How to say "shark" in Arabic
LoanwordMeaningshark
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
qirshקרש
قرش
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
karishكَارِيش
How the two words are related
Borrowed between the languages (or by both from a third).
Arabic root
ق-ر-شModern Hebrew karish looks like it should match qirsh consonant for consonant, but the ק↔כ pairing isn't the regular Semitic correspondence (that would need ق↔ק) — the classic fingerprint of Hebrew simply borrowing Arabic qirsh rather than inheriting it.
Learn it
On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Levantine · Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria
Same word-initial ق-to-glottal-stop pattern as qird (monkey): irsh, with Hebrew's placeholder א.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Same in Cairo: ʾirsh — which is also the piastre, a hundredth of a pound.
In a phrase
a dangerous shark
Plural
broken plural CuCūC — also the everyday word for piastres, the small coin