Earlier today, my buddy Eman and I had a super fun conversation about foreign-origin words we use in our Arabic dialects (Egyptian for her, Sudanese for me) and why maybe we use those words.

I remember how my mind was BLOWN when I realized lorry is British English for truck and not Sudanese Arabic for truck, LOL. And that the "bittyfor" cookies we made for Eid are actually French petits fours

I still have no idea what the real Arabic word for skirt is. We say "iskert" and some Levantine Arabs say tannoura, thought that doesn't sound like fus-ha/modern standard to me.

I realize some British people may object to me saying "British English," but If we'd used "lorry" in American English, I'd never have thought it was an Arabic word when I first heard it in Sudan, LOL.

And then we got onto Turkish words in Arabic and wondering if they were actually Arabic words that made it into modern Turkish or Ottoman Turkish words that made it into modern Arabic dialects? LOL

Words like baltagiyya, ajzakhana, jazma, nabatshi, are all clearly Turkish (I can't spell them in Turkish afedersiniz!) and have made their way into various modern Arabic dialects, thanks to Ottoman rule. But what about shanta, tanjara, baqala, dukkan? Who said it first?

And some French words that made it into various Arabic dialects, even in the countries they didn't colonize: manakeer (nail polish, from manicure), kofeer (hair salon, from coiffeur), and isharb (headscarf, from echarp)

I'm sure Farsi and Urdu also impacted Arabic (and the other way around). For ex, in Sudan, we call the color purple banafsaji and I believe that's actually from Persian. Though why we use Farsi vocab, I have no idea. Turkish makes more sense bc of the Ottoman presence...

Also, I wonder about what the Egyptians call zalabiya - those bite-sized fried dough balls smothered in syrup, honey, or sugar. The Greeks call them loukoumades which sounds very similar to the Arabic luqaymat/Sudanese ligaymat. Who said it first? And can I have some?

Tagging my girl @pusassa so she can add her thoughts :) Also, thanks to the hyphenated Swedish crew @aliawhs @RamisOrlu @adnanmahmutovic for their contributions earlier!