تاري

Malay

Noun

تاري (plural تاري-تاري or تاري٢)

Jawi spelling of tari.‎

North Levantine Arabic

Alternative forms

تاريها (tārīha) (frozen pronoun)
تابي (tābi)

Etymology

Uncertain. An earlier form *أَثَارِي (*ʔaṯārī) can be reconstructed from cognates, but further etymology requires speculation. Cognates include South Levantine Arabic أتاري (ʔatāri), Egyptian Arabic اتارى (ʔatāri) and اتابى (ʔatābi), Libyan Arabic تاريتا (tārīta), Najdi Arabic أثاري (ʔaṯāri), Hijazi Arabic أثاري (ʔatāri) and أثري (ʔatri), Gulf Arabic أثاري (ʔaṯāri) and أذاري (ʔaḏāri), Iraqi Arabic ثاري (ṯāri), and a form أفابي (ʔafābi) found in North Africa. In particular, Najdi Arabic أثِر (ʔaṯir) resembles Standard Arabic إِثْرَ (ʔiṯra, “as a result of”).

Building from that resemblance, the reconstructed *أَثَارِي (*ʔaṯārī) may reflect an Arabic *آثارِي (*ʔāṯār-ī), which would have been composed of آثار (ʔāṯār, “effects, impressions”) + ـِي (-ī, “my”) and undergone a similar semantic development to English “my impressions” before univerbating. Accordingly, cognate forms like Najdi Arabic إثري (ʔiṯri) and أثِر (ʔaṯir) would instead reflect the singular أَثَر (ʔaṯar, “effect, impression”).

This derivation from آثار (ʔāṯār, “effects, impressions”) would make for a rare example of a possessive pronoun, here ـِي (-ī, “my”), fusing into its stem and ceasing to function as a productive clitic. Indeed, تَارِي (tāri) behaves today as a single morpheme, able to take both further possessive pronouns as in تَارِيهَا (tārīha, “she seems to...”) and Lebanese imala as in تِارِي (tēri); contrast Lebanese تَارِي (tār-i, “my revenge”, never *tēr-i).

Alternatively, Anis Frayha records تَارِي (tāri) under the root ر ء ي (r ʔ y) in his dictionary of Lebanese Arabic,^[1] which invites a connection to e.g. Arabic تُرَى (turā, “I wonder..., say...”, interjection) and implies that تَارِي (tāri)’s ت (t) is a prefix, but this becomes untenable in light of its cognates in ث (ṯ).

Particle

تاري • (tāri)

(exclamative) that's why, so
يارا رسبت بالإمتحان
أتاري رجعت من المدرسة عم تبكي هديك اليوم؟
—yāra rasabit bi l-ʔimtiḥān
—ʔatāri rijʕit mnel-madrase ʕam tibki hadīk el-yōm?
—Yara failed the exam.
—So that's why she came home from school crying that day?
it seems, it looks like, it should be
تاريك فهيم ― tārik fahīm ― So, you must be clever?

تاري انت فهيم ― tāri inte fahīm ― So, you must be clever?

Synonyms

References

^ أَنِيس خُورِي فْرَيْحَة [ʔanīs ḵūrī frayḥa, Anis Khuri Frayha, Anis Freiha] (1947) “تاري”, in “ر”, in مُعْجَمُ الأَلْفَاظِ العَامِّيَّةِ فِي اللَّهْجَةِ اللُّبْنَانِيَّة [muʕjamu l-ʔalfāẓi l-ʕāmmiyyati fī l-lahjati l-lubnāniyya, A dictionary of non-classical vocables in the spoken Arabic of Lebanon]‎^[1], American University of Beirut, →OCLC, page 61a

[1] أَنِيس خُورِي فْرَيْحَة [ʔanīs ḵūrī frayḥa, Anis Khuri Frayha, Anis Freiha] (1947) “تاري”, in “ر”, in مُعْجَمُ الأَلْفَاظِ العَامِّيَّةِ فِي اللَّهْجَةِ اللُّبْنَانِيَّة [muʕjamu l-ʔalfāẓi l-ʕāmmiyyati fī l-lahjati l-lubnāniyya, A dictionary of non-classical vocables in the spoken Arabic of Lebanon]‎^[1], American University of Beirut, →OCLC, page 61a

[1]