أَيّام
root: ي-و-م / plural noun / singular: يَوْم / definition: days
I remember the first time I heard the word بَعدَين—during my undergrad days, in the classroom.
Hmm, I thought, I know the word بعد (“after”) and that sounds like the dual suffix ـَين at the end… but how does that make sense? Can you now add a dual suffix to a preposition? And what does بعدين actually mean?
Later, I learnt that بَعدَين simply means “later” in some Arabic dialects, like Levantine and Egyptian. And now I know that بعدين isn’t the dual form of بعد. Here’s what it is:
Yes, the first component of بعدين is the preposition/conjunction بعد.
But the second component is actually أَين.
You might recognise the noun أين, because it can be used as an interrogative meaning “where?”: أَينَ؟
But أَين comes from the same root as آن. Both can mean “a time“.
And, when definite, they may refer to the present time—i.e. الآنَ means “now”.
So بعدين was derived from the two-word phrase بعد أين, meaning “after a time” or “after now”. Or, more idiomatically: “later“.
There’s a little fun fact to drop into your next conversation about dialects and derivations. And that’s all for now.
!مع السلامة
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