I've just had this hissed at me for the second time.

July 14, 2006 2:24 PM

Arabic speaking mefites: What does "(pu)ta karaysee " (sic) mean?

I am aware that it's something rude. One of two young men said this as I passed them on the sidewalk.

posted by brujita to Writing & Language (20 answers total)

I don't think that's Arabic. I think it is just "Puta crazy." You can look up "puta" on your own.
posted by MrZero at 2:30 PM on July 14, 2006

Might help to know what nationality we're dealing with here. My wife had a look at this but it's hard to figure out without that information. And is this supposed to be rude in a direct-insult way or rude in a lewd remark kind of way?
posted by teleskiving at 2:44 PM on July 14, 2006

I checked with my husband (Moroccan Arabic and Classical Arabic), but he thinks it's "puta crazy" too.

If you tell us the nationality, we can give you some responses, though - if you're SURE it's rude!
posted by Liosliath at 2:55 PM on July 14, 2006

That doesn't sound like Arabic at all to me. There is no letter P in the Arabic language. Are you sure they were Arab, and if so, are you sure they were speaking Arabic? How (on both questions)?
posted by evariste at 3:25 PM on July 14, 2006

Puta is a term for vagina in Spanish. As Evariste mentioned, there is no P in Arabic. Was it perhaps B? How do you know that they were speaking Arabic?
posted by k8t at 3:31 PM on July 14, 2006

Never heard it defined as vagina. It's generally translated in a multitude of ways though. Some examples.
posted by epugachev at 3:43 PM on July 14, 2006

What evariste/k8t said. Infact, Pepsi's official name in the Arab world is Bebsi (when they write it in Arabic script). I've actually seen their official sticker/pamphlet. So if you are positive you heard the 'p' sound, then it's definitely not Arabic.
posted by forwebsites at 4:11 PM on July 14, 2006

I have played Monoboly as well. :)
posted by k8t at 4:36 PM on July 14, 2006

It sounds Spanish, "Puta (cunt) crazy."
posted by lychee at 4:45 PM on July 14, 2006

Seconding here that Puta means whore/slut/prostitute not vagina or cunt.
posted by stavx at 5:20 PM on July 14, 2006

Yes, why are people who clearly don't know Spanish offering absurdly wrong answers? Puta = whore.

And I'm pretty sure that's not Arabic. What makes you think it is?
posted by languagehat at 5:55 PM on July 14, 2006

Yep, puta = whore. I imagine like puttana, the italian word for whore, it comes from the latin word putida, meaning stinking. Probably more info than you needed/wanted.
posted by necessitas at 6:47 PM on July 14, 2006

doesn't the OPs username mean "little witch" in Spanish? Maybe she knows enough Spanish to know she wasn't hearing Spanish, so thinks it might be Arabic?
posted by sweetkid at 6:55 PM on July 14, 2006

I have an Egyptian here with another vote for this not sounding like Arabic.
posted by leapingsheep at 8:23 PM on July 14, 2006

Response by poster: The first time this I heard this, it sounded like "Tah karaysee". Today, it sounded like "puta"--which might have been "Buta".
The guy who said this looked Middle Eastern, and I am aware there are many different dialects of Arabic--and that Farsi and Armenian are related languages.
posted by brujita at 11:41 PM on July 14, 2006

Actually, both Farsi and Armenian are more closely related to English than they are to Arabic.
posted by sour cream at 1:34 AM on July 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Doesn't sound like Farsi either.
posted by Devils Slide at 2:47 AM on July 15, 2006

Yes, sour cream. I don't know about Armenian, but Farsi is an Indo-European language, and although it is written in the Arabic alphabet and contains Arabic words, is not a Semitic language like Arabic.

Incidentally, Farsi does have the "p" sound and an Arabic character has been modified to denote "p" -- the Arabic character "b" has one dot under it, "p" in Farsi looks like the Arabic "b" but with three dots under it instead of one. The same character denotes "y" when there are two dots under it, "n" when there is one dot above it, one of the several "t's" in Arabic and Farsi when there are two dots above it, and one of the several "S's" when there are three dots above it.

Meanwhile, we'll never know what nationality the people brujita encountered were, and what the hell they were saying.
posted by Devils Slide at 3:01 AM on July 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

The 'b' with three dots is also informally used by arabs to represent a 'p', I think that this is a result of many arabic speakers these days being bilingual in languages with 'p' sounds.
posted by atrazine at 7:44 AM on July 15, 2006

Yes, and 'f' with three dots informally represents 'v', another letter which Arabic does not have.
posted by evariste at 2:02 PM on July 16, 2006