The Levantine بِدّي and a Weekly Request

وِدّ

root: و-د-د / noun / definition: love, wish, desire

Every weekend, my other half hears the same two words from me: بِدّي برغر (I want a burger).

I can’t help my weekly craving for a juicy burger, and I think it started when I began travelling abroad regularly a few years back. Sure, I’d sample the local cuisine most of the trip. But—on at least one occasion—I’d want to try what that country had to offer in terms of burgers.

Sometimes, failing to find halal options, I’d seek out a vegetarian burger instead—and felt satisfied all the same. (And I still dream about the surprisingly exquisite burger I ate in Doha’s MIA Café. So so good…)

Oh, but yes: I wanted to talk about the first part of my oft-repeated phrase: بِدّي.

The word بِدّي in Levantine dialects means “I want”.

It functions as a verb, but is actually an elided combination of a preposition (بِـ) and a noun (وِد), connected to a possessive pronoun suffix.

Thus, it conjugates like this:

بِدّي = I want
بِدَّك / بِدِّك = you want (m/f)
بِدُّه / بِدْها = he/she wants
بِدْنا = we want
etc.

The noun وِدّ (also pronounced وُدّ) means “wish” or “desire”.

The preposition بِـ means “with” or “in”.

And the personal pronoun ـي means “my”.

Putting these components together, we get بِوِدّي ([it is] in my desire [to/for]…). Over time, the pronunciation got simplified and the second syllable was elided, so it became: بِدّي.

So, while this verb-like construction may seem very dialect-y and not very MSA-y, that’s not the case at all: all of its components are the same as Standard Arabic.

Now you know. And now you can use it to request many things. Including a juicy burger the next time you travel. Or on the weekend.

!مع السلامة