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I need help with an arabic word in a Brazilian soap opera.
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Thread poster: Raquel Bragança

I need help with an arabic word in a Brazilian soap opera.

Raquel Bragança
Macau
Local time: 14:30
English to Portuguese
+ ...

Oct 13, 2009

Dear all,

I work in-house for a TV station and we broadcast Brazilian soap operas with English subtitles. I was given the hard job of a soap opera from 2001 that tells the story of a forbidden love between a Muslim girl born in Brazil and a Brazilian boy. They meet in Morocco. The whole family has business in Brazil and that's the justification for all of them speaking Portuguese, but the speech is not free from (accurate or not) Arabic words and expressions. The script is awful with no support at all on spelling and explanation of expressions, even in Portuguese, we're just handed the speech script.

As the show deals with a specific culture, Arab culture, my supervisors and editors, and me as well, share the opinion those expressions should be kept in the subtitles, since it's for an English speaking audience. Therefore we keep things like "Sidi", we've figured out is Mr ou similar, among others.

My question is on a word I can't figure out the meaning nor spelling. The characters (male and female) address this single Muslim woman (around 40 years old) as .... Nazira. The word missing, sounds like 'lala', 'larah', 'iara', 'nana'. Any idea what that is? The Portuguese script show Lara Nazira. Can that be a name? A form of addressing a woman, equivalent to Miss?

Thank you so much in advance.