Meats: لحوم

Keeping with a food theme, here are Arabic words for some common meats. This is a fairly straightforward list, since as we do in English for everything except beef, Arabic uses the same vocabulary for the meat as it does for the animal it came from. I’m including a few non-halal (حلال, “permitted,” akin to “Kosher” if you like) meats, because (and this should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway) not everybody who speaks Arabic is a Muslim.

Have I missed your favorite? Leave it in comments and I’ll add it!

Meat, لَحم (laḥm):

  • Beef: لحم بَقَر (laḥm baqar, “meat of a cow”), لحم بَقَري (laḥm baqarī)
    • Hamburger: هامبرغر (hāmburghar)
    • Steak: شَريحة لحم (sharīḥat laḥm, literally “slice of meat”)
    • Veal: لحم عَجل (laḥm ʿajl)

NOTE: you can use either form (with or without that final ي) for all of these, so I’m only going to mention both forms here at the beginning

  • Chicken: لحم دَجاج (laḥm dajāj), though you may also see the Turkish طاووق (ṭāwūq) or the Egyptian colloquial فراخ (firākh)
  • Turkey: لحم ديك رومي (laḥm dīk rūmī)
  • Lamb: لحم خُروف (laḥm khurūf)
    • Mutton: لحم ضأن (laḥm ḍaʾn)
  • Goat: لحم ماعِز (laḥm māʿiz)
  • Camel: لحم إبل (laḥm ibl)

NOTE: there are a lot of different Arabic words for different kinds of camel, but إبل is the most generic and so it is best for this context.

  • Pork: لحم خَنزير (laḥm khanzīr)
    • Ham: لحم خَنزير again, or لحم خَنزير مُدَخَّن (laḥm khanzīr mudakhkhan, “smoked pork”)
  • Bacon (halal bacon can be made from turkey, beef, even fish, provided it’s prepared in the correct way): بَيكون (baykūn)
    • Pork bacon can be called لحم خنزير مُقَدَّد (laḥm khanzīr muqaddad), or “crunchy pork”
  • Sausage (again, halal sausages can be made with beef, turkey, lamb, chicken, etc.): سُجُق (sujuq, from the Turkish sucuk) or نَقانِق (naqāniq), which can also be spelled مَقانِق (maqāniq)
  • Fish: لحم سَمَك (laḥm samak)
    • Salmon: سَلمون (salmūn)
    • Tuna: تونة (tūnah)
  • Lobster: لحم كَركَند (laḥm karkand)
  • Shrimp: لحم جَمبَري (laḥm jambarī)
  • Crab: لحم سََلطَعون (laḥm salṭaʿūn)

Eid Mubarak (عيد الأضحى)

Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice, begins tomorrow, so here is my post on the festival from last year.
عيد مبارك to those observing the festival, and Tzom Kal (צום קל, I think) to those who are observing Yom Kippur, which began tonight.

Arabic Word a Day

Today marks the second religious festival of the Islamic calendar, after the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast, عيد الفِطر (ʿīd al-fiṭr, Eid al-Fitr), that follows Ramadan. It is called the Festival of the Sacrifice, عيد الأضحى (ʿīd al-aḍḥá, Eid al-Adha), and is the more important of the two, informally known as the “Greater Eid” (عيد الكَبير, ʿīd al-kabīr).

The festival commemorates an event that should be familiar to anybody who has some knowledge of the Bible, the episode in Genesis known as the “Binding of Isaac” (Genesis 22). God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham, understandably conflicted, ultimately chooses to obey God even at the cost of his son, only to have an angel stop him just as he’s about to kill the boy, Abraham having proved his devotion to God by his willingness to obey even such a…

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The Hajj

With the Hajj beginning today, I thought I would rerun my post on the annual pilgrimage from last year.
حج مبارك

Arabic Word a Day

Pending the observed phase of the moon (as with every other annual Islamic event, which if you recall are dated according to the lunar Hijri calendar), it appears that the Hajj for the year 1434 AH will begin either Sunday or Monday. I thought I would take the opportunity to write a post about Islamic pilgrimage in general, which you can find at my regular blog. Here we’ll talk about the Hajj and look at some relevant vocabulary. I will add some Persian and Turkish pilgrimage vocabulary as well.

The Hajj (الحَجّ) is a group pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, in the western region of Saudi Arabia known as the Hejaz (الحِجاز, al-ḥijāz). It is, with the exception of Ramadan, the central event of the Islamic calendar. Its completion is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey is…

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