Contents

The following Help Topics are available:

Overview of Arabic

Nouns

Gender and Agreement

Number and Agreement

Pronouns

Articles

Adjectives

Adverbs

Verb Conjugations

Prepositions

Conjunctions

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Overview of
 Overview of Arabic

Arabic is spoken in more than 20 countries, from Morocco to Egypt to Saudi Arabia, by over 180 million people. It is the language of Islam, one of the worlds major religions, and has a literary tradition that dates back more than 12 centuries.  Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages, and, like Hebrew, is written from right to left.

Although Classical Arabic is used primarily in writing throughout the Arab world, the spoken forms of Arabic vary widely, and each Arab country has its own dialect.  Some form of Classical Arabic, sometimes referred to as Modern Standard Arabic, is used to communicate between people from different countries.  Of all the spoken dialects, Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood, due to Egypts role as producer of movies and TV programs in the Arab world.


Alphabet
 Alphabet and Pronunciation

Written Arabic consists of consonants and long vowels, with short vowels often left out of the written language.  In this program, Arabic is transliterated, that is, written with letters from the Roman alphabet. The following chart shows the symbols used for transliteration, and an example of the pronunciation for each.  The examples given below are meant as an approximate guide to pronunciation; since many of the sounds of English and Arabic are so different, the audio component of this program should be used to get a more precise feel for the pronunciation of Arabic.

Alphabet:

Letter name:	Transliteration:	Approximate pronunciation:

alif	aa	as in mad

baa	b	as in boy

taa	t	as in tip

thaa	th	as in three

jiim	j	as in jump

Haa	H	as in hi, but heavily aspirated, with friction at back of throat

khaa	kh	as in the German ich, with friction at back of tongue

daal	d 	as in dog

dhaal	dh 	as in this

raa	r 	as in the Spanish pero, or butter said rapidly with a tapped t

zaay	z 	as in zoo

siin	s 	as in same

shiin	sh 	as in ship

Saad	S 	as in sock, but darker

Daad	D 	as in dog, but darker

Taa	T 	as in talk, but darker

DHaa	DH 	as in this, but darker

äayn	ä  	guttural sound, made by constricting air in the throat

ghayn	gh 	as in the French rivier, like a gargle

faa	f 	as in fame

qaaf	q 	as in cough, but darker and unaspirated

kaaf	k 	as in came

laam	l 	as in line

miim	m 	as in made

nuun	n 	as in no

haa	h 	as in hi

waaw	w 	as in win

yaa	y 	as in yes

Additional signs:

fatha	a 	as in mat

damma	u 	as in put

kasra	i   	as in fin

hamza	 	glottal stop; as in eaten (eaen) when said quickly without t

Transliterated diphthongs (vowel combinations):

aw 	as in house

ay 	as in cry


Nouns

A noun is a word that names a person, place, or thing.

hasan (Hassan)

aswaan (Aswan)

Sabah (morning)

See Also:

Gender and Agreement

Number and Agreement

Articles


Gender and Agreement

The GENDER of an Arabic noun is either masculine or feminine.  Generally speaking, feminine nouns end in a, and other nouns are masculine.

Examples:

Feminine:	muqabala 	(meeting)

Masculine:	funduq	(hotel)

See also:

Adjectives

Articles

Pronouns


Number
Number and Agreement

There are three numbers in Arabic: singular, dual and plural.

The dual refers to two items.  It is formed by adding ayn or -aan to the singular regardless of gender:

awad shiraa tadhkaratayn ila aswaan.  (I would like to buy two tickets for Aswan.)

The plural is often formed by adding iin, -aat, or another ending:

tahiyaat (greetings)

See Also

Nouns

Pronouns

Adjectives

Articles

Verb Conjugations


Pronouns

In English, the only personal pronouns that differ in gender are he and she.  Arabic not only has this distinction, but also differentiates between gender in the pronouns you and they.

You (f):	anti	You plural (f):	antuuna	They (f):	huuna

You (m):	anta	You plural (m):	antuum	They (m):	huum

The dual pronouns are the same for both genders:

You (dual):	antuumaa	They (dual):	huumaa

The remaining personal pronouns correspond to their English counterparts:

I:	anaa	He:	huuwa	She:	hiiya

We:	nahnu

The demonstrative pronouns differentiate between gender:

This (m):	hadha	That (m):	dhalik

This (f):	hadhihi	That (f):	tilka

Possessive Pronouns in Arabic take the form of suffixes attached to the end of the words they modify.   The following chart outlines the possessive pronouns of Arabic:

	Suffix	Example	Meaning
my	-ii	ismii	my name
your (f)	-ki	ismuki	your name
your (m)	-ka	ismuka	your name
your (dual)	-kum	ismukum	your name
your (f) (pl)	-kuna	ismukuna	your name
your (m) (pl)	-kum	ismukum	your name
his	-hu	ismuhu	his name
her	-haa	ismuhaa	her name
our	-naa	ismunaa	our name
their (f)	-huna	ismuhuna	their name
their (m)	-hum	ismuhum	their name


Articles

There is only one DEFINITE ARTICLE in Arabic.  It is al-, and is attached to the beginning of the word it modifies.  When the definite article precedes a consonant that is emphatic or doubled, the l is not pronounced.  It can be used with both masculine and feminine nouns, singular and plural nouns, and countable and non-countable nouns.  Two of the main categories in which the definite article is used are:

1.	General class of persons or things.

ana atahadath faqat qaliil min aläarabiya. (I only speak a little Arabic.)

2.	Abstractions

 aSSabr jamiil.  (Patience is beautiful.)

arjuu almaädhira (I ask forgiveness.)

See Also:

Nouns

Gender and Agreement

Number and Agreement


Adjectives

The adjective in Arabic follows the noun it qualifies, and must agree in gender and article.  For example:

Masculine (with definite article): aTTaqs aljamiil (the beautiful weather)

Feminine (with definite article): alzahra aljamiila (the beautiful flower)

Masculine (without article): Taqs jamiil (beautiful weather)

Feminine (without article): zahra jamiila (beautiful flower)

Derived adjectives comprise the second category of adjectives.  They are formed by adding the suffix ii to a noun.  When the original noun (from which the adjectival form is derived) is feminine, the feminine ending is usually omitted.

From the masculine noun malik (king) comes the adjective malikii (royal).

From the feminine noun siyaasa (politics) comes the adjective siyaasii (political).

See Also:

Gender and Agreement

Number and Agreement

Articles


Adverbs

Arabic has very few true adverbs, and they are invariable in form.  They include hunaa (here), alaan (now), faqaT (only), and aams (yesterday).

Adverbial function is usually derived from a form of a noun (such as with adjectives).  The following adverbs are actually nouns in the accusative indefinite form, and thus function as adverbs:

aaHiiaanan (sometimes) 	from the noun Hiin (time)

mathalan  (for example) 	from the noun mathal (example)

 jiddan  (very) 	from the noun jidd (earnestness)

The following adverbs are derived from adjectives:

aawwalan (firstly) 	from the adjective aawwal  (first)

qariiban  (soon) 	from the adjective qariib (nearby)

Hadiithan (recently)	from the adjective Hadiith (new)

See Also:

Adjectives


Verb Conjugations:  Tense and Mood
Verb Conjugations

Every Arabic verb (and noun) is theoretically derived from a root consisting of three consonants.  (There are roots that have only two consonants, but one of the consonants is considered doubled.  There are also roots that have four consonants (quadriliteral), but these are relatively rare.)  Most Arabic dictionaries list ALL words under these roots.

From these roots can be derived a number of TYPES of verbs.  Although similarities emerge between verbs of the same type, one must usually learn each type individually since there is no prescribed correlation between type and shades of meaning.

In order to create the simple present tense, a series of prefixes and suffixes is added to the root.  The following table demonstrates how to conjugate the root kataba (to write):

Meaning	Prefix	Suffix	Arabic
I write	aa-	-u	aaktubu
You (f) write	ta-	-iina	taktubiina
You (m) write	ta-	-u	taktubu
He writes	ya-	-u	yaktubu
She writes	ta-	-u	taktubu
We write	na-	-u	naktubu
You two write	ta-	-aani	taktubaani
They (two) write (f)	ta-	-aani	taktubaani
They (two) write (m)	ya-	-aani	yaktubani
You (plural) (f) write	ta-	-ubna	taktubna
You (plural) (m) write	ta-	-uuna	taktubuuna
They (f) write	ya-	-ubna	yaktubna
They (m) write	ya-	-uuna	yaktubuuna

To form the simple past tense, no prefixes are needed.  The conjugation from the same root:

Meaning	Suffix	Arabic
I wrote	-tu	katabtu
You (f) wrote	-ti	katabti
You (m) wrote	-ta	katabta
He wrote		kataba
She wrote	-at	katabat
We wrote	-naa	katabnaa
You two wrote	-umaa	katabumaa
They (two) wrote (f)	-ata	katabata
They (two) wrote (m)	-aa	katabaa
You (plural) (f) wrote	-tuna	katabtuna
You (plural) (m) wrote	-tuum	katabtuum
They (f) wrote	-na	katabna
They (m) wrote	-uu	katabuu


Prepositions

A PREPOSITION, along with its object, forms a prepositional phrase.  Each preposition serves a specific purpose:

from, than	min
to, towards	ilaa
from, about	an
on, upon	alaa
in	fii
perhaps	rubb
by, in with	bi-
for, to	li-
like	ka-
since	munDHu
I am from America.	ana min amriikaa.
She is in the hotel.	hiiya fii al-funduq.
I am going to the bank.	adhahaab ilaa albank.


Conjunctions

The two major conjunctions in Arabic are wa (and) and fa (for).  They link two words, phrases, or sentences so that each has equal syntactical status.  The conjunction wa is sometimes used in a purely structural sense, for instance, when it is used to begin new paragraphs in a text; in this case it should not be translated as and.  It should be omitted.

waahida waäashara

(twenty-one  literally, one and twenty)

anta muäaTib faanta taämalu laylan wanahaaran.

(Youre tired, for you work day and night.)

The other seven conjunction particles:

Conjunction	Meaning
thumma	then
hataa	even, then
aaw	or
aam	or (in questions)
bel	but not
lakin	but
laa	not