Lizard is in Darija bôbrîS بُوبْريص. It has other synonyms: zrmômiyya زْرمُومية, or wzgha وزغة. If you want to know how I always called it, it’s tiqlit تيقليت, and it’s the Berber word.
Have you ever seen cool lizards? When I say cool, I mean it!
Well, today I am going to introduce them to you. There is that guy in California, called Henry Schifberg who changed his last name into Lizardlover. Henry Lizardlover lives with a family of lizard since 1982. He trained them to pose in amazing ways to take absolutely stunning pictures. He affirms that his lizards are alive, real and healthy; and that no tricks are used in his pictures!
This is so wow! Enjoy the pictures:
Pictures credits: Henry Lizardlover’s website
Inspiration credits: Netdur
Today’s word is suggested by Professor Antonio Giménez Reíllo from the University of Murcia, in Spain, and the word is z3TôT ????? . According to Colin’s dictionary of Moroccan Arabic, z3TôT means both « the person who rings some kind of bells during the nights of Ramadan”, and “a monkey without tail that jugglers train to play tricks”. However, I favor the latter definition more, as I never heard the word used for the first meaning.
z3TôT seems to be originated from the Berber word for monkey: az3DôD ??????, or z3DôD ?????.
The regular word for monkey in Darija is qrd ???, which comes from MSA qird ???.
Surprisingly enough, z3TôT exists also in the Iraqi dialect, and it stands for “a child or an adult who acts in a childish or immature manner”.
I have a video for you…
“Once upon a time, there was a smart monkey…and a lazy dog. One day, the smart monkey wanted to…”
Let you watch the video, I will not ruin it for you!
Enjoy!
A black beetle is khnfôsa ?????? in Darija, and it comes from classical Arabic: khonfosa2 ??????.
khnfôsa: Undefined feminine singular.
lkhnfôsa: Defined feminine singular.
khnfôsât: Undefined feminine plural.
lkhnfôsat: Defined feminine plural.
When I used to be a kid, we believed that whoever happens to crush a black beetle accidentally, will wet their bed at night. When you’re a kid, wetting your bed is a big shame! So crushing a beetle, in those large gatherings we have daily to play together, is a public proof that this is going to happen to you.
Later, we knew it was all lies… To prove it, we’d just look for any miserable khnfôsa in the neighbourhood, and crush them in front of other kids without any fear of the unexpected ^^.
