Fom Christmas to Easter

This is the lyrics

Now it is Christmas again
And now it is Christmas again
And Christmas lasts until Easter

But that was not true
And that was not true
For between them comes fasting
Scandinavian Christmas carol

Christmas and Easter

To talk about Christmas in Arabic, we first need to learn the Arabic word for "birth."

The word (miilad) can refer both to birth in its general meaning, and to the birth of Christ. When you talk about the days when you celebrate Christmas, you say (3iidu l-miiladi).

(3iid) means "holiday" and (miilaad) means "birth". The phrase literally means "holiday of birth". In other words: Christmas Holiday.

The Arabic word for "Easter" is (fiSH).

When we talk about the days when we celebrate Easter, we say (3iidu l-fiSH). It literally means "holiday of Easter". That is: Easter Holiday.

Both (3iidu l-miilad) and (3iidu l-fiSH) are ownership constructions, also called genitive constructions or idafas. Another known idafa that also starts with (3iid) is (3iidu l-fiTr).

Again

There are different ways to say "again" in Arabic. I have chosen (marra thaniya) which literally means "a second time".

The noun (marra) means "time". The adjective meaning "second" is (thanii) in the masculine and (thaniya) in the feminine. Since the noun (marra) is feminine, the adjective should also be in feminine: (thaniya). You can also shorten the expression and just say (thaniyatan).

Another option is to say (marra 'ukhraa) which literally means "another time". The adjective meaning "other" is ('aakhar) in the masculine and ('ukhraa) in the feminine.

Another option is to say (min jadiid) which literally means "from new".

Now it is Christmas again...

We are ready to translate the first half of the song.

Now it is Christmas again
al-'aan 3iidu l-miilaadi marratan thaaniyatan
الآن عيد الميلاد مرّة ثانية

You probably recognize both (3iidu l-miilaadi) which means "Christmas" and (marra thaaniya) which means "again". The only new word is (al-'aan) at the beginning of the sentence, meaning "now".

And now it is Christmas again
wa al-'aan 3iidu l-miilaadi marratan thaaniyatan
والآن عيد الميلاد مرّة ثانية

Here we have another new word at the beginning: (wa) meaning "and".

And Christmas lasts until Easter
wa yastamirru al-miilaadu Hattaa 3iidi l-fiSHi
ويستمرّ الميلاد حتّى عيد الفصح

Here we recognize the first word (wa): "and". We also know that (3iidi l-fiSHi) at the end means "Easter Holiday". If you pay attention, you will notice that it says (3iidi) and not (3iidu) as it did before. This is because the word now has genitive case. The word that causes genitive case is (Hattaa).

(Hattaa) is an interesting word that requires its own blog post. For now, I can say that it is unusually complicated to be an Arabic word, because it functions as a preposition sometimes and sometimes not.

Now there are only one unknown word left: the verb (yastamirru) meaning "he continues" or "it continues". The past tense form is (istamarra) meaning "he continued" or "it continued".

To be and not to be

In the previous blog post, I wrote that a verb corresponding to "is" is rarely needed in Arabic. Here we have an example where the verb "is" is needed in Arabic: when it is negated. In other words: when something is not or has not been.

The first word (hadhaa) means "this" in Arabic. The last word (SaHiiH) means "true" or "correct" in Arabic. The term (lam yakun) means "was not" in Arabic. The particle (lam) is used to negate the past and (yakun) is a form of the verb (kaana) which corresponds to "is" in Arabic. Click on the eye symbol for a more detailed explanation of the sentence. Then you will know, for example, that (SaHiiHan) is in accusative case, which is caused by the verb (kaana).

Between the two

The Arabic word for "between" is (bayna).

Arabic for "the two" is (humaa).

If we combine them to say "between the two", it becomes (baynahimaa).

You may notice that the vowel (u) has changed to an (i). That is: (humaa) has become (himaa). This is because (bayna) is a preposition and after prepositions it should be genitive case.

Comes the fasting

The song ends with "comes fasting", which is (ya'tii aS-Sawmu) in Arabic.

The first word is the verb (ya'tii) which means "comes" in Arabic. The second word is (aS-Sawmu) which means "the fasting".

The prefix (aS) indicates that the word is in definite form. The word (Sawm) means "fasting".

The second part of the song

Now we know enough to translate the second part of the song.

But that was not true
lakin hadhaa lam yakun SaHiiHan
لكن هذا لم يكن صحيحا

Here we recognize the whole sentence except the first word (lakin) that means "but".

And that was not true
wa hadhaa lam yakun SaHiiHan
وهذا لم يكن صحيحا

Here we have the same sentence again, although this time it starts with (wa) which we know means "and".

For between them comes fasting
fa-baynahimaa ya'tii aS-Sawmu
فبينهما يأتي الصيام

In the last sentence we recognize (baynahimaa) meaning "between the two" and (ya'tii aS-Sawmu) meaning "comes the fasting". The only new word is (fa) in the beginning, which in this context means "for".

Here I must admit that I do not know which word to choose. Although (fa) is closer to the word in the original text, perhaps (li'anna) which means "because" is closer to the actual meaning. I give you (li'anna) as well, and you can choose for yourself.

Listen to the song

Hope you have learned something new in Arabic. Personally, I like to translate songs and other texts into Arabic. I often appreciate the texts more in Arabic than in Swedish. Especially this text. To be honest, I think this song is rather bland and annoying in Swedish. And the music is even more annoying. This may of course be because it was played so often when I was a child. At your own risk, you can listen to the song about Christmas and Easter and decide for yourself.