Glossary

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1. ahwa

¹(a hu wa) - قهوة - coffee. Comes in many varieties, turki or amrikani; helwa, sada or mazbout, coffee is still ahwa. ²(a hu wa) - قهوى - café, coffee-shop. These are the places that you will see old men sitting in all day, drinking coffee and smoking sheesha.

2. alhamdulillah

(al ham du li lay) - الحمد لله - "thanks be to God."

3. AUC

acronym - American University in Cairo

4. azan

(aa zan) - أذان - the call to prayer that was traditionally sung from minarets in mosques by a muezzin. It is now sung through a loudspeaker or series of loudspeakers and can be heard for some distance. (alternate spelling: adhan) For more information and an outline of the lyric of the azan, check this term on Wikipedia.

5. baladi

(ba la dee) - بلدي - local, folksy. This term is usually applied when discussing something that is unmistakably Egyptian.

6. balakon

(ba la koon) - بالاكون - balcony

7. bawab

(ba waab) - بواب - doorman, porter, gate-keeper, the guy who watches over an apartment building/block of flats. *IMPORTANT* This man is one of the most important people you will meet. It is very, very important to develop a good relationship with the bawab in your building because he can either help you out or make your life miserable.

8. bikiyeh

(bee kee yah) - junk, or stuff you don't want anymore. There is a guy in most places in Egypt who rides up and down the street on a donkey or bicycle-powered cart shouting "Bikiyeh! Bikiyeh!" in various rhythmic patterns to indicate that he will take away your junk.

9. blammo

(blaa mow) - something that I say when I am excited about the end result of something. This term is akin to such classics as: Et voila!, Presto!, Bam!, and Poof!.

10. Carrefour

a large, French, big-box chain of stores located throughout the world. There are several in Egypt, two of them being in Cairo itself.

11. Copt

(kobt) - قبطي - singular of "Copts." See "Copts" in the glossary.

12. Copts

(kobts) - القبط - Egyptian Christians who trace their roots and the Coptic language to a pre-Islamic Egyptian Christian community. The Copts are in the minority in Egypt at present. Estimates are that 6% to 14% of the population in Egypt are Coptic Christian. The largest concentration of Copts in Egypt is in the north, in Alexandria. There are several denominations of the Coptic church. For more information, check this term in Wikipedia.

13. Debian

One of the oldest and most widely-used package-managed distributions of Linux, Debian GNU/Linux is comprised of entirely free software. Debian is managed and developed by the international non-profit Debian Project, an entirely volunteer organization.

There are many other distributions of Linux which are based on Debian, such as Ubuntu and Knoppix.

14. distro

(dis trow) - abbr. - Refers to "distribution," the common term for different configurations of software that are rolled into GNU/Linux based operating systems. Common distros include Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Xandros, OpenSUSE, Fedors, et al.

15. Doqqi

(do' ee) - الدقي - a district of the city adjacent to the Nile River just north of Giza

16. eid

('eed) - عيد - feast, celebration. There are two eids, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha.

17. Eid ul-Adha

('eed ul aD Haa) - عيد الاضحى - the Feast of the Sacrifice. This feast is celebrated at the end of Hajj to commemorate the sacrifice of Ibrahim (Abraham). It last for four days and begins with an udhiyah or a sacrifice of a live animal. This holiday occurs during the month of Dhu ul-Hijja.