gabriel m. rosenbaum the arabic dialect of jews in

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the israeli academic center in cairo ¯È‰˜· ÈÏ‡¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ ÊÎ¯Ó‰

INTRODUCTION1

Jews living in various parts of theArab world sometimes spoke dis-tinctive Arabic dialects,2 differingin a number of respects from theArabic spoken by their Muslimand Christian neighbors. As HaimBlanc has pointed out, however,until recently the Arabic spoken bythe Jews of Egypt in the twentiethcentury has been thought to differvery little from that spoken bynon-Jews. In a preliminary studyof the Arabic of the Jews of Cairo,Blanc was careful not to label thelinguistic variety he was describ-ing as “Jewish Cairene.”3 Notwith-standing this guarded formulation,he laid the foundations for a des-cription of modern spoken Egypt-ian Judeo-Arabic. Beyond hispioneering articles,4 however, the

spoken dialect of the Jews of Egypthas received scant attention, andextremely little has been written onthe basis of data collected fromJewish speakers of Egyptian Ara-bic. 5 The purpose of my study is tocontinue Blanc’s work and fill agap in this area.

In Egypt, Muslims and CopticChristians speak what is essential-ly the same dialect; local variantsare geographically rather than eth-nically conditioned. However, thelanguage of the Jews of Cairo andAlexandria, while influenced bythe respective local dialects, con-tains many common elements – inthe areas of phonology, morpholo-gy, and particularly vocabulary –which are not to be found in thedialects spoken by non-Jews. Fromthe point of view of phonologyand morphology, the unique fea-

tures of this Jewish Arabic speechare constant, irrespective of the cir-cumstances of communication.The distinctive lexical features, onthe other hand, usually appearonly in communications amongJews.

In the twentieth century, about98% of the Jews of Egypt lived inthe two large cities of Cairo andAlexandria.6 Today almost no Jewsremain in Egypt, and the numberof those outside Egypt who stilluse Egyptian Judeo-Arabic is con-stantly diminishing, so that thislanguage will probably disappearin the not far-distant future. Thefollowing survey, based primarilyon data elicited from informantsand constrained by limitations ofspace, gives but a sampling of therelevant grammatical phenomenaand vocabulary items. 7

Gabriel M. Rosenbaum

THE ARABIC DIALECT OF JEWS IN MODERN EGYPT

Gabriel M. Rosenbaum was born in Jerusalem and has lived most of his life in Tel Aviv. He received his Ph.D.from Tel Aviv University in 1995 and is a senior lecturer in Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. His research and academic publications focus on the literature, drama, language and folklore ofmodern Egypt, based both on written sources and on close contact with Egyptian culture and its makers. Hewrites fiction prose and poetry in Hebrew and has also published translations of foreign literary works intoHebrew, including two plays by Egyptian playwrights. He has visited Egypt many times and has lectured onseveral occasions at the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo.

DISTINCTIVE

CHARACTERISTICS OF

EGYPTIAN SPOKEN JEWISH

ARABIC: PHONOLOGY

AND MORPHOLOGY

Consonants and Vowels

The phonetic realization of theEgyptian dialect (henceforth:Egyptian Arabic) by Jews is nearlyidentical to that of non-Jews. How-ever, some differences do exist,mostly as a consequence of theintroduction of non-Arabic ele-ments into the spoken language,mainly from Hebrew but alsosome from a number of Europeanlanguages.

Certain consonants have enter-ed Jewish Arabic in borrowingsfrom Hebrew and other languages.These are sometimes pronouncedas in the source language andsometimes adapted to the pronun-ciation of Egyptian Arabic. Forexample, most speakers of JewishArabic pronounce the consonant p,

which does not exist in Arabic, as p(p = p), but some pronounce it as b(p > b); the former would say pur¬m(Purim, “the Feast of Lots”), thelatter bur¬m. On the other hand, theconsonant q (‚), realized as a uvu-lar stop in Standard Arabic, is uni-versally pronounced as a glottalstop (like hamza) in Cairo and thecities of Lower Egypt, and this istrue of the Jews as well (q > ’ ) –even when uttering words ofHebrew origin, such as ≠atta’ (“bequiet, don’t talk about this now”),derived from the Hebrew root±TQ. Occasionally, this consonantmay also be realized as a velar stop(q > k), yielding, for example, kadd¬≠(Kaddish, a liturgical prayer alsoused in commemoration of adeath) instead of the more com-mon form ’add¬≠. The phoneme/b/, which in Hebrew is pro-nounced either as a stop [b] or as a fricative [v], is always pro-nounced b by Egyptian Jews inwords of Hebrew origin, as inkab∂d (see below), versus kav∂d inHebrew.

Vowels in words of Hebrew ori-gin are usually preserved in JewishArabic. Shewa mobile at the begin-ning of a word or syllable is almostalways pronounced e, as in tefill®(prayer). The doubling of conso-nants in Hebrew words is alsoretained, as in kipp‚r ([Yom] Kip-pur, the Day of Atonement). Thestress in such words is usuallywhere it would be according to therules of accentuation in Hebrew,even where these contradict therules of Egyptian Arabic.

The Definite Article, the Feminine, and the Plural

The Arabic definite article el is alsoused before words of non-Arabicorigin. Only in collocations ofHebrew origin is the Hebrew defi-nite article ha retained, as in theoath be’em∂t hator® (by the Torah!).In rare cases, the prefixed ha is per-ceived as part of the succeedingword, and the Arabic definite arti-cle may then be attached as well:el-haramb®m (Maimonides, calledin Hebrew by his acronym, Ram-bam, for Rabbenu Moshe ben Mai-mon).

Feminine forms of words ofHebrew origin are usually consis-tent with Arabic nominal patternsbut retain the stress they wouldhave had in Hebrew. For example,kabed® is the feminine form ofkab∂d (pest, nuisance, lit.: heavy),while kohen® (daughter/wife of apriest) is the feminine form ofkoh∂n (priest). 8

In the plural, the Hebrew formis usually retained, as in mamzer¬m(bastards) or mitsv¨t (religiouscommandments), but the Arabicplural suffix ¬n is occasionallyattested, as in mamzer¬n.

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BULLETIN

Purim play staged by Jewish schoolgirls in Cairo.

Non-Standard Verbal Patterns

Whereas Cairene Arabic uses theprefixes a and n, respectively, forthe imperfect first person singularand plural, Alexandrians use theprefix n for the first person singu-lar and the prefix n together withthe suffix u for the plural.9 This isthe usage of the Jews in bothAlexandria and Cairo. For exam-ple, a Cairo-born Jewish womansaid: ’ana ba’a benΩebb-e ’awi b®bawum®ma, ma ’ederte≠ nef®re’hum (Ilove Dad and Mom very much; Icouldn't leave them).

Non-standard verbal patterns inthe past tense of a verb derivedfrom the root GY’ will be dis-cussed below, in the section on“Participles and Typical Words.”

Preference for the Vowel u in Verbs and Nouns

A typical feature of Egyptian Jew-ish Arabic is the preferential use ofthe vowel u in some verbs and

nouns, as against the use of anoth-er vowel in the standard dialect.

In Egyptian Arabic, some first-form verbs have two possible pat-terns, fe’el and fu’ul, both of whichare in use. Today there is a tenden-cy to prefer the fe’el pattern, butJewish speakers more commonlyuse the fu’ul pattern. For example,Jewish speakers will prefer theform ¿ulu◊ (come to an end, be fin-ished) to ¿ele◊. The same is true ofnouns with two alternative pro-nunciation patterns. Jewish speak-ers prefer forms with the vowel u,while the preferred forms in thestandard dialect are usually thosewith the vowel e (or i). Thus, forexample, the Jews prefer the form

≠ubb®k (“window”) to ≠ebb®k,which is the more common form inthe standard dialect.

A unique feature of Jewish Ara-bic is the use of the vowel u even incases where the standard dialecthas no such form, but uses e (or i)exclusively. Examples includemu≠ fl (comb), versus standard me≠ fl;flu≠ t (tub or washtub), versus stan-dard fle≠t; and mu¿adda (pillow),versus standard me¿adda. Evensome words of Hebrew originhave Jewish Arabic versions sub-stituting u for the original vowel:kutubb® (marriage contract), asopposed to ketubb®; or kupp‚r([Yom] Kippur), as opposed to kip-p‚r.

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Judeo-Arabic letter of recommendationby Maimonides, bearing his signature.

A marriage contract from Mit-Ghamr (1903), decorated with motifs from Egyptianfolklore.

PARTICLES AND

TYPICAL WORDS

Jewish Arabic uses the demonstra-tive pronouns de and d¨n in addi-tion to the standard forms da andd¨l.10 I also found the form d¨ni, asa variant of d¨n.

Jewish speakers often use thepersonal pronoun humman (they)instead of the standard humma,and, less often, kam®na (also, too),instead of standard kam®n. Fur-thermore, Jewish Arabic hasretained the interrogative particles’∂≠ (what?), l∂≠ (why), and k∂f or k¬f(how?), which have fallen out ofuse in the Cairene dialect. TheCairene dialect would also haveput these particles at the end of thesentence, while Jewish Arabicplaces them at the beginning: ’∂≠‘®yez? (what do you want?), asopposed to ‘®yez ’∂h? in the stan-dard dialect.

Jews often pronounce the num-ber 400 as ’urbu‘meyya, instead ofstandard rub‘umeyya, and a fewinformants pronounced the num-ber 600 as settemeyya, versus stan-dard suttumeyya.11

On the basis of descriptions ofEgyptian Arabic from the nine-teenth and early twentieth cen-turies, Blanc demonstrated thatsome of the morphological fea-tures unique to the Jews of Cairowere once used by non-Jewishspeakers as well. They fell into dis-use over time, to be retained onlyby the Jews.12 For example, thenon-standard form ’ega (he came),which can be conjugated in all per-sons in the past tense, appears innon-Cairene and non-Egyptiandialects, but in twentieth-centuryCairo it was used only by Jews. Ifound further instances of formsnow used only by Jews in otherdescriptions from the same period,

such as gu (they came), versusstandard gum, and de (this),13 usedin addition to the standard formda.14 Another non-standard formused by many Jewish informants isthe third person feminine singularform g®tet (she came), versus gat inEgyptian Arabic. It should bepointed out that several forms thatare no longer used in Cairo are stillused in non-Cairene Egyptiandialects.15

THE VOCABULARY OF

SPOKEN EGYPTIAN

JEWISH ARABIC

Vocabulary items used exclusivelyby Jews consist mainly of Hebrewwords and expressions, whichoften undergo changes in meaningand sometimes changes in form aswell. Another major component isArabic words that are used byJews in a different way than bynon-Jews. Other, quantitativelymore limited sources are Aramaicand various European languages,mainly French and Italian, as well

as Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). Thesyntactic patterns into which allthe Hebrew and other non-Arabiccomponents of the vocabulary areimplanted are those of EgyptianArabic.

As in the vocabularies of otherJewish languages, many uniquelyJewish words and expressions areconnected with religious and com-munal aspects of Jewish life. Oth-ers are used as a secret languagefor communicating information inthe presence of those who are notmembers of the community.16 Thevocabulary items described beloware typical examples, constitutingonly a small part of the corpus Icollected.

Words Originating in European Languages

The word el-kumminut∂ or el-kom-minut® (the first derived fromFrench communauté, the secondprobably from Italian comunità,with the addition of the definitearticle) is commonly used to desig-nate the central organ of the Jewish

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BULLETIN

The Chancellor of the Alexandria Jewish community in his office.

39


community, which was responsi-ble for managing its religious andsecular affairs. B∂t es-siny¨r, syn-onymous with el-kumminut∂, is alsovery commonly used among allJews. Es-siny¨r (the lord, the mas-ter) was a term used especiallyamong speakers of Italian andLadino to designate the Chief Rab-bi. B∂t es-siny¨r thus refers to theChief Rabbi’s house, or the seat ofthe Rabbinate.

Several more words stemmingfrom Ladino are used by all Egypt-ian Jews. Two common examplesare robb¬sa (or rabb¬sa and ribb¬sa),denoting a rabbi’s wife17 and oftenused more generally to denote apious woman, and kurr®t≠a, denot-ing a pouch for carrying one’s phy-lacteries and prayer shawl.

Words and Expressions Whose Components Are All Arabic

Some of the words and expressionsused by Jews consist exclusively ofcomponents of purely Arabic ori-gin. For example, the word ’er®ya,which in Egyptian Arabic means“reading” as well as declaimingverses of the Koran, is used byJews to denote a memorial service.Gabal means “mountain,” butCairene Jews use it, with the pre-fixed definite article (el-gabal), todenote a cemetery, so that flele‘ el-gabal (went up the mountain)means “went to visit the ceme-tery.”

The Jews of Egypt use twowords to denote the Sabbath,Hebrew ≠abb®t and Arabic sabt. Asecond-form verb, sabbet, derivedfrom the Arabic term, means“spent the Sabbath with,” as inta‘®la sabbet ‘andena (come andspend the Sabbath with us). Noverb with this meaning exists inEgyptian Arabic.

Some of these expressions haveno meaning outside Jewish Arabic.For example, it was the custom ofthe Jews of Egypt to eat goose atthe festive meal on the holiday ofShavuot (Pentecost), giving rise tothe expression ‘¬d el-wezza (“feastof the goose”), a popular name forthe holiday. According to folkbelief, a wife who does not serveher husband goose on Pentecostrisks divorce.

Hebrew Components

The creation of new words andexpressions based on Hebrewroots

Some words and expressions inJewish Arabic are neologisms cre-ated from Hebrew words or roots.For example, the second-form verbmakket (hit, beat) is formed fromthe root MKT, otherwise non-exis-tent in Arabic and derived fromthe Hebrew word makkot (blows, inthe plural), whose Hebrew root isNKY. The verb is commonly usedin the imperative: Makketo! (Hithim! Beat him up!).

The verb ’etdardem or ’eddardem(fell asleep) is also commonly usedin the imperative by impatient orangry parents to their children at bedtime: “Go to sleep! Fallasleep!”18 Many speakers considerit a profanity. The verb dardemexists in Egyptian Arabic, where,as a secondary form of radam, itmeans “cover, fill [mainly withearth].” Etdardem is its passiveform,19 but neither form is wide-spread. In Jewish Arabic, ’etdardem,apparently influenced by theHebrew root RDM and the verbnirdam (fell asleep), is used onlywith the meaning of “fall asleep.”The verb, which looks as if it were

derived from the quadriliteral rootDRDM (expanded from the triliter-al root RDM), exists only in theseventh form and also appears inthe expression ’etdardem durd∂metºan¨¿ (fell asleep like Enoch, i.e.,fell into a deep sleep). The worddurd∂ma, which is used exclusivelyin this expression and only in theconstruct form, is reminiscent ofthe Hebrew word tardema and alsohas the appearance of beingderived from the root DRDM. Thename of Enoch and the expres-sion’s metaphorical meaningappear to be based on Gen. 5:24:“Enoch walked with God, and hewas not; for God took him.”

The eighth-form verb ’etflabal or’eflflabal, meaning “immersed one-self in a ritual bath” (usually saidof a woman), does not exist in Ara-bic and derives from the Hebrewroot fiBL, as does the word flabb®la,

A Hebrew grammar book designatedfor the Arabic-speaking Jewish pupilsof Alexandria.

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BULLETIN

referring to the (female) supervisorof the ritual bath and formedaccording to a nominal patternoften used for indicating profes-sions. Egyptian Arabic has anidentical word meaning “womandrummer,” derived from the Ara-bic root fiBL and its second-formverbal derivative, flabbel, whichmeans “beat a drum” (see alsomaflbal and flebil® in the next sec-tion).

Words and expressions whoseHebrew components retain theiroriginal form and meaning

Many Hebrew words retain theirform and meaning in Jewish Ara-bic. Examples are ≠e’er (lie); gann®b(thief); r®‘ , pl. ra‘¬m (bad, an evilperson/persons); le‘ol®m va‘∂d(forever); n∂s (miracle); and yer∂≠am®yim (God-fearing).

Words and Expressions Originating in Aspects of Jewish Life

A considerable portion of theunique vocabulary of EgyptianJewish Arabic refers to aspects ofJewish religious and communallife. Below are some typical exam-ples.

The synagogue and prayer

Tefill® (prayer); gely®n20 (raising theTorah scroll in the synagogue);tagleyya (carrying the Torah scrollaround the synagogue); ≠amm®≠(caretaker, beadle of a synagogue;also, the ninth candle from whichthe Hanukkah lamp is lit); Ωazz®n(cantor); gabb®y (admininstrator ofa synagogue); tebb® (prayer ros-trum); s∂fer, pl. sefar¬m (Torahscroll).

Jewish holidays and the Jewishcalendar

‘urubb®, ‘erubb®, ‘arubb®, and alsoy¨m el-‘urubb® (the eve of a holi-day); ro≠≠an®, ro≠ ha≠an® (RoshHashana, the Jewish New Year);sukk¨t (Sukkot, the Feast of Taber-nacles); pur¬m or bur¬m (Purim); and ’∂¿a, the Hebrew title of theBook of Lamentations, used to designate the Ninth of Ab, the fastday on which Lamentations is read in the synagogue (see alsobelow).

Religious duties and ceremonies

The word tefil¬m or tefil¬n, i.e., phy-lacteries, is also used to refer to theBar Mitzva ceremony celebrating aboy’s coming of age at thirteen.Often prefixed by an Arabic defi-nite article, it is also used in mixedexpressions having to do with theBar Mitzva ceremony: Ωayelbes

et-tefil¬m (lit.: he will put on phy-lacteries, that is, he is about to celebrate his Bar-Mitzvah); lab-bes‚h et-tefil¬m (they celebrated hisBar Mitzva). Other examples inthis category include: mezuz® (aparchment scroll affixed to thedoorpost); habdal® (the ritual con-cluding the Sabbath or a holiday); maflbal (ritual bath); flebil®(immersion in a ritual bath); and’idd‚s or ’add‚s (kiddush, a prayerrecited before a festive Sabbath orholiday meal). Kappar®t ’avon¨t, orkappar® alone, refers to the ritual ofatonement practiced before YomKippur or in times of illness ortrouble, in which a rooster (formen) or a hen (for women) isslaughtered and its meat, usually,given to the poor. The expressionis also used as an exclamationwhen something breaks or someother bad thing happens: “let itatone for your sins!”, i.e., “Nevermind!”

Bar mitzvah ceremony in Cairo (1953).

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Words and Expressions WhoseHebrew Components Have Under-gone Change in Form or Meaning

As in other eastern Jewish dialects,the word Ωa¿®m, which means“wise,” “wise man,” or “scholar”in Hebrew, is the usual designa-tion in Egyptian Jewish Arabic fora rabbi. Arabic suffixes of Turkishorigin yield Ωa¿®mb®≠a (Chief Rab-bi) and Ωa¿®m¿®na (the Rabbinate,the central institution of the Jewishcommunity).

’µ¿a, designating the fast of theNinth of Ab (see above), is used ina number of expressions with neg-ative connotations, as in y¨m ’∂¿a(figuratively, a bad, unlucky, ordisastrous day); we≠≠-e ’∂¿a (agrieved-looking person); ‘®melzayy-e ‘am‚d ’∂¿a (lit.: acts like a pil-lar of the Ninth of Ab, i.e., standsstill).

’µ≠et-Ω®yil, or ’∂≠et-Ω®yim (“wo-man of valor,” Prov. 31:10) is usedby Egyptian Jews quite frequentlyto refer to a righteous, piouswoman, loyal to her husband andfamily; this expression refers moreto a woman's moral qualities thanto the skills enumerated inProverbs.

The expression ‘adon®y ’em∂twumo≠e ’em∂t (lit.: God is true andMoses is true), as well as the short-ened version ’adon®y ’em∂t, doesnot exist in modern Hebrew. InJewish Arabic it is an exclamation,made in response to hearing some-thing incredible: “Really?! That'samazing! You don't say!”

’ de≠ (lit.: something sacred orconsecrated) refers to a Jewishcharity fund providing free lodg-ing and economic assistance toindigent Jews.

Expressions Consisting of MixedComponents

The linguistic creativity of thespeakers of Egyptian Jewish Ara-bic is especially noticeable in theircreation of mixed expressionscombining Hebrew and non-Hebrew (usually Arabic) compo-nents. The structure and syntax ofsuch expressions are those of stan-dard Egyptian Arabic.

Y® w®y w®y y® bar‚¿ ’adon®y:This expression, used in responseto extreme fluctuations, for goodor ill, in a person’s or the world’ssituation (such as a drought fol-lowed by floods, or a very poorperson suddenly coming into a lotof money), is based on the com-mon Egyptian Arabic pattern y® ...y® ... (either ... or ... ), into whichtwo contradictory possibilities areinserted. In this case, the initialinsertion consists of the ono-matopoeic words w®y w®y, whichdenote sorrow, while the second isa Hebrew expression meaning“blessed is God,” yielding themeaning “either things are terrible

or they are wonderful; feast orfamine.”

ºazz®n bistanna ’add¬≠, “(like) acantor waiting for a Kaddish,” isan expression used of someonelooking for an opportunity to earnsomething for his livelihood, evenat the expense of others. The twonouns are of Hebrew origin, whilethe verb is Arabic.

Rama el-‘avon¨t, “cast his sinsaway” (in the Tashlikh ceremonyon the Jewish New Year). The verband definite article are Arabic; thenoun is Hebrew.

ELEMENTS OF JEWISH SECRET

LANGUAGES AND THEIR

REFLECTION OF RELATIONS

WITH NON-JEWS

In many Jewish communities, inthe East as well as in the West, ele-ments of the unique Jewish vocab-ulary served as a secret language,making it possible to communicatein the presence of non-Jews with-out the latter understanding what

Entrance to the Jewish Quarter of Cairo. The old Jewish Quarter is part of the Mouskyquarter, a commercial neighborhood that was populated mostly by Jews.

was being said. Artisans and merchants often developed secretlanguages for their own particularprofessions, enabling them tospeak about commercial as well asprivate matters in the presence ofcustomers – including Jews whowere not of the profession.

The word g¨y (see below) isused by Jews in both the East andthe West to denote a non-Jew. InEgypt and other areas in the east,the Jews make a terminologicaldistinction between Christians,Muslims, and Jews in order to beable to report on a person’s affilia-tion during the process of commu-nication.21 The Jews of Egypt referto a Jew as ben ‘ammenu, pl. ben∂‘ammenu (lit.: a member of our peo-ple); to a Muslim as g¨y , f. goy®, pl.goy¬m; and to a Christian as‘ar∂r, f. ‘ar∂r®, pl. ‘arer¬m.The latter term, ‘ar∂r, isderived from the Hebrewword ‘ar∂l (uncircum-cised),22 which is used invarious Jewish dialects inthe east and even appears inwritten texts. Another com-mon word used as a secretlanguage element is ≠atta’(from the Hebrew root±TQ), “be quiet,” i.e., don’tspeak about this now, sothat the non-Jew won’thear.23

The most developedsecret language is that of thegoldsmiths, which was usedfor centuries by the Jewish(mostly Karaite) goldsmithsin Egypt and was lateradopted by their Muslimand Christian colleagues,who use it to this day. Thereare some local variations ofthis language in differentareas of Egypt. For exam-ple, “one” in all versions of

the goldsmiths’ language is ’aΩ®d,derived from Hebrew ’eΩ®d (or theconstruct form ’aΩ®d); “two,” onthe other hand, is ≠an®yen (derivedfrom Hebrew ≠en®yim) in theCairene version, while in Alexan-dria it is ’aΩ®d∂n, a dual form ofHebrew ’eΩ®d (one), though thisword has no such form in Hebrew.In all versions, y®fet refers to highquality goods or a good customer;phonetically, this word is similarto Hebrew yaf∂ (beautiful, nice). Itis also the colloquial Arabic formof y®fi˚, Standard Arabic for thebiblical name Japheth (yefet or yafetin Hebrew), which, according torabbinic interpretations, means“beautiful.”24 Most of the numbers,such as ≠el‚≠a (three), Ωeme≠≠a (five),≠am‚nya (eight), and ≠lu≠¬n (thirty),

are of Hebrew origin, but some arenot: ‘ennetra (ten), me≠fl (twenty, inCairo), ’ennetret∂n (twenty, inAlexandria), kwatr¬n (forty, derivedfrom the word denoting “four” inthe Romance languages, with theArabic plural suffix -¬n). The gold-smiths’ language has dozens morewords for communicating infor-mation about customers and goodsor giving instructions about howto treat customers. Most of themare derived either from Hebrew orfrom the names of goldsmiths’tools, some of which are archaicterms whose original meaning isno longer known to the speakers ofthe language. For example, a pieceof jewelry that was returned by acustomer and is now again on dis-play is called ’adm¨n or ’adm‚n,

from Hebrew qadmon,(ancient). H®t el-gaft (lit.:“hand me the tweezers”)means “be quiet, don't talkabout this now,” similarlyto the word ≠atta’ (seeabove).25

OATHS

Many informants insistedthat swearing was a repre-hensible habit and thatthey themselves refrainedfrom pronouncing oaths.However, oaths are verycommon in the language of the Jews. Most consist of Hebrew componentscombined with Arabic oath formulas. The mostcommonly used oath for-mula is we (also wu, wa: by ..., by the life of ..., Iswear by ... ). Other formu-las include weΩy®t ... (by thelife of ..., I swear by the lifeof ...), and be, similar to we.

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BULLETIN

Torah scrolls in the Ark of the Eliahu Hanabi Synagogue inAlexandria. The silver-plated scroll at the back was usedonly in the Kol Nidre service on Yom Kippur.

The most common and forcefuloaths contain words denoting theTorah. A very frequent one isbe’emet hator® (by the truth of theTorah). The word s∂fer, whichdenotes a Torah scroll, appears in anumber of oaths, in both the singu-lar form, wes-s∂fer (I swear by theTorah scroll) and the plural, wes-sefar¬m (I swear by [all] the Torahscrolls). The strongest and mostbinding oath is wes-s∂fer kannidr∂ (Iswear by the Torah scroll of kan-nidr∂). Kannidr∂ refers to the KolNidrei prayer, recited on theevening of Yom Kippur. Most ofmy informants, though not all,knew that the reference was to theTorah scrolls that are taken out ofthe Holy Ark for that prayer. All ofthem agreed that this was a verystrong oath, which bound its userto telling the truth. Another com-mon oath is weΩy®t el-haramb®m (bythe life of Maimonides).26

A number of oaths mention cultarticles or objects in the vicinity ofthe person making the oath. Exam-ples include wet-tefil¬m (I swear bythe phylacteries); wel-mu◊Ω®f (Iswear by the [printed holy] book);and weΩy®t e≠-≠ehak¨l (I swear bythe drink). This last oath has its ori-gin in the Hebrew blessing ≠ehak¨lnihya bidvaro, “(Blessed art Thou,Lord, king of the universe) bywhose word everything was creat-ed,” recited before imbibing adrink.

CUSTOMS AND LANGUAGE

As with any distinct social group,the language of the Jews of Egyptcontains expressions and idiomsrelated to the group’s way of life.Some of these are connected withevents in the life of the community

and are said only in the context ofthese events. 27

At the Passover seder, which inJewish Arabic is called l∂lt el-hag-gad® (lit.: “The night of the Hag-gadah”), it is customary to giveeach small child in turn a foldednapkin with a piece of matza inside,which he then carries on his shoul-der in commemoration of theparcels which the Children ofIsrael carried as they left Egypt.The leader of the ceremony con-ducts the following dialogue witheach child in turn:

– gayy-e mn∂n? (Where are youcoming from?)

– min mi◊r®yim. (From Egypt.)– wer®yeΩ f∂n? (And where are you

going?)– ’ala yeru≠al®yim. (To Jerusalem.)28

Several informants reported thatin families with many children,when the ceremony became repeti-tive, the more mischievous chil-dren would answer the first

question by saying things like me-l-madrasa (from school) or min ma◊rel-ged¬da (from Heliopolis).

When Jewish parents want toquiet their tots and children or putthem down to sleep, they sing: ¿ud el-bezza weskut / ¿ud el-bezzawen®m / ummak er-robb¬sa / wa-b‚kel-Ωa¿®m, “Take the nipple and bequiet / take the nipple and sleep /your mother is a Rabbi’s wife /and your father is the Rabbi.” Thisis a Jewish version of a song thatnon-Jews sing to their small chil-dren. It has a number of versions;for example: ¿ud el-bezza weskut /¿ud el-bezza wen®m / ummak es-sayyeda / wa-b‚k el-’im®m, “Take thenipple and be quiet / take the nip-ple and sleep / your mother is alady / and your father is the Imam(prayer leader).”29

At the end of the Sabbath, Jewsgreet each other by saying gum‘etak¿a¥ra (or gum‘etkum ¿a¥ra in theplural), “Have a good (lit.: green)week,” a greeting used exclusivelyby Jews. The usual responses are

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A Haggadah in Arabic, with Hebrew headings.

wugum‘etak ¿a¥ra (or just wugum‘e-tak), “May you also have a greenweek,” or wugum‘etak zayy es-sal’,“May your week be as green asbeet leaves.” Other such greetingsdraw upon similes used by Egyp-tians generally to greet each otherin the morning, such as full (jas-mine) or ’e≠fla (cream made fromthe foam accumulating at the topof the milk); for example, wugum‘e-tak zayy el-full, “May you have aweek (white and clean) like jas-mine.”

Jews who go to the synagogue atthe end of the Sabbath receive myr-tle branches. They rub the leaves intheir hands and recite the blessingbor∂ ’a◊∂y besam¬m (lit.: [Blessed artThou Lord, king of the universe],who created sweet-smelling trees).Myrtle in Arabic is mars¬n, whichsome Jews pronounce mars¬m, but

many pronounce it bars¬m, whichin Egyptian Arabic denotes a spe-cies of clover used as animal feed.Some of my informants told methat they wondered how the sameword could refer both to animalfeed and to a plant rubbed for itssweet smell at the end of the Sab-bath.

CONCLUDING NOTE

On the basis of the linguisticusages and vocabulary itemsdescribed here, which representonly a small part of the repertoireof the Jewish Arabic spoken by theJews of Egypt, it may be said thatthey had a dialect of their own. TheJews of Cairo and Alexandria,where nearly all the Jews lived,shared a common dialect whichwas distinct in quite a number offeatures from the dialects spoken

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Conclusion of the Sabbath (Habdal®) ceremony in the Eliahu Hanabi Synagogue inAlexandria (1980).

The Judeo-Arabic newspaper Misraïm.

by non-Jews – a difference that wasgreater when the Jews were com-municating with each other thanwhen they communicated withnon-Jews. Hundreds of words andexpressions were unique to theJews; many of these were ofHebrew origin, while others com-prised a mixture of Hebrew, Ara-bic, and occasionally otherlanguages as well. This vocabularyattests to ties with other Jewishdialects in the region, but it alsohas some distinctive features of itsown, amounting, together with thephonological and morphologicalfeatures described at the beginningof this article, to a dialect that wemay call “Spoken Egyptian JewishArabic.” This dialect occasionallycame to written expression as well.Certain words and expressions,particularly some of those havingto do with religious and communi-ty life, may be found in the Arabic-language Jewish newspaperspublished in Egypt during the firsthalf of the twentieth century. Afew words even appear in earlierwritten texts, such as those foundin the Cairo Geniza.

Acknowledgement: The illustrations inthis article are taken from Juifs d’Egypte: Images et textes (second edi-tion, Paris: Editions du Scribe, 1984),and are used by permission of Dr. Jacques Hasson.

1. This paper is based on parts of aforthcoming study of the Arabicdialect of the Jews of Egypt. I havedescribed some of its results in twoHebrew articles: “Spoken JewishArabic in Modern Egypt: Hebrewand Non-standard Components,”Massorot, 12 (2002), pp. 117–148;and “Hebrew Words and KaraiteGoldsmiths’ Secret Language Usedby Jews and Non-Jews in ModernEgypt,” Pe‘amim, 90 (2002), pp.115–153.

2. Such as the dialect of the Jews ofBaghdad, which differs from that ofboth Muslim and Christian inhabi-tants of that city; see Haim Rabin etal., “Jewish Languages: Common,Unique and Problematic Features”(A Scholars’ Forum), Pe‘amim, 1(Spring 1979), pp. 40–57 (Hebrew).

3. Haim Blanc, “The Nekteb-NektebuImperfect in a Variety of CaireneArabic,” Israel Oriental Studies, 14(1974), p. 207.

4. Idem, “Egyptian Judeo-Arabic:More on the Subject of R.Mordekhai b. Yehuda Ha-Levi’sSefer darxe no‘am,” Sefunot, 18/NS 3(1985), pp. 299–314 (Hebrew); idem,“Egyptian Arabic in the Seven-teenth Century: Notes on the Judeo-Arabic Passages of Darxe No‘am(Venice, 1697),” in Shelomo Moraget al. (eds.), Studies in Judaism andIslam Presented to Shelomo DovGoitein, Jerusalem 1981, pp.185–202. Both articles describe col-loquial Arabic texts written downby Jews in the seventeenth century.

5. For details, see Rosenbaum, “Spo-ken Jewish Arabic” (above, note 1),in the Introduction.

6. See Gudron Krämer, “The Rise andDecline of the Jewish Communityof Cairo,” Pe‘amim 7 (1981), p. 5(Hebrew).

7. For additional details, see my arti-cles cited in note 1 above.

8. In Egyptian Arabic, words withlong vowels have their stress onthe syllable with the last long vow-el; therefore, one would haveexpected the feminine forms ofkab∂d and koh∂n to be kab∂da andkoh∂na.

9. On this issue see Blanc, “The Nek-teb-Nektebu Imperfect” (above,note 3), p. 206; and idem, “Egypt-ian Judeo-Arabic” (above, note 4),p. 303.

10. See Blanc, “The Nekteb-NektebuImperfect” (above, note 3), p. 216.

11. Ibid., p. 217

12. Ibid., p. 207.

13. Cf. An Egyptian Alphabet for theEgyptian People, n.a., Florence,19042, p. 84, where gu is the onlyform.

14. Cf. Gabriel Sacroug. The EgyptianTravelling Interpretter, or ArabicWithout a Teacher for English Trav-ellers Visiting Egypt, Cairo 1874, p. 239.

15. For such forms see Peter Behnstedtand Manfred Woidich, Die ägyp-tisch-arabischen Dialekte, (IV: GlossarArabisch-Deutsch), Wiesbaden 1994;on this matter see also Blanc, “The Nekteb-Nektebu Imperfect”(above, note 3), p. 216.

16. See, e.g,, Abraham Ben-Yaacob,‘Ivrit ve’aramit bilshon yehudey bavel(Hebrew and Aramaic in the Lan-guage of the Jews of Iraq),Jerusalem 1985, pp. 10–12; MoshéBar-Asher, “Eléments hébreuxdans le judéo-arabes Marocain,” inidem, Massorot uleshonot shelyehudey tzefon afriqa (Traditions linguistiques des Juifs d'Afrique duNord) Jerusalem-Ashkelon 1999, p. 158.

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17. The forms rabí, rebí, ribí and rubíexist in Ladino as versions of theHebrew rav or rabbi; see David M.Bunis. A Lexicon of the Hebrew andAramaic Elements in Modern Judez-mo. Jerusalem 1993, p. 406. Thefeminine Egyptian Judeo-Arabicforms are derived from these.

18. See also Geoffrey Khan, “A Noteon the Trade Argot of the KaraiteGoldsmiths of Cairo,”MediterraneanLanguage Review, 9 (1995–1997), p. 75.

19. See El-Said Badawi and MartinHinds, A Dictionary of EgyptianArabic, Beirut 1986, p. 284.

20. A homonym in the standarddialect, used by Jews as well,means “dishwashing” or “dishesto wash.”

21. See for example Moshé Bar-Asher,“Evolution des termes hébreuxdans le judéo-arabe,” in idem, Mas-sorot uleshonot (above, note 14), p.255 (Hebrew); idem, “Aspects lin-guistiques de la composantehébraïque du judéo-arabe mod-erne,” Massorot uleshonot, p. 211(Hebrew). For words signifyingChristians and Muslims see, e.g.,Guershon Ben-Oren and WolfMoshkowitch, “L’argot des com-merçants juifs de Géorgie comparéá celui d’autres pays d’Orient,”Massorot, 2 (1986), p. 54 (Hebrew).See also the next note.

22. Cf. the form narel¬m, used by theJews of Piedmont in Italy: PrimoLevi, Hatavla hamahazorit (Hebrewtranslation of Il Sistema Periodico),Tel Aviv 1987, p. 10.

23. See also Blanc, “The Nekteb-Nektebu Imperfect” (above, note3), p. 217.

24. BT Megilla 9b, commenting on Gen.9:27.

25. For a detailed description of thegoldsmiths’ secret language seeRosenbaum, ”Hebrew Words”(above, note 1).

26. On the definite article in this wordsee above, in the section on “TheDefinite Article, the Feminine, andthe Plural.”

27. On the customs of Egyptian Jewsaccording to written records see,e.g., Raphael Ben-Shimon, SeferNehar Mitzrayim (The Book of theRiver of Egypt), Jerusalem 1998(Hebrew); Yom-Tov Israel, Seferminhagey mitzrayim lefi sederhashulΩan ’arukh (The Book of theCustoms of Egypt: Arranged in theOrder of the ShulΩan Arukh), ed.Avraham Yosef, Jerusalem–Holon1990; and Yehuda Nini, MimizraΩwumiyam: Yehudei Mitsrayim –ºayyey yom yom vehishtakfutambesifrut hashut 5642–5674 (FromEast and West: The Jews of Egypt –Their Everyday Lives and TheirReflection in the Responsa Litera-ture 1882–1914), Tel-Aviv 2000. Oneveryday life in modern times see,e.g., Jacques Hassoun, “Chro-niques de la vie quotidienne,” inidem (ed.), Juifs du Nil, Paris 1981.

28. For a description of this ceremonyand a French version of the dia-logue see Hassoun, Chroniques(above note 27), pp. 174–175.

29. Cf. E. E. Elder, Egyptian ColloquialArabic Reader. London 1927, p. 113.

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gabriel m. rosenbaum the arabic dialect of jews in

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