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Moroccan Arabic and deshi basara

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:50 pm
by Yng
In the film The Dark Knight Rises, there is a song that is sung by prisoners in a big hole in the ground when one of them tries to escape by climbing. The words are apparently Moroccan Arabic, and IIRC are translated in the film (and elsewhere on the net definitely) as 'he rises'. With my very scant knowledge of Moroccan Arabic and a quick search to see how natives say it is written, it looks like this is actually تيجي بسرعة, which I would tentatively transliterate as tayǧi b-sərʿa. The cognates of these two words in MSA and in the dialects I am familiar with (yaǧīʿ bi-surʿah and biǧi b-sərʿa) actually mean 'he comes quickly', and it seems likely that this is its meaning in Moroccan Arabic too. What I am interested in is a) whether these cognates do indeed have the same meaning in Moroccan Arabic, b) what the actual form is and c) whether the pronunciation is native. To me it sounds like they are singing [deʃi basɑra] whilst it probably should be [t̺iʒi bsrʕa] or something like that, but I'm not familiar enough with different dialects' phonologies.

Re: Moroccan Arabic and deshi basara

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:12 am
by Khvaragh
The verb and adverb phrase are both AFAIK used in Moroccan, at least based on what I've heard of my Moroccan co-worker saying. I would assume it's /tajʒi bsrʕa/~/tsajʒi bsrʕa for "he rises" ( /ta-/ is a progressive marker similar to /b-/ in Egyptian).
However, the pronunciation in the film is so horrible that I couldn't even identify it as being ANY kind of Arabic. I don't speak Moroccan or any Maghrebi dialect, but I can recognize it readily when I hear it. In particular, there was no attempt whatsoever to vocalize a pharyngeal fricative/approximant, which is typically quite strong in Moroccan Arabic, IMO often even an epiglottal approximant. Etymological */t/ is often pronounced as /ts/ as well in Moroccan Arabic, but not all dialectal forms. The translation is completely inaccurate as well. I don't know any dialect where reflexes of /dʒa:ʔa/ means "rise." It's always "come." "Rise" in Moroccan is /tˤleʕ~jtˤleʕ/.

Re: Moroccan Arabic and deshi basara

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:48 am
by Yng
Just as I thought. Thanks!