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روح as a noun with the meaning 'spirit or soul' is FEMININE.

روح is one of the few nouns in Arabic, that is feminine, though it has no feminine marker.

That is why, in the PLC, it is said -
روحه طلعت

Mohammed and Ehab,

I've been trying to keep up as much as I can between work ,but don't get on the boards nearly as much as I would like or used to. However, this podcast took me away, this is my favorite Rachid Taha song, and I always request it at our local Hookah bars!

Thank you for this lesson, and I look forward to the rest of this wonderful song's translation!

Tomes

Ruuh (ﺮﻮﺡ belongs to a small group of Arabic nouns which are feminine although they do not end in taa’ marbuuta or denote body parts which come in pairs. The other words in the group are naar (ﻨﺎﺮ, samaa’ (ﺴﻤﺎﺀ, 'ard (ﺃﺮﺾ, shams (ﺸﻤﺱ, riih (ﺮﻴﺢ and harb (ﺤﺮﺐ. It is interesting to note that these lexical items are some of the oldest words in the Arabic language. With the possible exception of harb (ﺤﺮﺐ, they denote concepts which in many primitive societies have religious connotations. I wonder what deductions a social anthropologist might draw from this fact. Who were the earliest speakers of Arabic, and what do we know about their world view?

It remains to add that there are at least six Arabic words for “soul”. Ruuh (ﺮﻮﺡ, nafs (ﻨﻓﺲ and tawiyya (ﻂﻮﻴﺔ are probably the commonest terms in this group.

I loved this lesson, and I'm really glad you guys decided to translate this song! Any lessons that are based around songs or poems are one's I'd be especially glad to see! شكرا جزيلا

In France Rachid Taha's song is used in advertising spots for couscous.

This was a great lesson guys!! I can sing along to the chorus of this song and understand what it actually means now!! Could you do another verse maybe? Or perhaps Ehab could do an Um Kalthoum song (music and poetry combined!!)

الف شكر

very good lesson.

Love this lesson! I'm a big Taha fan and one of the things I'm loving about learning Arabic is understanding more of his lyrics. I'd really, really like a lesson based on Abdelkader...?

Hello everyone. Thank you a lot for this arabic podcast. It's fantastic.
Regarding the song "يا رايح", I had subtitled the original version from Dahmane el-Harrachi and uploaded it to youtube. It has English, Spanish, Greek and Darija (dialect) subtitles. So you can listen to the song and read it at the same time.

Sorry, I forgot to post the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dewm3PJ1hs

@ enteka

I find your comments interesting. Here is some additional information about the text under discussion. Relaxedmoody (YouTube) has uploaded a very good video with the Arabic text and an English translation, and Arselanne (also on YouTube) has uploaded several versions of the song without subtitles. The Greek version is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.

I really love this song, it was a great lesson. It would be Nice with more lessons in derja arabic. the song sidi mansour ya sidi is also great.