I’m translating a Jewish woman from Baaqouba (Iraq) and her speech is the closest thing I’ve heard to a genuine Hebrew/Iraqi Judeo-Arabic hybrid I’ve ever heard. Eg: tǝtaari lax ani hayiti…kǝntu b-ǝl-pardes wiya-l-axim māl-na. ratsiti liktof pǝrtqāl wu-mā qabal. ṣāḥ ˁalē-yi. qǝltō-l-u lama?

Girl at the bar just tried to guess my background and went through Greek, Italian, French and Iranian before I just told her.

שנה טובה ומתוקה🍯🍎🐝 Happy Jewish New Year to all my friends and family of all backgrounds and beliefs. As an Australian Jew, I remember the members of my community murdered in the Bondi massacre on Hanukkah who won’t be with us in the new year. May their memories be a blessing.

I don’t know anybody who speaks Yiddish natively among millennials/Gen Z, but in my community people still casually use Yiddish words or even adapt them to Australian-style slang: - neb (short for nebbish) - mazels (short for mazel tov) - shabs (short for Shabbat/shabbes) - balagan - shlemazel

It finally happened - I fell asleep on a work call🫠

I hear Assyrian Neo-Aramaic somewhat frequently and know many speakers, but it’s commonly omitted when public information is translated into other languages. The assumption seems to be that all speakers can natively speak either Arabic, Persian or Turkish, or that they speak fluent English.

How many people know about Maltralian - the dialect of Maltese spoken in Australia (but not in Malta)? Maltralian (Il-Maltraljan) differs from Standard Maltese and has been spoken since before 1929.

Kinda wanna learn French

“Translating” Christian Baghdadi (CB) -> Jewish Baghdadi (JB) ‘That woman whom you used to dislike, I saw her yesterday in Rashid St’ CB hāy ǝm-maġa l-kǝnti tǝkġahǝ-ya šǝftǝww-a mbēġḥa b-šāġǝˁ ǝġ-Ġašīd JB hāyi l-maġa l-kǝnti tǝkġahī-ha ˁayǝntū-ha bōḥi b-šārǝˁ ǝr-Rašīd

I love the Christian Baghdadi (CB) dialect so much. It’s almost the same as the Jewish (JB) dialect, but just foreign enough to be fascinating. I also love how it has its own similarities to the Muslim (MB) dialect which JB lacks, but lacks some of the JB/MB similarities. So cool.

The Syrian Jews I’m translating are often significantly younger than the Iraqi and Lebanese Jews I’m used to translating, and it’s making me realise how different it feels to translate each age group

The pleasant surprise of randomly finding a TikTok of a Kuwaiti who makes videos about living in Melbourne in Arabic

Questions for Arabic speakers 1) how do you say ‘try’ in your dialect? 2) what are the main words derived from the root حول in your dialect? I ask after using the word aḥāwǝl for ‘try’. Two heritage BJA speakers didn’t recognise it; one said that he exclusively knows aǧaġǝb.

Kinda surreal hearing Baghdad-born Jews talk about their dialect being something that doesn’t exist anymore. None of the people I know passed it onto their children, most married Jews from other traditions and very few do anything traditional beyond some foods.

Eating fish on Friday night (Shabbat) is very important in some communities (Moroccan, Tunisian etc) but rare in others. Obviously this can be partly attributed to local availability, but my Moroccan friend gave a religious argument for fish at this meal which it seems other communities don’t have.

Hebrew-speaking friend said to me: יש מצב שתרצה לאכול איתי דינר? I have never been so amused by an English loanword before😭

Another thing: He was confused by the existence of BJA, which I’m used to, so I shared some of the differences. He “corrected” me a few times, eg: Me: aḥki- Him: aḥči! č! Me: lā, nǝḥna nǝḥki ḥkiyyi, mā “nǝḥči ḥčāya” Him: ???😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😅😅😅

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic l-ǝṣ-ṣabǝġ llǝ-nu ḥdūd לִצְצַבִּע׳ לְלִנוּ חְדוּד للصبغ للنو حدود ‘patience has limits’ Note: llǝ-nu The form llǝ- ‘to+pronominal suffix’ might be unique to BJA; it is ǝl- in both the Muslim and Christian Baghdadi dialects.

Just met an Emirati guy and spoke Arabic w him. I was very surprised to hear him use the word mal- مل He claimed that this word is used in the UAE. Can anyone confirm?

I read that linking r and intrusive r are very prominent in my English dialect and now I can’t stop trying to avoid doing it🥲

Reconnected with an acquaintance from Basra and wow - the Basra dialect is quite different to the Baghdad dialect. On the other hand, the Jewish dialects of Baghdad and Basra are basically identical.

I’ve been using ChatGPT as a personal trainer since December and the results have been way better than I could have expected

Damascus & Beirut Jewish dialects of Arabic liḥna לִחְנַא لحنا ‘we’

Hot take! Slavic languages are harder than Semitic languages for speakers of English (Obviously this is super generalised but I’m basing it on my experiences as well as what I’ve observed over the years)

The majority of BJA speakers use Hebrew as their primary language and write BJA in Hebrew letters. Because they mostly have no Arabic education and don’t know etymological roots and pronunciations, reading can be tricky. Eg: - אנשאללה קאלבק פרחן וביתק מליאן - קלטולק אריד אשראב קחוה

Arabic dialect question! Is ع pronounced differently - more strongly, maybe? - in some dialects than others? A non-Arabic speaking friend noticed this, and I think I’ve always wondered it subconsciously too. I can almost picture a scale between dialects of strongest -> softest ع

Spotify algorithm giving me Assyrian wedding songs I haven’t heard in years. This is one of those times where, as a Hebrew speaker, you can pick out words in an Assyrian song that you understand but the rest of the song is unintelligible. Kinda cool!

Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic l- ל ل ‘to, for’ Unlike some other dialects where multiple prepositions are used (eg: ˁǝnd, ˁala, ˁa, ǝla, etc) , l- is always used for movement towards location. ġǝḥtu l-bēt Ḥǝsqēl ‘I went to Hesqel’s house’ ǧō l-ǝs-sūq ‘they came to the market’

Apparently people can’t hear a difference between Australian and New Zealand accents😅 As an Australian, this is very difficult to comprehend 😱

Baghdadi Arabic dialects Christian (C) Muslim (M) & Jewish (J) Abu-Haidar (1991) gives examples of CB plus MB versions. Gonna try “translate” them to JB. ‘my brother is getting married tomorrow’ C: axū-yi ġaḥ-yǝtkallal ġada M: axū-ya raḥ-yǝtzawwaǧ bāčǝr J: axū-yi ġaḥ-yǝtzawwaǧ ġada