Roba Becchia

I love languages, although I find Arabic very challenging. However, every once in a while the Egyptian Arabic is spiced with European words of Greek, Italian or Spanish origin. The other day I was on the balcony reading a book and I heard a salesman shouting "roba becchia" (spelled the way you would in Italian-roba bekia phonetically). I did not know what exactly I was hearing at the time but I was amused.

Yesterday, when sitting down with my Arabic teacher she told me that roba becchia in fact means what in Italian is called roba vecchia, i.e. old stuff. In fact the man is selling stuff he has found on the street or begged for in different houses around town. So Egyptian Arabic can be really easy - if you know a couple of European languages, unfortunately those influences have been in decline after Nasser who wanted to use the Standard version of Classic Arabic in schools and media. Oh well, I'm happy with the small things.

It also struck me that it's called roba becchia, which is closer to the Italian than the Spanish Ropa Vieja, but that the v in Spanish is pronounced b - of course, like the Arab version of the Italian word. The Arabic alphabet doesn't contain the letter v, nor does it contain p and so those letters often fall under b when "Arabifying" a word. Maybe that's where the Spanish got the rules for pronouncing the v as b from. I don't want to look it up on Wikipedia - I allow myself to interpret it in this way, until proven differently.

All good things!