There’s a popular myth that each Arabic word can denote itself, its opposite, and a kind of camel. Another version of this is that “Every Arabic word has a basic meaning, a second meaning which is the exact opposite of the first, a third meaning which refers to either a camel or horse, and a fourth meaning that is so obscene that you’ll have to look it up for yourself.” [source].
One possible example of this is rass (رأس ?), which apparently means to eat a lot, to eat a little, and a camel with especially hairy ears*.
I haven’t been able to find this word in any online dictionaries – does anybody know if it actually exists? Are there any other examples of words like this?
[*From: The Secret Life of Words – How English Became English by Henry Hitchings]
Here are some recordings of people for a number of different countries speaking Arabic. Can you work out where they’re from and what types of Arabic they’re speaking?
