PERSONAL PRONOUNS

English I You You He, It She, It 1st (person speaking)

Person

Gender Masculine/ Feminine Masculine Feminine

Arabic

2nd (person being spoken to) 2nd (person being spoken to)

3rd Masculine (person being spoken about - i.e. not present) 3rd Feminine (person being spoken about - i.e. not present)

Definite Noun Genitive Case (Kasra)

Definite Noun

Nominative Case (Dammah)

Preposition

Indefinite Noun Genitive Case (Kasratain)

Indefinite Noun

Nominative Case (Dammatain)

Preposition

Definite Noun Dammah

Definite Noun

Dammatain

Interrogative Article

Indefinite Noun Dammah

Indefinite Noun

Dammatain

Interrogative Article

Definite Noun Dammah

Definite Noun

Dammah

Preposition

Interrogative Article

. . . . . . . . .

I NT R O DU C T I O N TO AR A BI C
MUSLIM SOCIETY OF MEMPHIS

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LESSON-1

D E M O N S T R AT I V E P R O N O U N S

1) Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) point to the noun it refers to and identify a noun or pronoun. In standard Arabic the demonstrative pronoun comes before a noun.

This is
2) It is one of the Isma Al-Ishara ( ) i.e., Demonstrative Pronouns. 3) The feminine of is 4) Arabic has no word which is equal to the English word "is" which is referred to as a copula in grammar. We can see this rule demonstrated above where we see the words for

and the noun/predicate being referred to without any copula. i.e. read literally this sentence would read If
"This a mosque", however, the word "is" can be implied in this sentence so that it reads "This is a mosque".

5) There is no word in Arabic corresponding to "a" in English as in: "This is a book". The n-sound, i.e. the /tanwn/ (doubled vowel sign) at the end of the Arabic noun (kitbu-n, baitu-n, masidu-n) is the Arabic indefinite article corresponding to the English "a/an". There are three forms in Arabic 1) Singular (mufrad) 2) Dual (muthannaa) 3) Plural (Jam'un).
In Arabic there are no synonyms.

A S K I N G I N F O R M AT I O N A L Q U E S T I O N S

1) First, note that in standard Arabic, question words generally come at the beginning of a question, while in colloquial Arabic, these words usually (but not necessarily always) come at the end. 2) Rules:

ARABIC English

What

Who

Is

Usage

When referring to things and animals.

When placed at the When beginning of a referring statement turns it into to humans. a question.

3) and are used in different types of questions; the former is used in questions that do not have verbs, while the latter is used in questions that do have verbs. Frequently is followed by the pronoun corresponding to the noun being asked about. 4) Examples:

QUESTION (ARABIC) Question (English)

.....
What is this? Is this...? Who is this?

5) In response to such questions, the word for Yes in Arabic is No in Arabic is

, and the word for

LESSON-2
That is....
1) /dhlika/ is used to refer to objects that are further away whereas /hdh/ is used to refer to objects that are closer. 2) It is also one of the . 3) The feminine of Dhaallika is

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LESSON-3

D E F I N I T E A RT I C L E

1) In this lesson we will learn about the definite article which corresponds to the word 'The' in the English Language (known as the definite article in grammar as it refers to a specific object). 2) Take particular note of the change in the vowel ending when a word is changed to its definite form, i.e. the /tanwn/ (double vowel) which represents indefinite form e.g. (a house) has been changed to a single /ammah/. 3) It is hence also important to remember that a word can never take /alif lm/ at the beginning and /tanwn/ at the same time. 4) Rules:

Definite Noun Genitive Case (Kasra)

Indefinite Noun

Nominative Case (Dammah)

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THE MOON AND SUN LETTERS

1) Arabic has 28 letters. Of these 14 letters are called Solar Letters, and the other 14 are called Lunar letters. In the articulation (speaking) of the Solar letters, the tip or blade of the tongue is involved as in t, n, r, s, etc. The tip or blade of the tongue does not play any part in the articulation of the Lunar Letters as in b, w, m, k etc. 2) When /alif-lm/ al is prefixed to a noun beginning with a Solar letter, the l of al is assimilated (joined) to the Solar Letter, e.g. al-shamsu (the sun) is pronounced /ashshamsu/. 3) No change takes place in writing . The assimilation is indicated by the /shaddah/ on the first letter of the noun after al. 4) No such assimilation takes place with the Lunar Letters, e.g. /al-qamaru/ (the moon) is pronounced /al-qamaru/ . Here are some more examples of the assimilation of the l of al to the Solar Letters (don't worry about the meanings of the words yet): 5) Note that the a of al is pronounced only when it is not preceded by another word. If it is preceded by a word it is dropped in pronunciation, though it remains in writing, e.g. /wal-baitu/. Here the a is dropped and the phrase is pronounced /walbaitu/ not /wa al-baitu/. To indicate this omission in pronunciation, this sign: ( ) is placed above the /alif/. 6) The initial vowel (a, i, or u) which is omitted when preceded by a word is called /hamazatu l-wasl/. 7) We have learnt that the /tanwn/ is the indefinite article, and it is to be translated as a e.g.:

means a house. This rule does " open", and " broken".

not apply to adjectives like

LESSON-4

THE CASES

1) A noun in Arabic grammar has three cases:

Arabic Term Case Arabic Term (Transliteration) A word in this case ends (originally) Consequence

NOMINATIVE

HLAT-UR-RAF
in a /ammah/ ,/ammatain/ A word in this case ends (originally)

ACCUSATIVE

HLAT-UN-NAB
in a /fatah/,/fatatain/ A word in this case ends (originally)

GENITIVE

HLAT-UL-ARR
in a /kasrah/,/kasratain/

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THE PREPOSITIONS (HARF UL JARR)

1) A preposition is a single letter or a word, which connects two nouns, or a verb and a noun to form a sentence.

It always precedes a word and never follows the word. It always comes before a noun and it does not come before a verb.

PREPOSITION (ENGLISH) PREPOSITION (ARABIC) 2) Rule:

IN

ON

FROM

TO

Definite Noun Genitive Case

Definite Noun Nominative Case

Preposition

(Kasra)

(Dammah)

Indefinite Noun Genitive Case (Kasratain)

Indefinite Noun

Nominative Case (Dammatain)

Preposition

3) In Arabic language when it is required to make a noun definite is added to that noun. However when a preposition comes before a definite word the /alif/ - i.e. "a" sound of is dropped and hence not pronounced. Please note that the "a" of "al" is pronounced only when it is not preceded by any other word but when "al" is preceded by any word the letter "a" is dropped and hence not pronounced. 4) So we will read the sentence as /Fil Baiti/ and not /Fee Al baiti/ but this rule is applicable in reading only and not while writing the sentence - i.e. the /alif/ will still be written but not pronounced in spoken language.
T H E I N T E R R O G AT I O N

1) We know that "Interrogative expression is the term used to refer to a group of words, which are used to ask a question (e.g. Where is the book? What is on the book? Is the key on the book? Who is on the rock? Etc) are all interrogative expressions and the words which are used to ask a question are called the Interrogative Articles".

INTERROGATIVE WHERE? ARTICLE WHAT? IS? WHO?

... ... ... ...

2) Rules:

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CASE Interrogative Article proceeding a definite noun Interrogative Article proceeding a noun without definite Article

RULE The definite noun will take one /ammah/ on its ending letter The noun without the definite article will take two /ammahs/ on its ending letter The preposition will not take the nominative case when preceded by interrogative article. This is because the preposition is indeclinable meaning and it does not change its ending.

ARABIC

Interrogative Article preceding a preposition

Definite Noun Dammah

Definite Noun

Dammatain

Interrogative Article

Indefinite Noun Dammah

Indefinite Noun

Dammatain

Interrogative Article

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Definite Noun Dammah

Definite Noun

Dammah

Prepositio n

Interrogative Article

THE MASCULINE AND THE FEMININE

1) In Arabic both living things and inanimate (non-living) things are treated as either masculine or feminine. 2) In this part of the lesson /In-Sh'-Allh/ (God willing) we will learn about the masculine and the feminine words. We will also learn how to change a masculine word into a feminine word. There are three symbols which change a masculine word to a feminine word when added on the end of a masculine word and they are:

ENGLISH

SYMBOL OF FEMININE WORD

ARABIC

FEMININE

MASCULINE

FEMININE MASCULINE

Female student Male student

Left (for feminine Left words)

( ) (
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Noble woman

Noble man

) ( )

3) It should be remembered that the penultimate (second to last) letter of a feminine word always takes a /fatah/.

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