The Arabic idiom in the apricot season translates to “in your dreams,” presumably because the growing season for this fruit is so brief. Incidentally, the etymological root of “apricot,” which means “to ripen early,” is shared with the word precocious. The Egyptian Arabic saying ate the camel and all it carried is the equivalent of “to eat someone out of house and home.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Arabic Sayings”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Stacey Robb. I’m calling from Washington, D.C.
Hi, Stacey. Welcome to the program.
Hi, thanks for calling.
Thank you.
What can we help you with today?
Well, I had a fun story to share.
Basically, I’ve been traveling around the world for the past couple of years.
Nice.
And I’ve picked up some funny phrases along the way, and I thought I would share my favorite one, which comes from Jordan.
While I was living there on a Fulbright scholarship, one of my students told me about the phrase bilmishmish.
And literally translated, it means in the apricot.
And he kept asking me, well, what does this mean? How do I translate it?
And I finally had to ask somebody else.
And it actually translates to mean in your dreams.
And I was like, I don’t get it. Why does it mean in your dreams?
It means in the apricot.
And it turns out that the apricot season is so short in Jordan that they say, you know, in the apricot season for something that is very unlikely to happen.
And I thought that was such a cute phrase.
It is.
What is the Arabic of it again?
Yeah, let’s hear it.
Bilmishmish.
Bilmishmish.
I know that etymologically the word apricot comes from words that mean to ripen early.
It’s related to precocious, which is cooking or ripening early.
Yeah, yeah, apricot.
So that’s fabulous.
That’s cool.
So the idiom kind of matches with the etymology of the English word apricot.
That’s pretty cool.
What were you doing on your Fulbright?
Well, I was teaching English at a culinary school.
Oh, cool.
And I was also teaching music to Iraqi refugee children.
Wow.
Thank you so much, Stacey, for sharing this story of a cool idiom from another language.
That’s awesome.
Thank you.
Okay.
Nice to talk to you guys.
Yeah, take care.
Best of luck.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Here’s a list of Egyptian Arabic sayings that I liked.
All these, of course, translated into English.
Can you guess what the English equivalent of this one is?
He ate the camel and all it carried.
Is that falling for a tall tale?
No, it’s to eat someone out of house and home.
Oh.
He ate the camel and all it carried.
Some of these we have in English as well.
The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
That’s pretty common, right?
What about this?
Grapes are eaten one by one.
What is that?
Step by step?
Yeah, one step at a time.
Oh, that’s nice.
That’s nice.
I have a really nice book of Arabic proverbs called The Son of a Duck is a Floater.
And it’s got all these great illustrations.
I don’t know who the author is, but it’s a lot of fun.
Is that idiom like the English one, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?
I think so.
I think so.
Very good.
Yeah, what an evocative expression, right?
We’d love to hear about your travels and the language that you picked up and the things that struck you from other languages that could work so well in English.
Share them, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.
