Arabic is spoken in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudia Arabic and everywhere in between. Each region has its own recognizable dialect. There are over 300 million people who speak Arabic as a first language worldwide.
Country profile:
Egypt
Lebanon
Palestine
Algeria
Morocco
Iraq
Syria
The Gulf
There are some things that are good to know when attacking Arabic music for the first time. Here I will try to list some useful hints. Everytime you see a link, it goes to a song that can serve as an example.
Tips
- Arabic dialects usually deviate from Standard Arabic pronunciation and grammar so a student of Arabic may have trouble making any sense out of songs at first. However, the grammar of the dialects is actually much simplified and aside from a few common words most of the vocabulary is the same. Looking at a transcript of the lyrics in Arabic script will reveal to you just how close these dialects are to the standard and each other!
- Some music by older artists such as Abdel Halim Hafez and Fairuz as well as contemporary artists such as Kazem el-Saher and Marcel Khalifa use Arabic poetry for their lyrics which causes them to tend to be more standard.
- Verses are usually repeated once or more than once in Arabic music, whereas this is quite uncommon in modern American music. I usually do not retype a listing of lyrics that are repeated to save space and time but beware that this is completely the norm in most songs.
- Arabic music does not always conform to the Western musical scale, however, it is far from being atonal! The classical "Arabic" scale as it is known in the West contains semi-tones which we consider quarter step's in between Western notes which are all half-steps from each other. In other words, Arabic music just utilizes more notes than Western music; the instruments are not out of tune.
- The instruments most commonly used in Arabic music have traditionally been hand drums and fretless stringed instruments such as the lute and the violin. Piano is a more recent innovation and now most pop songs are produced electronically on a synthesizer like most pop from around the world.
- Although much of the music on this site is intended for predominantly Arab audiences, artists like Natacha Atlas and Alabina have an international market, not to mention Rai artists from Algeria like Cheb Khaled and others like Souad Massi who are hugely popular in France.
- Aside from pop, the Western genre of hip-hop has become popular in most Arab countries with artists like DAM achieving international popularity. Rock still remains scarce in the Arab world.
- Many male singers sing love songs that are grammatically about other males. This is not meant to be homoerotic, rather, the male gender is being used as a neutral gender. There is a precedent for this going back over one thousand years in the poetic tradition. If you watch the videos this is often clear. So when Amr Diab says "habibi ya nur al-3ayn," he's not talking about his boyfriend.
- The word "ya" is used to address someone like "o" in English, which actually quite uncommon in contemporary music. In songs the "ya" will usually be followed by a term of endearment of some sort, for example "ya habibi."
- Sometimes sentence order is highly irregular or words are missing. The lyrics of Arabic music are highly contextual just like the lyrics of American songs or music from anywhere else. Keep in mind that the literal translation doesn't always make sense.
- Although religious music exists in Arabic, most popular music does not have much religious content except for occassional specific songs. Nationalist music, however, is more common within pop music.
Useful Vocabulary
Love
Habibi - My darling, Beloved, kind of how 'Baby' is used in some American songs
Ruhi - My soul
Hayati - My life (notice the -i suffix to indicate "my")
Qalbi, 'Albi - My heart
3omri - My life, my years
Hubbak - Your love
3oyunak - Your eyes (notice -ak/ik suffix to indicate "your"
Ghali - My precious
Hubb - Love
Hawa - Love
Shoq - Desire, Love
Gharam - Passion, Love
Mushtaq - Longing, Yearning
Majnun/Magnun - Crazy
Hibb - to love
Dala3 - to flirt, spoil
Bahibbak - I love you
Wahashtini - I miss you
Halwa - Beautiful
Qurbak/'urbak - Your closeness
Bo3dak - Your remoteness, farness (can have the same effect as closeness, see Hobak Nar)
There's plenty more too
Important body parts
Qalb/'alb - Heart
3ayn, pl. 3oyun, 3ynay - Eye
Yed, pl. iyday - Hand
3aql/3a'l - Mind
RuH - Soul
Common question words
Eh - What
Shu - What
Feen - Where
Ween - Where
Leh - Why
Miin - Who
Imta - When
Keef - How
Izzay - How
Ah, Aiwa - Yes
La - No
Other common phrases/Vocab
Qulli/'ulli - Tell me
IHkini - Tell me
Khalini - Let me, May I
3ayz - I want
Biddi - I want
Kidda - Like this
Qarabi/'arabi liy - Get close to me
Ib3ad 3ani - Get far from me
BasHar - I'm sleepless
Leyla, pl. Layali - Night
ad-Dunya - The world
Hilm - Dream
Bahlam Bik - I'm dreaming of you
Khalas - It's over, done
Ghena - to sing
Nar - Fire (Everything is fire when you're an Arab in love)
Farah - to get happy
Gharib - Strange, stranger
Again, this is a very basic and simplified outline of some of the main things one encounters when listening to Arabic music. I'll try to add to it as things come up
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