Indicating Possession in Egyptian Arabic: Part 1

This is for the nerds out there who want to learn more about the grammar.

Not just learn the phrases and idioms by heart, but actually understand the crap that’s coming out of your mouth.

This week, Cleo Lingo is covering a simple (yet tad confusing) grammar rule.

Possessive Pronouns

Egyptian is very close to the formal Arabic (Standard Arabic) when it comes to possessive pronouns.

Basically, it uses  suffixes (letters tacked on at the end of the noun) to indicate possession. In English, by contrast, the possessive pronoun (an actual independent word) comes before the noun. Simple examples: “my dog,” “his Shawerma sandwich,” etc. These words (my, his) indicate that something belongs to someone.

Egyptian Arabic does it differently. Not only does the dialect use possessive letters instead of words, but they are written as part of the word itself at the end (a suffix). It is not, like English, written as a separate word before the noun.

Here is a table  with the list of pronouns followed by the possessive pronoun suffixes in Arabic (remember, letters you literally add to the noun to show possession).

Examples:

Team : “fuhREE”

فريق

Their Team : “fuhRIH’home”

فريقهم

Country : “BEHlid”

بلد

Our country : “behLEHDnuh”

بلدنا

Dog : “KEHLB”

كلب

Their dog : “kehlBOHhome”

كلبهم

Dress : “fooSTEHN”

فستان

Her dress : “fooSTEHNhaw”

فستانها

Car : “AWruhBEEuh”

عربية

His Car : “AWruhBEEtuck”

عربيتك

Pay attention to this last one.

The word “car” by itself ends in a “tamrubootuh.”

If you add the possessive pronoun suffix to a word which ends in a Taa Marbuta ـة , the ة  becomes a regular ت. We simply untie the knotted “Taa” to be an open Taa ت  and then add the suffix normally.

This will always happen with feminine verbs.

Here are some examples

School – مدرسة
Your School  – مدرستك

See our post about these

Another (weird) way to indicate possession in Egyptian Arabic that we can’t just skip, is a very special unique word that has no exact translation in any other language. This word is called بتاع “Betaa”

This mysterious word is used in a million ways in Egyptian Arabic. For example, when Egyptians forget the name of anything, they basically just call it “البتاع ده” – That thing. 

We will talk about that bizarre word in details in another post

But when it comes to indicating possession, we use it with the meaning of “that belongs to”

This sounds complicated, but it’s really not. We simply put the word “بتاع” after the noun and add the possessive pronoun suffix to “Betaa” instead of the noun itself.

Sounds confusing, but it’s not. Here are some examples.

Her House – البيت بتاعها

Our Team – الفريق بتاعنا

His Boss – المدير بتاعه

Theirs – بتاعتهم أو  بتاعهم

Mine – بتاعي او بتاعتي

Notice that using “Betaai” or “Betaati” (and all others) depends on the noun you are referring (add Taa if its a feminine word, and add the suffix directly if its a masculine word).

Hers – بتاعتها أو بتاعها

Some more examples for you:

Whose bag is it? (Who does this bag belongs to?) – الشنطة دي بتاعت مين؟
= It’s Eric’s  – بتاعت ايريك

– Whose cup of tea is it? (Who does this cup of tea belongs to?) – الشاي ده بتاع مين؟
= It’s his – بتاعه

– Hey guys, whose cell phone is it? (Who does this cell belongs to?) – الموبايل ده بتاع مين يا جماعة؟
= It’s mine – بتاعي

– Whose Shawerma is it? – الشاورما دي بتاعت مين؟
= It was yours, now its mine  – كانت بتاعتك, دلوقتي بتاعتي

Stay tuned for Part II of indicating Possession in Egyptian Arabic.