Mastering Ma in Egyptian Arabic: Functions of ما

The word ما (ma) in Egyptian Arabic is exceptionally versatile, often leading to confusion for non-native speakers due to its many uses.

Beyond its common functions as a question word (“what”), a negation particle, or a relative pronoun, ما also frequently serves as an amplifier, adding emphasis to words or overall meanings within a sentence.

Let’s take a look.

What are the functions of “ma” (ما)?

In Egyptian Arabic, there are mainly three functions:

• ما can work as a question word meaning what;
• ما can also work as a negation;
• ما can work as a relative pronoun (similar to الَّذِي or اِلِّي in dialects) meaning “that;which; who”.

Furthermore, and this is our topic today, ما can work as an amplifier and lay emphasis on a word or overall meaning (أَدَواتُ التَّوْكِيدِ) or simply bind one thought to another.

This application of ما can be pretty difficult for non-native speakers and it happens quite often that such sentences are misunderstood.

Let’s see how it works.

There are seven important points that you should keep in mind when dealing with ما or ده as amplifiers.

Seven important things about ما

When you deal with ما in Egyptian Arabic, you should pay attention to several things:

1. This type of ما is often combined with another tricky word: ده (“da”)  – or دي (“di”) for feminine words.
2. Both words in this application only convey emphasis.
3. In many situations, a sentence would perfectly work also without them.
4. Therefore, you often don’t even translate them.
5. Unless ما precedes a verb, ما in Egyptian Arabic almost never conveys a negation. If you want to negate a nominal sentence in Egyptian Arabic, you use مِش (“mish”).
6. We could say that they are only used for stylistic reasons, for intonation, to make a sentence sound right. You don’t really pause in speech between ما and the pronoun هو or هِي.
7. What complicated the whole issue: Both words may occur with personal pronouns. Both may also be used alone.

Let’s see some action. Note that the vowels here are just there to help with the pronunciation. In dialects, it is often difficult to mark words with diacritical marks (i.e., vowels).

The word ما alone

Let’s first check the easy part.

The words ده or دي alone

Usually these two devices precede a personal pronoun to emphasize it.

Both words used together in a sentence

Now, we will check a tricky situation: