How to Use Common Egyptian Arabic Phrases with ما (like ba’d ma & ‘abl ma)

Egyptian Arabic features many common expressions that derive their complexity from the versatile word ما (ma).

While often used for negation, this article focuses on ما as a function word that links phrases and clauses, often attaching to prepositions, adverbs of time or place, or nouns to form crucial adverbial particles in Egyptian Arabic.

The word ما is one of the most powerful and difficult ones in Classical, but also in Modern Standard Arabic. In Egyptian Arabic, it is mainly used for negations (ما+ش) and – our today’s topic – as a function word that links phrases and clauses.

Some grammarians call a ما of this type an adverbial particle. This type of construction is frequently found in Arabic dialects. In Modern Standard Arabic, you have similar but also different ways to express it.

Let’s look at some common Egyptian Arabic phrases with ما. The تَشْكِيل follows the Egyptian pronunciation – don’t get confused. Note that you will recognize some examples easily as they are close to Modern Standard Arabic:

Watch out! There are two important things

1. Never use ما in Egyptian Arabic when you want to express whatever or whoever. Instead, always use اِلّلي (“illy”).
2. So-called function words usually must carry the suffix ما when a VERB (فِعْل) follows them. But this is not always the case because the word order can be tricky. You might find the subject of the second clause between the function word and the verb. Also, in these situations, the ما is NOT a negation!

The word-order is like this then:

An example:

Let’s see how the above-mentioned expressions work – some examples: