J-N-N

I was walking in the street today, listening to Nancy Ajram's Sheel 3oyounak 3anni, and figured out a new word, the root j-n-n. Not sure what the 3sg. past is but it seems to mean 'to drive mad'. She was passionately singing 'bitjaninni, ah ah ah ah, bitjaninni' which, according to the translation I had read, meant 'you're driving me crazy.' And I suddenly realised that it was linked to the epically famous name Mecnun, or Majnun which precisely means 'someone that has been driven mad', the past participle of j-n-n! Bitjaninni, however, can be broken down to bi-t-janin-ni. The prefix bi- is used in the Lebanese/Egyptian colloquial to denote present progressive, t- is the classic 2sg masc. marker.

I was thrilled at this discovery. I love moments like this when you just figure out how a language works without having to laboriously study from a grammar book.