How to say "child" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningchild
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
ṭiflטפל
طفل
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
yeled, pa'otيِلِد، پَاؤُوت
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ط-ف-لHebrew root
ט-פ-פṬifl is often compared to Biblical Hebrew ṭaf (טף) — the 'little ones' counted alongside the women in the Torah. But the roots differ in their last consonant (Arabic ṭ-f-l vs. Hebrew ṭ-f-f), so treat the shared ṭ-f 'smallness' core as a memory hook, not a proven cognate.
Related Hebrew word:טףtafتَف
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On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo's everyday 'kid' is ʿayyil (pl. ʿiyāl); ṭifl is the formal word.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija's 'kid' is derri (f. derriya, pl. drāri).
In a phrase
The child is crying.
Plural
broken plural aCCāC — like طفل→أطفال.