Consumo de leche cruda 1 Compra de leche

The tragicomedy ʿAla d-Dinya s-Salām is known locally by the names of the duo protagonists, maḥḏ _{ūḏ a w-mab ū a ‘Maḥ ū a and Mabrūka’.}36 The first episode ran in 1987 and was filmed and produced in Kuwait using Kuwaiti actors as the main characters in a series which ran to 16 episodes (45-48 minutes each). This tamṯīliyya stars ʿAli al-Mufīdī (1939-2008), Mariam al-Ghaḍbān (1948-2004), Ḥayāt al-Fahad (b. 1948), and Suʿād ʿAbdullah (b. 1950). The secondary actors include Kā im al-Gallāf (1949-2000), Samīr al- Gallāf (b. 1953), and Dāwūd Ḥusēn (b. 1957). It was written by the Palestinian writer Ṭāriq ʿUthmān,37

an eminent and leading screenwriter in Kuwait, and was directed by the abovementioned Egyptian director, Ḥamdī Farīd. It was filmed in different locations, two of which are part and parcel of the plot: the house of Bu Nabīl and l-maṣaḥḥa ‘sanatorium, convalescent home (i.e. a women’s mental (illness) hospital)’.

The main characters are as follows:

 The two sisters (protagonists): 1. Maḥ _{ū a (eldest sister)} 2. Mabrūka (youngest sister)

36

An example of irreversible binomials.

37 _{He comes from the village of Kifl Ḥāris in the northern West Bank. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Ṭāriq}

 The Bu Nabīl household (antagonists)

1. Yaʿgūb (also called Bu Nabīl, a stingy uncle) 2. Hayfāʾ (also called Umm Nabīl, a nagging wife)

3. Nabīl (also known by his pet name Bulbul, a mad son)38

The secondary characters are the two psychiatrists:

1. Dr. Shargān 2. Dr. Bu ʿAqīl

Maḥ _{ū a and Mabrūka lost their parents in a car accident when they were young; their} paternal uncle, Yaʿgūb, adopted them. Years later, Yaʿgūb claimed Maḥ ū a and Mabrūka’s inheritance against their will. In order to get rid of Maḥ _{ū a, he admitted her to the women’s} mental hospital because her paternal uncle Yaʿgūb and his domineering wife Hayfāʾ believe that she is mentally retarded, which she is not. The younger sister Mabrūka lives with her paternal uncle Yaʿgūb and works unwillingly for Hayfāʾ as her personal housemaid. Nabīl, Yaʿgūb and Hayfāʾ’s pampered and mollycoddled son, is deeply in love with his cousin Mabrūka, but Mabrūka loathes him. Later, Mabrūka is also admitted to the women’s mental hospital with her older sister Maḥ _{ū a because Yaʿgūb and Hayfāʾ believe that Mabrūka is} mentally unfit. The harrowing experience that both sisters endure may be explained by the fact that a certain irony revolves around the names of the protagonists. The proper name Maḥ _{ū a derives from the Classical Arabic noun ḥa ‘luck, fortune, chance’, hence, ‘the} lucky/fortunate girl’, and the proper name Mabrūka derives from the Classical Arabic noun baraka ‘blessing, prosperity, good’, thus, ‘the blessed/prosperous girl’.

To distinguish between the two tamṯīliyyāt linguistically, I will illustrate some of the salient linguistic features of ʿAla d-Dinya s-Salām. The existential particle mā u ‘there isn’t’ occurs more frequently than the Arab-wide form māfi. A number of classical-sounding vocabulary items are noted, including d-dinya l-ġaddā a ‘the perfidious world’, baʿl ‘husband’ instead of the expected form rayil or zōǧ, nnaffiḏ l-ʾawāmi ‘we obey the rules’, qaṭīʿi ‘my flock (of goats)’, ʿafwan ‘I beg your pardon, excuse me’, lā in ‘but’ as opposed to the dialectal form bass. The dialectal preposition wiya ‘with’ occurs more frequently than the ‘educated’ form maʿa. Also worthy of mention is the fact that the pan-Arab term šibbā ‘window’ is heard as opposed to the dialectal, Persian borrowing di īša. Moreover, some lexical borrowings are

noted: kart (< English ‘card’), ǧūti (< Hindi ‘shoe’), sister (< English ‘sister: senior female nurse’), di tō (< English ‘doctor’), azzūza (< Egyptian ‘bottle’).39

The following modern idioms are also found in this tamṯīliyya: ṭa at čabdi ‘I was really infuriated’, ḥabbitik l- a āda ‘May bad luck strike you!’, aġsil š āʿič ‘I will beat the hell out of you!’ Compared with the linguistic notes of Darb z-Zalag given above, it can therefore be assumed that the Arabic spoken in ʿAla d-Dinya s-Salām represents the semi-educated Kuwaiti dialect with many literary and foreign borrowings, whereas Darb z-Zalag reflects the pre-oil, uneducated variety of ‘conservative’ spoken Kuwaiti.

6.7 Summary

The purpose of this chapter was to explain how the data from this speech community were obtained. It has shown that two sets of data sources were used: audio-recording was adopted as the main data collection method, while Twitter posts and Kuwaiti TV dramas were designed to be corroborating pieces of evidence. The audio-recorded data were derived from spontaneous group conversations. The material from the spontaneous group conversations was taken as the primary source of data analysis for it is rich, diverse, as well as the most productive. The present chapter also provides additional details about the linguistic and socio-economic background of the informants. They are distinguished in terms of tribal/sectarian criteria and of social characteristics, including age, sex, education, and occupation.

In Chapter 7, I will be presenting the semantic analysis of the research results by reporting the uses of four verbs in my spoken material, namely, dašš ‘enter’, xalla ‘leave’, miša ‘walk’, and i a ‘run’. In Chapter 8, the aim is to discuss the research results in terms of the contexts of use of the key verbs, their users, and the social interpretation. The focus will be mainly on the users, i.e. agents of these innovations.

39 _{Shraybom-Shivtiel (1993: 199) gives āzūza as originally meaning ‘phial, drinking-flask’, to be used}

for ‘ampoule’ in the colloquial Arabic of Cairo. Cifoletti (2007: 458) notes that azzūza occurs in Egyptian Arabic as gazzosa ‘soda water’; also with geminated /dz/ as azōza in Egypt and azūz in Tunisia, all of which derive from the Italian gassosa ‘soda’.