Mastering Egyptian Arabic comparatives and superlatives

The adjective in Egyptian Arabic has some special features. We already took a look at the basic singular and plural forms.

In this last part of our miniseries about adjectives, I will examine some peculiarities of the comparative and superlative forms.

“more tired”: the comparative of long adjectives

If you want to say bigger in Egyptian Arabic, you use the standard pattern that is also used in Modern Standard Arabic: أَفْعَل. So, we eventually get أَكْبَر.

This formula works perfectly for short adjectives that are derived from I-form verbs (not augmented).

But what should we do if we have adjectives that are quite long regarding the number of letters? We use the additional word أَكْتَر and put it after the adjective. This helping construction works very well for most adjectives and is often used instead of the regular comparative.

How do you build the superlative in Egyptian Arabic?

That is tricky! In Egyptian Arabic, you have three options.

waa7id and wa7da

You often just use a helping construction with the word waahid (واحِد) or wahda (واحِدة) which are placed after the comparative!

Standard solution: genitive construction

This is the standard solution that is also used in Modern Standard Arabic. Use the comparative form and add the noun. It is nothing but a إِضافة-construction.

Complex solution: comparative plus pronoun

Here, you have to listen closely. Otherwise, you may misunderstand it. Instead of a إِضافة, you use a different word order and add a possessive pronoun to the comparative form. Usually, this is the plural pronoun hum (هُم). Sounds complicated? Let’s see.