Translating Habibi ya Aini

Earlier this year, two friends and I were meeting regularly to talk about the Arabic language.

Of the three of us, I have the most proficiency but they both have been exposed to the language quite a bit and so although I am a bit further down the path, it was more about having fun and sharing knowledge than a formal teaching situation. Our approach was to pick songs that we could go through together and talk about the words, which gives an opportunity to add information about how the language works, to talk about idioms, and to add little cultural notes that are relevant to some of the words or expressions.

For our first meeting that involved looking into the meaning of a song, I was contemplating what song might meet my criteria: 1. One that was very familiar to all of us 2. Not too long, so the translation would not be too lengthy 3. Not too heavy in subject matter but lighthearted. I decided on Habibi Ya Aini as sung by Maya Yazbeck. This was one of the earliest songs that I heard, within the first year of starting class at Lucila Dance Studio, because we ended up doing our first student recital to the Sultans rendition of this classic (does everyone remember the Sultans? Ibrahim Turmen, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Amin Khoury). I don’t remember the first time I heard the Maya Yazbeck version, but I do remember buying the CD- on the cover she was wearing a bright sweater, pink lipstick to match, and a lot of eye makeup. What I also remember was that it was the only song on that CD that I liked.

Anyway, this tune is ubiquitous to this day, and it met my other criteria. Since Yasser was here at the time, I decided to play it on the hour-long ride to Little Rock and to translate it together (not my normal process when I sit down to translate a song, but much more fun). The Yasser method consists of playing the song, pausing it after every line, I try to translate each line on my own, then he fills in whatever knowledge gaps there are- oftentimes these don’t come from vocabulary but from me not grasping an idiom (needless to say, the Yasser method is not employed very often simply due to his lack of patience with it). Because the song was short and relatively simple, we got through it in no time.

When I sat down to really get it ready for class few weeks later, I followed my usual procedure- which is (ideally):

• Find the Arabic lyrics and write out an English transliteration

• Try to translate what I can

• Get out the dictionary for unknown words and fill in

• Review with a native speaker to make sure I got the overall meaning or to explain stuck spots

AND FINALLY look for other translations online and compare my results.

That is where things got interesting. I found one version, across multiple sites, with some very distinct “mistakes”/features that marked it as the same translation that was just circulating around the internet.

The most notable for me was in the section of the Maya Yazbeck version that begins at 1:45, where she says:

Yalla ya Bassem, tabbeli shwaye.

Wa inta ya Yazbek, ‘assemli shwaye

Wa inta ya mazzika, da’ini shwaye

For some reason, four translations said wa inta ya Yasbee- instead of wa inta ya Yazbeck. This is obviously a mis-hear- since she obviously must be saying “Yazbeck”, right? After all, she is Maya Yazbeck. The drummer is the well-known table player Bassem Yazbek. The music credit on the song is to composer George Yazbeck. (Maybe the Yazbecks are a Lebanese musical dynasty… but I digress).

But someone who was translating heard “Yasbee”, and so although this is neither a word nor a name, it is in the translation that is all over the internet and this to me serves as kind of a “watermark” of the translation’s provenance.

The other “watermark” on this group of translations is that the singer Nourhanne is referenced as the singer, not Maya Yazbeck (to be fair Shira’s website mentions Maya and other singers). Naturally that sent me down a Nourhanne rabbit hole. It turns out that she covered this song, with a different arrangement altogether, in 2009- and upon reviewing it, she elides that entire section into one line:

”yalla ya Habibi, tabbeli shwaye.”

So obviously the translators were either actually LISTENING to the Maya Yazbeck version, even if they wrote that Nourhanne was the singer. Or, more likely, someone’s original translation with the “Yasbee” in it has been copied and pasted it to different places (It’s important to note here that it would be normal and expected for any singer to “personalize” the words in that section, since it lends itself to that- I’m just focusing on it because of the whole “tracking the translation around the internet” thing). As far as I can tell this translation was provided by Linda Grondahl to a site of translations managed by Lennie Clark, all of which eventually migrated to Shira’s website.

Is any of this important? Probably not. All of the translations I found are “good enough”, in the sense that they convey the basic meaning of the song. And you will never really get a translation that is perfect anyway, because certain expressions in the source language will never translate well to the target language. I mean, no one would seriously think that “my love, oh my eye” sounds right in English. But that is another subject for another time. What is important is to be aware that one wrong detail can be replicated endlessly on the internet, in perpetuity, once it’s out there, so it pays to be as thorough as possible. Clearly, I am a noticer of such details.

In this piece of writing, I have revealed the true level of my extreme music nerdiness, but I assume that if you are still reading, you might be the same way.

Here is the translation I came up with:

حبيبي يا عيني يا عيني يا ليلي
يا مسهر عيني بنهاري وليلي
Ya habibi ya aini, ya aini ya layli
Ya msahar aini, bi nahari wa layli

My love, oh my eye, oh my eye, my nights
You who keeps me awake, in my days and my nights
(repeats)

والله اشتقنا وحياة عيونك
يا مفارقنا اشتقنا لعيونك
Walla ishta’na, wahyat aiyounak
Ya mfare’na, ishta’na aiyounak

Really, we miss you, I swear by your eyes
You who is separated from us, we miss your eyes
(repeats)

بوجودك يابو سمر, بيحلا السهر بالليل
والحلو بيطول عمره, ونغني يا عيني يا ليل
Be wojoudak ya abou samra, yehla alsahar bil layl
Wa alhelou byetwal omra, wa nghanni ya aini ya layl

Your presence ya abou samra*, makes staying up at night more beautiful
And the beauty makes it [the night?] longer , and we sing “ya aini ya layl”
(repeats)

المغنى حياة الروح
يشفي القلب المجروح
El maghna hayat el rouh, yishfi el ‘alb el majrouh

Singing is the life of the soul, and it heals the wounded heart

يالا نرقص ونغني
ونعيش بأحلى جنة
Yalla nor’ous wa nghanni, wa na3aish bi ahla janni

Let’s sing and dance, and live in the most beautiful paradise
(repeats)

Yalla ya Bassem tabbeli shwaye
Wa inta ya Yazbek, ‘assemli shwaye
Wa inta ya mazzika, da’ini shwaye

Yalla ya Bassem, drum for me a little
And you, ya Yazbek, improvise for me a little
And you, ya “music”, play for me a little

*I didn’t translate “abou samra” here because it is an idiom that needs some explanation. Although it could be translated literally as “father of the dark skin,” it’s not exactly meant to express that. The best way I can think of to describe what it means is “the one who has/the one with/the one who possesses.” Here are two examples that come readily to mind:  in Egyptian Arabic the navel orange is called “abou sora” (the orange that has a navel) and in a line from Najat El Saghira’s song Hamdilla ala Salama, she sings “ya abou agmal ibtisama” (you with the most beautiful smile).  So Habibi ya Aini I would translate ya abou samra roughly as “you with the dark skin”- and implicit in this is that the dark skin is beautiful.