Machaho Tellem Chaho

I used to expect “good things come to those who wait” to mean that should you wait long enough, the thing/s you were waiting for would eventually turn up.  Then an epiphany crashed on my head and I knew... you can wait all you want and what you’re waiting for might never come, but along the way during the wait you’ll encounter some things positive, like something-good and something-close. And so it is that along the way, I sort of encountered Hafid Benhadriya. Hafid Benhadriya is an Algerian language researcher, teacher and writer based in Wahran, who is very active in promoting Derja. He is behind several projects such as Jazayriya and Derja at school . He blogs in Derja at Felmdina  and accompanies his posts with an audio that matches the text, a great initiative to reach the blind. He is also working on translating The Little Prince by Saint Exupéry, in Algerian . These are the few projects of his I know and I suspect he works and helps out on many oth...

The Dictionary of the Algerian Dialect (Algiers’ variety) in a clear Algerian tongue * was compiled by Mehdi Berrashed and published by Vescera editions, in 2013 (393 pages, 800DA). Berrached wrote his dictionary in modern Arabic, giving Algerian words in bold and in quotes (written using the Arabic script). Words are listed following the Arabic alphabetical order, plus insertions of letters representing the specific sounds of Algerian such as G . Berrashed gathered his data from 'popular' poetry and 'popular' songs among other sources, which he quotes to place words in their context and to attest to their use. This dictionary is dedicated to the words used in Algiers pre 1970s-80s. Apparently, an Algerian linguist is working on the Algerian language post 1990 to analyse how a decade of war may have altered the previous stage of the language (more on this in a later blog post). This dictionary opens with a question: what if Ibn Manẓum  ( the great Nor...

When you need to look up a word in a new dictionary, in what part of the dictionary do you look? Do you go straight to the letter concerned? Do you first browse through the pages, perhaps stop at a word that catches your attention before looking for what you set out to? Do you only look at illustrations? You'd google? If you were an early Arabic grammarian trained between the 8 th to 10 th century, you’d be so stressed out about authenticity of reported speech and whether you can rely on an entry in any dictionary, you’d walk straight into a pillar while thinking about it and instantly die (this is how the first, genius, lexicographer of the Arabic tradition, Al-Xalil reportedly died).  So you’re not from 8 th century Iraq, and you’re probably not thinking of the Algerian so deeply but you should, and Mohammed Nazim Aziri clearly is.  When Le Dictionnaire des locutions de l’arabe dialectal algerien by Mohamed Nazim Aziri got into my hands at Algiers' ANEP bo...

The story of “the Algerian language dictionary” should be tracked and told in English somewhere, and while we wait for someone to do it in a rightful manner, we might as well make a start here. This beginning will need to be oriented (by you, if you feel like it), amended (by me, when I feel like it) and added to (by us when info springs to light). And so, a long, long, long, long time ago… After the French invaded Algeria, their linguists began to compile bi-lingual (Algerian-French) lexica, dictionaries and glossaries of the Algerian language, then referred to as “Algerian Arabic”, or the tongue-twister “Algerian-Arabic-dialect”. If you’re confused about what the difference is between a lexicon, a dictionary and a glossary, I am too. You could get further confused by reading this or you could just hang on to the only strength to be found in language studies: etymology. Lexicon , of Greek origin, means a word-book; a dictionary , of Latin origin, means a collection of w...