Levantine Arabic: عشت

[cherkesseya]

A soldier is speaking to his father on the phone, telling him he's captured four enemy soldiers.

He asks: شو اعمل فيهن؟
The father answers: !عشت
Then the text says: ينزعج من رد والده

I don't understand what عشت means here. Can anyone help?

 

[barkoosh]

عشت usually means "well done!" but I don't see how it fits here.

 

[calcraft]

I appreciate the comments which have already appeared here, but if I may, I'll add one more example of the use of عشت, which I found in my ancient "Egyptian Colloquial Arabic", by a chap named Mitchell. A customer in a shop has been offered coffee by the owner, but the customer says لا كتر خيرك, قهوتك مشروبة, عشت. I wish I could understand how to translate all this into good, colloquial English.

 

[Kenny-Alpha]

I appreciate the comments which have already appeared here, but if I may, I'll add one more example of the use of عشت, which I found in my ancient "Egyptian Colloquial Arabic", by a chap named Mitchell. A customer in a shop has been offered coffee by the owner, but the customer says لا كتر خيرك, قهوتك مشروبة, عشت. I wish I could understand how to translate all this into good, colloquial English.

"No thanks. I appreciate it [your offer of coffee]. But I'm good". That would be the equivalent translation to colloquial English.

As for what I understand of عشت, it can be used as a reply to a compliment or an invitation. Like saying thank you to a compliment. However, I'm a bit unclear as to how it fits with the dialogue that the original poster posted about.

 

[calcraft]

Thank you for your response! I wonder if I could ask one more question though? What do you think of the portion of the sentence, قهوتك مشروبة ? It literally means "your coffee is drunk", right? Is that typical in this type of situation? I.e., is he just responding, "Oh, I would drink your coffee, but no thanks", or something to that effect?

 

[analeeh]

It's a polite (and I would say slightly folksy) way of turning down a coffee offered to you. I suppose the underlying idea is maybe 'consider it drunk (and your obligation to offer me something to drink fulfilled)' or something like that.