|] TEACH YOURSEL RABIC P| R. Smart s a complete course in written and spoken Arabic. you have never learned Arabic before, or if your rabie needs brushing up, Teach Yourself Arabic is for | nu, Teach Yourself Arabic is unique. Jack Smart explains erything clearly along the way and gives you plenty of portunities to practice what you have learned. The aded structure means that you can work at your own ice, arranging your learning to suit your needs. The urse contains: A detailed introduction to the Arabic script and pronunciation Units introducing and explaining the basic constructions of Arabic Further units of dialogues, reading passages, notes on gulture and more functions of Arabic ction on Arabic numerals __ BE sisos =o (guided learning —with more than 30 million win ii | vies sold workdwide—the Teach Yourself series | * fades ver 200 titles inthe fields of languages, ey fs ts spr ander ese svc hie oMreosactes7sn0 i 1S8N 0-1 Hes s7si-s | Ml : 4g 6 6 i a a a g az 5 5 = 5 5 ARABICARABIC J. R. Smart TEACH YOURSELF BOOKSTomy Mother and Father Long-renowned as the authoritative source for self-guided learning - with more than 30 milion copies sold worldwide ~ the Teach Yourself series includes over 200 titles in the fields of languages, crafts, habhias, sports, and otter lesoes activities. Brtish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Smart, J. R. Arabic. — (Teach yourself books) 1. Arabic language. — Grammar L Title 4971782421 P6207 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-B0895 First published in UK 1986 by Hodder Headline Pic, 338 Euston Road, London NW13BH Aiet published in US 1992 by NTC Publishing Group, 4255 West Touhy Avenue, Lincolnwood (Chicago), linois 60846 ~ 1975 US A Copyright © 1986 J. R. Smart {n UK: Al rights reserved, No par ofthis publication may be reproduced or {ransmited in any form or by any means, electronic of Mechanica, wekcng Bhotocopy, recording, of any information storage and remove seen thout permission in writing from the publisher or under leer forthe Copyright Lice {@brogrephic reproduction) may be obtained trom the Copyrignr ven ‘Agency Limited, of 90 Tottenham Court Rood, London Wik ape Pesca ights reserved. No part ofthis Book may be reproduced, stored in a mochenit, OF transmitted in any form, or by any means, electone, Puspanieal, Photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission Putas photocopy ‘without prior permission of NTC ‘Typeset in Malta by Interprint. Printed in Groat Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Borkshire, First published 1986 Reissued 1992 Impression number 20 19 18 17 Year 1999 1998 1997 1996 Contents (A reference guide to the structure of the course and the grammatical content of the units) Introduction ‘The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 26 indefinites. Adjectival phrases. Numerals 1 to 10. Word shape ClaCiC?. 35 uit 2 . Veruaoeal sentences. Proper nouns. Pronouns. Question-mark eee mean art tences. Word shape C'aaC?iC*. 42 Unit 3 | Gender and sex. The feminine ending. Plurals’ of inanimates. Agreement of words. Prepositions. “There is’ and ‘There are’. Word shape maC'C?uuC?. 49 Unit 4 Demonstratives. Singular demonstratives. Demonstratives with nouns. Adjectives with demonstrative-noun phrases. "This is @ and ‘This is the...” type sentences. Word shape maC'C?aC, Telling the time. Unit 5 58 Possessive constructions. Pronoun suffixes. The feminine ending in Possessives. Simple possessives. Adjectives with possessive con- structions. Indefinite possessives. Demonstratives with passessives Word shape CluC?uuC?. Unit 6 _ eae Root consonants and word shapes. The three-consonant root. Roots, word shapes and meaning. Notation of the roots. Phonetic nature of the roots. Analysis of word shapes. Using a dictionary.vi Arabic Unit 7 The Arabic verb. The past tense. Subject pronouns. Word order and agreement. Agreement of verbs coming after their subjects The verb with pronoun suffixes. Particles used with the past tense. Words beginning with vowels. Unit 8 ‘The verb ‘was/were’. The accusative marker. Simple ‘X was/were YY" sentences. The negative verb laysa — ‘is/are not’. X became Y" sentences. Equational sentences with “inna. kaan with other verbs "He had done... Word shapes muC!aC?C4iC?, muC*aC?C?aC? and taC* CHIC? Unit 9 Plurals; general principles. The internal plural. The external (suf- fix) plurak masculine and feminine. Agreement of adjectives in the plural. Plural personal pronouns. Plural of the demonstratives. Dual nouns and adjectives. Dual verbs and pronouns. Word shape C'aC?C?aaC’. Unit 10 Formation and translation of the present tense. kaan with the present tense. The future. Variations of the present tense. Negative particles governing the present tense. Prepositions with the pro- noun suffixes. Word shape C'uC?aC¥ad’ Unit 11 The Muslim festivals. The Islamic calendar. Question words. How to say ‘to have’. Thematic sentences. Unit 12 The oil age. Forming adjectives from nouns. Comparative and superative adjectives Use of comparatves and superlatives ‘Unit 13 The Islamic conquests. Relative clauses. Relative pronouns. “Some, ‘all’, ‘each’ and ‘every’. Numerals 11 to 99. Unit 14 ‘Arab sovial structure. regular nouns. Conjunctions. “Still and ‘almost Unit 15 ‘At the airport. Greetings and modes of address. Giving orders. Irregular imperatives, Negative commands — ‘Dont... Vocative 4 85 96 Mt 124 138 150 167 180 Contents Unit 16 ‘Arabic literature. The passive of the verb. Rules for forming the passive. Unit 17 ‘Abu Nuwas and Harun al-Rashid. Conditional sentences - “If X, then Y', Masculine plurals and duals in possessive constructions. Unit 18 ‘Tourism in Egypt. Adjectives of colour and physical defect. Exhortative verbs. Appendices 1 The Arabic Verb Table 1: Prefixes and suffixes 238 Table 2: Verb stems, participles and verbal nouns deriving from sound roots 240 Table 3: The doubled verb 245 Table 4: First-weak verbs 248 Table 5: Hollow verbs 251 Table 6: Third-weak verbs (third radical waaw) 254 Table 7: Third-weak verbs (third radical yaa’) 256 Table 8: Third-weak verbs (third radical waaw or yaa’ with i- characteristic) 258 Table 9: Third-weak verbs: derived forms 260 2 The Arabic Numerals 3 Internal Plural Shapes 4 Hints for Further Study Key to the Exercises Arabic ~ English Vocabulary vii 197 22 235 236 262 266 270 an 299Acknowledgments T should like to acknowledge with gratitude the help and en- couragement over the years of all my teachers, colleagues and friends who have contributed indirectly to the writing of this book. In particular I should like to thank the Professor and staff of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, especially Dr R. el-Enany who spent many patient hours in discussion, made innumerable valuable suggestions and checked all the Arabic texts. My special thanks are also due to my wife Frances and daughters Mairi and Kirsty for their unfailing support and encouragement while this book was being written. IRS Introduction ‘The Arabic taught in this book is the written and officially spoken means of communication between over 100 million Arabs of some twenty nations stretching from the Atlantic coast of North Africa in the west to the Sultanate of Oman in the east and from Syria in the north to Sudan in the south. It has existed without major change since the seventh century ap and the continuous literary output of this long period is one of the greatest achievements of civilised man. This is a self-teaching book, not an Arabic grammar in the traditional sense, and the aim throughout has been to bring the student up to the standard where he or she will be able to read a newspaper with the aid of a dictionary and converse with educated ‘Arabs in the literary language which serves as a lingua franca between Arabs from different countries. To make this task easier, some liberties have been taken with traditional Arabic grammar which may alarm the purists, both ‘Arab and European. As you will soon be learning, Arabic is written in a so-called ‘defective’ script. This means (among other things) that the short vowels are not written. Now many of the grammatical endings of the noun and the verb are, in fact, short vowels and consequently do not appear in print. Knowing what they are is, therefore, an academic exercise for, being absent, they cannot contribute to the meaning. Feeling that Arabic is difficult enough for the beginner without hhis being asked to learn unnecessary rules and facts, I have ruthlessly pruned all such grammatical paraphernalia from the text of this book and mentioned them only in passing in footnotes. Once the basic structures of the language bave been learned from this book, the full grammatical apparatus can easily be tacked on by the student with academic leanings. Reference to two excellent traditional grammars is given in the hints for further study in Appendix Four.2 Arabic How to use this book ou will find that the Units in this book vary considerably in length. This is because the material has been arranged logically, cach unit up to Unit 10 dealing with a specific compartment of Arabic grammar and sentence construction. By the end of Unit 10, all the basic constructions of the language have been taught, and Units 11 to 18 fil in the gaps by means of illustrative texts dealing i grammatical points being Picked out in analyses and special sections. Vocabulary is kept tos minimum in the earlier lessons, and there is much repetition of Words in the exercises. Note that these exercises have been in- troduced at specific points within the units, and they should be done as and when instructed. Do not attempt to get through whole unit at a time; rather, read the material and do the exercises for cach section, then review the whole unit when you have finished. This is a self-teaching course, and it is essential that each fit is thoroughly mastered before you go on to the next. Although full cross-references are given, nothing is repeated. Your plan of study should go something like this: ‘The Arabic Script and Pronunciation This introduces the Arabic fript, which is much simpler than it first looks. Obviously you will have to learn this thoroughly before proceeding, and many practice exercises are given. Pronunciation is dealt with, but of course this is much easier to pick up if you have access to’a native speaker. If you can get hold of one, listen to him and ignore the written instructions which are at best a poor substitute for the real thing. Units 1-10 These are all structured in the same way: First, there is set of sentences and/or phrases which illustrate the the unit, and not just those in the initial text. Since Arabic 's slaoct {ever Printed with the vowel signs, the policy of this book has bees to give them only in the vocabularies (and in a few difficult Introduction 3 i . his is up to you the texts). What you do about t! situation ad that you will eventually have to read unvowelled (eee) It you can read the vowelled vocabularies and 1 ca el the sound of the words, so much the bette. aoe aay a know in the text, anc f words you do not knot Cihihehe ey ae kien ema et Alte the Rat Tew units, transliterations of the tests are given in the Key al the end of the book. itis ied that you its 11-18 These are set out differently, as it is assum eae firm grasp ofthe basic structures of the language. Each ord a ed by a lis ha text, followed by 2 ot y The neat sien i I translation of the text into ‘The next section is a literal translati ; Sat pl gin English which follows the Arabic word for word as far as possible. You are asked as an exercise 10 convert thi into : and a the Key. idiomatic English, and a version is given in ; Gina grammatical points occurring a teens ae te picked analysis, and special sections are devoted to com sai: portant features Some information about Arab life and Society are given in the Background to Text sections i Id have r indices deal with matter which woul seeened too muct yeace within the Units oF which could nat te learned inductively. The most conspicuous example isthe Arabic | grammar books verb, I have found that most traditional the i i half, then have to devote test of Arabic grammar in te fist ha then have to ly not muc hole of the second half to the verb. This is ot : fun, and very resriotive on the choice of texts, so here the verb has been relegated to separate tables, each with its own set of expla: ming the two tenses are, natory notes. The basic rules for forming s are, of i he recommendation is that eac course, given within the units, and U painion ata type of verb encountered should be looked up i s (reterences are given), and. time deveted to learning. the con ations by heart as you go along. Other topes covered inthe appendices are the numerals, wich af dificult to use correctly, and the internal plral and is most common patterns. There is also a stction recommending tionaries and books for further study.The Arabic Script and Pronunciation Basie characteristics 14 Arabic, whether handwritten, typed or printed, is cursive, i.e. the letters (with certain exceptions noted below) are joined to each other by means of ligatures. There is no equivalent in Arabic of the separate, independent letters used in European type-faces. There are no capital letters, and punctuation presents no difficulties as the conventions have been borrowed from European sources. 2. The script is written from right to left, and consequently books and magazines begin on what looks like the back page. The numerals, on the other hand, are written from left to right, in the same way as European numerals (which are derived in varying forms from the Arabic signs). 3. In learning the script, it would be very helpful to appreciate the underlying principle that each letter has what we shall call a ‘mecleus form, ie. an essential basic stem. This nucleus form is a concept useful only in learning the script, as in practice it only ‘occurs in the case of six specific letters which by convention do not Join to the letter which follows them. The rest of the letters always appear with one or more of the following features: (q) a ligature joining them to the preceding and/or following letter (6) if at the end of a word, a final ‘lourish’ This is best illustrated by an example, for which we shall take the letter which has the sound of English s in ‘sit’ Nucleus form ww With both preceding and following ligatures au With one ligature and final flourish Separate (after a non-joining letter) Cp from the above it should be obvious that the basic part of the “ter, the nucleus which represents the sound ‘sis the basic three Pronged formas, so the ligatures and final flourish are extraneous.The Arabic Script ard Pronunciation 7 tek 6 Arabic separ eee ‘Transliteration It is quite easy to draw a parallel with European handwriting: form showing both ligatures > = kh Nucleus form d te With both ligatures . a With one ligature and final flourish a 1 The only difference is that in the European system the nucleus 3 . dh forms occur quite freely in print and typescript, while in Arabic they do not, as even type-face is only an adaptation of the . r handwritten form and still cursive, 2 I g = 2 4. With the exception of the first letter alif, all the Arabic letters 2 — a are consonants, Alif and the vowels (which are not considered as s letters of the alphabet) are discussed separately on pp. 13-15 and “ga 18. The Arabic alphabet is given in its traditional order, which s sh ‘ should eventually be learned so that dictionaries may be consulted. yo Alphabet table yee s | Note that transliterations are Eny letters, combinations of v D letters or special signs used to represent Arabic sounds for learners. wr ‘These are fully discussed in the section on pronunciation on pages > T 9-12. To simplify the table, a separate form is given for each letter, | showing the final flourish, if any. This may, when required, be . DH joined to a preceding letter with the same ligature which is used on 2 the nucleus form. . ‘Arabic Separate Nucleus form ‘Transliteration ee name form showing both ligatures pap gh alif | Ll (See page 18) ce bat Lod) b a ‘ ~. ” { 3 4 aa’ os t a ; \ k a oo th J iim i m Had’ = H8 Arabic Arabic Separate Nucleus form ‘Transliteration name oa showing both ligatures mun J 0 ae ee bh wand ig 5 v yaa’ ~s— + y (hamza) % (See page 18) 0 Notes to alphabet table: 1 The letters marked with an asterisk (*) do not, by convention, join to the letter which follows them, 2 The letters :« uyn, ghayn and haa’ Present some difficulty in isolating a nucleus form. In the former two (which are identical except for the dot), the ‘gap’ between the horns of the letter by given is medial, ie. for use in the middle of a word, 3 In material printed in North Africa, you will sometimes find the faa’ with one dot below, and the qaaf with one dot abone 4 The separate/final form of the yaa’ can be written with or without the two dots (see page 21), ‘As in any cursive writing system, slight variations in the ligatures and the Position of the letters relative to the line of script cceus ip various type-faces and even more so in handwriting. None of these should present any difficulty, but the following standard combina- tion of laam and alif, which is always used, should be learned: Separate Joined (to preceding letter only) SS _y The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 9 Pronunciation of the consonants bic consonants are very difficult for Europeans to SO A es canal te attempt accurate pronunciation, Prperwise you will be unable to distinguish between words whos Gutccnce in trating, depeads, for Inman on the dition ee futween Hand b, D and @ ete. Obviously, as in all ageoeee the best thing t0 do is enlist the aid of a native speaker. If his onunciation varies from the instructions given below, as it may ell do, depending on which part of the Arab world he comes from, suopt his system and imitate his sounds. The ear, in this case, is much more useful than the eye. Some reference has been made in the following notes to English dialects and the more familiar European languages. This is done in the hope that you might find it easier to get hold of a Scotsman or a Spaniard than a Lebanese or a Libyan! Group One The following are pronounced more or less as in English: vd jt Jl S ¥ (es) et Fh (shoe) sm ci of on od sk 3 Ww (was) Group Two ‘These occur in English, but care must be taken: thas in ‘think’, ‘through’, ete. (not as in “this, ‘these’ > dhas the English th in ‘the’, ‘that, ‘then’, The dh transliteration has been used to distinguish this sound from the preceding one (th). This is important in Arabic, 5.38 in ‘sip, ‘pass’, etc. ~ not the z-sound of s in ‘these’, ‘pins’, ‘feeds’ and so on. 2h is the ordinary English f-sound in ‘house’, ‘behind’. In English this sound often disappears (‘vehicle’, vehement’), but in Arabic it must always be sounded, even in such positions as sahm (sah-m), shibh (shib-h).10° Arabic Group Three These occur in English dialects, and in other European languages. a kh is the sound at the end of Scottish ‘loch’ and German ‘doch’, and also occurs in Dutch, Spanish and Russian. The Arabic version is a strong rasping sound, produced by closing the back of the tongue against the palate as in pronouncing the letter k, then forcing the breath through the constriction 3 Fis the sound in Spanish ‘pero’, Italian ‘parlare’, and the r of Scottish dialects. It is produced by applying the tip of the tongue to the gum ridge behind the upper front teeth and expelling air to cause it to lap or trill rapidly. This should be a Pronounced trill, not like the sound in the standard English Pronunciation of ‘furrow’. (Not to be confused with the French r pronounced at the back of the palate.) & eh _ The only European language with an approximation of this sound is Dutch morgen’, ‘negen’). It is vaguely similar to the French (Parisian) r, but with more of a scrape than a trill, It is produced by pronouncing the kh described above and activating the vocal chords (say ‘Ah’ at the same time). Group Four ‘These sounds do not occur in other familiar languages. 698 « b « & S,D,T and DH forma group in that they are articulated more or less like their ‘regular’ equivalents (ur $9 6 <3, d, t and dh) but with different acoustic conditions obtaining inside the mouth cavity. Pronounce the four regular sounds and you will find that the tip of your tongue will touch in the region of the upper front teeth/gum. Now pronounce the sounds again and at the same time depress the middle of the tongue. This has the effect of ereating a larger space between the tongue and the roof of the mouth and gives the sound produced a distinctive ‘hollow’ charac. teristic, which also affects the surrounding vowels. It is difficult to find a parallel in English, but the difference between ‘Sam’ and ‘psalm’ (standard English pronunciation) gives a clue. Tense the tongue muscles in pronouncing “psalm” and you are nearly there. Now pronounce the a-vowel of ‘psalm’ before and after each of the four letters, saying aSa, aDa, aTa and aDHa, keeping the tongue tense, and that’s as near as we can Bet to describing it in print. The elfort expended in depressing The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 11 jiddle of the tongue means that these four consonants are te ced ‘more foreefully, hence they are often known a5 ‘emphatics’ atinough not normally grouped with the above four dental (pronounced against the teeth) consonants, q has «somewhat similar acoustic fect. First forget any connestion wit English gor qu. The qi merely a handy spare symbol, and the sound is pronounced by closing the back of the tongue on the ate, like k, but much further back, and then releasing it to Produce a click. The nearest sound we have is ¢ in standard Englsh ‘alm’. Pronounce ‘calm’ over and over again, trying to force the point at which tongue meets palate further bach into the throat. The mouth should be well open, again causing an open-vowel effect like that described above. . His probably the most difficult sound of all, and it must be e Gistinguished from the ordinary sound. It is pronounced very deep down in the throat, and if you try a very deep and forceful sigh, with mouth wide open, and at the same time try to constrict your throat in the region of the Adam’s apple, you should achieve an approximation. The tongue is slightly ten- sed and its tip tucked down behind the bottom teeth. This ibutes to the effect. . Sralo aiieult The only English non-technical description which can be applied to it is ‘a violent, tense glottal stop’ (a glottal stop being the sound a Cockney or a Glaswegian Substitutes for the ¢¢ in ‘bottle’ The breath passage is blocked deep down in the throat by constricting the muscles near the ‘Adam's apple, then suddenly opened under pressure and with the vocal chords in action (give a grunt). The only time English speakers use these muscles is in vomiting, so if the action brings back unhappy memories, you have probably got it right. (Note that the ordinary glottal stop also occurs in Arabic as a different sign: see page 18.) e That concludes the rather difficult range of Arabic consonant Sounds. These are very difficult to put down on paper without [sor to phonetic terminology, and even more difficult to recreate following a written description, so the aid of a native speaker is invaluable. Accurate pronunciation of Arabic is very important, as certain of the consonants form correlative pairs b-H, d-D, etc. TheSimilarity in print, of course, only occurs in transliteration, and the Arabic characters for these pairs are not in the least similar, nor are the sounds to an Arab, Failure to distinguish between these sounds can be very misleading, as illustrated by the following pairs of words: 12 Arabic pe fahm understanding 4s fam coal, charcoal S02 darb path, track 8 Dara blow, striking Arabs know their language is difficult to Pronounce, and will be highly delighted if you make the effort and achieve even a modest success. Note that the letter alif and the hamza will be dealt with later (see page 18). Doubled consonants <{parately' The phenomenon can be heard frequently in Italian {rsoto" (Giovanni). The special orthographic sign for doubling» consonant is given on page 17. EXERCISE 041 Transliterate the following series of Arabic conso- nants (without vowels) tb ge 5h ts — a pi BR ge oS ~ G4 BS ee ae s ~~ gle — USS ob ye ee i = ote — hy he ae uy; oe he ay — ye —o TB Ae Se — ay as The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 13 gee = cb — tet Ge = phy py ok - Bm bem ge ‘a , . apes Write the following consonant series in joines exenOrsoters. (Twerletertranslierations have been underlined to avoid confusion.) a - DbT- dhll— dhn— mktb- rmy- sqT- b:D— ad hm ~ srT ~ shins ~ ghfl= byrm = wre rn ~ ty ~ B tighrf— ktbn— Hij— khlf— rjz— 1D— DID: ~ khnis— shkhr —shkl~ mzgh ~ zmrd_— ghly ~ thwr ~ shbb — qiql- THn — Shghl — bnfsj— twt— Hrmn — thwb ~ fndq ~ nzk - Srm — mrD — Sree Cirbsh—jham~ mHlll- Dan DHbr ~ jjyr Dag :nkbwt — zmkh— shmkh — HDrmwt ~ n:n: ~ brghth yl rw - ‘The vowels and vowel signs ry important feature of Arabic that the meaning of words depends to larg extent on the consonants and the long vowels, while the short vowels pay a secondary role, Hene the language hows only the consonants and long vowels in the erit, and indicates the short vowels and some other features by means orthographic signs placed above and below the consonants. So fundamental is this feature that the short vowels are not marked at all, except in the Koran, some difficult older texts and children’s school books. This is one of the most difficult aspects of the language, but one has to get used to it. There is no point in learning to read vowelled texts and then having the vowels sudden ly taken away. The policy of this book has therefore been to give the vowelling of words in the vocabularies, but in the sentences and texts to give no more information than an Arab printer would, The Teader is at liberty to pencil in his own vowel signs, but is advised to learn the sounds of words so that he can recognise them on sight without the vowel signs. | Fortunately, the Arabic vowel system is very simple. Although they vary somewhat in different phonetic environments, only three f14 Arabic Vowels are recognised, each occurting in lon 1, g OF short forms. TI orthographic system for writing vowels is as follone oes THE Short vowels Crmandicated by placing a short cbtique stroke abo the (This sign is called fatHa by the Arabs.) Thus: ‘ve the letter, : S kataba i taka a eal laters a (like a comma) placed above the letter Sw A iis a short oblique stroke lik (Arabic name kasra): gli & bihi (See also page 17, © the fata, but placed below the letter SE bayt (like English “bite? 038 dawn (like English ‘down’ (For the sign* see next section.) The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 15 nsonants without a following vowel When a letter has no following vowel, it marked with a small circle above, called a sukuun: Ks maktab ot nafs In this book sukuun has not normally been written on letters at the end of words. Pronunciation of the vowels The distinction between long and short vowels is very important and major (often ridiculous) changes in meaning can occur if vowels are not given their correct length. So keep long, long and short, short. ‘The a-vowels are usually pronounced much as in English ‘man’, “ban’, extended accordingly for the long variety which does not occur in English. Before or after the letters §, D, T, DH, gh, q and sometimes kh, r and | the a-vowel takes on a character somewhat like the vowel in standard English ‘calm, ‘far’ — again adjusted for length. The short u-vowel is very like the English ‘put’ and the long u- vowel resembles ‘plume’. They are never pronounced as in ‘cut’ or ‘up’. The short i is as in ‘stick’, long i as in ‘marine’, The u- and i-vowels also vary in proximity to the consonants listed above, but perhaps not quite so obviously as the a-vowel. In Practice you will find that if you get the consonant right, the vowel will also be correctly shaped. In certain foreign words, the vowels written -uu and -ii are Fronounced more like o in ‘more’ in the first case, and a in ‘fate’ in the second. This is not usually important, but when it needs to be Pointed out, the ‘transliterations used will be -ee and -00, for example sikriteer secretary banTaloon trousers FXERCISE 03 Transliterate and read aloud the following words:E Pronounce the followin, in Arabic characters. (Note thar the sukuun — baTal— nakhl— mini laciba haba’ ~ kaamil — jawaab — ij 5s diay et ea fi yugiing ail = Saaruukh — talks jane” babluul ~ mayj— 7 Malim'~ sah fil gayd~ quysud a, © khurTuum, 18 Words and write them out left out on the final letters of words)" "YON! sign ~ may The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 17 ‘The doubling sign shadda ince of pronouncing doubled consonants correctly was roe ey on page 1D, and the eign used vo indicate this feature is - (eicleus form shiin for shadda, without the three dots) written a Gove the letter. . CH rattaba US dalla when @ letter marked with this sign is followed by an i- bet ite Som Practice is to place the kasra (the i-vowel sign) below the shadda instead of below the letter. Thus: 4S qabbit JF mazzil EXERCISE 07 Read aloud and transliterate the following words illustrating the doubling sign shadda: ~ ot — 36 — oh oh es Ces TM 5B oh i B-B-b_b_ o_o Unfortunately, the shadda is not marked consistently in Arabic printing, a practice which, for authenticity, has been adopted in this book. Nunation In Classical Arabic indefinite nouns and adjectives wete marked by Eqina! n-sound, called by the Arabs tanwiin and translated into lsh as ‘nunation’ (irom Arabie muun —n). This ie written in the “Ese of final u- and i-vowels simply by doubling the vewer sign: Ueor SS jabalun os qalamin These endings are no longer used in ordinary printed matter, so will concern us little. However, on words ending in an a-vowel, not oy Was the vowel sign doubled, but an extra alif was added at the the word, and this is retained in Print, so has to be "scostised and reproduced: CS kitaaban C3 farasanThe Arabic Seript and Pronunciation 19 18 Arabic The practice today is to omit the doubled vowel sign, but to kee ‘Transliteration trophe (’), except when it occurs the alif: The pronunciation of the ending -an is also retained ;> | Hamea is transliterated by the apostrophe a ed unless for special jnany words. Note that this alif is not written after words which it the beginning of words have the feminine ending and some other suffixes. This feature wiy | # ce ieg. sa'al, ghinaa’, but"intikhaab). 1330 GRERCISE 08 Read aloud and transliterate the following words. orthography (These are words which retain in pr ending of the indefinite accusative) it calls the lises two types of hamza, which it cal st ira and the joining Mamea’ “Cutwng i ths context ‘cutting hameily that this variety of hamza i always pronounced, cat cans that it is frequently elided (omitted in pro. ang tion) In an attempt at simplification, the joining hamza Freres ignored, since it is of no practical importance in tae arabie pronounced without the old case endings. s eting kamea is noted and commented upon where it ecu. Ta a ly shown when it ooct 4 inted Arabic, hamza is rarely te Sit vrsatcwsietaer manasa ¢ ‘cutting’ (Le. pronounced) variety, have been’ the arabic texts The ree Tor wating haa in Arabic ar very complicated, but for bracteal oposite eee aes be i jic principles and to learn by o | woe Ee and vocabularies. You will probably find this ‘onunciation the Classical -an main uses in Arabic orthography are: 3 Asa lengthening sign for the a-vowel (see Page 14), 2 Asacarrier letter for the hamza (see pp. 19-20). It also has one or two other minor functions s, such as in writing the above win discussed on page 17, but appears most ota’ in the above two roles. hly now; rather, fusing, so do not attempt to learn it thoroughl ‘ele bac (ot when you eneounter words sontaning hoa 1 At the beginning of a word, hamza is always written on an alif carrier, no matter which of the three vowels it takes: ‘The glottal stop — hamza By some accident of history, the glottal stop ingful sound in Arabic — has come down to ce ft —_— acl aHmad at ‘uriid sot at ea a written below the ali not as a letter of the MF When it takes an i-vowel, it is written alphabet, but as an orthographic sign. The Arabs call this sign 1S) ‘ikraam hamea and it is usually written over one of che ‘carrier’ letters alif (rs waaw ot yaa’. It can take any of the three vo like any consonant, wels, long or short, just ‘The sign which indicates a ‘joining’ hamza (which can only occur at the beginning of a word) is called a waSla and is written like this: ij el Tis included here only for completeness, and will not be used in this book. It is never printed in modem Arabic texts. In the middle of a word, hamza is almost always written above 2 ne of the three carrier letters aif, waaw or yaa’. Which one is usedepends on the vowels preceding and following the hhamza, and the! {ules are complicated (a common source wy speling errors amo aes themselves). The best way is to ears ne observation, byt here are a few examples: Jt saat coy mu'min 2o matim f di ttt When the yaa is used as a carrie for the hamea in the middle of a word, it loses its twe deta 3, At the end of a word it is written above one of the carrier letter, after a short vowel, or alone on the line after a long vowel or ¢ sukuun (vowelless letter): 13 qarat +o kat OS jue’ inna THERCISE 09 Read aloud and transliterate the following words * which contain hamz a. (For the sake of the exercise. all hamzas should be transliterated.) — HS pal dis — aug y ~ 28 — af ony Py? — 45 — FR te eet i ‘The sign madda he sien madda, which is stil very often shown in print, is used when ther of the following two combinatfen yt hamzas and vowels occur in a word: 1a’ (hamza — short a— hamza), e.g. ,tT for ‘a'thaar 2 ‘aa (hamza followed by long a), eg. OF for qur'aan Normal pronunciation in both cases is “aa (‘aathaar, qur'aan) The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 21 10 Read aloud and transliterate these words with the RCISE Bon mada: —— . ke — OT — oT — ist i — is i ohh — oT — oy = ot a a vabT dui ial spellings ; ~ he inpenion you may have une ot he asf ere” Arabie speling is, within its own aetem, fairly phone te Trike case ofthe vast majority of words, if you cen sy them, you Io the them. However, there are'a few irregularities and speci can spell them. conventions. ; 1 The long a-vowel at the end of many words is written with a yaa’ instead of an alif, for example: mana SS ramaa i ti of printing final yaa’s in id confusion, there is a convention of a Leary without the two dots (see examples above), but with the dots when the sound is 2 fii re This convention is by no means universally adopted throughout the Arab world, but has been used in this book as far as possible to assist the learner. baytii i eds, and can Note that the above spelling occurs only in certain words, only occur when the aa sound is final. If any ‘sulfix is added to such Words, the spelling reverts to the normal alif: pe ma:naa-hum GG} ramaa-haa PRRRCISE 011 Read aloud and transliterate the lowing exercise, NB Careful to distinguish between -aa’s and -i's: 7H os fe gen se2 The most usual feminine ending in Arabic is, in pronunciation, -a. Again for historical reasons, this is written with a special hybrid letter which has the body of a haa’ (final form 4), and the two dots! above borrowed from the letter taa’ (<). The whole letter ig ignored in pronunciation, only the preceding a-vowel being pro. nounced except in specific grammatical contexts where the ending is pronounced -at. This will be explained in the grammar lessons, C5 madrasa a sayyaara Notes: (a) As in the case of the final long aa discussed above, the hybrid feminine ending letter can only occur finally. If any suffix is added, the ending is spelled with an ordinary ¢aa’: (E50 madrasat-naa Se sayyaarat-kum (6) In modern Arabic it is not uncommon to find the two dots of this letter omitted. Printers seem especially reluctant to put them ‘on masculine proper names which happen, for linguistic reasons, to have the feminine ending, for example: db Tulba sxe juma EXERCISE 0.12 Read out and transliterate these words with the feminine ending. — by — ag — bs — et — Bre — Si — ies — (Note that the vowel sign before the feminine ending can be missed out, because it is always ‘a’) ‘The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 23 bic verb end in a long u-vowel, and this OF the aati following aif. Ths alifhas no effect ‘and again is omitted if any suffix is added: GsS katabuu-haa they wrote it Certain pats ofthe nventionally writ iscont ts onuncaton, f VS katabuu they wrote number of words, the archaic practice of expressing the 4 In & pitt by means of a miniature ali placed above the leter is 2 long toed for example (Gs baadhaa iS raHimaan of course, does not appear in unvowelled texts, nor should the Practice ‘be extended to other words. exencise 013 Transliterate these examples of the superscript aif: Nh — oh — ok — df — a amr is writ ith an unpro- 5 The male proper name, Amr :amr is written wit - ounced final waaw, ths 12 to distinguish it from the consonan- tally identical name Umar, Omar (umar ~*). Writing words which consist of only one Arabic letter Quite a few Arabic words consist of only one Arabic consonant and a short vowel (bi, la, ka, etc.). These are never written alone, but ‘must be joined to the following word, for example: Vit-rajl is written 23 When such words must be given separately (as happens in gram- mat books such as this) the convention used has been to use the hyphen in transcription (lr, ka-, etc.) and to use the initial form of the letter in Arabic with an extended ligature, thus 5 « 4.| " 24 Arabic Stressed syllables When an Arabic word has more than one syllable, one of th must be stressed or accented in pronunciation, exactly 5's English. Fortunately many Arabic words have only one | syllable with a long vowel (ovC), and if this is pronounced with a correct length, you will find that the stress falls naturally (an correctly) on this syllable: €S karim == CS) réakib , However, by no means all words fall into this convenient = ite munassaba and in a selfteaching book such as this, some guidance must sziven. If you have access to a live teacher, ignore the rest of thi section and learn by ear. Otherwise, you will have to learn to analyse consonant-vowe! series in words, and will undoubtedly find this easier to do iy transliteration. The two series which we must learn to recognise ant long vowels followed by a consonant (shorthand vC) and shor vowel followed by two successive consonants (ic. without a vowel between them ~ vCC). Remember that doubled consonants count as two single ones. The procedure is as follows: 1 Transliterate the word. . 2 Eliminate any single-consonant words which may have been tacked on to the beginning (see page 23), and also the definite article al- (see page 29). 3° Starting at the end of the word, look for either of the series wC or vCC mentioned above, and the first one will be the stressed syllable. Here are some examples: SS yiktub ae Himaar tuHibb: yastaHliqg yung QHDHif (Beware of single Arabic consonants which happen to be trans- literated by two English letters. These obviously count as only one.) The Arabic Script and Pronunciation 25 1s no such series in the word, then the stress will fall on there i tS first syllable: de ial gp mito CX Hikimat — |y52 dirasuu iS kalima aS” bribes is designed for the analysis of literary Note that oa yehis book (ie. without the Classical case Arabic 3s tang" for most words, but there are certain exceptions, endings) UW Forms Vil_and VIII of the verb (where the first for eat to be ignored to make it work), and pronoun suffixes syllable ‘i single-consonant words (which in these cases have to Preetieded), However, its hoped that i willbe generally ws for “eltaught student until he gains a feel for the la 7 the selPtaughy svete speaker fenfistd, it maybe found that he oe ee sirens pattern of his own dialect. Egyptians, for as hi a strong tendency to stress the penultimate syllable w! i nak Given above indicate otherwise. This will do no harm as long a Saal ‘are consistent in which method you follow. EXERCISE 0.14 Transliterate the following words, identify and mark the accented syllable. — oi we SE EA — gi] — shit — 2 — oe = aS — 3b — gS — ob — a — le Ha gi oe wie eS ah — oe — oH — eth — OE — ab —ofks — cays — pt — pe — Uh — Ger — ti ye iS| Unit One Text and translations Transliteration and Idiomatic Arabic ‘iteral translation Translation bayt kabiir aS oy y hhouse big(-one) A big house. rajul Tawiil db dey ‘man tall(-one) A tall man, albayt al-kabiir aS OS | ‘he-house the-big-one) The big house, I at-rajul aT-Tawiil tl Leth g ‘he-man the-tall-one) The tall man. bayt kabiir waasi: CS ce 6 hhouse big(-one) spacious-one) A big spacious house ar-rajul aT-Tawiil an-naHiit erst sbi Josh 4 I ‘hesman the-tall-one) the-thin cone) The sai thin man, Literal translation system The literal translation is a Aorttor-word rendering of the Arabic English, gi in Unit One 27 i but are citer Unncestryo: would dort the ene rabic, in this unit. . Ena Bitte nybhon where a re necessary or desirable See clarity to translate one Arabic word by more ferpbeTeeeloceri ital example big(-one),tall(-one), etc. The li or telooleaealeieaacis writes as one word what een ee gl : bic a adopted so that you can follow the Aral Eo ee atieTArabe oor order and so learn by study and Sirovation how the langage works Idiomatic translations are given ether with the unit or im the key tothe eae at the end of given eithe the book, Vocabulary i Is of Arabic h not used in this unit, the plural ee ‘rat ae difficult, and the best way to learn nae is to memories them along with their singulars. In the vocabularies they ae piven in brackets afer the singular. Nowns . (or) (E54) Ee sreet (3B) SE man CMG boy (4) oS book ) KE desk, ofce rf - A RA (1) SE door (HS) SE window Cap) go manager (obits) airport Adjectives Lb oma, sat aS big old (of people) tS Short ‘small; young (of people)28 Arabic A busy eed thin GF spacious ssl far, distant Gb useful Ad wite ks clean Nouns and adjectives It will be a great help in learning Arabic if you can come to look on nouns and adjectives as virtually the same thing. Nouns are the names of objects, living beings or ideas (house, man, justice) and adjectives are usually defined as words which describe nouns (good, bad, big, small). In English — although not very frequently ~ adjectives can be used as nouns, as in the sentence ‘The wicked shail be punished’. More commonly, however, the helping word ‘one’ is used: ‘Which book do you want? ‘The green one’. Arabic grammar will be made much easier for you if you can get into the habit of always thinking of Arabic adjectives as implying this -one, thus effectively equating themselves with nouns. For instance, in Arabic our answer to the question above would be simply “The green’. Definites and indefinites The question of whether a noun/adjective in a particular context is definite or indefinite is of great importance in Arabic. Indefinites do not refer to any specific object or person. In English the indefinite article a or an is usually used, for example: ‘A cat ran across the road’, ‘A lady phoned this morning’. We do not specify any particular cat or lady in these sentences. Definites specify the particular, and are of three different types: (@) Words preceded by the definite article rhe. ‘The cat’, ‘the lady’ in the above sentences would indicate a particular cat or lady known to both the speaker and the listener. (b) Proper nouns (written in English with a capital). These are the (9. Pronouns Indefinit Unit One 29 of specific people or places (¢-8- Margaret, Mr Smith, ames ; Kowait, Germany) she, etc., which again obviously refer sa ee This category also includes the de- ific person. TI : to one sre et these, etc. (see Unit 4). eonstrative pronouns this, heey i ‘ay? ‘an’ tes im Arenite article equivalent to English ‘a’ or ‘an’ in There no Meas I and 2 im the text at the beginning of the ‘Arabic, © it : vi ca means «house “2° means a big one (thing) deo means aman ib means a call one (person) finites in Arabic , Petntwe deal with nouns preceded by the definite article. Proper .d pronouns will be discussed later. nowts definte article in Arabic is \ (al) and is always attached to the word it qualifies. If immediately preceded by a word ending in a Vowel the a of ak is omitted in pronunciation, but the alif is retained in writing. Pronounced ab-bayt after a preceding consonant bayt after a preceding vowel The definite article is always written 1 , but there is a convention of pronunciation which must be observed when the word to which it is attached begins with one of the following consonants:30 Arabic In these cases, the / of the article is omitted in pronunciation, ang the following letter clearly doubled. Thus: Written del det! Prosounced ar-rajul after a preceding consonant r-rajul after a preceding vowel Unit One 31 phrase/sentence construction Indefinite noun with adjective rases 1 and 2 in the text on page 26. Here an indefinite Ex rod by an indefinite adjective and parallel the English construction Do not be careless about pronouncing this doubled consonant, as the meaning may be affected. The easiest way to remember which letters show this feature is to pronounce them and note the position of the tip of your tongue while doing so. You will find that it is always in the region of the front teeth/upper gum ~ which is where the letter 1 is pronounced = which is why the assimilation occurs. No other Arabic con- sonant is pronounced in this area. The Arabs call these the Sun Letters, because the Arabic word for sun, shams, begins with one of them, shiin. The rest of the letters, which do not assimilate, are called the Moon Letters (Arabic amar moon, beginning with the non-assimilating q). EXERCISE 11 A. Pronounce the following aloud, transliterate and check against the key to the exercises. oe ee NV snail 4 it A OES geal 4 B In transliteration, add the definite article to the following words. Pronounce and check your answers. de ft ve 4 pee aw Y ay Ne a oe A dts Vo ae 7 An ‘Adjective Noun a big house Indefinite Noun Indefinite Adjective as a (@) big(-one) (@) house There is nothing complicated about this. Arabic has no equiva- lent of a/an, and the English word order adjective —~ noun mes noun — adjective, as it does in many languages (cg. French vin blanc). Again, try to think of the adjective as implying a ‘Roun, a member of the class of things described by the adjective. pare the English construction ‘He's bought a house, a big one’. Note that the reverse order — adjective followed by noun — is not Possible in Arabic. FXIRCISE 12 Translate into Arabic: 1 4 4 busy man, 2A small book. 3A wide door. {all boy. 5A long street. 6 A clean window. 10 A distant airport. 8 A famous man. 9 A spacious office. young manager.32 Arabic Definite noun with adjective Examine phrases 3 and 4. This construction is identical 10 thy Previous one, except that both noun and adjective have the define article. This type of Phrase is equivalent to English: ‘The-Noun ‘The-Adjective Sl wy the-big(-one) the-house Again there are only two rules to remember: (2) Word order is noun first, adjective second; () Both must have the definite article. Compare English ‘The officer, the handsome one, danced with her all night’. EXERCISE 13° Change your answers to Exercise 1.2 into definite phrases following the model: A busy man —~ The busy man Additional adjectives Examine phrases 5 and 6. In Arabic, additional adjectives are simply added after the first one with no punctuation or joining word. If the noun is definite, all adjectives are definite and must carry the definite article. EXERCISE 14 Transliterate and then translate into English: clit a, I sey CS le sate Ste oy & od) fsb ali BB db ot AA Si ot Unit One 33 ‘Sommary ved in the two types of noun/adjective phrase ‘The piniPes involve imple and can be summarised as fellows deseribed lows noun; 7 o aerive fetes with 200 in definition ( dy both phrase types thoroughly and make sure you can Sisinguish between them. Numerals / i i sed in the exercises. he Arabic numerals, which will be us n Remember that they are written from left 1o righ, in the opposite direction to the script. Examples: YX 26 -¥4 39 ts 6 WY 172, OA 458 Numerals 1 to 10: pronunciation The grammar of the Arabic numbers is somewhat complicated and Will be dealt with later. Here are the forms which the Arabs usually use in speech:34° Arabic Word shape As will be explained in detail in Unit 6, most Arabic words are buif up around a three-consonant root which contains the nucleus of meaning, and it is important to get used to recognising the shapes of words ~ that is, how the long and short vowels are arranged around the root consonants. This is helpful both in understanding ‘grammar and in learning to read unvowelled texts. Examples of the most common shapes are given in the first ten units. ‘Arabic example English sound-alike as In the schematic, C represents any consonant, and the vowels are given as they occur. This is a very common pattern for adjectives in Arabic. Pick out examples from the vocabulary for this unit. Unit Two ‘text and translations ab-bayt kabiit aS ee N the-house (is a) big(-one) The house is big. ar-rajul Tawiil dsb os Y the-man (is a) rall(-one) ‘The man is tall muHammad naHiit aste y ‘Muhammad (is a) thin(-one) Muhammad is thin. ana mariiD ua tl t 1 (am an) ill-one) Tam ill, hal al-kitaab naafi: £ av US po /P/ the-book (is a) usefull-one) Is the book useful? a-huwa mashghuul Pde wl 4 Phe (is a) busyX-one) Is he busy? Vocabulary Nouns (ob (ghey Eat Sato Demonstratives (ONL hour, clock, watch — (Lally alas haly demonstrate is to show of 10 indicate, therefore demonstratives or, i To deme yhich indicate the particular person or-object you are (etl cE hire (eh quarter » BERe"chout. The demonstratives in English are this, chat, these os - fans They can be either adjectives with a following noun, ‘This (SLL) Jee worker (S5L%) I> house, dnelling | and ie ood, oF pronouns with no following nouns, and meaning me we feally ‘this thing’ or ‘this person’: bn) A con ol ove { : ; . fol) cil (AL OE! announcement ‘This is good’ ie. This object, cake or whatever it may be is LZ) B44 newspaper oly ie 00d. (AYA) BS newspaper (2b) RS magazine | 0 That's my brother over there’ ie. That person ..., and so on. (C&L 52 aeroplane Cakes) es source In Arabic, the demonstratives always function as pronouns, never | > as adjectives, and it will be a great help if you always think of them (GbtG) dak, area, zone (Ly ches printing house as implying a person or a thing. Jail) 555 tree t Obert apt (0) le water Singular demonstratives (be) beer cinema (SL) 14S. government cane SL Byhiy miniser Shy 2s (OL) a3hig ministry, bal) 5 department, section ‘This That Adjectives : ays BD» © ob see new j Gb important A4Se diligent, hard working eed . 3 ‘or the spell Ee oy Pelling of t - “pb era “pack etl 12 ig of the long a-vowel in three of these, see page “oS aly eo man final a-vowel of {ia is usually pronounced short. oy i, oo ratives with eb main, principal & general Stud) — ; ¢ . : Phases 1-3 on page 49. 2 special ONS lazy, idle above, the Arabic demonstrative is always a pronoun,52. Arabic Unit Four $3 implying with it an object or a person. What we are reall ys ly ‘that’ to the following: therefore, in phrase 1 is: ‘Ying, apply Inthe same waY> ° ar a ee Bb 4 pr A dle VO GET This-thing (m), the pen | and | Thisthing (0, the paper ea Mia ’ Bp ode your answers to both A and B. ¢ Translate ~ Arabic: D_ Translate into Note that the demonstrative must agree in gender ~ masculine ff 1 That important announcement, 2 This new government feminine — with its noun, and that the noun, since it always rege fr 3 Those weekly magazines. 4 This general council a specific thing, takes the definite article 3 These modern aeroplanes. partment. The equivalent construction occurs in English when we sy things like ‘Mr Jones, the postman, came this morning’, as ‘Mr Jone and ‘the postman’ are one and the same person. Equational sentences Examples 4 and 5 on page 49 are equational sentences. Thei subjects are the definite concepts ‘These books’ and ‘These chairs’ Adjectives with demonstrative-noun phrases There is nothing new here, except another reminder that plurals Adjectives follow the noun in the usual way. Analyse phrase 3 of inanimate objects are regarded as feminine singulars! ‘on page 49: ; EXERCISE 42 a A‘ words gi m This person the-employee ee From the words given, form sentences of the type: ae BS 6 Sg (Ns ep Cal Noe this house is big. abl by lin Wee ple us ae cit lia) a Cy cite cat (Scie cle ot We simply have a series of three nouns referring to the sa a6 hae ds 4 ONS GK «HS 0 object. Use Cu clink fo «Gye cla V PREECE Ae ple ld ve eee ae 4 A’ Apply the word ‘this’ to the following nouns: I 3 Translate your answers. Sy > eal He this house Fl el Thing al ‘ ‘i ie fsa. and “This j : 0 ee fw le A Examine carefully aero tne coy SE sentences a th ae A yo ue fender snces § and 7, Apart from the change in the oly) ce 8 bly A ke ©F the subject, there is one important difference between theUnit Four 55 54 Arabic in A into ‘This/that is the ..." sentences two ~ the presence of the word he in sentence 7. A little ely pronou ‘examination will show why this is necessary. The easiest way is to remove the ys and see what remaing Si) Coll ys \dia This is the big house. salt GB iie wt abi Now look back at example 3, and compare the two: 3 7 ead Gb ll tie bad! Gob A Naa They are identical ~ but example 3 had a different meaning: new employee’. In other words, the 4 is used to separate th demonstrative \is from the definite noun-adjective ph bali 3b,i (which it would otherwise qualify). ‘The rule is that in sentences which have a nounless de strative as their subject, and a predicate qualified by the defi article, the ‘separating pronoun’ of the appropriate gender musth placed between the two. (The rule does in fact apply to sentences with such a predicate, but those with demonstratives set prefix and does not change. subjects are perhaps the most common.) e is not quite so stable as the others we have In sentence 6 there is no problem, as the predicate hi nd has two main variations: the substitution of i no definite article, and could not therefore be rea immediately qualified by the demonstrative elt . carried out. We have the root k-t-b means ‘to write’, hence: EXERCISE 43 ke of writing office, desk A Form “This/that is a...” type sentences: Rea es sabe mae ayia, from the root d-r-s to study, hence ‘place of Ce Via this is a big house fan example of the i-form is J+ from n-z-l 10 ‘a place of dwelling, a house, a home’. see aalen a EY, (5 — tebe — Hb eit which of the three forms the derivative ones a ee, ud t will take, but the order of frequency is certainly ei ata ener Egat ~ ‘ aCCaCa (with a feminine ending), then maCCiC. a ey — tht — fe than one form exists, with a difference in : Gay _ wh el — BA dale — ey - eee desk 4S» allibrary, bookshopUnit Five 59 Unit Five Tok ode Sei VN result of this polic) Text and translations he ea eee - policy ola tn S> VY ransliterations of the texts for Units 5-10 are given in the is the exercises at the end of the book. It is essential that yours pvermment of 5) EHIME This government of ours to reading unvowelled Arabic. Bt Ug ant bookof)-you ois yulary Your bog Vooabmiafy room-(of -her Wey oath Ao Het room (oly tml university (Obes ed a 0153) 259 minister office (of) the-manager aS ‘elall interior (political) ¢ is) 25 The manager's office (isis Ges) Pu meat ministry (of) the-interior Hal ashy (oy Bly novel story (5) ems result The Ministry of the Interior * o rn (oly Ele policy ge entering, entrance house (of) Peter wee ce 8 - er log Peter's howe (Gla>) re garden (Ob plArS Kilogram Si Sli) tule G5> Nour bread university (of) Cairo Spl tule 4 - The University of Cairo, (C8) 485 job, function (SP) SF letter (alphabet) Cairo University fans aon ; (9) lb head (Ax) Se bank shirt-(of)-me the-new(-one) abl gad V ; v ° ” ‘My new shirt 048) 2b parcel er ait car (of) the-minister the- gS gigh ae A (GP) CP branch (all senses) return large (-one) Tl ister’s |: car Key cite at eer Cd (hy BE sit (or cothes) ) DELS dress (lady's) iece (of) meat ws 4 oe Dee OL) 3533 comy (e-w A piece of me ) 4532 company oil (e-ude) novel of novels (of) Gols ply Oby y tly Thomas Hardy A novel of Thomas Hard one of Thomas Hardy's 10 “Sometimes speed with a jim gle 5860 Arabic Adictives eet eee JE casy ee difficult GFF comeat 72 cheap (SY teva (eS! foreign i ee Possessive constructions Possessive constructions contain two elements: the OSsesso¢ aoc, and the thing possessed ot property. In ‘the doctor's tie doctor is the owner, and the car is his property, The most usual way to express possession in English is by the } ii Of;aaPostrophe s° as in the example above (also: Jack's bis wife) in which the order is owner before property. In certain for eustanees, however, we use the word ‘of and reverse ths one for example ‘The title of the book is “The Dogs of War" Property (of) Owner The | title of the book The Arabic construction is word for of is used and the defi first element (Title, Dogs). Remember, the order is always: Property (of) Owner The Arabic construction depends on the fact that the propet and owner are placed next to each other in that order and, with he ‘one exception noted below, no other word may come between them. Pronoun suffixes y When the owner is a pronoun, as in ‘his house’, ‘my bod! (owners he and I respectively), Arabic uses a special set of sulfa tacked directly on to the property noun. (These suffixes are a Unit Five 61 given ly the object, the separate pronouns eer oe for use as the subject of a sentence.) The is on pee? nes are a follows: ron0un , Plural . us, our | on (m) iL “ x 0%, your () eo CK yo, your (0 ao L ‘ee them, ther (m) ao if anaes her, i jith a preceding iis table, the suffixes have been given witl ' tate a ‘emphasise the fact that they join a aI the Property word. E is in one of the non-j rane dh the suites ave not scualy Solel but still written as part of the same word, e.g. 5 SX his secretary. 2 The second form given for the first person singular pronoun suffix, G~ me is used only after verbs and will be dealt with later, All the other suffixes retain the same form after both verbs ind nouns, : one and (4~ change their u-vowels to i-vowels when they follow long or short -i or the combination -ay (e.g. 43 in him, it). 4 In spoken Arabic -ka and -ki are pronounced -ak and -ik (ater words ending in vowels, -k and -ki), and -hu is -uh (an ‘scarcely detectable -h after vowels). The feminine ending Wne,lybrid letter of the feminine ending is always pronounced 1 when ‘it occurs in the first (property) element of a possessive “onstruction, (This is also true in spoken Arabic.) Since this letter can only occur at the end of a word (see page 22), "changes into an ordinary = when a sulfx is added, for example: VBE her room (pronounced ghurfat-haa).62. Arabic Simple possessives Study carefully phrases 1-6 on page 58. 1 and 2 show the si possessive with the pronoun suffixes, 2 illustrating the prow" Ciation (and writing) of the feminine marker as’. 3 and 4 show most frequent type of possessive found in Arabic, noun plus nog, | The second of these reminds us to pronounce (but not to write it is still at the end of a word) the f of the feminine ending. (Nox also that itis not pronounced at the end of the second element, 9 daakhiliyya). 5 and 6 show the use of proper (personal or piacg names as owner elements, the first having no definite article, EXERCISE 81 A Translate into Arabic: 1 The manager of the bank, 2 The announcement of the council. 3. Your (m, sing) garden. 4 The minister of the Interior. 5 His magazines. 6 Our mother. 7 Omar's car, 8 The branches of the ‘company. 9° The government(’s) 10. Her head. } printing house. B_ Read aloud, then change the masculine suffix into a feminine one, or vice versa: acy his house—+ \py her house poe ¥ peel 4 I et | tyel t we C Read aloud, then change both the nouns (or noun and pre noun suffix) from plural to singular or vice versa: Geol Cap the man’s house ++ Ste cagy the men's hows! 233) tis an Shad 4 iting # win Y Fas yal be age s gh € Jl gle ob j ApAI Shall pe pul wit ove 0 eas YS etl kl GLY Fels bae Ve al USL nee 4 Unit ive 63 y possessive constructions pests Wit Pe and 8. Because of the rule that nothing may Examine PIO, property and owner (see page 60), another place ieee OT adjectives qualifying one of the two elements must be For" never come before their nouns in Arabic, they must Since 28 Fhe completed possesive construction. Lt ae pe text on page 58 gives an example with a pronoun ras 7Hrase 8 one with two nouns. If you look at phrase 8 si you will see that there is no possibility of mistaking which ans quaifed by the feminine adjective ig. Since p jy minister jsa masculine noun, it must apply to the feminine noun 8 car. sire te Arabs regard both elements ofa possessive construction a Sehrite, all adjectives applying to either element must have the Sipe article (and come after the completed construction). It deine follows that Jbl 39! Cy can mean either ‘The ere new house’ of *The new minister's house’ (both nouns reneterascline). In practice, when the meaning is not obvious Pane the context, such ambiguities are avoided by the use of ahernative constructions Contrast also pie y jg) Cay The minister's house is new. In this example, since the adjective six is indefinite, it cannot refer to either element of the possessive, and must therefore be the predicate ofa sentence, the subject of which is the compound definite “The minister's house’. EXERCISE $2 A Read aloud, then translate: B Change ti pe the phrases in A into sentences of the type: 2S Se Jl Ce The man’s house is big.64 Arabic it Unit Five 65 Indefinite possessives Study phrases 9 and 10 carefully. pam cise 54 Although not all that common in practice, it is somerj =, Apply the correct part of ‘is to the owner-word in the necessary {0 express indefinite possessves, Such as these tas Aging and translate yOur answers. phrases. . In example 9, the owner-word is simply written without uy | ylides tf ag eh ¥ el eye ON definite article, and the whole construction regarded as indefnit cael o wae ¢ ‘a piece of meat’. (Note that the ¢ of the feminine ending must si, gunk 1 at oe ae be pronounced.) We 4 Ks BO wi Lov If the owner-word is definite by nature (such as proper name dls é ae and pronoun suffixes) a construction using the plural must be use, Spas Ve as illustrated by example 10. This sounds clumsy in English, by: ‘occurs quite frequently in Arabic. An example with a pronouy suffix is yy Ge Cz One of his houses. (Note that there is ap alternative \n, using a preposition. See page 135.) B Apply the correct part of JUJ3 to the property-word and translate your answers. struct EXERCISE 53 Read aloud, then translate: lb FS Eye tee iwet jel leas aid! jhe 0 ast GB AIS 6 Bot Summary The possessive in Arabic is undoubtedly tricky. What you have to look out for is the placing together of two nouns (or a noun and a Demonstratives with possessives Pronoun suffix). You should learn to recognise the latter fairly Refer to examples 11 and 12. ikl, and in practice the noun-noun possessive usually looks The demonstratives are the only kind of words which a | ¢ this: allowed to come between the two elements of a possessive oof | struction. This should not surprise us if we recall that all Ara demonstratives imply with themselves a noun —a thing or a Persil (see page $1). Explained in this way, example 11 does not ral [ Noun withow anicle | [Noon with ance break the ‘non-intervention’ rule at all, since what we are ' saying is ‘The result of this thing, the policy’. The two clement, —— the possessive are interpreted as being ‘result’ (property) and "Ny 4 thing’ (owner), the following noun ‘policy’ being added by ¥9Y a { ni explanation. Va — (he ‘When, as in example 12, the demonstrative qualifies . property-word and not the owner-word, it is placed alte ry and completed construction: ‘these consirnember this visual picture and it will help you to spot els bea,S> government-(of}-us, this-one. Tuctions. Remember, too, property before owner.66 Arabic Word shape ‘Schematic Arabic example Sound-alike CuCuuC gu Toulouse This is a fairly common noun-shape in Arabic, having the two functions: ba 1 To form the plural of words whose singular shape is CaCC, e.g, Cy bayt takes plural ©, buyuut. 2. To form the verbal noun from simple verbs, that is the y which means ‘the action of doing’. For example, from the d-kh-l which has the basic meaning of ‘entering’, we get j.. dukhuul which means ‘the act of entering; entrance’. a Usual Note that, as is unfortunately the case with many shapy ‘CuCuuC cannot be formed in an arbitrary manner from any non or verb root. The benefit of learning the shapes is in recogni, not formation. Any word which you come across in the for | ‘CuCuuC will be either a plural or a verbal noun. | fyait Six ins no new grammatical material, Units 1 to 5 contain sic groundwork of Arabic grammar, apart from the ise these and make sure you 1 6contai ee of the B rk 0 of th Phe opportunity {0 Te yom mastered hem thoroughly, fhe words overleaf and read them aloud, taking special re full value to all consonants (including doubled ones) (especially long ones). The root consonants are given study ¢ to gi and all vowels after each word. Root consonants and word shapes We have already learned a few Arabic word-shapes in the previous ants, Now it is time to take a closer look at the structure of the language. Overleaf is an incomplete list of word shapes which occur in Arabic, and you will benefit greatly if you read these words aloud several times and try to tune your ear to the cadences of the language. ‘The reason that Arabic is able to use a defective script which omits all short vowels (among other things) is that it is primarily a language of patterns. These patterns are in the vast majority of cases based on what we shall call the three-consonant root system. This means that the framework of most Arabic words is a series of three consonants which carry the basic meaning. This framework is filled in with vowels and other additions to produce an actual word. For instance, in the familiar word kitaab book the consonant Fis kt-b suggests the basic idea of ‘writing’, and the short i and mgaonel then produce the word kitaab which has the accepted he first thing to note is that the consonant series (in this case po emains in fixed order and there is no question of altering the change in. 27 &f these consonants. This would cause a complete “Pplyng gesting. The body of the word is constructed by -owellig, Me of @ complex but limited set of variations in internal conants °%4/or using certain prefixes and suffixes. Root con- Seal SE cu, pete (Sal)y HLidl (Qarl) Y Wag Kt (sy BAS sty E a as aeiba en r imal ssl (gel ¢ GUN BL Gly y ES St SI oe ae bly £ alll AGL) 8 rail Sal (aisy #3} ea Bal pi we ° Ul IU (ad) A alt Cath (ay) Al (aby) SEI (arly 9 gd Gata Eel (nas) Ve ne e93 (CS) 4 B Translate your answers. wo) The verb with pronoun suffixes study examples 11 and 12 on page 74. The basic idea of the use of the pronoun suffixes which we have already looked at on page 60 is to connect two concepts. When we connect a noun with a person, the result is a possessive: B Translate your answers. Agreement of verbs coming after their subjects 5 Study examples 8 and 9 on page 74 carefully. Sometimes a subject | Saket | connected with | Mea of | his book hhas more than one verb, and in these cases the word-order is L him as i From this it is simple to connect ideas of action to persons or 1 First Verb 2 Subject 3 Chie 4 Second Verb obi Since, a8 we have seen on p. 78, Arabic retay already ) _ ly the tense and the doer of the action, we have a more complex firs dea (example 10): In such sentences the second verb, which comes after its su2iet i F res has to agree fully with it, that is, to reflect exactly its number and Hea gender (masculine or feminine). The reasoning is something lk [met ug | connected with | Bes of | pur (past tense) this (in sentence 8): a aiine pu him (i) | —~ sy Refused the workers the raise and they struck Tn other : word: The second verb needs to be given its full form, so the er ebict oF the verb, that ee npeataNes attached 0, verbs express the conveys the exact nature of its subject ~ in this case male and 1" verb, 7 is, the person or thing directly affected by In any case, the rule is that verbs which for any reason ° aly prono after their subjects must agree fully in gender and number. ry Pronoun suffix which has a special different form when | a82. Arabic attached to verbs is the ‘me’ suffix which is s~ instead of Verbs having pronoun suffixes added to them remain theme unaffected, with the following exceptions: (a) the alif written after all verb forms ending in (sce Table 1, note 3), pronoun suffix, e.g. FArs you found +1a her—= sites EXERCISE 74 A. Form one-word sentences on the following pattern (as there's no ‘it’ in Arabic, ‘him’ or ‘her’ has been given}: They (am) — me (by) Sytey —~ They found me 1 He — her (Jesh 2 She — him (gir) 3 We — tp (@b4 They (f) — him (, 444) 5 You (ms) — her (4,3) 6 1- him (J51)7 You (mpl) — them (m) (iS) 8 You ((s) — hia (5)9 He — her (2) 10, We — her (ale) B_ Read aloud and translate your answers Particles used with the past tense ‘Particles’ is a handy term for the odds and ends of a languett which do not fit into any of the main categories (verb, noun, e! Arabic has many such short words, some virtually meaningless (ot habitually used), and others which affect the meaning of a phrase sentence quite significantly. Here are two examples used with ! ast tense of the verb: 1 84nd, often strengthened tod lagad. Placed before the veth in example 12 on page 74, it emphasises the completeness action, i. that it is really and truly over and done Ve However, its use is mainly stylistic, although it is very Com 2 maa. This can be placed before the past tense verb, !0 a . it, as in example 13 on page 74. Watch out for this ¥0" Arabic, because it has several meanings apart from | given here. once 75 “AH is oming (0) the ‘you' plural masculine ending tum adds a waow bir Unit Seven 83 Read aloud and translate: Matt GA all Qty stall SI fle 53 any) nis! gl ol ay else ro Ast, all yt oo Yael, ef Ghai AUS SY Oates Cll del oti cance fall Oslo BAG sedsy Soll pil Ig SI OT We Ney ey Se SII I ysl Ve a> ama Bey BY CIT pb inyill G pha he Ve B_ Read aloud and translate your answers. ‘X became Y" sentences Arabic has several verbs meaning ‘to become’, all of which share with kaam and laysa the feature that their predicate (Y°) is in the accusative, again shown by the marker as required. The most common of these verbs are 'aSbaH, which is perfectly regular in the Past tense, and Saar, which has two past stems Saar and Sir, used R.etactly the same way as the two stems of kaan (kaan and kun). fer to page 87. The stem is used above the line in the box, and Sir below it (ie. where the verb sulfixes begin with a dd This type of verb is called a “Hollow Verb’ (because its which gecica! éFops out, leaving it hollow), and has three types for fate’ NeR in Table 5 in Appendix 1. Have a look at this now, ite ference. Examples 8 and 9 on page 85 illustrate the use BERS 43 become 83 Tra ly 3 WRe m became hot. 2 (The) meat became cheap 4 She rt got (became) dirty. 5 The eeame famous in Kuwait, "cise became easy. 6 His job became difficult. nslate into Arabic, using either of the verbs ‘to92 Arabic 7 He became a great leader. 8 She became a secretary in the government. 9 That new newspaper has become (= became) famous, 10 Their policy became strange. Equational sentences with ’inna ‘Apart from learning some new basic verbs and generally expand; ‘our powers of recognition and expression, this unit has really bat concerned with the use of the accusative case in Arabic. 13) accusative is the only case in Arabic which is ever marked ig everyday print (on unsuffixed nouns which do not carry the definite article), It also has some rather strange uses, as we shall now see To review matters, nothing was in the accusative in ordinary equational sentences of the type is/are With the three types of sentence using the verbs just dealt with, ic X — was/were Y X is/are not Y X became = the predicate (or Y-part) of the sentence was accusative. Now, while it is perfectly adequate to express “The man ignorant’ by saying Jal Je-Ji there is an alternative, of whieh Arab writers are very fond, which is to use the particle “inna atthe beginning of the sentence and say Jalr Je, . Tradition grammar books used to say that this ’inna meant ‘Indeed’ oF the Biblical ‘Verily’, but its common use today does not really ses much emphasis. It is more a matter of style. a ig that ‘Anyhow, the important and rather odd thing about “naa 's it puts the subject (X-part) of the equational sentence 4, ‘accusative, again marking this accusative according t0 the ‘hap given above. Examples 10-13 show usages of “inna, so let us them one by one. Unit Eight 93 is no marked accusative here, because the X-part ar-rajul 10 Ts the definite article. ; s the fore is n0 Marked accusative, but note the particle Again Mtachod to faashila (the Y-part ofthe sentence), This wortairly common practice, and may give extra emphasis to the sentence. a the seth accusative marker goes on the subject ‘Muhammad’, 12 Her Misa word with no suffix and without the definite article. as nh this one carefully. Because the subject of the sentence wrarid technically be accusative, the separate subject Sfonouns cannot be used. We therefore use the suffix Pronouns, attached directly to Yama, EXERCISE 84 [A Rewrite the following sentences, introducing them with ’inna. {The use of emphatic Ia is optional, but use it sometimes for practice) ett et Call oY So Agile y tall 9 gil sks “bay inl ot ie Uys ode 8 ge Hill iby 6 ae Selb Ak SoA Vv dyn gill V6 CaS ge 4 B Read aloud and translate your answers. xan ith other verbs — ‘He had done .... ver ut Arabic verb has only two tenses, past and present, the When itis waegean be used to give a more precise sense of time. Shami 14 se ih another past verb (eg. waSal and ‘akalua in lone somethin Lot usually gives the meaning in English of ‘had ptional Cree (called the pluperfect tense). Again there is the fore the mecommon — particle qad which can be placed directly in verb of the sentence. This is said to stress the94 Arabic finality of the action, that itis completely over and done wig, again its use is mainly a matter of style. bu The word order in such sentences is always: 1 kaan 2 Subject 3 qad (optional) 4 Main Verb 5 Teter] Note that the agreement of verb and subject follows the norm rules given on pp. 79-80, depending on whether the verb cone before or after its subject. If no subject is stated (as in example 15 both verbs must obviously carry their subject marker suffixe, EXERCISE 85 A Read aloud and translate the following sentences. copes alles SI ytd Joy ow Sosy prliusi + ESM op fl pel isl etl J YS Atel! Casy 0 4 v A 4 CEM gy, ceplall pls del ppl USL) cai, Bahl 2H ye 3g Kt Ole eV py abs SI ebigt gad JE Blas See WLW! USL oda yyl Corel B_ Change them into the pluperfect tense (had arrived, had dru etc.) using the auxiliary verb kaan and the particle qad, ¢& of pl lle dh fey Boel Sentence 1 above Unit Eight 95 ‘Sound-alike MacAskill; demanded tartine (Fr, 1 This is the active participle of Verb Form II (see Table 2 and late indicating the person who carries out the action of that verb. The verb Jf maththal means ‘to represent’, so (fff is ‘a representative’, also ‘an actor’. The form occurs also with an a- vowel instead of an i between C? and C’, in which case it means the person who has had the action of the verb done to him (passive participle). We have already had aby. muwaDHDHaf an official, employee from als, to appoint, employ; note also the adjective xe complicated, having been complicated. 2 This is the verbal noun (that which expresses the action of the verb) from the same Verb Form (II). 5) means ‘to put in order, Smange, thus 53 tartitb is ‘arranging’, ‘arrangement’, ‘tganisation’ ae the point of learning word shapes is to be able to cay (a, kDOW something about Arabic words. It is not always patters £°t 40 exact English sound-alike, but the cadence of the is usually easy to imitate, eg. mumaththil demanded. Say Aloud one after another until they become familiar.Unit Nine Text and translation Large towns The new engineers The new teachers (f) The drillers arrived yesterday, The customs official searched the departing travellers, The students (f) entered many universities. They are workers in the car factory (factory of the cars), We are merchants in the capital (city), Are you (m) Egyptians? These boys are not from those schools, Those women are skilled tailoresses, The two friends (m) came out of the cinema. He read two long articles in the magazine, 96 coll el oo SYM Age - le drier Besta J OP, ne temo PO ous) HE EEE woman SMH ols) "Esty Wis ticle newspaper) ot daylihi oy i . | Hb | esl Gy Jl EBS Obube SUIT cbs y (24) (5. painter, artist (Ly 45 tank (iicaryy (2p) JES porter Oy eR, accountant OIE baker SUE woe ble we Pe eg Oe (LES nurse (9) owl Gated a P08) CS passenger Log pas pl erent forms ofthis word 4) 25 much, many eLsll YE , Oxy Me little, few lab ob Kell ge dhe ball ox Eg eehiyh cel "ha, Unit Nine 97 (x) pL traveller (relF) Kole capital (city) (esl) os fiend x) AST tar (ying) (9 (65 tier x) 5 carpenter Ox) ED cook sy) sles contractor OH) LUE electrician guest (xd) (LY 25 stapler, ‘stapling ‘machine ith and without the definite article, an ity Calva (shich's rom a diferen nd CLE) 2 experienced, expert LS complete 18) ) (NP) aS sad Cr) spl departing98 Arabic Verbs 1B read Ab request, ask for SET av) send (a person) 25 (examine, search SEA (VIED work EF earn, gain SL ask (a question) 33 go Note also the words given within the unit. Plurals: general principles ‘As we have already noticed, plurals in Arabic are rather difica due to their diverse and unpredictable character. There is no ey way round the problem, and the best way is to learn the plural each word along with the singular. However, a skeich of tie general principles may help you to see some logic in the system ‘While English distinguishes only between one/more than om, Arabic has a three-way system, distinguishing one/two/more tha two. The special word form used for two of anything is called i dual and, although it does not occur all that frequently. you have to learn to recognise it. The dual and one type of plural are formed by the addition special suffixes to nouns and adjectives and are therefore ci external formations. The other, and more common, type of ple formed by changing the internal structure of the worl (B sometimes adding prefixes and/or suffixes of a different nett those mentioned above), These are therefore called internal Plt, Learn plurals along with their singulars but, if you want (° follow Arabic logic, have a go at the following: 1 All Arabic noun/adjectives would take an internal they could. a 2 However, the internal plural patterns available do 7 os for very complex words, i.e. those having more HC, i Arabic letters (in general), so long words have 1° second best option, that is the external or suffixed P pul Unit Nine 99 are many exceptions to this basic rule, but it is helpful fe areed to produce a plural for a new word. The nearer that when 7 the simplest three-letter form, the more likely it sto take word fal plural; the more complex its structure, the likeie it is an ten 0 the last resort of having a suffix plural (which one is ‘xplained on pp. 101-2). i iar a look through the plurals in the vocabularies and you will sec int this generalisation works. For fun let us take a look at two Borrowings from Europe. 1 pb film (often spelled 3 in the singular, but the plural is always as given). This is a classic three-letter word like countless orginal Arabic words (€8. 53 « ab « i>), so it immediately takes an internal plural ¢>4/ ‘aflaam. 2 dyjib television. This is obviously not a genuine Arabic word, 4s it has far too many letters. So it has to take an external suffix plural ty ji tilifizyoonaat. (However, it did make the i the end in’ shortened form, as the verb. 3a talfaz to ‘eles " ‘The internal plural Note that the most common in Patterns of the internal plural Nate n ral plural are Ri ie Appendix 3, which should be consulted in conjunction As already stated, there it . , there is no useful rule governing the formatio: pgp"! fom a given singular. The principle of the internal Oe maul similar to English foot-feet, mouse-mice (English Arabic ners gusistent, for example, boot-boots, house-houses) ng afte internal structure of the word by changing the a5 an (ne £00t letters, and also some prefixes and suffixes are “aflaum) “" 'M'°8tal_ part ‘of certain plural shapes (eg. "a- on vowelli The inte ; Words (when paral is formed from both masculine and feminine Resence ofthe fe eeNONe Objects or living beings) and the in = bene Coding on the singular in no way guaran- Rut to a * town, plural ott nays PPOSIte also . ale human beings even, as in this case, on words denoting “HE pupil (mm, plural 34458100 Arabic The feminine ending on this latter is part of the has nothing to do with gender or sex. Adjectives, being as usual regarded as barely distinct may also take internal plurals, but the use of these agreement with words denoting male human beings ( Plural patter, = from 1" 18 restricta’® See page ign)” ‘Some guidelines on the internal plural As will be clear from the preceding section, there is ti tle con, structive we can say about the internal plural except: 1 Again, learn all plurals along with their singulars, 2 Study Appendix 3, which lists the most common internal play patterns and gives some of the most frequently occu correlations with singular shapes. Try to acquire a ‘fee! fort shapes. 3. Remember that simple, basic word-shapes will almost ceraith have an internal plural form, whereas more complex ones may well have to take an external suffix plural. 4 There are only two singular-plural correlations worth leari both applying to four-radical words. The majority of fou radical words which have a short vowel between C’ and C* take the internal plural pattern C!aC’aaC'iC*, and those which have a long vowel in this position take C'aCaaC'iiC’. (Note that neither of these patterns shows the indefinite accusative mar ker.) Study the following examples and say them aloud to gt the feeling of the patterns. Short vowel between CC” Plaral pattern C’aCaaC'iC G+ maSna: factory ches masa Se makia dest, office Ss makaatib a> jardal bucket ol jaraadit ise J tarjama translation ely taraaiim (22> dirham — dirham (money) Abe daraaion Unit Nine 101 ea betwen C=C Plural pattern C’aCaaCiiC* ce iat key Cols mafaatiitt yaa Sunduue, 0%, trunk Gele Sanaadiig we auSfuur small bird lac aSaafiir ce miSbaaHt lamp Gehes maSeabiiHl (suffix) plural The enee Sp ot external or suffix plural in Arabic, usually ‘elered to as masculine and feminine. We have tried to provide on pp. 98-100 a rough guide as to which sort of nouns you might expect to take an external rather than an internal plural. Having decided or established that a given noun must take an external suffix plural, the following restrictions apply: Masculine external plural This is formed by adding -wun or -i ‘Suffix Example ‘Nominative case Op sun Opetys muhandisuen | Other cases om iin gene muhandisiin LL 7 sons 3% Main exception, this type of plural may only be used on ' referring to male human beings. Notes: E : he exception is i sama year, which has the plural 2jue/cxi ; ‘inuun siniin and also tl aay he alternative Cig» sanawaat, the slightly hybrid form cy! iba son, plural Opufcgs "m/baniin, also having the alternative form etal abmaa’,102. Arabic 5 The nominative case form is used for the subjects of no Jentences and the predicates of inna sentences (See age 99, serrcrgases form is used for the objects of normal sentency ye ‘subjects of “inna sentences, also afterall prepositions and ae Swner part of possessives. In spoken Arabic the -in sui, used for all cases. Summary: You can expect to find the masculine external pi aera used on fairly complex words denoting male human bina Feminine external plural ‘This is formed by adding, for all sey, “SL -aat, having first removed the feminine singular ending (yj present. Lj Le mudarrisaat cle! iitimanaat You will see from the two examples given that this type of plunl may be used: (@) tor females (eg, mudartisaat female teacher) 4 (b) for inanimates (things, ideas, ¢ ijtimaa:aat meetings) Summary: You can expect to find the feminine external plural #! on: aa (a) Almost all nouns which denote female human beings fawein the singular, the feminine ending 2+ ye a (Words of a fairly complex pattern denoting Ti ae Weraey (things, ideas, also sometimes animals WI! ferred to in English as ‘it’. wd im Note the following irregular formations, all basic females: eh daughter, girl, ph SE ‘ vet mother, ke! t _t st sister, ph oiFt q ‘arge towns’. Unit Nine 103 of adjectives in the plural jearned that the plurals of rhings and abstracts are bic as feminine singulars (see page 46). A strange ent already trea in Aral - in Mich we just have to accept and try to think of such fos bot Ome natead of “they’. The agreement of adjectives is plurals * ‘ o problem, as we simply use the feminine singular as in cwample | ee etives (being as usual regarded as being vir~ Nowe same a5 nouns) have equal rights in their choice of a way he Fomor, there a subtle difleence and the following pial ply to all adjectives withthe exception of one specific type. 1 Forfemales, the external plural ending -aat i used (8. example 3 on page 96), . 2 For makes ether the masculine external plural -wun/-iin) oF the ror al plural is used. Which one is used depends again on the Shape of the singular of the adjective. If it is complex, for Ststence, i; mujtahid diligent, it will take an external plural, but many simple shape adjectives have their own internal plurals. Whichever of these is formed from a particular word must be used only in agreement with words denoting males. It follows from this that adjectives like 4. far, distant, which ‘are not normally applied to human beings, have no plural form of éither type, requiring only the feminine singular form to agree with the plural of objects. Of the adjectives given so far, the following have internal plural forms which should now be learned. Adjectives ‘ot listed here, but commonly applied to human beings, may be assumed to take the suffix plural -on/-iin when applied to men (c.g. Opblefedole from dale just). Adjective Meaning Male plural form el lazy js “ old ay . young oye ad thin ae clean104 Arabic Unit Nine 105 Adjective Meaning Male plurat refully examples 1-6 on page 96, noting both the form of be tall ning! omnia’ Ssed and the noun-adjective agreements. ai short co 94 . famous : ‘A Change the following phrases/sentences into the singular. oe 7 ' on —_ { saad! Syl Deoyl Sly) osu cis os fa bal SOL! ih § dee handsome yas Stall 9 > doy Gd Jest 0 ose mad Ut Oley All CISA beth v as strange de bly Ve lp ob 4 = _— i LAS Eil 1 oabl oie 99 f B. Change the following into the plural, (Remember that verbs ce great preceding their subject remain singular, and that the -wan/-iin plural ¥ intelligent ending must show the correct case.) 3 intelligen stl Gal oY Spas gle 9 be ignorant “ : a Soe t wis due ude new oe ‘ ° | gyal foal Dads 6 4. As adjectives are generally more restricted in their shapes thar i. on ea nouns, there are a few singular-plural correlations worth looking we gl A Woe wos ov here, especially C'aC*iiC*-C'iC¥aaC, as in kabiir-kibaar etc a ne ‘The agreement of adjectives with plural nouns may be 30 ull ST all lS 4 marised as: esl St GBA 5g) fegl ve Nous meaning, ‘Adjective form SSI Ryall DI Spall Gea aS 14 ————— — bee el r ley yp Le ‘Things Feminine singular, usually with 4 suffix. co a ' aa ate wv Females | External fem, plural, suffix OL. dingon ell Coll S phall asl Dac Ll) ues VE Mates | External masc. plural rte} depend See jpSe lly gis SEMI V0 Internal plural mine © ‘Read aloud and i ind translate your answers to A and B.AS AGO Plural of the separate personal pronouns The singular personal pronouns were given on page 39. Noy the plurals given below. (Remember, for things, they she ™ a A nai Study examples 7-9 on page 96 which employ plural personal Pronouns. In 9, antum is prefixed by the question-mark parce {see page 40). Plural of the demonstratives When referring to human beings (in the plural) the following forns are used for both men and women. The spelling of both forms is rather tricky, so pay close attention to it. (For the sign see page, 23) +X hasulaa these (people) aut Gssl uulawika ——_those(-people) Again, because all plurals of objects or abstracts are regarded & Jeminine singulars, the singular demonstratives oe haadhihi ks tilka are used for ‘these’ and ‘those’ respectively. Example and 11 illustrate the use of the human plural forms. 92 ‘A Apply th D_ In the followin anything else IY S23 nll pad f 2H Colt eg fiey cil 4 tts oles dl ye E Read aloud and translate Unit Nine 107 e appropriate part of lin this to: paid oy ati ait ing wid € Osa ath (St abi obgzl 9 OrgSll Spall oo Wael slab! stg) y Ajill Oy pall Ve Sly! oles q B Apply the appropriate part of U3 that to: SEY ob y Sell eels s ld dees £ Lb Els Oleall x Sl OL5u A‘ Aah OLptl y Byldt SLI ye Bp SU dperall 4 € Read aloud and translate your answers to A and B. ig, change the pronouns (separate or suffix) and required by the sense into the plural. be oi 4 Gath ee IG 6 Bude eS Ul y full Giowe e 4108 Arabic Dual nouns and adjectives The dual must be used when referring to two of anything. Ath this is not very common in practice, you should at least _ftth recognise it. Fortunately, its formation is for the most part regi” for both nouns and adjectives. It is an external sulfixed form Parallel to the masculine extemal plural discussed on page 1g¢™ Suffix Example Nominative case OL aan | Ol>Le Seattibaan Other cases ce ayn | cake SaaHibayn Notes: 1 Ifa word has the feminine ending, this is retained, but changes into an ordinary ‘t’ as it does before all suffixes. Example 13 illustrates this. 2 Agreeing adjectives must take the appropriate masculine or feminine dual ending and also agree with the noun in case Example 13 again illustrates. 3. In spoken Arabic, the nominative dual form is ignored and the ending -ayn (pronounced as in ‘cane’) used for all cases. In written Arabic, the use of the cases is exactly as described for the masculine external plural on pp. 101-2. EXERCISE 93 ‘A. Putall the nouns (and their adjectives) in the following into the dual (remember the ending shows the case). ae gla) oy jl oii ab 3! ee sls ¢ Si gp eta F Sal gash JY i pba ol ! Be tying A igi 3% dee she jib te suabl oist zat o& 4 B_ Read aloud and translate. my Unit Nine 109 nd pronouns rerts 22 of completeness, the dual verb suffixes and separate onouns are given here. No exercises on these are and sufized they are comparatively rare and also easily recognised ovided Note that there is no dual form for the first person (i in contest ye two’) and that the second person (‘you two’ etc) to wansia" tinguish between male and female as it does in the er and the plural “They two" (f) is distinguished only in the verb. [Separate pronoun| Suffix pronoun | Verb past stem saffix® youve f(t antumaa | Shuma] -tuman \e— -bumaa La they 1wo () | — = | tata they two (m)| | humaa See sluo Verb Table 1 The demonstrative pronouns ‘this’ and ‘that’ also have dual forms, but these are also comparatively rare and easily recognisable {rom context. They will be pointed out as they occur. Word shape ‘Schematic Arabic example ‘Sound-alike Cac'Caac! cm this psalm Most wo or for wits describing people and what they do, ether by nature ual Rs Were originally adjectives in Arabic ~ presumably ‘ypical "8,{He Words ‘man’ and ‘woman’. This word shape is a Someang=2™Ple. Originally an intensive adjective describing ™eone who doe Homeoe somet i has praduaiges Something habitually, repeatedly oF excessively, many trades and ‘cquired almost the status of a noun, describing, occupations. We can still see it in both stages in110 Arabic the language, for example iS kadhdhaab !ying, mendacious AIS’ ly a mendacious boy and a liar as in AAS JV in 1, isa liar, * bay Note again the very grey area which divides adjectives from in Arabic. Roun This formation takes the external plural -wm/in. The fem, ending i can be added to express: a (a) a female where applicable, eg. et a tailoress (from Lt. tailor) “ (®) a machine, e.g. ,C a going machine, a car and ils a raving machine, a tank Plural of the feminine form is -aat. unit Ten ext and translation ‘They live in a big flat in London ‘The government issues the % fal statistics atthe beginning of the month. He is studying at the University of Cairo. ‘What do you eat in the morning? The national troupe will present 4 programme of folk dance tomorrow. 1 shall go (on) Saturday. We don’t know anything about exports and imports. They will never return to their homeland. (Not they- return to homeland-their ever.) Did you (, s) not di the cone? "Ot drink He is laughing at us. 1 stall pay (10) him the money. He took £2 from me. oltle 3 GG Sey Spl duke 3 ot laylgly lata! lal ppby SI wen of Fayed gs dl \e Nv W Wt112 Arabic Unit Ten 113 Vocabula: . " aan « at ea 28, oficial ep tational FT other(t sly ‘Nouns ae Een ee eee “ Geil) Gide! Enalish (A) Ge Arab, (Sie) Eft, apartment as es a af pact SH “bic Ox 2h) 42 monn a GS) GJ troupe, team uA) dance Other words Ch ot 5 + owt Lal nevert LF before A) oe thing gle exports {ub tomorr i (Obj) D5 homeland Dlayly_ imports Softer 55 under, below = -S—t0, for ay coffee (QL) 2 pound (6) P fom, of, about gS with (chez) 13 what? (before verbs) (Ly language &bN Goa = th fy ane of, (gS a lot, mucht oe aot (Le) pie ambassador Gl Al) sal prince — 4, £ ' “Adjectives take suffixed plural unless indicated otherwise. GE) 2 expert CUS) Gaal writer, literary man ‘*Proncunced ghadan, abadan and kathiiran (see pp. 88-9). (9) LAS miser (FS) GLE solder, potcenan This unit deals with the present tense of the Arabic verb and should be studied in conjunction with Verb Table 1 and Unit 7 which gives all the rules for agreement. Make sure you have mastered Unit 7 thoroughly before proce 8. Verbs 4 Formation of the present tense ss mi Study the present 5 (u) publish (w) study present tense column of Table 1 (see page 238), and you ae 29 (0) study Rill ste that this tense is formed by applying prefixes, and in some (22 635 any present FW know, come to know Was puixes as well, o a present stem. (The past tense, remember, a excep and by adding suffixes only to a past stem.) With minor cles (laugh GEG ats (unaeind — | ons these, same prefixes and suffixes are applied to all 2 foe e re ibs $0 learn them thoroughly right away. To help you, 5 (w) dwell, tive in 5, (u) dance i r e present tense of ‘to write’, given in transliteration 2 (W) dance mentut the dual which is fairly rare and easily recognisable), The Pre . : LS (i) cary i tinct! stem of this verb is ktub, which is given in capitals for (a) understand ‘ se ou i the wt This does not indicate any change in the pronunciation of ay eenso} HS (i) spend (money) aS @ play nants,114 Arabic Singular Plural yaKTUB he writes, is writing yaKTUBuun they (m) write taKTUB she writes yaKTUBna they (1) write taKTUB _ you (m) write taKTUBaun you (m) write taKTUBiin you (f) write taKTUBaa you (() write KTUB I write mKTUB we write Notes: 1 With the exception of the she-form, all the third person parts hhave the prefix yar. The second person (you) forms all have ta, (reminiscent of the personal pronouns anta, anti, etc., which al] have a¢ in them). In the singular the suffix -iin distinguishes feminine from masculine, and in the plural of both second and third persons, the suffix -uun marks masculine and -na feminine, ‘The she- and you- (m sing.) forms are identical, but this does not cause much confusion in practice. In the first person the prefixes a for ‘T’ and ma- for ‘we’ again remind us of the pronouns anaa and naHnu. 2. In the verbs marked Il, III and IV (see Table 2), all the prefixes are vowelled u instead of a, e.g. yudarris he teaches, etc. While the present stems of the complex verbs which we have numbered II-X are predictable by rule, those of the simple verbs vary in the vowel taken by the middle radical and have to be learned together with their past stems, which also vary. Since only this one variation occurs, itis convenient to give the required vowel (written in English) along with the past stem, thus S” (u) means that the middle radical of katab will be vowelled u in the present stem, ie. S ktub. The first radical is always vowelless. The vowels for the verbs already given are listed below. Learn them now if you can, but in fact itis not too serious if you get them wrong in speech — of reading. For those who like algebra, the following system usually prevails ~ but there are always exceptions. Past Stem Vowel Vowel | Present Stem on C onc 1 Cacac a wori ccuc cCiC 2 cCacic i |—+] oa cca 3 CaCuc ao foe} ow ecuc Unit Ten 115 ‘The majority of simple verbs are of type 1 in the box above. Type is quite rare. Note that the present stems of derived (II-X) and ‘regular verbs are given in full in the following list. Rules for these mult formations are given in Table 2 in Appendix 1. eae cc (a) open > (a) pay A, (0 refuse ae (a drink Eb tw) cook ee come back o> Wemter STW eat SW) write asi (w) take Vi (@) read Ab (uw) request 3 (a) 90 SSF Wean JL (a) ask Complex and irregular verbs (past stem followed by he-form of the present) cl BE avy seat ol 55 a reach plat « pls (I) travel i $25 arrive SF a seat “ fo) put 2 5, ( arrange « GES (vn work 62S) examine 9) am, in B | 3% become Cn CEL (VIN hold a meeting zeit « xSol v) become BE BS ay appoint deo © S5T (IV) send SrA 5.5F (IW) strike A CES find OM « oft avy announce Notes: 1 The verb taysa is not has no Present stem since its past tense is ‘used with a present meaning (see page 90).116 Arabic 2. Although no verb for ‘is/are’ is required in simple equationa sentences, kaan has a present tense which is used in certain other types of sentence. 3. Verbs with first radical waaw ( completely in the present tense. For this type of verb see Table 4. kaan/yakuun and Saar/yaSiir suffer from an elided waaw ‘and yaa respectively in both stems. These are known as Hollow Verbs and are dealt with in Table 5. Start systematically learning these verb types now. Ay ¢ xy) usually drop this EXERCISE 101 ‘A. Change the following past tense verbs into the present tense: tig 0 ge tite Yo bye 4 \yilo Ve gab A ‘ oes ve bb ME w " ficl ve ke M8 Vel VA " tel YE dey WW Sle, HY aN ee Yo B_ Read aloud and translate your answers. Translation of the present tense The present tense is really an ‘imperfect’ tense, Le. it expresses 2? action which is imperfect, incomplete, still going on. Thus, yaktub Gomes out in English variously as ‘he writes’ (habitually or gularly), ‘he is writing’ (now, and continues to do so), ‘does he ‘rite’ ‘yes, he does write’, and so on. The same tense with an ext prefix is used for the future (see page 117), and can also be used 10 translate the past continuous (he was writing’) or past habitual Che 4 used to write’), if the sentence is introduced by kaan: US GS UIE he was writing a book gS LS KOS he used to write lots of books (many books) Compare this usage to the ‘he had done pp. 93-4. . -” construction °° aa ti Unit Ten 117 ‘As has been said, Arabic has only two tenses, so they have to do ‘alot of work to cover our multiplicity of English ones. Examples {Laon page 11 illustrate some of the diflerent meanings and translations. ‘qhe future: she will do...’ Frit has so few tenses, Arabic uses the present tense for the future 1B vrell. This does not seem so strange if you consider that we svally say ‘I am going on holiday in July’ rather than ‘I shall go In Arabic, however, this use of the future is usually marked by the word sawfa placed immediately before the verb, or the shor- tened form sa- which, being a one-letter word, cannot stand alone, and is therefore joined to the verb. Examples 5 and 6 illustrate this. EXERCISE 102 A. Translate into Arabic, starting all sentences with the verb and using either sa- or sawfa (interchangeable) to indicate the future. Hes cating the food. 1e manager will speak to (a The manager will speak to (addres) the employees tomorrow. She was living in a big flat in London. They will publish the statistics before Saturday. We understand the Arabic language. " The porter was carrying a heavy box. The ambassador travels a lot. The soldiers inspect the suitcases in the airport. The children are playing in the street. We earn the money and spend it Read your answers aloud. [itations of the present tense {@ traditional Arabic grammar, the present (but nor the past) tense a verb had various types of ending which changed when the Web was preceded by certain ‘governing words. Most of these written consist of short final vowels which, of course, are not cee anyway, o ther is no need to bother with them. However, mma QF8 have altered sufies which are visible in print, so we most Be prepared for them. although thee use in Arabic efor the wechanical, and causes litle difficulty. In the majority of118 Arabic cases they oocur after certain easly recognisable words which come before the verb. In European grammar these variations of the present tense are called moods’ and individually named indicative (the normal unaffc ‘au resent tense), subjunctive and jussive. For want of beter fermin nology, we shall use these traditional names, but merely for con nology MGs the Arabic versions have little connection with the subjunctives which you may have encountered in European lang- tuages. Note again that the occurrence ‘of these variations is, for ae earl, purely automatic after certain particles which come before the verb. Tore Meady the subjunctive column of Table 1 and nove which vey wereninations change, and how they change. If you like rules, | ‘hese changes ean be expressed very simply as follows | Parts of the present tense ofthe simple verb which have a eux Part sing of long. vowel (/V) plus a muun (N) drop this ¥ 0 form | consisting Ove jusive. I the revult isa ver part ending in we, 98 the svbften (but not pronounced) after the ending (ike all et 1 parts ending in -uu ~ see page 23) Present tense (indicative) ——~ Subjunctive/ jussive j ] -WWN — -W EXERCISE 103 Give the subjunctive/jussive variant of the follow: ing verbs in the present tense: Og t ae A dyd To Opty ogls vo ogee 4 we coms We Ogle 8 Negative particles governing the present tense Negative Particles mean ‘not’ in English, and in Arabic placed ‘addition to negating the verb, change its time significatio uh though not its grammatical tense). This is a Dit tricky, so be 1 Negating the present tense, ic. Vegating the present fense, 0 writesis not writine Unit Ten 119 Use ¥ (laa) with the ordinary (indicative) present tense: KY— Example 7 on page 111, also illustrat 2 Negating the future, ic. rates this He will write — he will not write Use J (lan) with the subjunctive and omi it the — sa- sawia: em St OF By SP SI py But note in the plural ‘they will not write’ 1, J (nuun omitted for subjunctive) See also example 8 on page 111 3. Negating the past, ic. he wrote/has written —+ did not writ write/has Use { lam with the jussive: fies not weiten Kf —— Ss (past tense) Note again the plural ‘they did not write’ with nuun omitted: Wee b : See also example 9. Remember that, ne at, although the tense here is present, the meaning ‘Note that (3) above can also be expressed by using . maa with the Past tense (see s rent a page 82), but this is not so common as the usage The Regation of the verb may be summarised as follows: Ti ie ime of action | English | Arabic particle | Verb tense Present | does, is doing | Y lan | P willshall do | glam iu Present subjunctive didjhas done Present jussive Pastee 120 Arabic EXERCISE 104 A Negate the following sentences, using lam with the jussiy past meanings: "for tl ka. Wis Lae Syl ods Ba LI ole Gy. Sb abel pal Lidl Gy ad take GAME SI sl Oa \ebs JI ery5 Coe, Was Gx 2 AEM 3g SI Cray Wh! wiby GIES OS We cual! SI Su ~S Job tLe OS elt ict tetas bell Spay 0 B_ Read aloud and translate your answers. Prepositions with the pronoun suffixes As we have seen (page 47), prepositions are basically words which tell you the place or position of something in relation to something else, e.g. The book is on/under/by/beside the table. However, in both English and Arabic they are also used after certain verbs called intransitive, which cannot take a direct object, but require the intervention of a preposition, e.g. you can’t ‘wait someone’, you have to wait for him; similarly you sympathise with him, insist o" something, and so on. It is a problem in most languages exactly which preposition to use, as this often cannot be worked oo logically. The best way is to learn the preposition with the vet Remember also that all Arabic prepositions govern the a case, which shows in masculine external plurals, duals and 3 special nouns (see pages 101 and 107-8) , When prepositions govern pronouns (to me, from him, CC Arabic uses the suffix pronouns (see page 60) and some varialit ‘occur. These mainly affect pronunciation rather than the Wl word, but should be noted. Unit Ten 121 1. First person (me’, 28 in ‘to me’, ‘from me’) Arabic suffix s -ii As usual, this long-vowel suffix suppresses any short vowel {isually an -s) occurring on the end of the preposition, so: fawga above, plus -ii me, becomes fawqii above me 3 # maa with, plus -ii me, becomes m: (6) After preceding Jong vowels, and the combination -ay, the Gone changes to -Y8, SO: fii in, plus me, is fiiya 53 itay (4! rowards, plus me, is ilayya 3)! (for the form ilay (4! see Section 3 below). with me Note that in fiiya in the Arabic script, the first of the two yaa’s indicated by the shadda sign is used to lengthen the i-vowel. It is probably preferable to write this and other such words in translit- eration with two y's: fiyya (c) In the two prepositions min from and :an about, from, the n is doubled before -ii is added, so: min plus -ii becomes minnii 2+ from me, and similarly :an plus -ii becomes. sannii 2. Third person Chim’, ‘them’, as in ‘with him, etc.) After pre- Positions ending in -i (like bi), -if (like fi) or -ay (like ilay) the third person suffixes which have a short u-vowel (# ¢ @& ¢JA) change this to an i-vowel. (Her" -h Unaffected.) Examples: 43! ilayhi to him oy fiom in them (mn) Grele salayhinna on them (f) id Changes in the prepositions themselves tan ¢,{%9 common prepositions ila, zalaa and the less common chat (all written with the special final Iong a-vowel ~ see page 21) ge to ilay-, salay- and laday- before all pronoun suffixes, and which has a long a-vowel, remains Th; Chanee in turn alfects some ofthese suffixes as described above, 21 ilayhi to him ‘ule :alaynaa on us Ld! ilayka towards you () The Preposition | li-, which is always attached to the follow- in '€ Word since it has only one letter (see page 23), changes to la-122 Arabic before all pronoun suffixes except -ii which, as usual, suppresses any preceding short vowel. Thus: W lama ro use lahum to them, but lii fo me Note that when li is prefixed to words bearing the definite article, the alif of the article is omitted. Thus: alyU lid-walad to the boy i)0li lit-madrasa to the school If the word begins with the letter laam, the laam of the article ‘merges with that of the noun/adjective and is written with a shadda ial) Wittugha to the language a) li-Maah to God Examples 10-12 illustrate some prepositions with pronoun suffixes. EXERCISE 105 A Combine the following prepositions with the suffix forms of the separate pronouns given, e.g, Atos + sled 4 tity) 6 tlt ye Atot on pty Y ley ov vit gs B_ Read your answers aloud. Unit Ten 123 Word shape Saomte— AraMecexample—=Sound-alike Cluc*aCat Ais was a rat* =Cockney/Glasgow pronunciation of final 1 as glottal stop. This shape is common for the internal plural of nouns of the shape C’aC*iiC?, when they refer to male human beings. The nouns in this case are adjectives which have been crystallised into noun form — usually to express the meaning of a person with some particular function or status. It does, however, occur with some uncrystallised adjectives like 3 fagiir poor and qlie :aDHiim righty. a ‘Note that like most words ending in -aa” this pattern does not show the indefinite accusative marker. Examples which have already occurred are: +sisla jg minister #Laj,/ yu) chief, boss (Note the different carrier letter for the glottal stop in the plural of ‘a'iis. This is due to the change in the vowelling.) Other examples of this shape are given in the vocabulary of this unit.Unit Eleven Units 1-10, heavy going though they may have been, have covered most of the important basic constructions in Arabic. By basic constructions we mean such things as the various noun-adjective phrases, the possessive, the equational sentence, the *inna-type sen. tence, the use of the verb in both tenses and so on. Such con. structions are the bricks and mortar of Arabic, being combined together in various ways to produce more complex sentences Sentence construction in Arabic is surprisingly simple, the key to understanding being the ability to recognise the component parts. Before proceeding, please make sure that you have mastered the material in Units 1 to 10, and if necessary go back and revise. You can easily look up individual words if you have forgotten them, but you will not be able to understand a complex sentence if you have not mastered the basic structures. Now that we are able to deal with less contrived, more natural Arabic, the layout of the units has been changed. The new order is: 1 Sample text in mainly unvowelled Arabic. 2 New vocabulary occurring in the text. 3. A literal, word-for-word translation of the text, with notes on difficult constructions. This is to be converted as an exercise into normal idiomatic English, and also the original text should be read aloud in Arabic. 4 Background notes on various aspects of Arab life and societ 5 New grammar and sentence construction introduced by means of an analysis of the text. Mechanical learning of things like verb parts — which there is no casy way to avoid ~ will F achieved by reference to the tables in the back of the book which should be committed to memory at the appropriate La Important new topics are given their own sub-headings with! this section. 124 Unit Eleven 125 cpaball abel Segall te ke pS Ope Old Gaue Dll ote te fw hy ct pal ae aerly geal apd gw IST sees ¢ See ae ce px det Schall tt | Feeley & peel 6 pall Ae say Oly a Gly yd ge Stet | Seal Gu by z geall get Ha tell Gd Ogee Vs Osi EY LAU Of slime pyeall | tN al aly © A ae lS aa wT Peele by 7th BF ae Ay BH Al oH gy AT gd hae ay Qt! cele ISN Og ssp9 Be Sosy Sap Np Olt BS & U3 ab ytd gar I & i Text ae He isle Ming Bl ale g dithy oh Gye yp dys Cell Et La Old) pSsteb CH ae Ogle IL Gan GY I fobs ec BM etd gaye | soll of bate MW ae fo ld es g 10 20 25126 Arabic Vocabulary So Nouns OU ae festival, feast day (2y-) ph Muslim OE wo (behaves as dual) (eC) gs) name Jes breaking of a fast NZS Shawwal (month) (OL) KK occasion La, Ramadan (month) 52 fast, fasting kay Za meanir 142 (3 fast, fasting Gi) Fe meaning veep. er’ people JME daytime SAN sacrifice esival) QS the pilgrimage (OL b3le custom Ki Mecca 43S) The Kaaba (shrine) (qS45) Hous sgh nina COW) BaF sheep HG end A Mulid (Prophet's birthday) CLS) ged prophet Clit 5 part, area, region (Oy-) (gre* Christian ax Rabi* al-Awwal 23s birth oo ee (month) 2 A birthday, 24 ye Festival of rhe birth, ie. Christmas Verbs 29h 6) 0 visit 5 JE (vim celebrate nati 1 (@) to begin to slaughter E(w) come after, follow Unit Eleven 127 adtves impos aria of lay BE ha ber words tol which? Le what? (before nouns and e Pronouns) Sf that (conjunction) LAS howe only 131. then, so (pronounce idhan) (PE some (of), one (of) the like (of), like S 0, and Literal translation Festivals (of) the-Mustims obo How-many festival (are) with the-Mustims? Ahmed The-festivals the-important with-us (are) two. J And-what (are) they-two? ‘A. Thesfist he (js) the-festival the-small and-name-his festival (of) the- fastbreaking. And-in which month (3) he? The-festival the-small (js) in first day of month Shawwal. Andewhat (is) occasion-his? ion-his (is) that month (of) Shawwal he-follows month (of) Ramadan and-he (is) month (of) the-fasting with the- Muslims. ‘And-what (is) meaning (of) the-fasting? The-fasting his-meaning (js) that the-people not they-eat and-not they- drinkin the-daytime. This (is) meaning (of) the-fasting. And-what (i) he the-estival the-other! He (is) the-fstival the-big ot festival (of) the-Sacrifce. d-what (s) occasion ion-hs (js) the-pilgrimage and-he he-begins in last day of days (of) the-pilgrimage. And-the-pilgrimage meaning-his (is) that the People they-travel to Mecca and-they-visit the Kaaba, Snt-how they-celebrate/with/-thisthe-estval? ey they-slaughter in-him sacrifice(animals pore pe pepe pe128 Arabic 4 And-what she the-sacrifice(animal}? ‘A. The-sacrifce(animal) she (a) sheep (which) they-slaughter-him ang, they-cat-him in end (of) the-pilgrimage. And-this (is 4) custom with the- Muslims. So-festivals-your (are) two only then? No, in some (of) the-regions they-celebrate/wit ‘And-what he? He (is) birthday (of) the-Prophet in month (of) Rabi: alAwwal Yes, this (s) like (the) festival (of) the-Birth with-us we the-Christian Mabfestival tind, epere Background to text ‘The Muslim festivals The main two religious festivals celebrated by all Muslims regard- less of sect or country of origin are: siid al-fiTr (other names: Lesser Bairam, Ramadan Feast; Ar. : ramaDaan) Date: Ist of Shawwal (sce calendar on page 130). This is usually a holiday of about three days after the fasting month of Ramadan, during which devout Muslims will let nothing (food, drink or smoke) pass their lips between dawn and sunset. On the first day of the feast there are special prayers in the mosque, and the rest of the holiday is traditionally spent feasting with family and friends. Children usually receive gifts of money from their elders, and best clothes are worn. ‘As you can imagine, total abstention from food and drink during the day causes considerable physical and moral hardship. If you are in a Muslim country during Ramadan, it is polite 10 show com sideration by not eating and drinking in the presence of local people. As frequently most of the night is taken up with making UP for the privations of the day, allowance must be made for people not being on their best form: sid al-aDHaa (other names: Korban Bairam; Ar. :id al-Dally?®) Date: 10th of Dhu al-Hijja (see calendar on page 130). of This is the major feast of Islam and again merits a holid®) ¢ several days, Even for those not on the Pilgrimage, a large 29! © expected, and families who can afford it buy and slaughter a shee feast on it with the family, and often give some of the meat !° Unit Eleven 129 Again there are special prayers in the mosque and children poor. receive gifts. festival is mawlid an-nabii (often pronounced muulid) peat of Rabié: al-Awwal ait nough not officially preseribed by Islam, this festival is celeb- raed in varying local forms in many parts of the Arab world. What to say at festival times ; wat my St a ing 1 be exchanged a ein festivals is: yle sae siidak mubsarak May your festival be blessed Reply: 215 Aly dis allaah yubaarik fiik God bless you Another common one, also used on occasions like birthdays, is: af wily cl US kull :aam wa-anta bi-khayr literally Every year and (may) you (be) in good (health) ~ reminiscent of English “Many happy returns’. The reply to this is: 2 ily wa-anta bi-khe a And (may) you (be) in-good (health) Nowadays the greetings card industry has penetrated the Near and Middle East, so cards are often sent, usually bearing one of the above phrases. ‘The Islamic calendar caieeugh nt now used much for everyday affairs, the Islamic from 1g. ja SovetBS all religious occasions. The years are reckoned ut mined foo Ab, the date of the Flight (hijra) of the Prophet csignated Wi Mecca to Medina. For this reason, Islamic dates 8 Jean 24 hile ~ English abbreviation ax 15, ana Consists of twelve lunar months adding up to only 354 Consequently ax dates are subject to a shift of approx- imately ¢ 'Y eleven days forward in comparison to European dates. A130 Arabic good reference is the Muslim year 1400, which ran November 1979 to 8 November 1980 (leap year). The European months used in most business transacti everyday affairs are quite recognisable. Here is a comparat; calendar, but remember that because of the shorter Mustim yest you cannot say that, for instance, January equals muHarram ~ 9ri, that both are the first months in their respective calendars," Arabic abbreviations are » for sv hii and ¢ for oy., miilaadii, i.e. ‘pertaining to the birth’ (of Christ): . from 29 ions ang AYESs 1400 an ¢ V4A+ 1980 aD Ale | ett wv w To complicate matters, there is another set of names, or iN months of the Christian year, starting with kaanuun al-thaat Kanun the Second — used in the Eastern Arab world, such a at. Perhaps you had better wait to learn that until you get © 1" Unit Eleven 131 analysis of text and grammar sion should be studied in conjunction with the Arabic text. ae refer to line numbers. 1 quell Suffix masculine plural showing the genitive ease ause it is the owner part of a possessive. ~ For this and other question words, see pp. 132-4, The scotsative indefinite marker on id is required by kam. | ce with the Muslims, ie. ‘the Muslims have’. See section onto have’ below. cseln is again in the genitive after :ind, which is a preposition (see page 102). 4 Note the inanimate plural (a:yaad) qualified by feminine singular adjective. 4 Note the dual pronoun \F referring to the two festivals, 5 Thematic type sentence (see page 136). 7 gx, djl ~ you would probably have expected J3VI pi), which is also possible but less common. J}}2 4 is technically a possessive. shahr, being the ‘property’ word of the possessive, cannot take the definite article. 9 5y is the conjunction ‘that’ and is used in exactly the same way a ic. it is followed by a noun or a pronoun suffix (see page M1 sta ~ remember that the final long a-vowel written with a yaa’ reverts to the normal alif if anything — here a pronoun suffix — 's added to the word (see page 21). OSL and Opt tural bs . ost dypty are plural rerbs agreeing fully with their subject GSI because it has pre- ‘ceded them (see page 80). 1 ji 4 i a tx 2 is the same construction as used with Uji in line 7. Enh day of the days of the Pilgrimage’ is a bit picturesque in Bish but quite normal in Arabic. wc Zece, 4nd Oszs3. are plural verbs, because the subject precedes ee the Arvin: att have already encountered this type of verb, called by in this eg Hollow’ verb, because the middle root letter is a w (as inthe ce te) or a y and tends to disappear, leaving an empty space diseudl®, There are three types of this classification, all set out ‘sed in Table 5. Learn as much of that as you can now —132. Arabic at least how to recognise the type, then you can look them up they occur. We have already had 1S of the w-type, and Ls when is a y-type. Like all verbs, the hollows occur most frequently in the he and she forms, and these are both recognisable by the lon vowels which occur between the first and third radicals ~ always s® in the past tense, but uu, ii and more rarcly aa in the present ** 17 The verb J&# to celebrate, although transitive in English always requires the preposition — before its object in Arabic. With such verbs, it is best to learn the required preposition along with the verb, as the two always occur together. 18 Note the use of fii in where we would say on. Prepositions are always difficult. 20. For the moment, supply the word ‘which’ between ‘sheep’ and “they slaughter it’ — i.e. ‘A sheep which they slaughter and eat’, Such constructions, called relative clauses, will be explained later. dole 1a you should recognise as a sentence because there is no definite article on :aada (and anyway haadha is the wrong gender — it refers to the preceding sentence as a whole) — see pp. 53-4. 22 Li only always follows what it qualifies. 23 Ogle is plural here because no subject has been stated, and therefore must be made clear by the verb (subject is ‘they’). 26 The 4 here is for emphasis or clarity. EXERCISE 11.1 Read aloud the Arabic text at the beginning of this Unit, and then translate it into normal, idiomatic English. Question words Note that these differ from the question-mark words given on PaBe 40 which merely change statements into questions. These market words are not required when the sentence contains one of ' following interrogatives. What? There are two words for this: used before nouns Separate pronouns and demonstratives, and (3st before ere (Warning: ls is one of the most difficult words in Arabic, hY Unit Eleven 133 cent usages. We have already seen it~ on page 82—as a many diferent fo: the past verb, so be careful) Examples: egative marke ge What is it (he)? Gide lL What is this? uct What is his (its) name? But ¢151 154 What did they eat ? $ ee Bl What is he carrying? Note also the appositional construction in the text, using a separate pronoun followed by 2 noun: { iowll a le What (is) she, the sacrifice(animal)? This is very common. (We would say ‘What is a sacrifice animal?’) Who? Only one word, is used before verbs and nouns. It looks very similar to (ye from, so be careful te < Who are they? § Ul 3% Who opened the door? Also used appositionally, e.g. $ gill a Go Who is the manager? ” si feminine@l) agrees with the noun in gender. $C Gl Which house? ¢ cy Zi Which girl? The noun after tet is si sdetinit he noun after (sis singular, indefinite and technically genitive. How many? 5 ‘ a many? 5” Be careful with this one. Its noun is singular (!) the fina itdefinite accusative, so if it is an unsuffixed noun it takes alif accusative marker (see page 88). $e, 6S How many men? pS How many cars?134 Arabic How? Ls is used with nouns and verbs: $opl GS Howdid you 39 as How are the travel? children? at + Where? GZ Note also cil Ji Where tot, and elo Where fone When? + With verbs: $\yery G+ When did they return? Why? J. and 13{-are combinations of the preposition | to, jy and the words given for ‘what? above. When the shorter form Lis used in such combinations, it is contracted to ¢ . Note also the assimilated form Us (for b oy) From what?. EXERCISE 112 Interrogatives and interpretation A’ Write down the answers to the following questions on the text in the form of complete sentences. $ oN ke Opell Je GS 1 Chine ig t a : al do jhe gid) t AH Gl Opball ply Gl Ut FI dal gw boo Sppall gel £ B Provide questions which would elicit the following answers. Example: Answer \j\ 3! Casi 1 am going to the cinema cal SI Where are you going? Question ¢ Cade sole oy teed ply t (Fatima, female name) iabb Qa Obey et Gin SI tA Ubell cee G det Ve Unit Eleven 135 to say ‘to have He eno Arabic verb “to have’ and this meaning must be There by the use of the prepositions te with (French ‘chez') or cy Note that the object of the English verb ~ ie, the thing oes nave — becomes the subject of the Arabic sentence, wich ye has a new car—»-To him (is) a new car bade Ble ‘To change the tense, the verb IS must be used: The boy had a book —»(There) was to the boy (with the boy) a book AS Cy! ey IU oI” In the feminine: We had a fridge—+ (There) was to us (with us) a fridge 2 (bey UCI For the future, the present tense of the verb ‘to be’ with the future Prefix sa- is used: You will have a guest tomorrow —~ (There) will be with you a guest tomorrow, WE and (Site OS anne Lollowing table shows the process schematically. Note that sash © ~ representing the Arabic li-— has been used, in most “asestind with would do equally well. Present x] ms |y To x{| = ly LS x] nad | Wasweeto | x} —™ Jy Future x | withave | ¥ Will be to xp ly136 Arabic °X has Y" (present tense) is negated by the use of the negative laysa (see page 90), and the other two tenses by applying ¢ relevant negative particles to the verb (see pp. 118-19), the EXERCISE 113 ‘To have” A Form sentences of the X has Y type from the following cop, stituents, e.g. a The boy, a book——+ To/with the boy (is) a book. IS yl The boy has a book (Use either It or sind in all cases): The manager, a new secretary (f). 2 The house, two doors, We, a small car. 4 She, beautiful sister. The cupboard, many shelves. ‘The company, a branch in London, 7 He, a new suit. They (m), meat and bread. 9 Ahmed, a small baby. 10. The passenger, a heavy suitcase. B_ Change A 1-5 into the past tense (X had Y) C Change A 6-10 into the future (X will have Y). Thematic sentences Note the following examples from the text: pecall sll yo JgMI The first is the Lesser Festival Ol ele tral Fasting means that ... (Lit. ‘ts meaning is that...”) US OL They slaughter animals ..- These illustrate a very common type of Arabic sentence which ote? sounds strange to the European ear. In each case a theme is so the beginning — always a noun or a pronoun (The first; Fastin’ They, in the examples). This theme is what the information Ct tained in the ensuing sentence is really about, although it necessarily the grammatical subject of the sentence. The remain of the sentence then follows, and always contains a referen! FA, ing back to the theme, and agreeing with it grammatically Unit Eleven 137 ‘edicates carefully, you will find that they are in eine Rrabic sentences on their own. This is easily de- fact eal if you simply chop off the first word (the theme word) sonst Jes above. . of th st “sample the referent is the separate pronoun a refering to the (masculine singular) theme 3M The first (thing). In the second itis the masculine singular suffix pronoun «, referring toga! and in the third it is the subject pronoun implicit in the verb oye they slaughter (see page 78). A literal translation shows up the construction clearly: ‘The first (one), he is the Lesser Festival The fasting, his meaning is ... ‘They, they-slaughter animals. Note again how each predicate forms a complete, potentially independent sentence. Tin English, of course, such constructions would be considered redundant, but in Arabic they are regarded as good style. Appreciation of the problem, and the application of the literal translation method, will help you to unravel many an apparently ‘complex Arabic sentence. EXERCISE 114 A’ Change the following into thematic sentences, ¢g. BS Sa tal) —e pS Se A pall Le a2 Gb pee Ae cpebell eV (New York) Soy 959 Ody ZL Gon WN ‘Nasim, an Egyptian ot deal we be cn pall r co rik ESA Cn Oe BS be gid £ B Read aloud and translate your answers.Unit Twelve Text Osi pas Reball by phe 8 gall Od Gaal dt ays Gal Bday WATT Sane aulye de Ry! hall Gace, ably peal Je cle de St dle aA SS Wi, TEN VSS syeAll GUY gl Gott AVI ed Sy + BI Shey a A ee Eg «asd w Laull WV ole ogy o's, «gid nme oo Sy edly A GE Uys salen Cal Gad Os IS Roptl Hal Khlis ky GI oy Ge salall 3, Repl UUM, jy SIT Gall GAL! doo Luly dl 2 gel dbl Ge abe le nS eas Uygl oly Lise, 5M al SHE LS ll fo Mie 45991 ad! algel alos dy septal ofl Comnely OMe Ge Obert 3 IS ei) Jaa! of ails + gM Oy jill BL eo BL aye dle & rtlly Gall dal cy 2g OMe Mia Uyall par Ge oy il pes prilily pl Bh ety peal dad ade Se oy out 138 15 cage, era ct) le wont (oy By revoluion a Gal Europe ae iron (2%) af counry et) GF kind one ogy fuel teh products Oby) Ay sea JES North GPM East (BG) ISLS kingdom Libya hy ae guy UM Enirate EI dependence OR) oF price ESI the Seventies Unit Twelve 139 crude oi (a5) OF century (1p 235 resource re coal, charcoal (eytby 5S tim extent: (9D JSrontier (OM) TT engine, machine BE} combustion oh peo C2has) jes — source SSSI GPA the Middle East sel South Sal West ipl frag (93) B53. state, nation 35 Qatar alg importation Ogre twenty e (56) 859 picture, photograph rise, increase140 Arabic eb Se steith (OL) UL screen 22 DAT people of... result culture Verbs (a) witness CAN EL VM invent (VHD rise, go up Adjectives oP seen Sete industrial ES independent (Yet imernat, interior CLAN) GF strong ed united _s BS famitiar BE S5. Zaki Yomani (OL) BH relationship, (xt) 2 people tal interest, concern (US) G2 faith religion eS «fe CEI vim aepena | on 213% ¢ 2133) (VII) increase SE (w) create past (definite form) ‘mineral existing, available German Saudi wonderful Islamic European connection Unit Twelve 141 other words ie Jl oaoertain extent LAL becase of this, 50 Pe «sb but Was (Lit. like whar’y ie hus JE during ch between : {5 much, greatly, alot Slike Literal translation Age (of) the-oil Witnessed the-world the-western in the-century the-past (a) revolution, she the-revolution the-industrial ‘And-depended the-factories the-new on resources mineral most-(of}- them existing in Europe like the-coal and the-iron. Beeause-ofthis were the-countries the-western independent’ to a-certain- extent. But in year 1876 invented the-engineer the-German the‘famous Nikolaus Otto (a) machine of kind new, she engine (of) the-combustion the-internal. ‘And-was (the) fuel (of) this the-engine the-wonderful he the-petrol. And- the-petrol (is) of the-products (of) the-oil. And:-like-what you-know, is-not in Europe of sources (of) the-oil except few in Sea (of) the-North, ‘And-most (of) the-sources she in countries (of) the-East the-Middle like the-Kingdom the-Arab the-Saudi and-the-Iraq and-Libya and-states (of) the-Gulf the-Arabian like-the-Kuwait and-Qatar and-the-Emirates the- Arab the-United. Aé-thus began Europe she-depends to-extent great on the-importation from the-world the-Islamic: {iiilpast markerjinereased dependence (of) the-countries the-European on Arabs much during the-halfthe-first of the-century the-twenty. {Retox price (of) the-oil rising great in the seventies of this the-century ai became picture (of) the-sheikh Zaki Yamani (a) picture familiar on Rn (of) the-television the-European. the-Wernt®t a8e (of) the-oil this relationships strong between people (of) Ang ZeS and the-peoples the Arab. al tesuts (of) these relationships (is) concern (of) the-Europeans with- 'uage (of) the-Arabs and-culture-their and-religion-their the-Islamic.142 Arabic Background to text ‘The dependence of the West on Middle Eastern oil, and the business opportunities which stimulate travel between Europe and the Arab countries, need no explanation. ‘Note that bitrool (a more usual pronunciation than official bitrual), although obviously derived from English ‘petrol’, means crude oil, not the refined product. Also given in the vocabulary is nafT (cf. naphtha). ‘The word shaykh has many connotations in Arabic ~ none of them the desert romancer as played by Rudolf Valentino in the early days of the cinema. In most countries it means either a tribal chief or dignitary, or a religious leader or teacher. Analysis of text and grammar 2 (Gl — an adjective formed from the noun all the West. See section on page 145 on relative adjectives. .gAUl the past, although it looks superficially the same, is a completely different sort of word altogether, being derived from the root m-D-y. There are quite & number of such words in Arabic, usually characterised by a long & Vowel before the final consonant, and their spelling presents some difficulty. Take the example, ,alilithe judge. The final y of this word is omitted when it is indefinite - |46 (officially pronounced qaaDin) — except in the accusative where it reappears along with the usual alif:marker, thus: |.6 (officially qaaDiyan). In speech the word is pronounced qaaDii, whether with the definite article or not, and the only real difficulty of such words is remembering ‘he presence of the final y when looking them up in @ dictionary. ie used here to separate the two revolution phrases: 1? English we would usc a comma or a hyphen. in- Feu is u vovelled Form VITI verb, characterised BY tM pe troduction of a -t- between the first and second consonants oe root (here -m-d). When composed of all sound letters (ie. 0 W'S y's) these, like all derived verbs, present no particular difficulty _ ‘they take all the usual prefixes ‘and suffixes to form thei study Table 2. There are quite a few examples of Form (root dh-k-y) BE sweeter, sweetest 5) more intelligent, most intelligent into Adjectives of more complex shape cannot generally be fitted those patterns and use a different construction. r e v Gil Gp (Abdulla eg Unit Twelve 147 tive: X is —er than ¥° e comps the same for all numbers and genders, and ed BY cp (miny: of the he compara ‘aban’ is express Gol ST LT Asia is bigger than Europe. bas \ ep! ’ us y pool z His house is smaller than mine (my house). & = {LSI Women are shrewder than men. op Sil ela the superlative: ‘X is the est? Ug of ean 1 By placing the "aCCaC form of the adjective directly before the indefinite singular noun: Lnplll Gly dbl yo He is the tallest boy in the school. Bp gy del «f She is the most beautiful girl in the room. Note again that the adjective docs not vary according to gender. This is probably the most frequently occurring super- lative construction, 2 By using the 'aCCaC form of: the adjective as a noun in a Possessive construction with the plural of the qualified noun (technically, of course, in the genitive): Sell 251 (lit. “The biggest of the houses’) The biggest house OAll Aci (The smallest of towns) The smallest town a simple défined adjective following its noun in the usual ay: pie ta) The mightiest leader When used in this way, a few common adjectives have a form {or feminine agreement. The shape is C'uC?Ciaa (-aa again