Glossary entry

Arabic term or phrase:

اكتش كدر فى الالولو

English translation:

nonsense

Added to glossary by Arabic & More
Jan 24, 2014 06:28
10 yrs ago
Arabic term

اكتش كدر فى الالولو

Arabic to English Social Sciences Music
Country: Egypt

These are song lyrics (thank you to Samaa for helping me identify the song and providing me with a link):

http://fnanen.net/klmat/alaghany/m/m7md-foad/kamnna.html

It appears slightly differently in the text I am translating as follows:

Ktchi kadr feen aloouuloo

Hahahaha Withoutt yooooohhhhhhh

It is a discussion between two friends who are making jokes and being silly.

Proposed translations

+2
10 hrs
Selected

nonsense

These are just meaningless words put besides each other to rhyme with melody. Since the production of this song till now, none could grasp what is it about rather than it came in the context of a movie about the dreams of young men

Also, see this
فقد جاء مؤلف أغاني هذه الحقبة عنتر هلال ليقدم أغنية «كامننا» التي اشتهرت في فيلم «اسماعيلية رايح جاي» وغناها المطرب محمد فؤاد لتحقق نجاحا كبيرا في الفيلم وتسببت في تحقيقه أعلى الايرادات، رغم غرابة ما حوته هذه الأغنية من ألفاظ غريبة، فلا أحد يعرف معنى كامننا، ولا «كاتش كادر في الألولو» منذ ظهورها وحتى اليوم، ولا أظن حتى أن مؤلفها يفهم معناها!.

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Note added at 2 days6 hrs (2014-01-26 13:15:02 GMT)
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If you had posted further context instead of explaining the situation, this would have helped a lot either in this question or other questions on Egyptian colloquial words

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Note added at 3 days6 mins (2014-01-27 06:35:18 GMT)
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You are welcome. Thanks for clarification!

They are just practicing a recently favorite habit, especially among young men, called "alsh" ألش©. I do not know a word in English gives a close meaning. However, it is all about humorously playing and twisting the meaning of words using similar sounds. For example, If X asks Y where is the car. Y: it is there. X: their or ours? . Another example, if X tells Y 'you are right.' Y: 'No I am left' or "No, I am Y" :D Sometimes it takes the last syllable of words to make up a new word of the same sound yet of an irrelevant topic, e.g., if X says king'dom', Y may comment 'dumb or smart?' If X did not get it and asks 'Who?' Y: may say the 'King'.

Alsh is usually done in a humor sense and to show off the faculties of playing with various and irrelevant vocabularies or irrelevant topics and often to tease or annoy the talker especially if they are friends. However, if it is practiced with others, it may be considered offensive especially if they are not of the same age, etc.
© Copyright of explanation and examples are preserved to the writer of this comment :) Saleh Dardeer

So, my answer is still "nonsense" it's all about jokes, being funny, pretending to be funny, being silly, saying any meaningless speech etc. Moreover, the chosen son in the context of Alsh is nonsense. Hence, they are indulging in high-level nonsense and meaningless talk :) that requires an urgent medical linguist intervention to stop their boloney

Meaningfully,

Saleh

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Note added at 3 days17 mins (2014-01-27 06:46:34 GMT)
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song*

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Note added at 3 days3 hrs (2014-01-27 10:20:09 GMT)
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So far, yea it is sort of word play. For the time being, I may suggest "twisting of words meaning " or perhaps "pun"... once I have access to a PC, I may do extensive search

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Note added at 4 days (2014-01-28 10:52:34 GMT)
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Yea, pun is perfect
Kindly see:

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play that suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.[1][2] These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism uses an incorrect expression that alludes to another (usually correct) expression, but a pun uses a correct expression that alludes to another (sometimes correct but more often absurdly humorous) expression. Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words".[3] Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and its culture. For example, "Camping is intense." (in tents)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun

A play on words, usually for a comic reception.
He became a math teacher due to some prime factors.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pun

I found websites for posting puns as well
Note from asker:
Thank you, Saleh. Forgive my delayed response, but it sometimes takes me a while to process the different information posted. Your posting in invaluable as always. The context is really just as I stated...friends singing, making jokes, and being silly. One person said the word "kitchen" but misspelled it as "ktchie" so this made the other person start singing the above lyrics.
This is a great explanation, thanks. It is evident that Egyptians love this type of word play as it comes up frequently in various conversations with endless references to songs, movies, commercials, etc. As it happens, I recently came across the word "ألش" and wondered about the meaning. Do you think "word-play" is accurate?
Peer comment(s):

agree Mohamed Zidan
1 day 3 hrs
Thanks, Mohamed! :)
agree asmaa dahab
3 days 18 hrs
Thanks, Asmaa!
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Jazzack Allah khair for the time and effort you put into answering me. I really appreciate it."
1 hr

إتشي قادر فين قالوا له

في مثل هذه الكتابات الـ(..) تكثر الأخطاء الهجائية دون أن يبالي كاتبها بالمراجعة طبعاً.
Note from asker:
Thank you for taking the time to respond. It is appreciated.
Peer comment(s):

neutral Samaa Zeitoun : Lotfi, what does it mean in intelligible terms? I'm Egyptian & I don't understand! Does it have to do with the story of the movie where it was released?
1 hr
في الحقيقة أنا لا أعلم شيئاً عن القصّة ولا عن الفيلم ؛ كل ما في الأمر أنّني حاولت تسهيل أمر الترجمة على زميلتن - عذراً.
Something went wrong...
4 days

no translation

I think these meaningless words in Egyptian-dialect songs are often ignored by translators. I have seen such examples in song subtitling which were made by the 'Nile TV' channel in Egypt.
Note from asker:
Thank you for your contribution, Asmaa. I appreciate it a lot.
Something went wrong...
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