Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Babel : arabic
Babel : arabic
Arabic is one of the world’s largest languages, as well as an important language to religion and literature. Arabic is the writing language of more than 200 million people, but spoken Arabic varies more than it does for most other languages.
Arabic is difficult to learn, and later to remember. Arabic writing is easily learned, and Arabic grammar is simpler and more logical than many Western languages.
The great challenge with Arabic is the wealth of words. The use of verbs and nouns in Arabic has reached a level of accuracy which few Western languages can match (this author knows Eastern languages to little, to say anything about differences here).
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, but in some Arab countries, additional letters have been introduced.
Two verbs are normally ommitted from Arabic, to be and to have.
Instead of saying “My name is Erik”, you say “Name mine Erik” — 'ismî 'îrîk
The same applies for qualities: Instead of saying “She is a teacher”, you say “She teacher” — hiyya mudarrisa, “he tourist” — huwa sâ'ih
As for the verb “to have”, which can also equal “to own”: Instead of saying “He has a car”, you say “To him a car” — lahu sayyâra, “to her a book” — lahâ kitâb, “to me a house” — lî bayt
There are only two genders to Arabic, masculine and feminine. You take the masculine form, and add the ending “-a” to it. Then it is a feminine noun.
The little secret to understand writing Arabic, is thinking of it as handwriting. Their shapes will change in order to adjust to the writing of other letters, so that it becomes possible to write without lifting the pen up from the paper. 22 of the 28 Arabic letters have 4 variants: Standing alone; As the first letter in a word; Inside the word, between two other letters; As the last letter in a word, joining to the letter in front.
¶ 4:46 PM 
Arabic is one of the world’s largest languages, as well as an important language to religion and literature. Arabic is the writing language of more than 200 million people, but spoken Arabic varies more than it does for most other languages.
Arabic is difficult to learn, and later to remember. Arabic writing is easily learned, and Arabic grammar is simpler and more logical than many Western languages.
The great challenge with Arabic is the wealth of words. The use of verbs and nouns in Arabic has reached a level of accuracy which few Western languages can match (this author knows Eastern languages to little, to say anything about differences here).
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, but in some Arab countries, additional letters have been introduced.
Two verbs are normally ommitted from Arabic, to be and to have.
Instead of saying “My name is Erik”, you say “Name mine Erik” — 'ismî 'îrîk
The same applies for qualities: Instead of saying “She is a teacher”, you say “She teacher” — hiyya mudarrisa, “he tourist” — huwa sâ'ih
As for the verb “to have”, which can also equal “to own”: Instead of saying “He has a car”, you say “To him a car” — lahu sayyâra, “to her a book” — lahâ kitâb, “to me a house” — lî bayt
There are only two genders to Arabic, masculine and feminine. You take the masculine form, and add the ending “-a” to it. Then it is a feminine noun.
The little secret to understand writing Arabic, is thinking of it as handwriting. Their shapes will change in order to adjust to the writing of other letters, so that it becomes possible to write without lifting the pen up from the paper. 22 of the 28 Arabic letters have 4 variants: Standing alone; As the first letter in a word; Inside the word, between two other letters; As the last letter in a word, joining to the letter in front.
¶ 4:46 PM
