Meshan and Syrian Arabic

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 26, 2013 at 18:41

Sentil wrote

Briefly - MISHAN meaning Sharp tongue and MISHAN meaning ..for the sake of.....are UNRELATED..

And "briefly" where did I write that?

I assume MISHAN (sharp tongue) is a literary classicism. I've never heard of it.

Why not go and check dictionaries because both Ibn Manzur in لسان العرب and المعجم الوسيط tell us that the word really means sharp tongue which means that neither Ibn Manzur in لسان العرب or the authors of المعجم الوسيط had no clue that the word مشان means لأجل and why is that? let me guess because you are using your فهلوة which is not very smart

MISHAN (for the sake of) is simply the very common MIN SHA"AN

So you are saying and without any evidence from dictionaries that مشان is from من شأن and as Egyptians would say: جميل but where is your evidence from dictionaries and more damaging to your case is that من شأن really means from his business/matter which does mean for the sake of

(literally: FROM THIS MATTER) and is found in one form or another in nearly all dialects.

Examples?

It's very common for the dialects to abbreviate certain words, especially prepositions such as MIN and 3LA (على ) when in initial position.

Really? name the dialect and the word

Thus in Egyptian, you get 3SHAANEE = for me -

عشاني means for me (see Badawi and Hinds) so what? and what does this have to do with مشان you tell me

which is abbreviated 3LA SHA'AN EE

You means from على شاني so what?

Or also in Egyptian, the very common phrase: 3SHAAN KEDA = that's the way it is, etc.... in its full form 3LA SHAAN KEDA.

عشان كده and علشان كده so what? But let me tell you this only means that Egyptian Arabic is a unique language not unlike Latin and let us say Italian but we know that

Both the short and full form are commonly used in spoken Egyptian.

So?

I don't think the phrase in question MISHAN ALLAH [FROM the sake of God = God have Mercy) is used in Egyptian or other dialects I'm familiar with.

We know that because you will not find it in Hinds and Badawi's Egyptian Arabic dictionary

And God have mercy really means rahmatu allah right?

It might be purely Syrian. But it certainly would be understood by any native speaker of Arabic.

I doubt very much that you are correct. Let me help you

1. Let us take the Egyptian word ايوا or ايوه every Egyptian knows what it means and it means yes but it is not an Arabic word it is from (gasp!) Egyptian/Coptic and I'm sure Arabs that watch Egyptian movies know this word very well and that it means yes and I suspect that they have no clue that this is not an Arabic word now do you get it?

2. Now let us make it a bit more difficult and I'm going to be frank with you most Arabic speaking Muslims do not know how to use Arabic language dictionaries and non of them seem to be aware that the languages that pre-date the Arab invasion of the Middle East had great infleunce on spoken Arabic and for sure the most important langauge of them all must be el-Lugha el-Syrianyya and it is for sure the mother language of both Arabic and Hebrew and in the case of Egypt as I just provided you with an example that Coptic had a great infleunce on Egyptian Arabic (which I regard as a unique language and not a mere dialect) so follow me let us take the Syriac word ܡܣܓܕ and you can see the meem then the seen then the geem then the dal and in Arabic it would be مسجد but here is the problem the word in Syriac really means not مسجد but سجود or prostration and indeed the Arab grammarians early on realized that what is called مصدر ميمي or verbal noun with a meem pre-fix points to a Syriac word that is a loan word in Arabic and one of the ways that you can tell if this is indeed a masdr mimi if you remove the letter from the word it still retains its meaning so if you remove the meem from مشان you are left with شان or شأن by adding the missing hamza

Which indeed makes you owner that the Syrian priest could very well be correct

Now do you get it?

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