A Comparative Study of Pejoration in English and Egyptian Vernacular Arabic from a Historical-Sociolinguistic Approach

Table 1

Prosodic pejoration.

	Lexical item	Neutral tone, meaning in classical and MSA transliteration	Sarcastic tone, pejorative meaning
Ex. 1	Khibrah	Knowledge	“Khibrah” means slut or perverted girl
Ex. 2	Rakab	To amount the back of a horse, to ride a camel, to travel, to make up his mind	To fornicate someone
Ex. 3	Lūbu’ah	“Lioness”	A prostitute
Ex. 4	Shīmal	Left	A prostitute
Ex. 5	Bī’ah	Environment	A rude and low-class, and vulgar people
Ex. 6	Barakah	“Blessings,” “plenty,” prosperity	An elderly worthless man
Ex. 7	Mūtakhalif	Means lagging behind	A backward or mentally retarded
Ex. 8	Ars	A court of a house	A pimp
Ex. 9	Bālah	“Unripe green date”	An asshole guy
Ex. 10	Shādh	A stray man irregular	A homosexual