# Chanting in arab pritests

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chanting-in-arab-pritests/595046>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 3, 2011, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chanting-in-arab-pritests/595046 "2011-09-03T11:25:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Labor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Labor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labor)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chanting-in-arab-pritests/595046/1 "2011-09-03T11:25:27Z")

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So the Arab spring and its aftermath has been interesting to watch.

I am fascinated by the chants that the protesters use. During the Egyptian protests I heard the same chant used a number of times but have no idea what it means as I don’t speak Arabic.

The chant is three lines long, is strongly rhythmic with accents on the last syllable. It sounds something like…

Ba-DA  
Ba-DA  
Da-da-da-da-da HA

Does anyone know what the chant is?

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chanting-in-arab-pritests/595046/2 "2011-09-03T15:01:22Z")

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That’s a rather common chant rhythm, and not just in Arabic, so I’m not sure you’ll get much help. You may want to do a quick look around YouTube and see if you can find a video.