Best Arabic insults
I happened across a rather extensive list of Arabic insults (NSFW), and felt obligated to point out some of the more entertaining among them (profanity follows):
- Add ma emmak neketo la bayyak men tizo, hebil fik men bayadto. — Your mother fucked your father in the ass so much that he got pregnant and held you in his balls (Yes, I swear that’s what it says)
- Badi lahsak manbat sha’er baidi — I will make you lick the roots of the hairs of my balls (Not just the hairs; the roots of the hairs!)
- Una bede et’hash zebe be dant bentok — I wish to place my penis in your daughter’s ear
- Elif air ab tizak — A thousand dicks in your ass (Hmm, if you thought that was wierd…)
- Elif air ab dinikh — A thousand dicks in your religion (…how’s that for weirder?)
- Fatah — Foreskin (considered a grave insult) (Isn’t ‘Fatah’ the name of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian political party?)
- Airi Fe Sabahak — My dick on your forehead (Does that happen often?)
- Kuss Ummak Bisinaan — Your mother’s pussy has teeth (I don’t even want to know…)
- Kafekom kalaman bel Arabia ya hi wah naht! — Stop speaking in Arabic, you animals! (This is probably meant for me)
Most of these sound like the insults my little brothers made up when they were 10 years old. Of course, expletives are always the most colloquial elements of a language, and in the case of Arabic they’re almost always specific to a single dialect, so it comes as no surprise that the English translation seems absurd. Still, one can’t help but notice a few recurring elements in the insults that are foreign to English swearing:
- Insults against sisters and one’s religion
- A clear equation of homosexuality with a grave insult (moreso than English)
- Extensive use of the subject’s mother and lineage
- Verbosity
Perhaps more surprising, this comprehensive list isn’t even complete; the expletives my Iraqi coworkers taught me don’t even appear here.
Tags: arabic, Migrated from Drupal, nsfw