Mike's Oud Forums

Farid ma alli lyrics?

hartun - 12-8-2015 at 09:43 PM

Does someone have the lyrics for Ma Alli We Oultilou (sp?) made famous by Farid?

Eric Stern Music - 12-9-2015 at 09:39 AM

Here are transliterated lyrics I found a long time ago. http://www.shira.net/music/lyrics/me-alli-we-oltelu.htm

I can't attest to their accuracy as I don't have the Arabic in front of me. Do you read Arabic? I might have the lyrics somewhere but would have to dig around for them. Maybe someone else on this forum has them in Arabic. .

Eric Stern Music - 12-9-2015 at 09:43 AM

Oh and you can type in your search engine: ما قال لي وقلت له and then see what videos come up and look in them for the lyrics in Arabic.

John Erlich - 12-9-2015 at 11:14 PM

Lyrics in Arabic wikipedia: https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%8A%D8%A7_%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B0...


hartun - 12-16-2015 at 09:03 AM

Hi guys, thanks so much but I can't read arabic. The "shira" website I had seen but for some reason the lyrics are written as "ma kalli kiltilou" instead of "ma alli wa oultilou"...can someone explain the difference? Everytime i've heard the song it's been the latter....

John Erlich - 12-16-2015 at 09:42 AM

I SHOULD allow native Arabic-speaking Forum members to answer, but I'm pretty sure this one has to do with different dialects of Arabic. The Arabic letter, "qof" - ق - is not pronounced, but "swallowed" in some dialects of Arabic, at least in some circumstances. In the case of this Farid song, in Egyptian (Cairene?) dialect, the qof is not pronounced in "qalli" or "qoultilou."

Eric Stern Music - 12-16-2015 at 10:34 AM

Yes, what John said...if you were to transliterate the Arabic, which is basically what someone has done on that Shira site, it would be pronounced that way if someone were to read it on the news. That's Modern Standard Arabic which is used in some writing and formal speech, broadcasts, etc., while spoken Arabic varies richly from region to region. Anyway one can go on and on about it and I encourage you, if you are trying to sing it, to look up some info on the language, however, yes, this song is sung I believe, in the Egyptian variant of the Arabic language so I would suggest using your transliterated English lyrics as a guide while listening very closely to whichever singer you are listening to. And in truth, if you are singing the words "Ma Alli We Oultilou" and yet you see the discrepancy it may give you a hint that the vowels in that specific lyric and others might not be as smooth as you think (it's not as if it were Italian, for example!), but involve some glottal stops. I would suggest trying to say "Ma Alli We Oultilou", while putting those "k's" in ever so slightly and you'll get closer.

Almelaifi - 12-16-2015 at 11:52 AM

The lyrics is written in the Egyptian accent. As John and Eric pointed out, the letter "qaf" is pronounced differently from country to country, and even from region to region in the same country.

How Fareed pronounces it is "Ma Alli We Oultilou", and it should not be changed to "ma kalli kiltilou" for an important reason. The lyrics was written in the Egyptian accent. It was not written in the formal Arabic accent to have more space for interpretation.

"ma kalli kiltilou" sounds Palestinian.