KUWAIT: Kuwaiti local dialect is rich with many beautiful and strange words that are linked to popular heritage and the local environment. Some of these are from classical Arabic, while others are derived from foreign languages. Some of these worlds disappeared and were replaced, while others are still in use.

Dr Yaqoub Al-Ghunaim wrote in his book (Pronunciation of Kuwaiti Dialect in the Lisan Al-Arab book by Ibn Manzour) that the Kuwaiti dialect restored its balance and replaced alien loanwords with classical Arabic ones, such as - motor became sayyara (car), kirfaya became sareer (bed), tonbakhiya became koora (ball), silqi became masaha (area), ranq became loun (color) and kandishan became mukayef (air condition).

Despite this, there are foreign words still in use in our local dialect, and this is not strange, since Kuwait is a country open to all civilizations and its people love to travel and discover the world. It is also the destination of hundreds of thousands of expats of various nationalities, in addition to modern communications means that are expanding and their role is growing daily, which makes it easier for new words to sneak into our local dialect.

Researcher in Kuwait heritage Hussein Al-Qattan told KUNA that some words and idioms in our beautiful dialect lost some words, such as - banzenekhana became mahatta banzene (gas station), saheb became duktur (doctor) and khatoon became mumarrida (nurse). Qattan said the word jeneer was replaced with amil fanni (technical worker), jetti was replaced by kart (card) and gari became darraja (bicycle), which Kuwaitis also used to call the horse of Iblees (devil), dawakhana became saidaliya (pharmacy) and karwa became ujra (fee).

He said some of the words that were changed through the years include shakh to fidda (silver), as there is an old Kuwait proverb "nussa thahab wa nussa shakh" (half gold and half silver). The word mao used to mean imitation gold, warqool means gold-plated, jittaya means ghutra (men's headdress) and bagha means a plastic board. Qattan said other old Kuwaiti words used to describe old professions that have disappeared, including majni (one who repairs ceramic ware), dammaj (rope maker) and khassaf (someone who made mats from bamboo as well as baskets). - KUNA