#+title: Glossary of Arabic Linguistic Terms
#+author: Musa Al-hassy
#+email: alhassy@gmail.com
#+filetags: arabic
#+fileimage: arabic-irab.png 100% 100%
#+description: Definitions, and discussions, of jargon relating to learning the Arabic language.
* Abstract :ignore:
Definitions, and discussions, of jargon relating to learning the Arabic language.
* Glossary :ignore:
:Template_and_TODOs:
doc:temp
#+begin_documentation temp :label (This_is_optional Axiomatic_Semantics Operational_Semantics) :show t :color blue
#+end_documentation
+ Root :: The sequence of (usually 3) Arabic letters that carry the underlying
meaning of a word, for example ش−ر−ب “to drink” and ح−م−ل “to carry”.
+ Pronoun :: A word replacing a noun, for example هيَ “she” or أنتَ “you”.
+ Verb :: A word describing an action or a state of being, for example سأكون “I will be”.
+ Compound tense :: A tense made by combining two different verbs.
+ Conjugation :: Changing the verb to agree with the subject, for
example ازور “I visit” and یزور “he visits”.
+ Derived Form :: Variation of the Arabic verbal root that modifies the meaning.
+ Tense :: The tense of a verb tells you when the action takes place.
+ Past tense :: A verb form showing something has happened in the past.
+ Present/Future tense :: A verb form showing something is happening now, routinely, or in the future.
+ Imperative :: A mood, or variation, of the present tense verb used for commands or instructions.
+ Subjunctive :: A mood, or variation, of the present tense verb used after certain particles (short words).
+ Jussive :: A mood, or variation, of the present tesne verb used in certain structures.
:End:
doc:noun
#+begin_documentation noun :show t :color green
A word naming a person, object, or idea; for example: House, boy, freedom.
In Arabic, words are classified into 3 categories ---in contrast to English's 8.
| Kind | Description |
| اسم | Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc |
| فعل | Verbs: action words |
| حرف | Particles, such as prepositions في and علی |
As such, the word “noun” when talking about Arabic will sometimes mean the more general category اسم.
#+end_documentation
doc:arabic-root
#+begin_documentation root :label arabic-root :show t :color blue
The Arabic language is based on “roots” that link words of related meanings.
An Arabic “root” is the sequence of (usually 3) Arabic letters that carry the underlying meaning of a word, for example
ش−ر−ب “to drink” and ح−م−ل “to carry”.
Vowels and consonants are added around the roots to create related words.
Roots are the building blocks of the Arabic language and are helpful for guessing the meaning of vocabulary.
Generally foreign loan words, such as internet انترنت, fall outside the root system.
For more, see www.alhassy.com/arabic-roots
#+end_documentation
doc:arabic-vowels
#+begin_documentation vowels :label arabic-vowels :show t :color green
Arabs infer vowels from context, otherwise words alone such as حمل are ambigious: It could mean حَمَلَ “he carried” or حُمِلْ
“he was carried”.
As an example sentence with vowels written, Prophet Muhammad is known to have said:
| أنَا مَدِينَةُ الْعِلْمِ وَعَلَيٌ بَابُهَا |
| I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate |
Incidentally, Ali was the one who commissioned the system of vowels.
https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/the-beginning-of-dotting-and-diacritics-in-arabic/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic has only three short vowels, or حركات (literally: “movements”), which are written as small symbols above/below
letters.
| Vowel name | Vowel sound | Arabic | English example |
| Fatha; فتحة | a | ـَ | mat |
| Dhamma; ظمّة | u | ـُ | sugar |
| Kasra; كسرة | i | ـِ | bit |
The “no vowel” marker is suukun/سكون: While هههه has its vowels guessed to be هَهَهَهَ “hahahah”, we obtain “hhhh” by using
sukkun, هْهْهْهْ. It is important for consonant-vowel-consonant syllables, such as بَابْ “bab” which means door.
Incidentally, when a sound needs to be repeated twice, it is usually written once with a Shadda ـّـ to indicate the
doubling. For example, فَهِمَ fahima “he understood” but فَهَّمَ fahhama “he explained”. Shadda is used with الـ + ‘sun
letters’. Unlike the other short vowels, the Shadda is usually written even in informal Arabic, to avoid ambiguity.
Arabic has 3 long vowels, which are formed using specific letters after the short vowels:
| Long vowel sound | Arabic | English example |
| aa | ـَا | far |
| ii | ـِي | meet |
| uu | ـُو | boot |
Since short vowels are normally not written, letters ا ي و play two roles: They behave as long vowels aa,ii,uu (when
preceded by short vowels) and also behave as consonant sounds a,y,w.
+ For example, as a consonant, ي makes an English “y” sound; but as a long vowel it makes an “ii” sound.
+ Occasionally, aa is written using ی (which is like ي but without the dots), or یٰ, rather than an
alif. This always happens at the end of a word and is called alif maqsuura
“broken alif”; for example علی “on” and موسیٰ “Musa”.
The following video reads all Arabic letters, where each letter is vowelised by one of the 3 short vowels. It's a really
nice video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/U1Cl6W8EEBQ?start=6.
#+end_documentation
doc:arabic-pronouns
#+begin_documentation pronoun :label (arabic-pronouns arabic-pronoun) :show t :color blue
A pronoun is a word that stands-in for a noun. For example, below we refer to someone
in 3 different ways:
“His” cat saw “him”, and “he” jumped!
+ A personal pronoun replaces a noun that refers to a person (e.g., Jasim ate ≈ he ate),
+ while a possessive pronoun replaces a noun that involves ownership (e.g., Jasim's book ≈ his book),
+ and an objective pronoun replaces a noun that is having an action done to it (e.g., I saw Jasim ≈ I saw him.)
<hr> Below are Arabic's personal pronouns alongside their English translations.
| | singular | plural |
| 1 | أنا I | نَحْن we |
| 2m | أَنْتَ you | أَنْتُم you |
| 2f | أَنْتِ you | أَنتُن you |
| 3m | هُوَ he/it | هُم they |
| 3f | هِيَ she/it | هُنَّ they |
<hr> In Arabic, possessive and object pronouns are attached pronouns; they are joined to the end of a word: For example,
house بیت becomes my house بیتِي, and from he helped نَصَرَ we get نَصَرَني he helped me.
Arabic's object & possessive pronouns are the same, except for the “my/me” case.
| | singular | plural |
| 1 | ـِي my | ـنَا our |
| 2m | ـكَ your | ـكُمْ your |
| 2f | ـكِ your | ـكُنَّ your |
| 3m | ـَهُ his | ـهُمْ their |
| 3f | ـَهَا hers | ـهُنَّ their |
#+end_documentation
When I am talking, the speaker is the “first person” (“1”); when taking about you, then you are the “second person” and
may be masculine (“2m”) or feminine (“2f”), or a group of you (“plural”); finally, when talking about someone who is not
here in the conversation, they are in the “third person” (“3m, 3f”).
doc:arabic-passive
#+begin_documentation passive :label arabic-passive :show t :color blue
A “passive” verb is one where the subject undergoes the action of the verb rather than carries out the action, for
example حُملت “she was carried” and يُستخدم “it is used”.
#+end_documentation
doc:arabic-transitive
#+begin_documentation transitive :label arabic-transitive :show t :color green
A “transitive” verb is a verb that requires an object to express a complete thought, otherwise it is “intransitive”.
Some verbs are both transitive and intransitive.
A “transitive” verb needs to transfer its action to something or someone ---the object.
In essence, transitive means “to affect something else.”
For example, “Please bring coffee.” would not be a complete thought without the object “coffee”.
That is, “Please bring.” is an incomplete thought: What or whom should we bring? As such, “bring” is a transitive verb.
In contrast, “Please sing.” is a complete thought, and so “sing” is an intransitive verb ---actually, it's also transitive.
In Arabic, the Form-4 أفْعَلَ pattern turns intransitive verbs into transitive ones; and turns transitive verbs into
doubly-transitive verbs ---which means it takes two objects: E.g., “I gave the boy the ball”, here “gave” is
doubly-transitive. E.g., in Form-4, ر−س−ل “to send” gives the transitive verb أرْسَلَ which means it can be followed by two
objects: أرْسَلَ الولد لكتاب “The boy sent the book”.
#+end_documentation