اليوم ما رحت عالشغل بسبب وجع ضهري.

It is Levantine Arabic, or at least mostly Levantine.

Clues:

• ما رحت = a colloquial Levantine way to say I didn’t go
• عالشغل = very dialectal, from على الشغل
• وجع = a common spoken word for pain/ache
• ضهري = dialect spelling/pronunciation of my back

A more Standard Arabic version would be:

اليوم لم أذهب إلى العمل بسبب ألم ظهري.

One small note: بسبب is understandable everywhere and not wrong in speech, but it sounds a bit more neutral/formal than the rest of the sentence.

Because Arabic often drops the subject pronoun when the verb already shows who is doing the action.

Here:

• رحت already means I went
• so ما رحت means I didn’t go

So أنا is optional:

• اليوم ما رحت عالشغل = normal
• اليوم أنا ما رحت عالشغل = possible, but more emphatic

English usually needs I, but Arabic often doesn’t.

In Levantine, ما is a very common negation word.

• رحت = I went
• ما رحت = I didn’t go

So the pattern is:

ما + past tense verb

Examples:

• ما فهمت = I didn’t understand
• ما أكلت = I didn’t eat
• ما شفتو = I didn’t see him

Unlike Egyptian Arabic, Levantine usually does not add -ش here. So ما رحتش would sound Egyptian, not Levantine.

It comes from the colloquial verb راح / يروح, which means to go.

In Levantine, this is the everyday verb for go. It is much more common in speech than the Standard Arabic verb ذهب.

Some forms:

• راح = he went
• رحت = I went
• رحنا = we went
• بيروح = he goes / he is going
• بروح = I go / I’m going

So in this sentence:

• رحت = I went
• ما رحت = I didn’t go

عالشغل is short for على الشغل.

In Levantine, على is very often reduced to عَ in speech. So:

• على الشغل → عَالشغل → often written عالشغل

Here it means to work or more literally to the workplace.

So:

• رحت عالشغل = I went to work

This is very natural in Levantine. Even though على literally often means on, in this expression it just means to.

Because ش is a sun letter.

With words that begin with sun letters, the ل of الـ is not pronounced clearly. So:

• الشغل is written with ال
• but pronounced more like ash-shughl

And with عَ before it:

• عالشغل sounds roughly like ʿash-shughl

This is normal Arabic pronunciation. The spelling stays the same, but the sound changes.

بسبب means because of.

So:

• بسبب وجع ضهري = because of my back pain

It works well when followed by a noun phrase:

• بسبب المطر = because of the rain
• بسبب المرض = because of the illness

In everyday Levantine, بسبب is understood, but it can sound a bit more formal than other options. More conversational choices might be:

• مشان
• كرمال
• لأنو if you want to follow it with a whole clause

For example:

• اليوم ما رحت عالشغل مشان وجع ضهري
• اليوم ما رحت عالشغل لأنو ضهري كان عم يوجعني

So بسبب is fine, just slightly less casual.

وجع means pain or ache, and it is very common in spoken Levantine.

So:

• وجع راس = headache
• وجع معدة = stomach pain
• وجع ضهري = my back pain / pain in my back

ألم also means pain, but it sounds more formal or Standard-Arabic-like.

So:

• وجع = more everyday spoken Arabic
• ألم = more formal/literary/medical

In this sentence, وجع sounds much more natural for daily speech.

It is the noun ضهر plus the possessive ending -ي, which means my.

So:

• ضهر = back
• ضهري = my back

This is a very common Arabic pattern:

• بيت = house → بيتي = my house
• اسم = name → اسمي = my name
• ظهر / ضهر = back → ظهري / ضهري = my back

Also, وجع ضهري literally means something like the pain of my back, but in natural English we say my back pain or pain in my back.

That is a very common question. In Standard Arabic, back is ظهر, and my back is ظهري.

In dialect writing, spelling is often not fully standardized, so people may write it in a way that reflects colloquial pronunciation. That is why you may see:

• ظهري
• ضهري

Both are understandable in dialect writing. The sentence you were given uses a more colloquial-style spelling.

So this is not really a different word; it is mostly a dialect spelling choice.

Yes, it can move. Arabic word order is flexible.

Putting اليوم at the beginning gives a natural time-setting feel:

• اليوم ما رحت عالشغل بسبب وجع ضهري. = Today, I didn’t go to work because of my back pain.

You could also say:

• ما رحت عالشغل اليوم بسبب وجع ضهري.

Both are fine. The first version feels a little more like you are starting with the time frame: as for today...

A rough Levantine pronunciation would be:

il-yōm ma riḥet ʿash-shughl b-sabab wajaʿ ḍahri

A few notes:

• اليوم often sounds like il-yōm or sometimes almost lyōm
• رحت may sound like riḥet, reḥet, or similar, depending on the region
• عالشغل sounds like ʿash-shughl
• وجع has a final ʿ sound
• ضهري is roughly ḍahri

Exact pronunciation varies across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, but this gives you a good general Levantine reading.