Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 February 16

= February 16 =

Arabic:
Somebody told me in spoken (Palestinian) Arabic: ana biddi atwannas (Maybe he said: ana biddi aruḥ atwannas). I asked him what he meant by atwannas, so he answered: "travel". But when I looked it up on Google translator, I had a difficulty in finding that word, maybe because I didn't spell it well in Arabic scripts. What's the correct spelling of atwannas, and mainly: does it really mean "travel", or any additional meaning? 185.24.77.178 (talk) 08:17, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Which country was your source from? Apparently Arabic could vary widely between different nations. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:33, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Is macaw and macau the similarity?
Macaw is a bird Macau is a country 2404:8000:1005:555:1995:D90E:4A1:1594 (talk) 10:19, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you asking if they share an etymology? If so, the answer appears to be "unknown". Macau derives from the Portuguese version of the name of a temple.  Macaw is also Portuguese in origin, but where that name came from is unknown.  Given that Macaws come from South America and Macau is in Chine, it think it would be unlikely that they're related - although it wouldn't be the first time that European explorers took a word that referred to a particular people/place/thing and used it for a completely different people/place/thing. Iapetus (talk) 10:36, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * According to Wiktionary, the name of the bird comes from a Tupian language, whereas the name of the city is a corruption of southern Chinese 阿媽港 (A-Ma Gong) meaning "Mazu Harbour". If the latter is correct, and the harbour was named after the temple (or directly after the goddess), there is no need to invoke a misunderstanding between the Portuguese explorers and their local informants. --Lambiam 11:22, 16 February 2022 (UTC)