill it, its mate may come, 
 and finding, for example, a pot with some food in it or a jar of 
 milk, breathe into it ; and when it has breathed into it with 
 its mouth, perhaps the owners of the place, or one of their 
 children will be taken ill. But if one doesn't go near these 
 serpent guardians who inhabit the house, or torment them, or 
 kill any one of them, they on their part, even if the food is 
 uncovered, watch over it and don't come near it, or breathe into 
 it, or cause any kind of annoyance in the house. And through- 
 out their lives, as long as they remain established in the house 
 and hatch their eggs there and bring forth their young, they 
 continue to watch over it. And some of the ancients say these 
 are the lords of the houses, and we should not interfere with 
 them, or strike them, or destroy them, since they are created 
 beings, our Lord having created them with souls like ourselves ; 
 and perhaps, by reason of our not having worried them and their 
 not having worried us, the advent of such as these will bring us 
 good fortune, and after having been poor the Lord will make us 
 prosperous in virtue thereof. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Ceremonies on the Birth of a Child 
 
 When the girl was born they brought tidings to her father 
 that she was a girl ; and he became somewhat angry that she 
 was a girl. So they said to him : " Why do you get angry, my 
 son ? See, God's gift of a girl is a double gift, while that of a 
 boy is one only." Then the man when he heard them speak 
 thus, praised God and said : " Praise be to God, the Lord of 
 
 1 See note to XX. 
 
60 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 the worlds, we accept what our Lord has given us." And after 
 the girl's birth, they brought her mother three pairs of chickens 
 and a single one, and every day they cooked her a chicken, and 
 the neighbours came to congratulate her ; and when the seven 
 days were completed, they brought her a few dried fruits and 
 nuts and a few wax candles; and they bring 1 her a tray and 
 put a little water in it, and they bring her an earthen water- 
 bottle (the new-born being a girl), and place it on the tray, and 
 three or four candles, which they lighted and put round the 
 bottle and kept them alight until they burned out. And on 
 the night following the child's birth, the midwife put her in a 
 large sieve, and shook her in it two or three times, and the girl 
 slept regularly in the sieve until the seventh day. Now, in the 
 morning of the seventh day the midwife came, and they gave 
 her a little salt, and she let it crackle (in the fire) through the 
 quarter, 2 and collected together seventeen or eighteen children, 
 and each one of them held a candle and called out : " Birgalatak, 
 birgalatak, with a golden ring in your ears," for ten minutes. 
 Then the children blew out the candles, and each kept the one 
 which was in his hand for himself ; and the midwife brought 
 a little of the dried fruit (which she had got) for the seventh 
 day, and distributed it amongst the children ; and she took the 
 rest and went away to her house. And so ended the ceremony 
 at the birth, and on the seventh day, among the Arab poor ; 
 and may you live long and be prosperous. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The Habits of the Weasel 
 
 They say that when the weasel is about to bring forth, she 
 makes for herself a crevice or a hole and builds her nest there 
 with a little hair, such as an old plait of the kind in which 
 women do up their hair, or with some old bits of clothing, or a 
 little cotton ; then she hunts about the house until she chances 
 on a necklace or a gold ring or silver bracelets or a veil with 
 the nose ornament, the latter being of Venetian gold, and carries 
 them away to her hole. And according to what people say, she 
 will only bring forth on a piece of gold or silver jewellery. 
 And when she comes into the house, she utters a foul, hideous 
 
 1 Notice the change of the tense (§ 478). 
 
 2 I.e., the quarter of the town or village in which the cere- 
 mony took place. Hot embers are carried round, into which 
 pinches of salt are thrown. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 61 
 
 cry, which fills the whole house from top to bottom ; and the 
 people of the house call to her : " We have the bridegroom 
 Mehammad in the house," imagining that she will run away 
 at these words. 
 
 XV 
 The Snake's Eye 
 
 If a snake from outside, not being the guardian of the house, 
 comes gliding along from the desert, making for a place where 
 people are living, the guardian snake no sooner sniffs him from 
 afar than he darts out against the stranger, and straightway 
 drives him from the direction of the house. Then his honour 
 returns to his hole ; but the stranger maybe will leave his jewel 1 
 behind, as he is gliding away from fear in a hurry, and if some 
 one is standing by at that moment, and his star is in the 
 ascendant, he runs and picks it up, and the snake chafes and 
 dies on account of the jewel by the light of which he used to 
 move. For the snake is purblind and cannot see without the 
 jewel ; and if he gets separated from it, he becomes blind. 
 And people say about this jewel that if our Lord gives it to 
 some one, and he takes it to his house and gets a little bran, or 
 a little sawdust, or something else, and puts it into an earthen 
 bowl or any kind of vessel that may be at hand, and then places 
 the jewel in the midst of them, and throws a tariff piastre 
 under the jewel, and covers over the vessel and leaves it in an 
 unfrequented place so that no one may tread on it, he will, when 
 he gets up in the morning and examines the vessel, find two 
 piastres for the one he had put in ; and if he puts a piece of 
 ten piastres, he will find two pieces of ten piastres, and if he 
 puts two dollars he will find them to be four dollars ; and they 
 will go on increasing in such a way that whenever he puts in 
 one thing he will find it two. 
 
 XVI 
 
 The Valley of the Dogs 
 
 There was a man — and he is still alive — called Mehammad, 
 of Damanhur, in the Bihera ; and he was appointed to the 
 English army at the time of the first war in the Sudan, that 
 is to say, fifteen years ago ; and his duties were those of a 
 
 1 Snakes are believed to pick up jewels when they find 
 them and use them as eyes, carrying them or pushing them in 
 front of them. 
 
62 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 butcher. He continued with the army throughout the expedi- 
 tion, and remained three or four years after it in the Sudan. 
 Then when he wanted to journey to Egypt, and go home to 
 his town, he walked along a road in the midst of the mountains, 
 and there lost his way. And he walked and walked for two 
 or three months until he reached a valley, called the Valley of 
 the Dogs, all the men of the country being dogs, and the women 
 human. And when he arrived amongst them the dogs imme- 
 diately ran up 1 to him and surrounded him, and one of their 
 magnates despatched some one to their king to bid him come 
 and inspect this stranger, "for he is a human man." And 
 the Sultan came and saw him and inspected him, and desired to 
 entertain him ; and the grandees, that is, the omdas of the 
 country, wanted also to invite him to their houses. But 
 when the Sultan demanded to entertain him the others with- 
 drew saying : " When the Sultan has finished entertaining 
 him, we too will entertain him at our houses." So the man 
 went, and was entertained that day and that night at the 
 Sultan's palace, and the Sultan amused and feted his guest and 
 showed him exceeding honour. And he slept in the Sultan's 
 house, and took breakfast when he awoke in the morning ; and 
 they brought him coffee, and he drank and was pleased. Then 
 the notables of the town came and wished the Sultan good 
 morning, and said to him : " May your day be happy and 
 blessed, your Majesty. We wish to obtain leave of you to take 
 this guest and fete him at our houses." " Pray take him," 
 said the Sultan. So they took him and feted him ; ten, twelve, 
 or twenty of the grandees, they all feted him, and their wives, 
 who knew their husbands' language as well as the language of 
 men, interpreted it to him in Arabic. Now one day, when the 
 man had stayed about a month in the country, the daughter of 
 one of the magnates (he was an omda in the town) said to 
 her mother : " Mother, everybody has entertained this man, 
 and we too must entertain him." " There is no objection," said 
 her father ; " we will entertain him." So he went to the house 
 where the guest was being entertained, and asked leave to 
 take him. " Certainly," said his host, " pray take him." And 
 that night the man dined with them and enjoyed himself, the 
 wife of his new host regaling him with food and drink and 
 every luxury, for he was a fine young man of a handsome 
 countenance. And the girl, his host's daughter, became 
 enamoured of him and desired to marry him; and in the 
 
 1 In the original read garyin. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 63 
 
 middle of the night, when her father and mother had gone to 
 sleep, and the man was sleeping in the guest's chamber, the 
 girl sprang up from her bed — for no sleep would come to her 
 that night for her love of the man who was their guest. So 
 she went to him, while her father and mother were deep in 
 slumber, sleeping in a sweet sleep, and woke him, and said to 
 him : " Let us be up, Master Mehammad." " Where am I to 
 get up and go?" said he. "Wake from your sleep," she cried, 
 " and sit up. I have a story to tell you." The man arose from 
 his sleep, and sat up and said to her : " What will you, Lady 
 Zebeda?" "I love you," she said; " do you, perchance, love 
 me as I love you ? " "I love you very greatly," said he, " but 
 I cannot say so, fearing lest your father and mother kill me." 
 " I wonder," she said, " if I bid them marry me to you, whether 
 you will be able to stay here in this country or not? You 
 must tell me first before I speak to them whether you consent 
 to this or do not consent." "I fear to tell you," he replied, 
 " that I do not consent, lest you go and denounce me ; and if 
 I tell you that I consent, still I cannot remain away from my 
 children without seeing them, for I have now been five years 
 in foreign lands without seeing my children. See now I have 
 told you the truth, and whatever you decide I will act accord- 
 ingly." " I will take my chance with you," she said, "and for 
 your sake I will leave my parents and my country ; but in 
 God's name, good fellow, do not abandon me in a strange 
 country, in your country I mean." " Could such a thing be 
 permissible, Lady Zebeda," he replied, " I will carry you on 
 my head. 1 I have no blessing but in you." So they set forth 
 together, the girl and the man, and she put her hand in his ; 
 and they bought a camel and mounted it, and pushed forward 
 on the road, and didn't stop until at length they reached the 
 sea. And the girl had prudently seen to some provisions for 
 the journey, and they ate and drank all the way of that which 
 she had brought. And when they reached the salt sea, a 
 distance of ten or eleven days from the Valleys of the Dogs, 
 they got into a boat. Now, when the girl's father and mother 
 rose from their sleep, they looked in vain for their daughter 
 and the man who had been their guest. They ran round 
 the town searching for them, but could find no scent or trace 
 of them. So they hastened away, and, being accustomed to 
 recognise the trail which people leave as they walk, they went 
 straight on — husband, wife and children, little boys and girls 
 
 1 I will always be with you and attentive to your wants. 
 
64 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 all mounted on camels, until they arrived at the sea, having 
 
 covered the distance of twelve days in ten; then they got 
 down from their camels. And the father began to bark at his 
 daughter and to call to her saying in the jargon which they 
 talk : " Come back, daughter, and leave this treacherous man ; 
 return to your mother and your father and your brothers and 
 sisters." She replied: "You may wail or you may not wail, 
 but I will not return." So, finding themselves defeated, they 
 went back to their country, grieved on account of the girl, and 
 said : " Let her go away ; it is as though she were dead." And 
 the man took the girl with him, and went from steamboat to 
 train until he reached his town, Damanhiir of Bihera, and 
 went to his home ; and he put the girl in a house all to 
 herself, and drew up a contract with her, and married her. 
 And his other wife asked for her so that she might entertain 
 her at her house, but her husband feared for the girl lest she 
 poison her, and would not consent to let her go to her. So 
 she continued to pass her time in joy and happiness, and bare 
 him sons and daughters, and is living with him to this day. 
 And so ends the story of the Valley of Dogs, where the men 
 are dogs and the women are human. 
 
 XVII 
 
 The Syrian and Egyptian Merchants 
 
 There were two merchants, the one Syrian and the other 
 Egyptian, and they were partners, and used to visit all the 
 towns in company with one another ; and whether waking or 
 sleeping, or eating, or drinking, were, always together. And 
 when they had derived a profit from their commerce and 
 become rich, so that each one desired to take his share and 
 return to his country, the Syrian took the portion which fell 
 to him out of the business, profit, and capital, and took leave 
 of his companion, saying : " May our next meeting find you 
 prosperous ; " and they saluted one another and embraced one 
 another, and each wished the other a safe journey and a 
 prosperous return. Thus, sir, the Syrian departed and journeyed 
 to Syria, while the Egyptian returned to Cairo. And as soon 
 as the Syrian reached his village, he went to his home and 
 saluted his family and his neighbours, and settled down in 
 his house. But one night, as he lay awake on his side, with 
 his ear on the pillow, 1 he began to think of the commercial 
 
 1 Lit., on the lobe of his ear, implying that he was lying at 
 his ease. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 65 
 
 enterprises in which he had been engaged with the Egyptian 
 merchant and to go through his accounts, and he bethought 
 himself that there was still a maiyidi 1 to his credit against the 
 Egyptian merchant. " Great God, man ! " he said, " here's the 
 Egyptian merchant, who was your partner, owes you a maiyidi ! 
 Get up at once and hurry off to Cairo and demand it of him, 
 and never think of letting him keep it." He rose at once, and 
 started to journey from Syria for the express purpose of re- 
 covering the maiyidi which his partner owed him. But just 
 at the time that the Syrian was about to arrive in Cairo, that 
 is, as he was entering by the iron gate, the Egyptian was think- 
 ing within himself and saying : " Good God, man ! there's a 
 maiyidi to your debit in favour of your partner, the Syrian 
 merchant. My heart tells me that the man will perhaps come 
 from Syria to demand this maiyidi of me." And as he was 
 still pondering over the matter, the Syrian suddenly appeared 
 at the door of the house. He listened, and recognised his 
 voice, and said to his wife : "I want to speak to you, wife, 
 about a certain matter." "What is this matter about which 
 you want to speak to me, husband ? " said the wife ; " is it 
 something good, I wonder?" "Don't you know," he said, 
 "who this is knocking at the door?" "No," said she. "But 
 I recognise his voice," said he, " and know who it is ; it's the 
 Syrian merchant come to get the maiyidi which I owe him." 
 ''Shall we not open the door to him, then?" said she. "No," 
 said her husband, " wait till I have escaped by the roof." He 
 then quickly leaped down from the roof and ran away." 2 And 
 his wife opened the door to the Syrian, and asked him whom 
 he warited. " I want my partner, Mr. So-and-so," he said. 
 "But he's gone to the Hedjaz," 3 said she. "Very good," 
 he replied, " it's of no consequence, for my donkey, which I 
 have brought with me, has foaled on the way, and I must 
 build her a manger for herself and her young, so I'll wait 
 here in Cairo till he comes back." When seven days had 
 passed, the Egyptian found on reconnoitring that the Syrian 
 was still close at hand, so he said to his wife: "The best 
 thing is for me to pretend to be ill, and then pretend to be 
 
 1 Or meyidi, a very small coin, equal to about half a mite. 
 It is not now in use. 
 
 2 Lit., ran away and leaped down from the roof. This kind 
 of inversion is not uncommon in the language of the lower 
 classes. 
 
 3 I.e., on a pilgrimage to Mecca. 
 
 E 
 
66 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 dead ; and when I'm dead, they'll take me to the cemetery and 
 bury me, and what can he get from me when I'm buried?" 
 He practised this wile then and died ; and they took him and 
 buried him, and shut the door (of the vault) on him, and left 
 him and went away. jSow amongst the people who followed his 
 funeral was the Syrian merchant, and he was saying to himself : 
 •'What, man! will you come all the way from Syria, and put 
 yourself to this trouble, and forfeit all the money you've 
 spent? Better by far that you go when the night is well 
 advanced, and take from him your due." So in the third hour 
 of the night * the merchant went to the door of the vault, took 
 a knife from his pocket, and, sitting down by the side of the 
 dead man, said to him : " I will have my due though it be 
 from your flesh or a bit of your winding-sheet." The Egyptian 
 started, sat up in his winding-sheet, and threw it off from 
 him, saying : " What ! you come all the way from Syria for the 
 .sake of a single maiyidi?" "And you, Egyptian," said the 
 Syrian, " what did you mean by jumping from the roof of your 
 house and running away when you heard me knock at your 
 door, and telling your wife that you had gone to the Hedjaz ; 
 and why, when you found that I had the patience to remain 
 seven or eight days hanging about your house, were you 
 afraid to put yourself to any expense on my account? 2 All 
 the money that I have spent in food and drink I have spent 
 out of my own pocket, while you take yourself off over the roof 
 and then drop into your house again, and pretend to be ill, and 
 pretend to be dead, and let them bury you alive in the tomb, 
 all for the sake of the maiyidi. By God, I'll take a piece of 
 your winding-sheet if I can get nothing else, in place of my 
 maiyidi." " My brother," said the Egyptian, " I am neither 
 dead, nor is there anything the matter with me. Tell me now 
 what is your counsel ? " While they were talking in this way, 
 there was a band of robbers who had just been plundering a 
 safe full of treasure, and were perplexed where to find a place 
 in which to divide their booty. They searched in vain, till at 
 length, as they wandered about carrying it away with them, 
 they arrived at the cemetery where was the tomb of the 
 Egyptian. The robbers observed a candle burning in the tomb, 
 and one of them exclaimed : " Let us go down, my men, into 
 this lighted vault, and there divide the booty amongst our- 
 selves." So they went down — twenty or thirty of them — 
 
 1 I.e., three hours after sunset. 
 
 2 And showed me no hospitality. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 67 
 
 taking the treasure with them. Thereupon the Egyptian said 
 to the Syrian : u Now your chance has come ; let us both 
 pretend to be dead, and lie down in the vault whilst these 
 people come down, and see what they will do. Maybe some- 
 thing of what they have with them will fall to our lot." So 
 they both lay down, and the robbers descended to divide the 
 treasure amongst them ; but when the division had been made, 
 one of the band 1 remained without anything, not having re- 
 ceived his share of the money. Therefore, having with them 
 a silver-plated sword, equal in value to one share, they said to 
 the person who had not received any portion : " We are going 
 to give you this sword, So-and-so, 2 for your share." He con- 
 sented, but they then said to him : " Very good, fine fellow, we 
 will give you the sword for your share, but on condition that 
 you strike these two dead people lying together." "What! my 
 brothers," he said, " shall I strike them when they are dead ? 
 Would it not bring shame on us?" "What is that to you?" 
 said they ; " these are the conditions we make with you, and 
 if you don't strike them with the sword, we have no share for 
 you." "And why, pray, 3 should I be left without a share?" 
 he said; and, seizing the sword in his hand, rushed at the 
 two dead men to strike them, when suddenly the latter sprang 
 upon the robbers, driving them out of their senses with terror. 
 They fled, and left the money and left the sword, each one 
 running in a different direction. Then said the Egyptian to 
 the Syrian : "So you see, my brother, this is what God has 
 given us; the Lord has bestowed upon us good fortune in 
 abundance. It has come to us in substitution for others, and 
 it has come to us unlooked for." Well, as soon as the robbers 
 had turned and run away, the Egyptian sat down to divide 
 the money with the Syrian. They divided it into two parts, 
 each one taking half. " Take your portion," said the Egyptian 
 to the Syrian, " and go away to your country in safety, and I 
 will take my portion and go home to my house." " But, my 
 friend," replied the Syrian, "I want my maiyidi ; I will not 
 renounce my right." " Are you not contented, brother, with 
 all this wealth?" said the Egyptian. "Are you still looking 
 to get one maiyidi from me ? " As they were talking togethei- 
 in this way, they looked up and found one of the robbers 
 peering through the window of the vault. While he was still 
 
 1 Lit., one of their comrades. 
 
 2 Calling him by his name. 
 
 3 Masalan is used like par exemple in French. 
 
68 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 looking at them from this window, 1 the Egyptian sprang to his 
 r'eet and snatched from him the cap which he was wearing 
 on his head. The robber took fright and ran away, and the 
 Egyptian said to the Syrian : " Put the cap against your 
 maiyidi, and don't worry either me or yourself ; you have now 
 obtained your due, and I have obtained mine, and the Lord 
 has given us abundance of good fortune." And they took leave 
 of one another, and each returned to his home. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The Abyssinians and the Pyramids 
 
 People say of the Pyramids that at the end of time, when 
 the day of resurrection is at hand, the Abyssinians, because of 
 their great numbers — for they are as numerous as the ants — 
 will come with their kings and their wazirs and their armies 
 and all their belongings, with their women and children, and 
 will go straight to the Pyramids, and the Pyramids will 
 appear to their eyes as lumps of solid gold ; and they will 
 quarrel with one another on the sides of the Pyramids, and 
 assault and strike one another. And one will obtain a little 
 only and another much; and they will slay one another, and 
 will all disappear in a moment of time 2 as though they were 
 drowned in the sea, and their toil will be of no avail. 
 
 XIX 
 
 SABAH IL QURtJD WALA SABAH IL AGRUD 
 
 An agrud is a man who has no beard or moustache and 
 whose face is smooth and even like a woman's. And he who 
 meets such a man first thing in the morning feels annoyed 
 for the whole of the day. " God protect me from him,"' he 
 says. " Great God ! 3 to think that that evil-faced man should 
 have been the first to greet me with his loathsome ' good-morn- 
 ing ' ; that I should have met his face first thing on rising 
 and no other ! The Lord grant that the morning may pass oil 
 well this day, for I augur ill from the face of this hairless man. 
 
 1 Lit., hole, aperture. 
 
 2 Lit, in a draught of water, i.e. in the time it takes to 
 swallow a draught of water. 
 
 3 Lit., O Conqueror! O Knowing !— epithets applied to God. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 69 
 
 What can we do? Evil is ordained by destiny." As the 
 proverb says : The greeting of an ape 1 rather than the greeting 
 of a hairless man. 
 
 XX 
 
 The Gardener and the Lemons 
 
 There was a certain gardener who used to eat every day in 
 the morning forty native bezoar lemons 2 with their peel. One 
 day as he was walking in the street he was met by a magician. 
 Now the magician, as they say, holds in his hand a palm wand 
 made from the branch of the palm-tree. And on it is written 
 a spell. And they say that no sooner does he tap a person on 
 the head with this wand than that person — man, woman, or 
 child — follows behind him. Well, seeing the gardener walking 
 in the street, and noticing that he was a plump and fat man, 
 he straightway tapped him on the head with the wand, and 
 he started to follow him ; and the two proceeded together until 
 they entered the magician's house. Then the magician im- 
 prisoned him, locking the door on him j and then went off to 
 entrap somebody else. Presently the gardener, beginning to 
 feel the gnawings of hunger in his stomach, said to himself : 
 " Get up, man, and look for something to eat in this man's 
 house." Now he was not aware that the man was a magician, 
 and that there was poison stored in the house ; so when, in 
 the midst of his search, he found an earthen basin uncovered, 
 he raised the edge of it with his hand, and under it he dis- 
 covered a dish, and in the dish something of a yellowish colour 
 and dry. Seeing that it was yellow — of the colour of lentils 
 when bread is soaked in them — and being overcome with 
 hunger, he said to himself : " Since you're hungry, my boy, 
 here's this lentil broth which you've found before you ; eat of 
 it until you're satisfied ; or eat it all, if you can manage it, 
 and be hanged to it. 3 What can he do to you 1 If he comes 
 
 1 The plural is used in the original to rhyme with agrud. 
 
 2 The lamiin baladi, as distinguished from the lamun hindi 
 and the lamfui hilw, is supposed to be an antidote against 
 poison and to have general restorative powers. The Arabic 
 banzaher and the English be?:oar are corruptions of the Persian 
 word badzahr, which is composed of bad (wind) and zahr (poison), 
 and so means that which blows away or dispels poison. 
 
 3 Alf sana is used in the same way, meaning " the devil I 
 care ! " And so alf sana 'aleh ! u so much the worse for him ! " 
 
70 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 looking for it and asks me about it I'll tell him I ate it out of 
 hunger." So he sat down and ate it all up and enjoyed it. 
 And at that moment the magician returned, and opened the 
 door, and went in with the men, women, and children whom 
 he had entrapped from outside, made them sit down some- 
 where, and shut them in. Then he said to himself: " Before 
 you get to work, my boy, have a look at the stuff which you 
 are storing," and went to look for the dish under the earthen 
 basin. But he found nothing in it; it was just as if it had 
 been washed out with water. He called to the gardener and 
 said to him, "Come here, man." "Yes," said he, "do you 
 want anything ? " " Where's the dish 1 " said (the magician). 
 " Indeed, sir, I ate it because of my hunger," replied (the 
 gardener). " How can you have eaten it, man ? It's a thing 
 that kills. How can you have eaten it?" "It hasn't killed 
 me," said the gardener. " Why, I found it delicious, and 
 thought it was lentil broth, so I ate it." " And what, pray, 
 was your original calling ? " " From my youth upwards till 
 now," said the man, "I have been a gardener, and every day, 
 sir — and this is the truth — I breakfast on forty bezoar lemons." 
 "You're a clever fellow," said the magician, "and you have 
 saved your life. I have been continually storing up all this 
 time (I don't know) how many months, or rather how many 
 years, I have taken to collect what you have now consumed 
 in one hour. Come, good fellow, depart in safety and go to 
 your business. God make smooth your path. You have 
 saved your life." Then said the magician to himself : "W^hat 
 are you going to stay to do in this town now that all your 
 years' hoardings have gone in one second? It were better 
 that you go home to your own country." So he set free the 
 people whom he had brought, and told them too to go about 
 their business. And he departed and went to his own country. 
 And the gardener, when he returned to his village, told this 
 story to all his compatriots, and one person repeated it to 
 another till everybody got to know about it. And little children 
 continue to talk of it since the time of the Khedive Ismail 
 Pasha. 
 
 And they say that when the magician catches the people, 
 and brings them into his house, and shuts (the door) on them, 
 he has already prepared a large copper cauldron holding two 
 goatskins of water, and lighted the fire underneath it ; and he 
 brings the people, and hangs them up by their feet, leaving their 
 feet upmost, that is, with their heads dow r n in the cauldron ; and 
 they say that whilst he hangs them in this way, the intense heat 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 71 
 
 of the fire causes the human 1 poison to descend from the nails 
 of the feet to the hair of the head (and drop) into the cauldron. 
 And when one person has been drained, he takes him away 
 and brings another, and hangs him up in his place. And they 
 say that the magician carries away to his Sultan this poison, 
 which he distils from human bodies j and it is at the Sultan's 
 command that he comes to Cairo and collects it. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Conjuring Dervishes 
 
 There are certain dervishes who 2 will take hold of a sword 
 with their hands at the two ends, and saying, " In the name 
 of God, God is very great," will straightway strike themselves 
 with it on the stomach or on the shoulder. And their Caliph 
 will place a dervish on the right and another on the left ; and 
 the man who has the sword in his hands will lie down on the 
 ground and place the sword on his stomach, and the Caliph will 
 come and press with both his hands, and (then) put his two 
 hands, one on the shoulder of each of the dervishes, and stand 
 with his two feet on the back of the sword and press with them 
 to the utmost extent of his force, till the sword is buried in the 
 man's stomach. The latter will then get up, and the people 
 will look and find that no blood has flowed from his body nor 
 anything happened to him ; and, immediately the Caliph draws 
 out the sword with his hand, he wets his finger with saliva from 
 his mouth and passes it over the stomach of the dervish where 
 the sword was. And the little children will put an iron spike 
 in their mouth and pass it through both cheeks, and fix a lemon 
 on each end of the spike. And the children of some of the 
 dervishes will take the glass bowl or cup of an oil lamp in their 
 hands, and straightway bite it with their teeth and swallow 
 it down into their stomach. And of other sects, full-grown, 
 bearded men will hold a snake in both hands, and then bite 
 it and crunch it in their mouths — flesh, bones, and all — and 
 swallow it down without leaving a trace of it. Others will take 
 a bit of live coal, a burning ember red-hot throughout, and 
 swallow it right away. 
 
 1 Lit., the poison descends from the human beings on 
 account of the intense heat from, &c. 
 
 2 Lit., there are people among the dervishes, one of them 
 {i.e. who). 
 
72 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 XXII 
 
 The Fellaheen and their Daughters 
 
 If the fellaheen see one of their daughters talking to a young 
 man, who, like herself, has arrived at the age of maturity, they 
 warn her, both her father and her mother, saying to her : 
 " For shame, girl ; don't walk with So-and-so's son." And if, 
 after warning her, they see her walking again with him, or 
 some one else, her father, if he be a fellah of Upper Egypt, will 
 say to her : " Daughter of a buried father, 1 if I have told you 
 once I have told you two or three times not to walk with that 
 son of people underground. 1 Why don't you hear what I say 1 
 You had better take care and go away home." The girl takes 
 herself off and goes to her father's house, and her mother says 
 to her : " Where have you been, my girl % n "I was fetching 
 water from the river," she says, " in the pitcher, and father saw 
 me and ran after me and beat me, and told me to go home, 
 and I took the pitcher and ran home in haste." Her mother 
 says to her : " I told you, lass, not to go and fill your pitcher 
 or anything else from, the river. Since you don't listen to what 
 I say, your father will kill you ; he'll not let you escape. You'll 
 see, my girl, that, as he minds, so it'll be." At length, when 
 the man had caught the girl three, four, or five times, he grew 
 very angry with her, and said to her : u I keep talking to you, 
 girl, but you won't listen to what I say. I will do with you so 
 that the crows and kites 2 will not find the scent of you. I'll 
 leave no trace of you on the surface of the earth." But the girl 
 ventured again to leave the house, and walked with the youth 
 with whom she had been going about. Her father saw her, and 
 said to her : "So you are still going about with this lad, while 
 I'm looking for you east and west 3 without finding you till just 
 
 1 These are insulting expressions used only in Upper Egypt. 
 Manbush and medaffis are practically identical in meaning, 
 nabash and daflis signifying " to dig in the ground." A father 
 will call his own child the son or daughter of a dog, and worse 
 than that. 
 
 2 Tiyiir is used mostly of the larger birds, and perhaps in 
 particular of the above, but the singular tera is sometimes used 
 of a fly or flies, the original sense of the word being maintained. 
 
 3 We should say right and left. The Arabs generally de- 
 scribe the position of objects by' the points of the compass, which 
 are always known to them on account of their turning to the 
 east at prayer. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 73 
 
 this moment, when I caught sight of you." Now the man had 
 a pickaxe with which he was hoeing in the field, and he said 
 to the girl : M Wait for me here ; I want to- go home with you." 
 The unfortunate girl did not understand ; and, the term of her 
 life being accomplished, sat waiting in the field until her father 
 returned with the pickaxe, which he put on his shoulder ; and 
 then, taking the girl by the hand, walked away towards the 
 desert, until he reached the foot of a high hill. There he dug 
 a hole with the axe, and brought the girl to it, and killed her 
 with a blow of the axe, and buried her under the hill in the 
 hole he had dug ; and after he had thrown her in and filled up 
 the earth over her, 1 he went away to his house. And when he 
 came there the girl's mother questioned him, saying : " It is 
 now night, son of (So-and-so),- and the girl hasn't come back 
 since she went to take you the bread in the field." " Look 
 here, woman," he replied, " what are you going to talk and fuss 
 and clamour for? If you're not going to keep this story of the 
 girl secret, I shall go away and leave the village and everything 
 in it." " That's very well," said she, " but why should you be 
 annoyed because I'm annoyed about the girl?" " Well," said 
 he, " I'll tell you all in one word, and don't you talk or let out 
 on me or anything. I saw the girl with the lad five, six, or 
 seven times, and walking with him, and I said to her, ' Come 
 away, girl, don't run about with that boy,' but she didn't listen 
 to me ; and so at last, when I couldn't get the better of her, I 
 took her in my hand to the desert and struck her with the 
 pickaxe, and dug her a hole and threw her in, clothes and all, 
 and then came along home. Now, I've told you all about her, 
 and you must see what you had best do." " And how could you 
 strike her and kill her, Abu 'ammu?" she said. " I struck her," 
 he repeated, " and killed her with the axe ; yes, I slaughtered 
 her, and she has gone to her account. Consider now what you 
 will do." "And how can I restrain my anger," she said, " on 
 account of my daughter?" "Be angry or not, woman, as it 
 pleases you," said he. Thereupon the woman shrieked and 
 shouted in her grief for her daughter. And at that moment the 
 night patrol happened to be in the village, and heard her cries ; 
 
 1 § 589. 
 
 2 Among the lower classes at least a woman will call her 
 husband by his father's name with ibn prefixed, or by one ot 
 the children's names with abu prefixed. Similarly, the husband 
 may call his wife binte 'ali, or umme Mehammad, or whatever 
 the name of her father or child may be. 
 
74 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 and, just as the man was about to deal her a death blow in his 
 wrath at her denouncing him by her weeping and wailing, and 
 was looking around for a knife, the men of the patrol sprang 
 upon him, and seized him and pinioned him, binding his arms 
 behind his shoulders with a rope of hemp (which they so harden 
 with pitch that you would take it for iron), and put iron fetters 
 on his feet ; and two men dragged him along, one on the right 
 and one on the left. And so, keeping the culprit between 
 them, his wife following behind, they took him away to the seat 
 of the government, and handed him over to the police of the 
 province. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 The Woman and her Cow 
 
 There used to be a story in the villages about a woman who 
 had a young cow. This cow the she/eh il balad, 1 demanded from 
 her in order that he might work it without payment in the 
 plough or on the thrashing-floor. 2 The woman was alarmed on 
 account of her cow, and said to the sheikh : " I cannot give her 
 to you. She is the means of my livelihood and the livelihood 
 of my children, and they are orphans and are dependent on me.' 7 
 But the shekh il balad would not hearken to her, and called 
 upon her to pay the government taxes. And when she said, 
 " I have no means," he took the cow from her by force, sent for 
 a butcher, and caused him to slaughter it. Then he cut it up into 
 pieces, and sent for thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty people of the 
 village, whatever was the number of the pieces ; and each one 
 received a piece at the price of a dollar — say, sixty pieces for 
 sixty dollars ; and the sheikh took the money and put it in his 
 pocket. Then the woman said to him, weeping : " I want the 
 price of my cow, or my cow herself, and she is worth a hundred 
 and twenty dollars." But the sheikh replied : " I have nothing 
 of yours; go and make your complaint where you will." So she 
 went to the governor of the province and complained to him of 
 the shGkh il balad, saying : " Your Excellency the Governor, 
 the sheikh of the village of So-and-so, which is my village, de- 
 manded of me the taxes on the land ; and I said to him, ' I am 
 the mother of orphan children, and I have no money now; 
 (have patience) till some falls to my lot.' But he replied : ' It 
 
 1 The sheikh of the village was formerly next in importance 
 to the nazir or ma'milr of the district. 
 
 2 The thrashing-floors are in the open air in Egypt. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 75 
 
 is impossible ; I cannot be behindhand in (the payment of) 
 government money.' So he used tyranny with me, and wrested 
 my cow from me by force, and sent for the butcher and 
 slaughtered her, and cut her up into pieces, sixty pieces, and 
 each piece (he sold) for a dollar." "And how much was your 
 cow worth, lady?" said the Governor. "A hundred and 
 twenty dollars, your Excellency," said she. The Governor sent 
 for the shekh il balad, and called the woman, and the persons 
 who had bought the pieces of the cow's flesh, and the butcher 
 himself who slaughtered the cow ; and when the people were 
 collected, he ordered the sheikhs of all the villages to assemble, 
 and sent for the kadi of the province, and said to him : " What, 
 your Excellency the kadi, is it lawful that we should do with 
 this man after the manner in which he has wronged this woman 
 in (the matter of) her cow ? " The kadi said to the governor : 
 " The butcher must deal with this man as he dealt with the 
 woman's cow ; that is to say, the butcher must slaughter him 
 and divide him into pieces, and distribute the pieces amongst 
 the sixty persons who took the pieces of the cow, each, piece at 
 two dollars, that is in all sixty dollars, the price of the cow for 
 which the woman has demanded judgment ; this by order of the 
 kadi and by order of the Governor." So the executioners came 
 and bound the arms of the shekh il balad behind his back, and 
 threw him on the ground ; and the butcher slaughtered him ; 
 and they cut him in pieces and divided him among the sixty 
 persons, each piece at the price of two dollars ; and the Governor 
 ordered the butcher to receive the man's head as his wages, 
 just as he had received the head of the cow as his reward for 
 slaughtering it. And the woman took the money, the price of 
 the cow, from the hand of the Governor, and blessed both the 
 kadi and the Governor for having avenged her of the man. 
 
 xxiy 
 
 The Girl and the Treasure 
 
 There was once a girl, a maiden of ten or twelve years, who 
 had a stepmother. And her stepmother was always sending 
 her to wander about the desert and to pick up rubbish and chips 
 of wood (to light a fire) for baking and cooking. And one day, 
 as the girl was walking along, she found a window opened, like 
 a hole in the ground, and she saw that it shone as the colour 
 of silver. She descended and filled her basket to the brim, put 
 it on her head, and took it home to her father's house and gave 
 it to her stepmother, saying : " Take this, stepmother." The 
 
 I 
 
76 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 woman looked at the basket and saw that there was money 
 in it. "Where did you get this from, girl?" she asked. "I 
 brought it from the desert, mother," she said ; " I found a hole, 
 as I was going round gleaning, and I filled the basket and came 
 away." " But go again and bring some more," said the woman, 
 " and I'll give you a nice dinner." The poor girl took the 
 basket and went back again, because of her stepmother's desire 
 of the vanities of the world, and began filling her basket from 
 the treasure. But the first time was the only one for her, for 
 the allotted term of her life was accomplished. The opening 
 where the treasure was closed in upon her, and the girl, though 
 still alive, was perishing of thirst. At that moment her father 
 had gone home to his house and asked his wife about his 
 daughter, saying, " Where is the girl So-and-so ? " She replied 
 that this and that had happened, and that this was the first 
 time, and that she had sent her to bring some more. The 
 man was vexed on account of his child, and asked his wife in 
 what direction she had gone ; and she told him in such and such 
 <i direction. And when he went to search for the girl in the 
 place of which his wife told him, he heard the voice of some' 
 one crying, and found it to be his child's, and perceived that 
 she was crying under the ground. He called, " My child 
 (So-and-so);" and she answered, saying two or three times: 
 ' ; Father, I'm thirsty, bring me some water." He dug down 
 towards her to a depth equal to the height of two or three men, 
 but could not reach her, and only heard the voice far off in the 
 distance. So he said to her : " I have no power to help ; this 
 is a judgment which God has pronounced against you, and your 
 fate has allotted to you just so much as you had of life on the 
 earth." And he left his consolation to God and said : " God 
 remit your sins, and pardon you." And afterwards he built 
 a fountain over her, and every day he fills the pitchers of the 
 passers-by that they may drink from it. 
 
 XXV 
 
 The Advantages of Tattooing 
 
 There is a kind of tattooing which people practise on their 
 arms. If a young man is in love with a girl, he gets a fiqi 1 or 
 
 1 The fiqi, or, in the literary form, faqih, was originally a 
 person well versed in the religious law, but is now applied to 
 a teacher in a kuttab or elementary school, or to any one who 
 can recite the Koran. The " h " returns in the plural— fuqaha. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 77 
 
 a woman to write her name on his arm. For instance, he sends 
 for a gipsy woman, and says to her : " Tattoo my arm with this 
 name," and she tattooes it for him. And these women will go 
 through some of the quarters (of the town) crying out : " We 
 manifest and divine well ; we tattoo well ; we arrange the shells 
 well in rows ; J let him who is strong tattoo himself, or look 
 into the future, or learn his fortune." And some of the re- 
 spectable women in the villages of the fellaheen tattoo their 
 chin with three lines and a dot, or their forehead with three 
 dots, as an ornament, so that they may look charming and 
 please their husbands, who perchance will love them all the 
 more for the tattooing. And an unmarried girl will tattoo her 
 left arm with a wheel, in the form of the circumference of the 
 cog-wheel of the saqya, 2 and her forehead too ; and then with 
 the tattoo marks on her arm under the wrist, and wearing a 
 couple of silver bracelets, and jewellery on her neck, and rings 
 in her ears, and a black gown over a white gallabiya — all these 
 tilings give her a charming appearance. They tattoo a man's 
 breast also on account of his having inhaled certain fumes. 
 There was a man who was seized with an ailment which caused 
 him to be very thirsty and to drink an inordinate quantity of 
 water ; and he was eating three times as much as usual, but the 
 food didn't assimilate or have any good effect. So he took 
 counsel with himself, and said : "I had better ask some one 
 advanced in years," and went and consulted a man of about 
 seventy. "O uncle of So-and-so," 3 he said, "I have been 
 taken ill in such and such a way." 4 The man said to him : 
 "Perhaps, my son, you stood one day 5 warming yourself over 
 a stove, and found the heat pleasant, being cold when you first 
 came to stand there ; and perhaps the cause of your ailment is 
 that a woman had previously placed some frying-pans with fish 
 in them on the stove ; and you, through want of proper attention, 
 not having realised that the fish had been placed on the stove, 
 
 1 They throw down the shells, and tell the fortunes from the 
 manner in which they chance to lie. 
 
 2 The saqya is the vertical wheel which raises the water in 
 earthen pots, and to it is fixed the horizontal cog-wheel turned 
 by a cow or buffalo. 
 
 3 A man will often be addressed as the uncle of some one 
 else instead of by his own name, just as a father may be 
 addressed as the father of his son. 
 
 4 Describing the nature of his ailment. 
 
 5 § 443 n. 
 
78 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 allowed the fumes of the fish to rise on to you from the stove, 
 and that's what made you ill. Or perhaps you were thirsty, 
 and, being lazy, slept with your thirst on you, knowing that you 
 were thirsty, but sleep getting the better of you on account of 
 the heaviness of your head, and this thirst is the cause of your 
 illness. So the best thing is for you to go to a gipsy woman and 
 let her tattoo you on the breast." And he went and had him- 
 self tattooed as the man bade him, and then got well. 
 
 XXYI 
 
 Lunatics or Saints? 
 
 There are people who walk in the street and chatter to 
 themselves, thinking perhaps of the worship of God, and 
 absorbed therein, and some of them wearing old tattered or 
 patched clothes, and others going naked ; and they call them 
 maniacs, or lunatics, or saints. And it is the custom of a 
 saint not to take money or accept anything from anybody ; 
 and if they do take anything, as money or clothes, they dis- 
 tribute them amongst the poor people ; or if they eat and drink, 
 they live on a portion of the money they get and distribute 
 the rest. But nobody can discover what they eat and drink, 
 or whether they sleep or not. Only our Lord knows about 
 them. And people go and visit them if they are living ; x and 
 some people sit down before them, and whilst one is thinking 
 of a matter inwardly without communicating it to them by 
 speech, they will tell him if there is any good in it ; and if 
 there is not, they will say : " There will be no good result from 
 this," or " Do not walk in this road, or go on this expedition, 
 or go to this village, or in this direction." 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The Fiqi and his Admirers 
 
 One night there was a recitation of the Koran on the occa- 
 sion of a wedding, and at the same time the ceremony of the 
 circumcision of a boy ; and there was a fiqi reciting, who had a 
 beautiful voice ; indeed, he had a great reputation as a reader. 
 
 1 If they are dead they may visit their tombs and make 
 votive offerings, deceased saints being popularly regarded as 
 capable of interceding with the Deity. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 79 
 
 And there was a crowd collected, sitting and listening to him, 
 and suddenly some one sprang up and said : " God bless me ! 
 what a beautiful voice that young man who is reciting has." 
 Thereupon his father, who happened to be present, went and 
 slapped the boy on the cheek. The boy began to cry, and the 
 people, hearing him, ran up and said to the father: "What's 
 that for, fellow ? Shame on you ! Why did you strike the 
 boy ? " " The arrow has passed," he said, " and praise be to God 
 that all has thus ended well." And the reason why the fiqi's 
 father struck him in this way was that he was anxious for him 
 on account of the evil eye, lest he be envied, but by reason of 
 the blow nothing happened to him but what was good ! 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 A Charm against the Evil Eye 
 
 When a young child is taken ill his family say that perhaps 
 some man or some woman, whom they mention by name, has 
 cast the eye of envy upon him ; and they get a little salt and 
 let it crackle (in the fire) in front of him ; or they may get a 
 rag from a bit of some old garment, cut it up with a pair of 
 scissors, and, without anybody seeing them, fumigate the child 
 with it ; that is to say, they burn it on the fire with the salt 
 and a bit of crystallised alum from the druggist, and let it 
 smoke, so that the child may smell it, and as soon as they have 
 fumigated him with this charm he recovers. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Effects of the Evil Eye 
 
 If there is a zir 1 in an Arab's house full of water or some- 
 thing else, and it happens to fall off its stand and tumble on 
 the ground, the woman of the house becomes worried and fright- 
 ened, and her heart beats, and she exclaims : " What's going to 
 happen, I wonder, in the house?" But afterwards, perhaps, 
 she says to herself : " Why should you worry yourself, girl ? 
 Perhaps some misfortune or other was about to happen on 
 account of some noxious glance or envy on the part of some 
 man or woman, somebody having come into your house and 
 
 1 A large earthen filter. 
 
80 KEY TO EXERCISES IX 
 
 seen the bed and (sleeping) place prepared, and perhaps when he 
 came in he sighed without saying ma sha' alia; 1 and this is 
 the reason why this has happened, and God be praised it has 
 ended thus." 2 
 
 XXX 
 
 Charms and Talismans 
 
 If the child is a boy of three, five, or six years, and some 
 one wants to draw a picture for him and burn it (as a charm) 
 against the evil eye, he gets a bit of paper and a needle or a pin, 
 and holding the paper in his hand cuts it out in the shape of 
 a man, and pierces it with the needle, saying as he does so : 
 "This for the eye of So-and-so and So-and-so," naming the 
 people, men or women, who he supposes have cast the eye of 
 envy on his son or daughter. And after he has pierced the 
 paper through and through, he takes a match^ and holding the 
 paper in his hand and pointing it towards the child in front of 
 his face, lights it and lets the wind blow it away (as it burns), 
 and the child gets rid of the evil eye. Or they take a bit of 
 (the child's) clothing ; for instance, if it is a girl, they take her 
 handkerchief from her head, if she has perspired in it since she 
 was ill ; or if it is a boy, they take the cap in which he has 
 perspired, and carry it to one of the fiqis who knows how to 
 measure it, and knows how to write talismans for children. 
 And when the fiqi measures the bit of clothing, he understands 
 the malady from which the child is suffering, and opens his 
 book and calculates the stars, and writes the talisman in accord- 
 ance with the child's star, namely, a verse of the holy Koran. 
 And the child's mother takes the talisman from the fiqi with 
 his free consent and in faith (on her part), 3 and gets it bound 
 in a bit of red, yellow, or green morocco leather — no matter 
 which — for the price of a small or a big piastre, and she then 
 hangs it round the child's neck with a piece of tape or ribbon, 
 passing it under his left arm. And as soon as the child re- 
 covers by virtue of the talisman, the woman takes the fiqi his 
 reward according to the arrangement between them. 
 
 1 Commonly pronounced ma shalla. By saying " God's will 
 be done," a person is supposed to avert the evil eye. 
 
 2 I.e., that nothing worse has happened. 
 
 3 That is, believing in its efficacy. Otherwise, 
 likely to produce the desired effect. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 81 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Turning aside the Evil Eye 
 
 Here, in Cairo, when any one is taking into his house a water- 
 melon, or a couple of pounds of meat which he has bought for 
 his children, some man or woman of the class of jealous people 
 whose eyes affect and influence 1 others will say : " Bless me ! 
 that man's buying things and carrying them into his house 
 every hour. What a good profit such a person must be making ! 
 — either in some good post in the service of Europeans or in 
 the mansions of some Turkish Pasha." And perhaps at the 
 moment at which such people are sitting and talking and 
 gossiping in this way, the man will give the thing to his wife, 
 and she will get a little hibiscus and some mallows, and cut up 
 her morsel of meat, and slice her a couple of onions, and put 
 her atom of butter into the pot ; and directly she has thrown 
 it all in, 2 whilst she is standing in front of the pot, she will 
 suddenly look and see the pot jump of itself from off the stove, 
 and upset on the ground without any one giving it a push or 
 coming near it. And at the moment the pot has upset, her 
 husband, who had gone out, will come back from his work, and 
 she will say to him : " Don't be angry, father of So-and-so ; 3 
 we've spent ten or twelve tariff piastres on the pot, but the 
 arrow has passed into it, and it has upset of itself." And he 
 will say to her : " As I was coming in by the door of the house 
 the woman So-and-so saw me ; but God be praised that it has 
 turned aside into the food, and (the pot) has upset, (the dart of) 
 their eyes passing with it." And if anybody, whether a man or 
 woman, sees a person as he is coming in with a water-melon, 
 or anything else which he has bought for dinner, and he sees 
 them too, he thinks they may be people with a jealous eye, and 
 says : " Would that I hadn't seen them or they seen me ; per- 
 haps, man, as they have seen you, the water-melon will fall and 
 split of itself, and you won't either eat or drink of it." And if 
 the melon doesn't split, perhaps he will quarrel with his wife or 
 his children ; and when the quarrel happens, or after he has got 
 it over and recovers himself, he says : " No doubt, So-and-so, 4 
 
 1 Lit., roam over. For betishrah read betisrah. 
 
 2 II hittiten = all this little lot. 
 
 3 See XXII. n. 
 
 4 Addressing his wife. 
 
82 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 we have had this angry mood on account of the glance of So- 
 and-so, who saw me as I was coming in with the water-melon." 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Why it is Good to Keep Pigeons 
 
 The presence of pigeons in a house is a protection for the 
 children, for the children of the evil jinn will not enter a house 
 where there are pigeons; and the reason of this, they say, is 
 that the pigeons commemorate our Lord and proclaim the unity 
 of God, and cry "Ya Rauf." 1 Those which cry " Ya Ra'uf " 
 are the white Greek pigeons with feathers on their feet and a 
 tuft of feathers on their head. And those who say " Allah ! 
 Allah " are the black Yemen pigeons, smaller than the Greek 
 and delicately made. The native pigeon commemorates God, 
 but the two other kinds commemorate Him more than the 
 native one. The latter is white, or rather of a mixed brown 2 
 and white colour and spotted all over. There are native fowls 
 too, and among them the cock with ten claws on his feet and 
 white all over. He too, they say, is a protection for the house, 
 and the house in which he lives remains blessed and prosperous ; 
 and when he begins to crow at the time of morning prayer, 
 the cock which sits on the throne 3 hears him and calls to prayer 
 after him. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Why Dogs Should not be Ill-Treated 
 
 When a mangy dog comes to any one's house he should not 
 beat it or ill-treat it. It is far better to give it a piece of 
 bread, and send it away gently ; for the dog may be one of our 
 brothers, the jinn, who wander either in the day or at night in 
 the form of dogs and cats. And if a woman or a man gets a 
 stick and beats them, she or he may become possessed, the jinn 
 entering their arm or leg, or in the case of the woman, the whole 
 of her body, and then they are taken ill. 
 
 1 merciful (God). 
 
 2 Ahmar may be used of a brown colour verging on red. 
 
 3 A throne in heaven or in one of the seven heavens. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 83 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 How Persons become Possessed of Devils and 
 How they Get Rid of Them 
 
 If a person knocks on the ground with his foot or anything 
 else whilst he is bathing in the bath, and one of the jinn happens 
 to be at that moment in the place where he knocks, he becomes 
 immediately possessed, and gets ill in body on account of the 
 jinn possessing him ; nor does he recover until he visits one of 
 the sheikhs ; for by constant visits to the sheikhs he may be 
 able to throw off the illness. But there is also a learned class of 
 fiqi who are thoroughly versed in writing, and these are able to 
 write a talisman for him to carry on him ; and possibly, on 
 account of his wearing this talisman, God will take him by the 
 hand and heal him, and the spirit will depart from him. And 
 the women too — if one of them, for instance, has gone to bed, 
 annoyed with her husband because he has married another wife 
 over her, or one of her children or relations has died, and she 
 wakes up with a start from her sleep and takes some water with 
 which she has washed her face or her hands or her feet, and 
 throws it away in the latrine l without saying " with permis- 
 sion," the spirit or the jinn takes possession of her ; and when 
 her family perceive that she is possessed, they take her to visit 
 the sheikhs, and she continues to visit the one from whose 
 attendance she gets relief until the devil departs from her. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Haunted Houses 
 
 The abode of the jinn is in the baths or the latrines or 
 deserted places where nobody lives, or in the hills and caverns 
 of the desert ; and some of them are red and others black. And 
 
 1 The jinn are believed " to choose as their principal places 
 of resort, or of occasional abode, baths, wells, the latrina, ovens, 
 ruined houses, market-places, the juncture of roads, the sea, and 
 rivers. The Arabs, therefore, when they pour water, &c. on 
 the ground, or enter a bath, or let down a bucket into a well, 
 or visit the latrina, say, ' Permission ! ' or ' Permission, ye 
 blessed ! ' (Destoor ! or, Destoor ya mubarakeen !)." — Lane, 
 " Arabian Nights," Notes to the Introduction. 
 
84 KEY TO EXERCISES JN 
 
 a person may be sleeping alone, as, for instance, a bachelor, or a 
 widow if it's a woman, in a deserted house which he or she has 
 hired, and because it is deserted and unoccupied by human 
 beings the jinn have made their habitation there. And such a 
 person may hire the house and move his furniture in without 
 knowing that it is haunted, and perhaps the very first night that 
 he sleeps there he may, since he has no children or wife with 
 him, suddenly hear a knocking in the house as he is lying in the 
 dark, and will spring up in alarm from his sleep and light a lamp 
 or a candle ; and as soon as he has lighted the lamp, he will 
 hear no more knocking or anything else. But if he puts it out 
 and lies down again, he will perhaps find the knocking has 
 begun a second time ; then he will get up and relight the lamp, 
 and sit up the whole of the night without getting a wink of 
 sleep, until at last the day dawns and he escapes without harm. 
 But if he does not strike a light, perhaps one of the jinn will 
 appear to him in the shape of a dog, or a cat, or a lion, or a 
 hyena, or a hare, or any wild beast. Indeed, they are able to 
 appear to people in the form of any kind of animal, or in that 
 of a human being. And as -soon as they appear to any one, they 
 run against his hand or foot, so that he wakes with a start. 
 And then, if he knows how to recite, he will perhaps get up and 
 perform ablutions, and say a short prayer, 1 and recite the Sama- 
 diya 2 thrice over and the Ayit il Kurd once, and go to sleep ; 
 and if there were any of the jinn inhabiting the house they will 
 all run away. But before one goes into a latrine or a deserted 
 house, he should say : "I take refuge with God from Satan the 
 stoned," 3 and when he has entered he will be protected from 
 everything, because he has taken refuge with God from Satan 
 and all the jinn, and come out again safe and sound, without 
 anything having happened to him. And in the month of 
 Ramadan, by reason of the fast and the calls to prayer from the 
 Minarets, and the constant reading of the Koran in the houses, 
 and the continual recitations in the mosques, — by reason of all 
 this, and the giving of alms also, the jinn are kept imprisoned, 
 from the first of Ramadan to the end — until the Minor Feast. 4 
 
 1 Lit., a couple of prostrations. 
 
 2 I.e., the 112th chapter of the Koran, named the Ikhlds, 
 declaring the unity and eternity of God. 
 
 3 An epithet of Satan in the Koran. 
 
 4 As distinguished from " il l ld il kebir," which takes place 
 after the pilgrimage. 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 85 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 The Marid 
 
 If a person wanders in the desert by himself among the 
 country villages in the direction of Giza or the Pyramids, or 
 in other lonely spots, where Bedouin robbers are always lurking 
 in the hope of finding some one unaccompanied and seizing him, 
 and with him perhaps an ass or a she-ass, or a foal, or a full- 
 grown or young camel, and some of these men meet him and 
 find with him one of these animals, or some money or clothing, 
 they take it from him and kill him ; nor do they listen to him 
 when he says to them : " Have mercy and let me go, since you 
 have taken what belonged to me," unless, perhaps, his is a long 
 life. If his life is a short one, 1 they will say to him : " Why 
 should we let you go, man ? You'll perhaps go and tell tales to 
 the police, or babble to the people of your village, and then 
 the police will get news and come and seize us and take us 
 to the station, and send us away to the White Nile, or put us 
 in the convict prison of Giza or Tura. It is far the best that 
 we should leave no trace of you." And then they slaughter 
 him and bury him, and fill in the ground over him and leave 
 him. Now, when they leave him, he remains for a day or 
 three days, or four or ten, whatever it may be, and then turns 
 into an afreet, taking the form of a donkey, or a hare, or a cat, 
 or a dog, or a wolf, or a hyena, or a tiger, or a lion, or a monkey, 
 or an ape, or, in short, of the form of anything whatever. And 
 if someone be walking alone in the desert, and the afreet has 
 taken the shape of a donkey, not knowing that it's an afreet, 
 lie gets on his back and says to himself : " Anyhow, this donkey 
 will take me as far as my village." And when the man is on 
 his back the height of the donkey is at first a metre only ; then 
 the rider suddenly finds that it has risen to three or four metres. 
 And if he has a knife with him, and takes it out of his pocket 
 and draws the blade from its sheath, the afreet will say, on 
 seeing him take it from his pocket, since afreets have a fear of 
 weapons as well as of fire : "Be so good as not to strike me, 
 and I will take you as far as your house." And then from 
 being four metres high he will become one only, and will 
 convey the man to his house, and afterwards skip about like 
 a real donkey and say : "If it had not been for this weapon, 
 my man, I would have led you astray and made sport of you." 
 
 1 If he is not destined to live long. 
 
86 KEY TO EXERCISES IN 
 
 And another day, when that man or any other is walking in 
 the desert with a loaded gun, and the same afreet appears to 
 him in the form of a hyena or a wolf, and he shoots him with 
 his gun, he becomes an afreet called a mdrid, of a height of ten 
 or twelve metres. And if one can recite over him the verses 
 of the Kursi or the Samadiya, the marid thereupon immediately 
 packs himself off and goes his way. Now, the marid is unable 
 to move from his place in the same way as when he was an 
 afreet, and they say that if one fires a shot or two at him and 
 hits him he turns into an old slipper. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Howling Dogs 
 
 If a dog stands and howls in front of a street or a house 
 where people are living, those who hear him say : " What's the 
 matter with you that you are howling? What's going to 
 happen, pray ? " and to themselves they say : " Perhaps some 
 one is about to die in this quarter here, or in the house in 
 front of which he is standing." 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Mischievous Afreets 
 
 When the schoolboys come out (of school) to go home to their 
 houses, whether in Cairo or the villages, the little children of 
 the jinn of the evil class will be waiting for them directly 
 they come out of the door, but in an invisible form, so that 
 they see the schoolboys as they come out without the boys 
 seeing they ; and they try to trip them up, but the schoolboys 
 tread them under foot and kill them. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 The Spirits of the Deceased 
 
 When a person has died and been buried he will perhaps 
 become visible the same night to the people of the house in 
 which he died, and appear before them because his spirit is still 
 present in the house. And his family will bring two figis, or 
 one only, to recite the Koran ; and they may see him in the 
 course of the three nights in their sleep, and after three nights 
 they will not see him, either in reality or in vision, so then 
 the fiqis take their pay and go away. But this notion which 
 people have in saying that there is a ghost in the house 
 
SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 87 
 
 comes merely from the talk of women and little children, the 
 men considering that it is ill-founded. Perhaps a weak-hearted 
 man may say, " I have seen a ghost," but when he tells this to 
 a man of reading or to one of the Jiqis or ulemas, they say to 
 him " This phantom is not that of the man who has died (in 
 his bed), but it was present in the house before his death," and 
 they demonstrate that it is the spirit of one who was killed in 
 the place previously. 
 
 XL 
 
 Shooting Stars 
 
 When people see a star falling from the sky, they say of it 
 that it has descended on a devil and burnt him ; but the 
 authentic story is that it falls on a cultivated field, and 
 maybe burns it, or on a garden, the fruit or trees of which it 
 burns, or it falls on the ground and is extinguished. 
 
 XLI 
 
 The Mezaiyaka * 
 
 In summer time, when you go out after noon, in the fiercest 
 heat of the middle part of the day, when the air is burning 
 hot like fire, and the ground under you seems ablaze with 
 sparks, you may suddenly see the mezaijara appear on the 
 surface of the earth leaping along ; and if you look again you 
 will see that she is clad in a white shawl and wearing nothing 
 but white. Sometimes you will see one of them with her 
 children sitting by her side or on her lap, or running about and 
 playing round her while she sits down. Next you will become 
 aware that she is hailing one by the name by which one is 
 called, saying : " You, So-and-so ! " in a loud voice ; and as she 
 has called you by your name, you answer; and, looking a 
 moment later, you will see her sitting idle and all huddled 
 together, with her hands hanging loosely by her side, and 
 saying : " It's me, your mother ; don't be afraid." Then, as 
 you approach her, you find her moving from her place, but 
 without walking on her legs, like a kite filled with the wind. 
 And if one has still his term of life before him, he will say to 
 himself : " That's all very well, man ; but what can your mother 
 have come to do here in the desert? You may be sure that 
 this is the mezaijara they talk about." And you'll see the 
 whole of his body tremble and shake, and his limbs become 
 
 1 More commonly pronounced mezeyara. 
 
88 SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT 
 
 rigid. Then he'll turn and run away ; and as he runs she will 
 bound after him like a ball. Now, suppose he can recite the 
 Samadiya or the Ayit il Kursi, and continues reciting as he 
 runs, he will at last get a qasaba, 1 or two or three qasabas, in 
 front of her. And as soon as he finds that he has distanced 
 her, he will say : " Praise be to God, the Lord of the Universe, 
 in that our Lord has brought me away from her in safety." 
 But if he does not escape from her, they say that she has 
 breasts of iron, and these have forks the points of which are 
 like needles; and when a person approaches her instead of 
 running away, she gathers him to her bosom, and the forks 
 are seen to enter his breast and come out at his back, and 
 then he falls and dies. 
 
 XLII 
 
 The Afreet of the Murdered Man 
 
 People have a belief that when some one strikes another 
 with a weapon, as a sword or a knife, and kills him, the spirit 
 of the murdered man appears in the weapon and knocks on it, 
 saying : " So-and-so has killed me." And if the weapon is in 
 his (the murderer's) house, it continues knocking on it all 
 night, interrupting the sleep of the inmates. So they complain 
 to the murderer, he being of their family, and say to him : 
 " This weapon of yours prevents us from sleeping all night. 
 Why do- you deprive us of sleep? Take your weapon away 
 from here, or else a guest may come and pass the night in the 
 house, and wake from his sleep and hear the knocking of the 
 weapon, and maybe the afreet will tell him that So-and-so has 
 killed him. The best thing by far is to keep your weapon away 
 from us, lest the guest, when he hears what the spirit says, go 
 and inform the police. In short, the object is to find some 
 plan (of getting rid of it) which you can carry out ; therefore 
 think of one, and either throw it down the well or in the river, 
 or else get a gun and load it and fire it into the weapon, and 
 the spirit will turn into a piece of an old slipper and we'll 
 either light the stove with it or throw it away in the desert ; 
 and not a soul will tell any tale of us, and we shall live like 
 sultans for the rest of our time." 
 
 A qasaba is a little more than 3J metres. 
 
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