How to say "number" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningnumber
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
raqmרקם
رقم
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
misparمِسْپَار
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ر-ق-مHebrew root
ר-ק-םThe Arabic root ر-ق-م means 'to mark, to inscribe' — hence raqm, a written numeral. Hebrew uses the same root for a different kind of mark-making: רקם 'to embroider', as in רקמה — a pairing noted in the classic comparative dictionaries.
Related Hebrew word:רקמהrikmaرِكْمَا
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
Urban Levantine turns qāf into a glottal stop: raʾam.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo, too, says raʾam; a phone number is often a nimra.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija mostly says nemra (from Italian numero); raqm is bookish.
In a phrase
the phone number
Plural
broken plural aCCāC — like وَلَد→أَوْلَاد.