Monday, March 14, 2011

little Arabic, ya'll!

One thing I'm really loving about Arabic is that they have a you-plural tense. Like vosotros in Spanish or vous in French. In Moroccan Arabic the subject pronoun is Ntuma and the Object pronoun ending is 'kum.

The reason I love it is because my general use of ya'll (or y'all, depending on personal preference) which I picked up in Texas, is generally rejected by my non-ya'll using friends. Most preference just "you" or "you guys." But here I can use this pronoun freely and receive no criticism.

For example, when I greet a group of people I may say "Labas 3likum?" or "Ki rakum?" (how are you?) which sounds perfectly normal and not something to be criticized, but what I'm thinking in my head is "How ya'll doin'?!" and I'm thinking it with a big hillbilly accent. I even think this in the greeting when I say "Salam 3leikum" I'm thinking "Peace be upon ya'll!"

I suppose when you spend days and days alone with no one to joke with in English, one has to start humoring herself some how.

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