|
As mentioned above, many spoken dialects have a process of emphasis spreading, where the "emphasis" (pharyngealization) of emphatic consonants spreads forward and back through adjacent syllables, pharyngealizing all nearby consonants and triggering the back allophone [ɑ(ː)] in all nearby low vowels. The extent of emphasis spreading varies. For example, in Moroccan Arabic, it spreads as far as the first full vowel (i.e. sound derived from a long vowel or diphthong) on either side; in many Levantine dialects, it spreads indefinitely, but is blocked by any /j/ or /ʃ/; while in Egyptian Arabic, it usually spreads throughout the entire word, including prefixes and suffixes. In Moroccan Arabic, /i u/ also have emphatic allophones [o~ɔ e~ɛ]. Unstressed short vowels, especially /i u/, are deleted in many contexts. Many sporadic examples of short vowel change have occurred (especially /a/→/i/ and interchange /i/↔/u/). Most Levantine dialects merge short /i u/ into /ǝ/ in most contexts (all except directly before a single final consonant). In Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, short /u/ triggers labialization of nearby consonants (especially velar consonants and uvular consonants), and then short /a i u/ all merge into /ǝ/, which is deleted in many contexts. (The labialization plus /ǝ/ is sometimes interpreted as an underlying phoneme /ŭ/.) This essentially causes the wholesale loss of the short-long vowel distinction, with the original long vowels /aː iː uː/ remaining as half-long [aˑ iˑ uˑ], phonemically /a i u/, which are used to represent both short and long vowels in borrowings from Literary Arabic. Most spoken dialects have monophthongized original /aj aw/ to /eː oː/ (in all circumstances, including adjacent to emphatic consonants). In Moroccan Arabic, these have subsequently merged into original /iː uː/. Consonants In some dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example, non-Arabic [v] is used in the Maghrebi dialects as well in the written language mostly for foreign names. Semitic [p] became [f] extremely early on in Arabic before it was written down; a few modern Arabic dialects, such as Iraqi (influenced by Persian and Turkish) distinguish between [p] and [b]. The Iraqi Arabic also uses sounds [ɡ], [t͡ʃ] and uses Persian adding letters, e.g.: گوجة gawjah – a plum; چمة chimah – a truffle and so on. Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes [ɮˤ] and [ðˤ] coalesced into a single phoneme [ðˤ]. Many dialects (such as Egyptian, Levantine, and much of the Maghreb) subsequently lost interdental fricatives, converting [θ ð ðˤ] into [t d dˤ]. Most dialects borrow "learned" words from the Standard language using the same pronunciation as for inherited words, but some dialects without interdental fricatives (particularly in Egypt and the Levant) render original [θ ð ðˤ ɮˤ] in borrowed words as [s z zˤ dˤ]. Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render the original velar and uvular plosives /q/, /d͡ʒ/ (Proto-Semitic /ɡ/), and /k/: ق /q/ retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen, Morocco, and urban areas of the Maghreb. It is pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] in several prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. But it is rendered as a voiced velar plosive [ɡ] in Persian Gulf, Upper Egypt, parts of the Maghreb, and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan). In Iraqi Arabic it sometimes retains its original pronunciation and is sometimes rendered as a voiced velar plosive, depending on the word. Some traditionally Christian villages in rural areas of the Levant render the sound as [k], as do Shiʻi Bahrainis. In some Gulf dialects, it is palatalized to [d͡ʒ] or [ʒ]. It is pronounced as a voiced uvular constrictive [ʁ] in Sudanese Arabic. Many dialects with a modified pronunciation for /q/ maintain the [q] pronunciation in certain words (often with religious or educational overtones) borrowed from the Classical language. ج /d͡ʒ/ is pronounced as an affricate in Iraq and much of the Arabian Peninsula, but is pronounced [ɡ] in most of North Egypt and parts of Yemen and Oman, [ʒ] in Morocco, Tunisia and the Levant, and [j], [i̠] in most words in much of the Persian Gulf. ك /k/ usually retains its original pronunciation, but is palatalized to /t͡ʃ/ in many words in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Iraq, and much of the Arabian Peninsula. Often a distinction is made between the suffixes /-ak/ ('you', masc.) and /-ik/ ('you', fem.), which become /-ak/ and /-it͡ʃ/, respectively. In Sana'a, Omani, and Bahrani /-ik/ is pronounced /-iʃ/. Pharyngealization of the emphatic consonants tends to weaken in many of the spoken varieties, and to spread from emphatic consonants to nearby sounds. In addition, the "emphatic" allophone [ɑ] automatically triggers pharyngealization of adjacent sounds in many dialects. As a result, it may difficult or impossible to determine whether a given coronal consonant is phonemically emphatic or not, especially in dialects with long-distance emphasis spreading. (A notable exception is the sounds /t/ vs. /tˤ/ in Moroccan Arabic, because the former is pronounced as an affricate [t͡s] but the latter is not.) Grammar Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works. Main article: Arabic grammar Literary Arabic Main article: Modern Standard Arabic As in other Semitic languages, Arabic has a complex and unusual morphology (i.e. method of constructing words from a basic root). Arabic has a nonconcatenative "root-and-pattern" morphology: A root consists of a set of bare consonants (usually three), which are fitted into a discontinuous pattern to form words. For example, the word for 'I wrote' is constructed by combining the root k-t-b 'write' with the pattern -a-a-tu 'I Xed' to form katabtu 'I wrote'. Other verbs meaning 'I Xed' will typically have the same pattern but with different consonants, e.g. qaraʼtu 'I read', akaltu 'I ate', dhahabtu 'I went', although other patterns are possible (e.g. sharibtu 'I drank', qultu 'I said', takallamtu 'I spoke', where the subpattern used to signal the past tense may change but the suffix -tu is always used). From a single root k-t-b, numerous words can be formed by applying different patterns: katabtu 'I wrote' kattabtu 'I had (something) written' kātabtu 'I corresponded (with someone)'" aktabtu 'I dictated' iktatabtu 'I subscribed' takātabnā 'we corresponded with each other' aktubu 'I write' ukattibu 'I have (something) written' ukātibu 'I correspond (with someone)' uktibu 'I dictate' aktatibu 'I subscribe' natakātabu 'we correspond each other' kutiba 'it was written' uktiba 'it was dictated'" maktūb 'written' muktab 'dictated' kitāb 'book' kutub 'books' kātib 'writer' kuttāb 'writers' maktab 'desk, office' maktabah 'library, bookshop' etc. Nouns and adjectives Nouns in Literary Arabic have three grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive [also used when the noun is governed by a preposition]); three numbers (singular, dual and plural); two genders (masculine and feminine); and three "states" (indefinite, definite, and construct). The cases of singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) are indicated by suffixed short vowels (/-u/ for nominative, /-a/ for accusative, /-i/ for genitive). The feminine singular is often marked by /-at/, which is reduced to /-ah/ or /-a/ before a pause. Plural is indicated either through endings (the sound plural) or internal modification (the broken plural). Definite nouns include all proper nouns, all nouns in "construct state" and all nouns which are prefixed by the definite article /al-/. Indefinite singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) add a final /-n/ to the case-marking vowels, giving /-un/, /-an/ or /-in/ (which is also referred to as nunation or tanwīn). Adjectives in Literary Arabic are marked for case, number, gender and state, as for nouns. However, the plural of all non-human nouns is always combined with a singular feminine adjective, which takes the /-ah/ or /-at/ suffix. Pronouns in Literary Arabic are marked for person, number and gender. There are two varieties, independent pronouns and enclitics. Enclitic pronouns are attached to the end of a verb, noun or preposition and indicate verbal and prepositional objects or possession of nouns. The first-person singular pronoun has a different enclitic form used for verbs (/-ni/) and for nouns or prepositions (/-ī/ after consonants, /-ya/ after vowels). Nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives agree with each other in all respects. However, non-human plural nouns are grammatically considered to be feminine singular. Furthermore, a verb in a verb-initial sentence is marked as singular regardless of its semantic number when the subject of the verb is explicitly mentioned as a noun. Numerals between three and ten show "chiasmic" agreement, in that grammatically masculine numerals have feminine marking and vice versa. Verbs Verbs in Literary Arabic are marked for person (first, second, or third), gender, and number. They are conjugated in two major paradigms (past and non-past); two voices (active and passive); and six moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, jussive, shorter energetic and longer energetic), the fifth and sixth moods, the energetics, exist only in Classical Arabic but not in MSA.[62] There are also two participles (active and passive) and a verbal noun, but no infinitive. The past and non-past paradigms are sometimes also termed perfective and imperfective, indicating the fact that they actually represent a combination of tense and aspect. The moods other than the indicative occur only in the non-past, and the future tense is signaled by prefixing sa- or sawfa onto the non-past. The past and non-past differ in the form of the stem (e.g., past katab- vs. non-past -ktub-), and also use completely different sets of affixes for indicating person, number and gender: In the past, the person, number and gender are fused into a single suffixal morpheme, while in the non-past, a combination of prefixes (primarily encoding person) and suffixes (primarily encoding gender and number) are used. The passive voice uses the same person/number/gender affixes but changes the vowels of the stem. The following shows a paradigm of a regular Arabic verb, kataba 'to write'. Note that in Modern Standard Arabic, many final short vowels are dropped (indicated in parentheses below), and the energetic mood (in either long or short form, which have the same meaning) is almost never used. Derivation Unlike most languages, Arabic has virtually no means of deriving words by adding prefixes or suffixes to words. Instead, they are formed according to a finite (but fairly large) number of templates applied to roots. For verbs, a given root can construct up to fifteen different verbs, each with one or more characteristic meanings and each with its own templates for the past and non-past stems, active and passive participles, and verbal noun. These are referred to by Western scholars as "Form I", "Form II", and so on through "Form XV" (although Forms XI to XV are rare). These forms encode concepts such as the causative, intensive and reflexive. These forms can be viewed as analogous to verb conjugations in languages such as Spanish in terms of the additional complexity of verb formation that they induce. (Note, however, that their usage in constructing vocabulary is somewhat different, since the same root can be conjugated in multiple forms, with different shades of meaning.) Examples of the different verbs formed from the root k-t-b 'write' (using ḥ-m-r 'red' for Form IX, which is limited to colors and physical defects): Most of these forms are exclusively Classical Arabic Form Past Meaning Non-past Meaning I kataba 'he wrote' yaktubu 'he writes' II kattaba 'he made (someone) write' yukattibu "he makes (someone) write" III kātaba 'he corresponded with, wrote to (someone)' yukātibu 'he corresponds with, writes to (someone)' IV ʾaktaba 'he dictated' yuktibu 'he dictates' V takattaba 'nonexistent' yatakattabu 'nonexistent' VI takātaba 'he corresponded (with someone, esp. mutually)' yatakātabu 'he corresponds (with someone, esp. mutually)' VII inkataba 'he subscribed' yankatibu 'he subscribes' VIII iktataba 'he copied' yaktatibu 'he copies' IX iḥmarra 'he turned red' yaḥmarru 'he turns red' X istaktaba 'he asked (someone) to write' yastaktibu 'he asks (someone) to write' Form II is sometimes used to create transitive denominative verbs (verbs built from nouns); Form V is the equivalent used for intransitive denominatives. The associated participles and verbal nouns of a verb are the primary means of forming new lexical nouns in Arabic. This is similar to the process by which, for example, the English gerund "meeting" (similar to a verbal noun) has turned into a noun referring to a particular type of social, often work-related event where people gather together to have a "discussion" (another lexicalized verbal noun). Another fairly common means of forming nouns is through one of a limited number of patterns that can be applied directly to roots, such as the "nouns of location" in ma- (e.g. maktab 'desk, office' < k-t-b 'write', maṭbakh 'kitchen' < ṭ-b-kh 'cook'). The only three genuine suffixes are as follows: The feminine suffix -ah; variously derives terms from women from related terms for men, or more generally terms along the same lines as the corresponding masculine, e.g. maktabah 'library' (also a writing-related place, but different from maktab, as above). The nisbah suffix -iyy-. This suffix is extremely productive, and forms adjectives meaning "related to X". It corresponds to English adjectives in -ic, -al, -an, -y, -ist, etc. The feminine nisbah suffix -iyyah. This is formed by adding the feminine suffix -ah onto nisba adjectives to form abstract nouns. For example, from the basic root sh-r-k 'share' can be derived the Form VIII verb ishtaraka 'to cooperate, participate', and in turn its verbal noun ishtirāk 'cooperation, participation' can be formed. This in turn can be made into a nisbah adjective ishtirākī 'socialist', from which an abstract noun ishtirākiyyah 'socialism' can be derived. Other recent formations are jumhūriyyah 'republic' (lit. "public-ness", < jumhūr 'multitude, general public'), and the Gaddafi-specific variation jamāhīriyyah 'people's republic' (lit. "masses-ness", < jamāhīr 'the masses', pl. of jumhūr, as above). Colloquial varieties Main article: Varieties of Arabic The spoken dialects have lost the case distinctions and make only limited use of the dual (it occurs only on nouns and its use is no longer required in all circumstances). They have lost the mood distinctions other than imperative, but many have since gained new moods through the use of prefixes (most often /bi-/ for indicative vs. unmarked subjunctive). They have also mostly lost the indefinite "nunation" and the internal passive. The following is an example of a regular verb paradigm in Egyptian Arabic. Example of a regular Form I verb in Egyptian Arabic, kátab/yíktib "write" Tense/Mood Past Present Subjunctive Present Indicative Future Imperative Singular 1st katáb-t á-ktib bá-ktib ḥá-ktib 2nd masculine katáb-t tí-ktib bi-tí-ktib ḥa-tí-ktib í-ktib feminine katáb-ti ti-ktíb-i bi-ti-ktíb-i ḥa-ti-ktíb-i i-ktíb-i 3rd masculine kátab yí-ktib bi-yí-ktib ḥa-yí-ktib feminine kátab-it tí-ktib bi-tí-ktib ḥa-tí-ktib Plural 1st katáb-na ní-ktib bi-ní-ktib ḥá-ní-ktib 2nd katáb-tu ti-ktíb-u bi-ti-ktíb-u ḥa-ti-ktíb-u i-ktíb-u 3rd kátab-u yi-ktíb-u bi-yi-ktíb-u ḥa-yi-ktíb-u Writing system Main articles: Arabic alphabet and Arabic Braille Islamic calligraphy written by a Malay Muslim in Malaysia. The calligrapher is making a rough draft. The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic through Nabatean, to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic scripts to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (North African) and Middle Eastern versions of the alphabet—in particular, the faʼ had a dot underneath and qaf a single dot above in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals). However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like all other Semitic languages (except for the Latin-written Maltese, and the languages with the Ge'ez script), is written from right to left. There are several styles of script, notably naskh, which is used in print and by computers, and ruqʻah, which is commonly used in handwriting.[63] Calligraphy Main article: Islamic calligraphy After Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi finally fixed the Arabic script around 786, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Quran and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration. Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as calligraphy has in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin script, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Quran, a hadith, or simply a proverb. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. One of the current masters of the genre is Hassan Massoudy. Romanization Main article: Romanization of Arabic Examples of different transliteration/transcription schemes Letter IPA UNGEGN ALA-LC Wehr DIN ISO SAS -2 BATR ArabTeX chat ء ʔ ʼ ʾ ˈ, ˌ ʾ ' e ' 2 ا aː ā ʾ ā aa aa / A a a/e/é ي j, iː y y; ī y; e y; ii y y; i/ee; ei/ai ث θ th ṯ ç ṯ c _t s/th ج d͡ʒ~ɡ~ʒ j ǧ ŷ j j ^g j/g/dj ح ħ ḩ ḥ H .h 7 خ x kh ḵ ḫ ẖ j x K _h kh/7'/5 ذ ð dh ḏ đ z' _d z/dh/th ش ʃ sh š x ^s sh/ch ص sˤ ş ṣ S .s s/9 ض dˤ ḑ ḍ D .d d/9' ط tˤ ţ ṭ T .t t/6 ظ ðˤ~zˤ z̧ ẓ đ̣ Z .z z/dh/6' ع ʕ ʻ ʿ ř E ' 3 غ ɣ gh ḡ ġ g j g .g gh/3'/8 There are a number of different standards for the romanization of Arabic, i.e. methods of accurately and efficiently representing Arabic with the Latin script. There are various conflicting motivations involved, which leads to multiple systems. Some are interested in transliteration, i.e. representing the spelling of Arabic, while others focus on transcription, i.e. representing the pronunciation of Arabic. (They differ in that, for example, the same letter ي is used to represent both a consonant, as in "you" or "yet", and a vowel, as in "me" or "eat".) Some systems, e.g. for scholarly use, are intended to accurately and unambiguously represent the phonemes of Arabic, generally making the phonetics more explicit than the original word in the Arabic script. These systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks such as "š" for the sound equivalently written sh in English. Other systems (e.g. the Bahá'í orthography) are intended to help readers who are neither Arabic speakers nor linguists with intuitive pronunciation of Arabic names and phrases.[64] These less "scientific" tend to avoid diacritics and use digraphs (like sh and kh). These are usually simpler to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems, and may lead to ambiguities, e.g. whether to interpret sh as a single sound, as in gash, or a combination of two sounds, as in gashouse. The ALA-LC romanization solves this problem by separating the two sounds with a prime symbol ( ′ ); e.g., as′hal 'easier'. During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin script only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic script as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script, sometimes known as IM Arabic. To handle those Arabic letters that cannot be accurately represented using the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" may be used to represent the Arabic letter ⟨ع⟩. There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet. Other systems of transliteration exist, such as using dots or capitalization to represent the "emphatic" counterparts of certain consonants. For instance, using capitalization, the letter ⟨د⟩, may be represented by d. Its emphatic counterpart, ⟨ض⟩, may be written as D. Numerals In most of present-day North Africa, the Western Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) are used. However, in Egypt and Arabic-speaking countries to the east of it, the Eastern Arabic numerals (٠ – ١ – ٢ – ٣ – ٤ – ٥ – ٦ – ٧ – ٨ – ٩) are in use. When representing a number in Arabic, the lowest-valued position is placed on the right, so the order of positions is the same as in left-to-right scripts. Sequences of digits such as telephone numbers are read from left to right, but numbers are spoken in the traditional Arabic fashion, with units and tens reversed from the modern English usage. For example, 24 is said "four and twenty" just like in the German language (vierundzwanzig) and Classical Hebrew, and 1975 is said "a thousand and nine-hundred and five and seventy" or, more eloquently, "five and seventy and nine-hundred and a thousand." Language-standards regulators Academy of the Arabic Language is the name of a number of language-regulation bodies formed in the Arab League. The most active are in Damascus and Cairo. They review language development, monitor new words and approve inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. See also: Arabic Language International Council As a foreign language Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around the world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages, Middle Eastern studies, and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study the language. Software and books with tapes are also important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations.[citation needed] A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries.[65] Arabic speakers and other languages [icon] This section requires expansion. (May 2013) In Bahrain, Arabic is largely used in educational settings. Historically, Arab linguists considered the Arabic language to be superior to all other languages, and took almost no interest in learning any language other than Arabic. With the sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati - who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab - scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior.[66] In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of the Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ...feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises."[67] Arab-American professor Franck Salamah went as far as to declare Arabic a dead language conveying dead ideas, blaming its stagnation for Arab intellectual stagnation and lamenting that great writers in Arabic are judged by their command of the language and not the merit of the ideas they express with it.[68] |
About us|Jobs|Help|Disclaimer|Advertising services|Contact us|Sign in|Website map|Search|
GMT+8, 2015-9-11 20:14 , Processed in 0.153390 second(s), 16 queries .
