What is the meaning of the word "foah"

Ælfscine

Ælfscine

Member
Hello everyone...

I am wondering what is the meaning of the word "foah" that is used so often at the beginning of Arabic songs and can often be draged out or repeated for as long as a minute before the song actually begins.

I am guessing from context that it means something like "behold", "hearken", "listen up" or something similar. Am I anywhere close?

Thanks,

Ælfscine
 
Ælfscine

Ælfscine

Member
Hi...

Listen to any song by Fairuz or Warda and you are likely to hear it. It seems to be an expression of introduction before the singer starts into the body of the song. "Foah" may not be the best transcription of the word but it is the best that my English ears and the English spelling system can render it. It is also sounds close to the Vietnamese word "Pho" which is the name of a type of noodle soup.

Ælfscine
 
Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
"Foah" is what a Southern Belle yells before swinging her golf club at the ball.

Sorry. Couldn't resist. :redface:
 
MizzNaaa

MizzNaaa

New member
I could probably help you if you link me a song, cause I really can't tell the arabic equivalent from it's English-letter pronunciation, but I'm a native arabic speaker so if you manage to find a link I'll help :)
 
Aniseteph

Aniseteph

New member
The very first bit before she sings "ya Hajal Sannine"? I think it's just a sung note on an "o" sound, not a word.
 
Z

Zumarrad

Active member
I can't hear an "f" in there at all. I am pretty sure it's not a word. It's no different to when people in English-language songs sing whoa or oh or hey or ah. Just a vowel sound that allows the singer to play with melody in a way that is appealing to the ear.
 
gisela

gisela

Super Moderator
Here's another one that possibly could be what you mean Ælfscine.

It sounds a tiny bit like Fooooooh, but it could also just be ooooh with a "setting off" that becomes the slight f sound. Or it could actually mean something, I have no idea.

[video=youtube;qZADJUtABjU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZADJUtABjU[/video]
 
Ælfscine

Ælfscine

Member
That's what I have been looking foah!

Hi...

Yes, that is exactly it! But to me, the last two reiterations still sound like "foah".

My dad says that most poems and riddles in Old English begin with the word "hwæt" which literally means "what" but in this context mean something akin to "listen here". So as an interjection, "foah" could mean the same thing. I guess other cognate forms would be the Anglo-Normand "oyez" and Middle English "hark".

I would really like to learn Arabic. My friend Laïla speaks Algerian but I guess that is far off from standard Arabic. I've often heard the expression "diglossic" when speaking of Arabic but I'm not all that certain what that means.

Just out of curiosity, is Fairouz still among the living. My dad has some of her LPs from the 70s so it would seem that she has been around for quite a bit.

Anyway, I'm rambling so I had better finish this here.

Thank you all again for your help,

Ælfscine
 
Z

Zumarrad

Active member
Oh she definitely puts a f or v in later on, just not at the start.

A word that sounds like the way I say "four" means "up", but I think this is definitely one for the people who speak Arabic to answer. There IS a long-standing tradition in Arabic music of vocal improvisations around specific words and phrases, but they don't necessarily mean literally what the words mean. (An Egyptian friend of a friend once said that the sung phrase "ya leili ya eini" means "I'm in the mood for music and dance" to him, not "oh my night oh my eyes").

What does doobie doobie doo mean or tra la la or diddly doodle eidle dum mean? They're just singing noises.
 
Roshanna

Roshanna

New member
Ælfscine said:
I would really like to learn Arabic. My friend Laïla speaks Algerian but I guess that is far off from standard Arabic. I've often heard the expression "diglossic" when speaking of Arabic but I'm not all that certain what that means.
Click to expand...

I'm learning Arabic at the moment, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're a language nerd and have the time. I already knew a little bit of 'dancer's Arabic' before I started, words that it's easy to pick out of song lyrics like 'habibi' or that appear in song titles, and random stuff like the names of various fruits :lol:, but it's definitely already helping me to make a bit more sense of songs as I listen to them. And I've always been a little obsessive about handwriting, so for me learning to write Arabic script has been fun too.

Apparently (thanks, Wikipedia!) 'diglossic' refers to the fact that there are different dialects of Arabic for formal and colloquial use. Modern Standard Arabic is formal, used by newsreaders etc, and most people understand it - but in daily life, people use the local colloquial dialects. And then there's classical Arabic as used in the Quran and in some poetry etc, which is more complicated and formal. Most books and classes teach Modern Standard Arabic, and that's what I'm doing at the moment, but Egyptian dialect might be more useful for dancers really.

Ælfscine said:
Just out of curiosity, is Fairouz still among the living. My dad has some of her LPs from the 70s so it would seem that she has been around for quite a bit.
Click to expand...

Yes, she's one of the few great Arabic singers who is still alive, though she's obviously pretty elderly now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top