# Arabic word question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2020, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311 "2020-10-06T06:16:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/1 "2020-10-06T06:16:51Z")
What is the difference between the rather similar-looking words بنت and ابنة (daughter)? ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/3 "2020-10-06T12:05:20Z")
Caveat: It’s been a couple of decades since I studied Arabic and my skills have rusted into near-uselessness. Case in point, I misremembered the usage and screwed up my initial reply. The difference is just dialect. ابنة (ibnah) is the more formally correct form - it’s the feminine form of the word for son, ابن (ibn). The loop with the dots you see on the left side is the ta marbuta, “the broken T”, which is the feminine suffix. Getting down into the weeds, depending on the surrounding words/sounds, the ta marbuta is unvoiced, so in isolation, ابنة would be pronounced “ibnah”. But in a sentence or phrase, if following by another word, the ta marbuta becomes voice, so ابنة would be pronounced something like “ibnatu”. بنت (bint) is a variant, where the voweling has migrated, and the ta marbuta has become a ta. Similarly, son is more formally ابن (ibn) but often بن (bin) due to vowel drift. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/4 "2020-10-06T22:23:36Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > بنت (bint) is a variant, bint is the standard in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/5 "2020-10-06T22:50:47Z")
“Variant” is probably not the technically correct linguistic term; I meant “bint” is derived from “ibna(t)”. I think “bint” is the standard in most colloquial Arabic. I learned Modern Standard Arabic, the formal, academic, standardized form of Arabic, which is rarely used in day-to-day conversation. I think “ibna(t)” is the technically correct form in MSA, but even in an academic setting, I remember “ibna(t)” as being more of a hypothetically correct form; both we American students and our native speaker instructors pretty much always used “bint”. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/6 "2020-10-07T03:17:42Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > bint is the standard in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. So I was about ask if this had any relation to the derogatory English term, but Google tells me it is the same word, that entered the language during the British occupation of Egypt: [bint - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bint) ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/7 "2020-10-07T11:34:25Z")
Never heard this. It is not used in the U.S., or if it is, quite rare. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arabic-word-question/922311/8 "2020-10-07T13:08:18Z")
As I understand it, it is (or was) a fairly common working class British slang term. It certainly turned up with some frequency in Monty Python and other 70s and 80s British imports on PBS. As **griffin1977** indicates, it probably came back from Egypt with British occupation troops (which is why it’s a term in British English and not American English). It seems to me that it probably became popular because of some coincidental phonetic connotative associations. It combines the phonemes of two much harsher English derogatory terms for women (BItch and cuNT), and is also similar to “bit” (small and inconsequential), which makes it convenient as a mildly derogatory and dismissive term for women.