Talk:Arabic

Heading

Isn't the English word "assassin" a common word derived from the arabic language?

well, from an arab group at least. Arre 22:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

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Interestingly, I get a wholly blank table when I watch this page. Is it me or is there something wrong with it? Muhamedmesic 21:37, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

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I read the second paragraph and couldn't find fault with it - it is clear and lucid. What is bothering you about it?

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Setting up a separate page for each sound of the Arabic language seems really excessive. All the necessary information can easily be kept on a single page. Eclecticology

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It's going to be a fairly major project to fill in all the concepts in Islam or the Arabic culture that don't translate directly into English (now all listed).

Spelling deserves a note: I have used a single coherent spelling scheme here that comes all from one book. Older spellings ulema and tarika (for ulama and tariqa using the new spellings) come from a book 20 years older. A native speaker of Arabic might be better to identify which spellings are more correct given the pronunciation. Rather than change them in this file, please use redirects for alternate spellings, as I am sure multiple spellings of some of these words are extant.

An important note: the term "Muslim" must replace "Moslem" or "Mohammedan" unless one is specifically quoting some text written by some English guy. I should probably have included "Mohammedan" as a 'just don't use it' word. I also could have (but didn't) mention that G. W. Bush made both gaffes in the speeches he made just after 9/11 - no wonder the Arabs won't join him now!!! What a moron.

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When can one see a wikipedia in arabic language [[ar:]] ??

Here ar:

In a very popular Arabic language newspaper, there was an article today about wikipedia. The author of that article praised the extensive amount of information on this encyclopedia, but ended it by saying that its not available in Arabic. I think that this common mistake, among Arabic speaking people, can be fixed if there was a direct link from the encyclopedias homepage of www.wikipedia.org to the arabic version of ar.wikipedia.org . It might, also, help develop the number of Arabic articles, I've noticed that the Arabic articles are nowhere near as many, nor as detailed as the English version.

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I think "Arabic is a Semitic language, closely related to the Hebrew language. " can be abit misleading. While I concider both very beautiful languages, I think it rings abit like: "French is an indo-european language, closely related to Russian. ".
Arabic and Hebrew has very different grammer, and very different phonology, for example, the one has noun case conjugations, while the later does not, tenses differ, etc

In fact, it's more like saying, "French is indo-european, closely related to spanish" -- while this is not particularly relevant, it's certainly correct. In fact (according to the classification of SIL, which is fairly standard, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=3 ), Arabic and Hebrew are both southern central semitic languages. "Central" semitic contrasts with Southern (Ethiopian, 'South Arabic' (which is *not* Arabic, viz. 'Arabic' is here a geographic, not a linguistic specifier) and with (extinct) Akkadian. Dbachmann 11:25, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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"Due to the great rift between the Colloquial and the Literary Arabic, Salman Masalha, former professor of Arab Literature Department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, states regarding illiteracy in the Arab world: "I say that it is over 80%. Practically speaking, even those defined as not illiterate because they completed eight years of schooling, I consider illiterate. In this century, anyone who finishes elementary school can't really read." [1]" Given that, as an Israeli citizen, there are very few Arab countries he can even visit legally, this statement lacks credibility. Nor is it supported by the CIA world factbook literacy figures, and it contradicts the evidence of my own eyes - comprehension of literary Arabic has massively increased in recent decades due to TV (including dubbed cartoons), and even small children can generally understand the standard language quite well by the age of 11, if not much earlier. I have removed it. - Mustafa, April 5 2004.

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"Their mutual comprehensibility is very limited. The reason behind the vast differences in spoken languages or dialects of the groups mentioned herewith is that they are mixes of many languages. Ancient languages spoken by non-Arab population of these countries continue to survive in the dialects/languages of everyday life and the roots of the older languages of the Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Assyrian, Coptic...etc. are still evident. [1]" As anyone following Lebanese politics will be aware, the question of the origin of the dialects is highly political in Lebanon, where the guy quoted is based; and, while phoenicia.org contains some good historical info, it is no authority on linguistics. This should be replaced with a better quote. Oh, and "mixes of many languages" is not even controversial among linguists; it's false. Many Arabic dialects are full of words taken from other languages, but "mixed language" implies considerably more than that in linguistics; the only universally agreed-upon mixed language seems to be Michif. Mustafaa 03:41, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Transliteration/Grammar/Alphabet

Shouldn't the masses of Arabic alphabet and writing info be left to the Arabic alphabet page? - Mustafaa 18:05, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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what about the arabic grammar stub? should we kill it? or should we move the 'grammar' section over there?

also, we need a transliteration scheme. over at Ibn Fadlan, I used standard transliteration, using the Latin Extended Additional (1e00) codepage (underdots). This page (or the grammar page) needs to explain the sounds and how they are transliterated.

I suggest we list the sounds in a nice table, putting arab letters, standard transliteration and ascii schemes and whatnot next to each other, so that people can be referred here if there is a transliteration issue anywhere.

alright, I realize such a table (using 1e00-transliteration) is at Arabic alphabet (other transliteration schemes, such as Buckwalter ascii, should be added and discussed). Maybe this page needs to turn into a clean collection of links, to grammar, alphabet, dialects, literature etc.?

- --Dbachmann 11:33, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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What's that? ?al luGat ul?\arabi:yat ulfus'X\a: ? Is that right or a problem in my computer? Manuel Anastácio 14:04, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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However accurate it may be to put things in X-SAMPA, I'm sure there's a nicer way to romanise Arabic. I don't have a problem with including X-SAMPA values as well, of course.

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right, I will replace this with transliteration consistent with the one given in Arabic alphabet (codepages 1e00 and 200; `ayin is 02BF, ghayin is g-overdot ) Dbachmann 11:03, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Is there an article dealing with the details of the grammar of Modern Standard Arabic?

Arabic Word for...

It's my understanding that "Ard" is the Arabic word for "Earth". Any idea as to how it would be modified to become either masculine or feminine?

ard, plural aradin (arḍ, arāḍin) is feminine gender. what do you mean, modify? and how does this relate to this article?

• It doesn't need to be related to this artice as long as it isn't any longer discussion. Keaze

Dialects - Maghrebi vs Middle Eastern

This sentence:

in particular, while Maghrebis can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding Middle Easterners (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern - particularly Egyptian - films and other media.)

seems contradictory. The popularity of Middle Eastern films would make Middle Easterners easier to understand. Surely the statement should be that Middle Easterners have trouble understanding Maghrebis? - And in fact Varieties of Arabic has this:

in particular, while Middle Easterners can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding North Africans (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern films and other media.)

Which is correct?

--joe 15:30, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that! I was trying to restore an incorrect edit, and somehow forgot to re-reverse "Middle Eastern" and "North African". - Mustafaa 18:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Translation doubts

I read in the article: "however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fiih, and North African kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but now sound very different." I have some doubts about the meaning of this: 1. What do you mean about "retention" = change of meaning - is that true? 2. If retention is the change of meaning of a classical form, what were the original meaning of three words in the example? If it is the same ("there is") where are the change of meaning?

Excuse me if my english is not very good... Manuel Anastácio 01:17, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

arabs don't distinguish between classical and modern standard?

It say in the piece

"The term Modern Standard Arabic is sometimes used in the West to refer to the language of the media as opposed to the language of "Classical" Arabic literature; Arabs make no such distinction, and regard the two as identical."

Is that true I always thought Arabs considered them distinct? ---

We call them both fus'ha, as oppose to the spoken language, which is darija or aammiyya. - Mustafaa 21:46, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Unless things changed drastically since I've been in the Arab world, I did not know that "we" called them both fus'ha, but rather that al-Lughatu al-Arabiyyatu ul-Fus'ha is the Arabic language as it was literally used in the "classical age," specifically by the people of the Hijaz and Mecca, and especially as it appears, in vocabulary and gramar, in the Quran. To my knowledge, the Modern Standard Arabic is called al-Arabiyyatu al-Mubassatah, that is Simplified Arabic. Did things change to the extent that the Arabs now call both Fus'ha? A.Khalil 09:58, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone use the term al-Arabiyyatu al-Mubassatah; very probably this is a regional difference, but in Algeria I've only ever heard people talk about fusha and darja. - 64.81.54.23 01:37, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mubassatah sounds Levantine to me, agree in the Maghreb it's fusha (or lugha fasiha) versus deridja. (Collounsbury 22:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

fwiiw, English distinguishes 'Quranic', 'Classical' and 'Standard' Arabic. And they are quite different, of course. Read the Quran. Read a newspaper. About as different as Shakespeare and the NYT. I realize that's not the issue here, though. 'Mubassatah' seems practically unknown to google. dab (ᛏ) 08:56, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

English

I have just heard an english friend try to say I was artistic in the the turkey market only in winter in Arabic --PHussein 19:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kuntu fanii fii diik es-suq esh-shita'an faqaT? — Yom 21:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Link suggestions

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Arabic_language article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.
Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add {{User:LinkBot/suggestions/Arabic_language}} to this page. — LinkBot 10:26, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Numerals

The following sentence was removed from the article by User:A.Khalil:

— though they originated in India ... (context: Arabic numerals in English)

Did they not originate in India? — mark ✎ 12:40, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

they did, in fact, originate in India. Even the zero. dab (ᛏ) 15:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's what I thought (I was too lazy to check) — mark ✎ 16:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Arabic numerals used in the West and thoughout the modern world are not the Hindi derived numerals but are actually an Arab invention based on the concept of numbers which the Arabs acquired from Indian texts. Having said that, there are Arab numerals which are derived from Hindi and they are the ones used in Arab countries east of Libya, and the Arabs do actually refer to them as Hindi numerals. However, no one in the West will be even familiar with these.

sure, that's what we mean. The Arabs took them from the Indians, the European took them from the Arabs. (plus, their shapes changed somewhat, in the process). This is why we call them arabic numerals, while they are really (originally) indian numerals. This is just what the article is alluding to. Of course it is slightly off-topic anyway, as it's not directly about the arabic language. dab (ᛏ) 19:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No. Sculpting was originally an Egyptian thing, but we cannot say that a French sculpture is Egyptian because the idea of sculpting is originally Egyptian. Similarly, the concept of using 9 digits only to represent various numbers is suppsedly Indian, and the Arabs became familiar with it when Ibn al-Muqaffa found it in Sanskrit texts when he traveled to study India on orders of the Caliph. The Arabs later developed the Hindi numerlas which are still used in the Arab east, and they refer to them as such. In the Arab west a new set of numbers were developed which have not much resemblence to the ones used in the Arab east, and are reportedly based on the number of angles used to form a numeral indicating the value of the number digit. These Arabic numerals were later adopted in the West and further stylized to give us the modern numerlas we all use today. The Zero is an Arab invention of the Abbassid era to give a visual clue to the "emtpy space" in the place value system. Before that, a number would only have empty spaces and the reader could not easily differentiate between 1, 10, 1000, or 21, 201, 2001 and so on, since the spaces depended on the specific hand writing style of the writer. A Zero, an "emtpy", was developed to fill in the gap. Again, in the Arab east this was in the form of a dot "." but in the Arab west the form of a zero was a circle since it has no angles.A.Khalil 19:59, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

It seems that you're knowledgeable on the topic, A.Khalil. The reason I posed the question was that your edit (like all your contributions up to now) lacked an edit summary. You might want to use that in the future — when evaluating changes, it helps a lot to see a motivation. — mark ✎ 11:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A Khalil, your account supra does not match what I have read on the issue. First, my understanding has always been the 'Maghrebine' numerals - which the West adopted as Arabic via Italo-Tunisian contacts - were the original form (themselves based off of an Indian form); the modern charqi numbers as used in the machreq were adopted seperately, again based off of but modifying Indian forms. Your account of the zero also seems off. While my understanding may be wrong, I'd like to know your sourcing, I presume Levantine. (Collounsbury 22:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

well, the Arabs still did not invent the zero. no, not even as a decimal place holder. The Indians invented it. Yes, it was a dot rather than a circle, that's what I mean by "the shapes shifted somewhat". dab (ᛏ) 20:10, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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latin transcription

I've seen Arabic transcribed into latin letters online, mostly in messageboards and filesnames. The transcription contains case sensitive latin letters as-well-numbers. Could someone please explain this transcription and it status, adding it to the article? A quoted example, quoted (I do apologise, for I do not understand what's written here,hopefully nothing volgar) "Ma fii far2 baynetna! Ne7na 3arab bi baYdna"

There is the Buckwalter Arabic transliteration scheme [2], but yours seems to use 3 rather than E for ayin. See also SATTS. dab (ᛏ) 10:27, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If I recall rightly, 3 = ayn, 5 = kha, 7 = H.a, 9 = qaf; the numbers are selected on the basis of their similarity to the Arabic letters. There are more, but I can't remember them offhand. This is basically used for chatrooms. - Mustafaa 00:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually I think 9 = sad, 6 = t.a, 2 = hamza (') I did see once 8 being used as qaf, although I can't say I'm sure... A * or ' is used to add to those numbers to get them to be the dotted variations of the letter eg 3* = 3' = ghain :) --Agari 10:02, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

The scheme most Egyptians would use is 2=Hamza, 7=Haa', q=qaf, 3=ayn, gh or 3.=ghayn, kh or 7.=Kha'. Ta', Sad, Dad, and Za' are reduced to t,s,d,z because that's how they are treated in Egyptian Arabic anyway.--Karkaron 01:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Arabic in IPA transcription

It's good to have the phonology table in IPA. My version (1999) of the IPA handbook uses ˁ to indicate pharyngealization: I wonder if the article should follow suit. I changed the transcription of the voiced pharyngeal fricative (`ayn) to ʕ from ʔ, which seems to make more sense. However, the handbook suggests that a pharyngealized glottal stop, ʔˁ, would be a better transcription of `ayn. This simply doesn't make sense to me (you should hear me trying to pronounce it in different ways!). Any thoughts? Gareth Hughes 23:28, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's very weird; it sounds wrong to me, but this seems controversial. I've also seen some publications use epiglottals. Maybe describe ths dispute in a footnote? - Mustafaa 23:38, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by this statement on p.53 of the 1999 IPA handbook:

/ʕ/ is a Retracted Tongue Root glottal stop. This realization is supported by Gairdner (1925), Al-Ani (1970) and Kästner (1981) as well as extensive observation of a range of speakers from different regional origins residing in Kuwait at present (1990). Nowhere have we observed a pharyngeal fricative.

It seems clear enough, but it still doesn't sound quite right to me. Gareth Hughes 14:39, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Molokhiya

I have just made a stub article about the vegetable molokhiya, giving the Arabic name as "ملوخية". I don't read any Arabic at all; I just copied and pasted this from a web page. If it's wrong, could you correct it for me?

Thanks, Pekinensis 16:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

looks ok. the transliteration would probably be mulūẖiyyah (correct me...). dab (ᛏ) 17:19, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

etymology of monsoon

I need some help with the arabien word for monsoon (season). There are different Versions between the Wikis and it would be nice to know the background of the following words:

• الموسم الذي تهب فيه الريح
• ‏ ريح موسمية
• رِيحٌ مَوْسِمِيَّة
• موسم

--Saperaud 17:11, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The key word is the same in all cases: موسم mawsim = season. Whether the phrase was "seasonal winds", "wind season", etc. is a moot point. - Mustafaa 02:18, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

MSA, CA, FuSHa

This page has (had?) a strong Arab POV in it. MSA and CA are *not* the same, and should *NOT* simply point to FuSHa. First of all, FuSHa is a word in a foreign language; we need to stick to standard terms. So I delinked the MSA and CA are created stubs that describe these languages and (in the case of MSA) give some info about the changes from CA.

Benwing 06:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Similarities to Aramaic and Hebrew

The first sentence is sort of ambiguous. I think it needs to be clarified to which language Arabic is more similar.Yuber^(talk) 01:38, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An Arabic name standards project

As many of you know, there is no one standard way of transliterating from Arabic to Roman letters. This can be quite a hassle on Wikipedia, but it's just the way it is. I'm trying to organize a wikiproject to discuss these sorts of questions, develop standards, and make it easier for people to find pages on Arab topics. If you're interested, sign up at Talk:Arabic name#An Arabic name project. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 15:40, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Robin William's shirt

Image:Robin_Williams.jpg Arabic? What does it say? ¦ Reisio 04:07, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

"I love New York" Fox1 04:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Am I sensing a bit of sarcasm in that picture ;)?Heraclius 22:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

planning on rearranging arabic language articles

the current situation is rather a mess. in particular, much of stuff just called "arabic" refers to classical arabic; that stuff doesn't distinguish modern-standard, koran, etc. the main "arabic language" article talks somewhat about all arabic varieties and somewhat about MSA. etc.

I propose:

• Generic "Arabic foo" articles should be applicable to *all* varieties, both formal and colloquial.
• Stuff relevant to all and only the formal varieties should go under "Formal Arabic ..."; stuff relevant to all and only the colloquial varieties should go under "Colloquial Arabic ..."; stuff relevant to some specific variety should go under an article of that name ("Koranic Arabic", etc.).
• I have chosen the names Formal and Colloquial purposely. Written vs. Spoken is not very accurate: MSA is spoken quite a lot, and some "spoken" dialects (e.g. Egyptian) are written. The distinction is properly of diglossia, and hence Formal vs. Colloquial is exactly correct. In a radio interview, for example, the speakers may start out in pure spoken MSA but gradually introduce more and more elements of colloquial speech as the level of formality drops. Literary is not any more correct than Written. Fusha is not good because (1) it's a foreign-language term; (2) it is closely associated with a political (i.e. non-linguistic) view that MSA, Koranic, etc. are all exactly the same, which isn't the case; (3) there is no similar term for Colloquial Arabic. ("Darija" is Moroccan-only, for example.)

I plan to start this in a few days, barring objections. In the process of doing this, I'll rewrite/expand stuff as needed.

Benwing 17:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

you may want to check out Talk:Greek language where they are facing similar problems, although in the case of Greek mostly diachronic. They came up with the very nice Template:History of the Greek language. dab (ᛏ) 17:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

"MSA" and "Qur'anic" Arabic are of course different in some ways; no one denies that. But that misses the point - which is that they are far more similar to one another than either is to any of the "dialects", and are considered by their users to be little more than different stylistic registers of the language they learn at school. The idea that these are the same language is not political, it's common sense, on a par with calling King James Bible English and 20th-century media English the same language. Colloquial Arabic, dialectal Arabic, Fusha, Classical Arabic, are all fine, being widely used terms - but Formal Arabic, as a label for Fusha, strikes me as something of a neologism, descriptively accurate but not appropriate as an article title (only 642 ghits.) Also, Darija is pan-Maghreb, not just Moroccan, while 'ammiyya covers the Mashreq. - Mustafaa 20:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Contra Mustafaa, it is typical for non-Arab scholars without a religious reason to group Quranic and MSA together, not to. The attitude that they are "little more than different stylistic registers" is something of an Muslim/Arab conceit and while it should be acknowledged, equally it is not the view adopted by most scholars of the language without a religious motivation for asserting their sameness. Registering the difference is appropriatley acknowleding a serious diff. in usage and form between modern and archaic (as ironically between the archaic language of KJV and modern English usage - obviously the degree is a bit of judgement). (Collounsbury 22:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

Arabic status in Israel

The infobox states that Arabic is an official language in Israel, but it doesn't tell that it's spoken in Israel, unless it is by small minorities. If this is the fact, why is it an official language? CG 12:32, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

The info box states that Arabic is spoken "by a majority" in Israel. It is not. Although an official language of the State, a "majority" of Israelis do not speak it. In total, probably no more than 30% of Israel speaks Arabic (constituting Israeli Arabs and some older Mizrahi Jews). I changed this inaccuracy, but it was removed within minutes as vandalism.

If you added Israel to the "Spoken in" field, I think you should remove the sentence by a majority, and in many other countries as a minority language.. Also, we should change the Region from Arab World to Middle east, or put the two together. CG 19:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I have read both comments written by CG above and I'm confused by them. It seems that CG wants to have his/her cake and eat it too. In the first comment CG seems to wonder why Arabic is an official language in Israel, if Israel was, apparently, not in the "sopken in" list. Then, cg seems to be offended by the notion that a language of "small minorities" should become an official language of that country. Then in the second comment CG want to delete the entire sentence regarding Arabic being a language of a minority in some countries. How very big of you cg. But wait, this seemingly progressive thougnt is followed by a call to imperialism. By which I mean CG's insistance that we change the lands of the Arabic language from the very appropiate "Arab World" to the euro-centric "Middle East". Well CG Arabic is an official language in Israel becuase the government of that country has deemed it so, if you are offended by that you should take it up with the them. I think its great that the 1.26 million Arab Israeli's have their native language as an official language.(see the CIA world fact book) Also, besides the Arab minorty (20%) some of the Jewish population does speak that language making the entire population of Arabic speakers close to 30%. As regarding your second comment of "Middle East" vs. "Arab World" its a no-brainer: the "Arab World" all the way. The "Middle East" was a term concoted by imperial Europe during its hay day to differentiate between the "far" and "near/middle" easts. What does it exactly include? Who the hell knows. Generally it the countries of the penisula and Iran (which does not include Arabic as an official language), sometimes Afghanistan and Pakistan have been thrown into the mix (and again niether of these two muslim countries have Arabic as an official language). The "Arab World" is a much viable option because it was coined by arabs (not europeans) and it includes, as its name suggests, all the countries where Arabic is perdominantly spoken. So the heading should definatly read "Arab World". If some of wikipedia'a readers are, again offended by this, then we can add "and other countries". After all there are arabs spread all over the globe thanks to the Palestinian Diaspora.

Please No personal attacks! I wasn't offended by any claim. I can't believe you've written a whole paragraph just to insult me and without even signing. My question about the official status of Arabic in Israel is just by curiosity. I should've ask it in the Reference desk. CG 21:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Arabic status in Malta

While the Maltese language is related to Arabic, no Maltese speaker would consider Arabic and Maltese to be the same. Arabic is taught as a foreign language in Maltese schools, and has zero official status within Malta. Consider also that Polish and Russian are far more closely related, yet are regarded as distinct languages. I have edited the infobox accordingly, and removed the reference to Malta. Rhialto 13:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are speaking of "classical Arabic". Maltese is an Arabic dialect (darja) quite like Tunisian Arabic, Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and so on. The only difference lies in a political-ideological approach: the latter countries consider themselves as a part of the Arabic world and stress this link by adopting an official language which nobody speaks as a mother-tongue, while Maltese aren't concerned by this question and plainly use their dialect as an official language, without wondering about its external ties. --Vermondo 12:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Pakistan

its amazing to see Pakistan not in the list of arabic speaking comm.
other then quranic arabic(classic arabic)

• people who have worked in middle east know arabic
• in "madrassah's" there are always few teacher in each madrassah who knows arabic.
• here in Pakistan we can do masters in arabic (many universities offer courses in arabic)

these things make me belive that pakistan also has arabic speaking community.الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 11:14, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

The first point, about people who have worked in the Middle East, is the strongest although even there many foreign workers in the Gulf will not learn Arabic but instead use their native language or English. The points about the madrassahs and MA degress, while interesting with respect to the culture of Pakistan, really aren't evidence that Pakistan is an Arabic-speaking country. Just think, for each of these "few teacher [sic] in each madrassah who knows [sic] arabic [sic]" how many people are there in the surrouinding communities who do not know Arabic? The ratio is probably on the order of 1:100 or 1:1,000. The final point about being able to get a Master's degree in Arabic or another langugage tells us something about universities in Pakistan, but almost nothing about the importance of these languages. One can get an MA in Estonian in the US, Swahili in Italy, Romanian in Korea, and Coptic in Germany but in none of these cases is this evidence that the language in question is widely spoken in the respective country.

(WiseSabre|, what you should do if you want to show that Pakistan is an Arabic-speaking country is provide some independent source that shows a significant percentage of Pakistanis speak Arabic. Wikipedia tends to use the 1% mark as a cut off. You shoud find a source that makes it clear whether the numbers apply to native speakers (and almost certainly less than 1% of the Pakistani count as native speakers or Arabic) or to non-native speakers (and here you might have more than 1% for Pakistan). If you find such a source, then I'm sure this page will be changed.Interlingua 15:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Think Mother-tounge y'all Angrynight 06:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Arabic official status

Egyptian Arabic is not legally co-official in Egypt; rather, there, as in most countries, the law makes no distinction between classical and colloquial Arabic, while only the former is valid for written government documents. Mauritania's official language is Arabic; Hassaniya is officially a national language. Nor does Arabic (or any other native language) enjoy official status in Mali or Senegal; rather, it is relegated to the rather less meaningful national language category. see http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afrique/afracc.htm for a detailed overview for each country, usually quoting relevant laws. - Mustafaa 20:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Which Transcription System to Use?

I'm planning on writing some articles for the Arabic Language section. However, I'm in the process of deciding which transcription convention to use. I am well aware of my options for Arabic, but I wanted to get some discussion on the subject before I arbitrarily choose one. While the IPA is wonderful for linguistic publications, I'm not sure of its usefulness for an encyclopedia; to me, it seems a bit too technical. One has to know the linguistic terminology to figure out how to pronounce the word. I don't mean we shouldn't use it at all, I just wondering if a simpler alternative would be better (and would display on the screen without the boxes). Also, I realize that someone (or people) did a lot of work in transcribing in IPA for this section. I certainly do not want to re-do someone else's work, but I want to make the encyclopedia useful for everyone.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome!! (preceding unsigned comment by Carmen1973 (talk · contribs) 11:30, 15 October 2005)

Welcome! We tend to use IPA for pronunciations, and only occassionally for transliterations. We've had some discussion of this at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic) (actually the talk page is more useful). We haven't seettled on a definitive scheme of transliteration, but you could take the discussion there as an indication of where things are at. --Gareth Hughes 11:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Terminology Clarification

I've been reading the Arabic Language#Literary and Modern Standard Arabic article and noticed that the editor seems to have used conflicting terminology, although I'm sure that s/he understands the concepts very clearly. However, to a general, English-speaking audience, this may sound very confusing. For example, they use the term "Literary Arabic" alongside with "Modern Standard Arabic." Their description certainly leads one to believe that LA and MSA are one and the same. Shouldn't we adopt one or the other? Taking into account that MSA can be both written and spoken (depending on the occasion), which is more appropriate?

Also, most linguists have termed the language of the Qur'an as Classical Arabic, as opposed to Literary Arabic (or Modern Standard Arabic). I would think that the differences between the two would be stylistic and lexical, due to word coining for modern concepts. So, should we consider MSA "separate" from Classical Arabic, although both may be اللغة العربية الفصحى?

I think it's imperative that we reach a consensus on this so we can minimize confusion on the part of our readers.

I would like to thank whoever wrote this article; they obviously spent a lot of time doing it!!

--Carmen 03:34, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

You're totally right Carmen. The thing is that there's no single editor and checking edits is not an easy job unless you are really dedicating your time to a few articles.

Which is more appropriate is using MSA (see definition at Modern Standard Arabic) as Literary Arabic and Classical Arabic are considered much more formal. You can compare MSA with Fusha (language) and Literary Arabic. All of them are deserve to be mentioned here though we have to be careful as per your comments. Cheers -- Svest 04:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)  ^{Wiki me up™}

my edits

Why were my edits over-written. Its a fact that when listing the languages of the world by the number of nations that claim them as official or national, then Arabic comes in third after English and French. Also, when talking about Palestine, all the arab countries recognize a Palestinian state under occupation. In the spirit of unbiased, free thinking Palestine should be refered to as Palestine (one and complete), not as Gaza and the "Palestine region". So as not to be accused of dillusion I had left Israel as is when I corrected the mishandling of Palestine. Having said all this I think that this website is very through, I appreciated the last comment on how collequial Yemeni Arabic is very similar to Classical Arabic. Up until that point I was getting frustrated with all the allegations that MSA is markedly different from the Classical. The fact is that I have a fourth-grade education in Arabic, however, when I read the Holly Quran I have little difficulties because most of the words used are familiar to me and if not to me then to my "illiterate" parents.

Yes, but in reality Palestine is split into two -- The Western bank and the Gaza strip. That's a fact, although I really hope it were so that Palestine would be a recognized state, not two vague entities. --Thorri 18:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be misssing the point Thorri. My whole point was that Palestine (as a state, under occupation yes, but never the less a whole nation) IS recognized by all the arab state as well as many african and asian nations. The only countries that seem to think that palestine must ask for its statehood from the unwilling Israel are those of Europe and my own USA. Now if the peace process does, by some stroke of luck, reach its ultimate goal of "two states for two peoples" then yes the Palestinian nation's land will occupy two seperated pieces of land. But even when that occurs it will be known as PALESTINE and not "Gaza and the Palestine region". See my point :)

I agree with anon, Thorri. We are talking about an official language of a nation or state and not a territory. It doesn't matter if it is split. Cheers -- Svest 23:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)  ^{Wiki me up™}

Bloated infobox

Please reduce the amount of information in the infobox as soon as possible. It's supposed to be a quick summary, not a complete list. The huge list of language codes is especially pointless. We're supposed to have separate lists for these things, not make infoboxes that are several pages long. The same goes for the "Offiical language of".

Peter ^Isotalo 22:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your point regarding the langauge codes. These belong on Varieties of Arabic. dab (ᛏ) 23:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Since Arabic is no longer a dabpage that refers to everything related to Arab culture, could we move it from the disambiguated title?

Peter ^Isotalo 10:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not? We have Latin at Latin and Esperanto at Esperanto. —Gabbe 12:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

no; "Esperanto" is different, since that is actually the name of a language. "Latin" and "Arabic" are national or geographic adjectives. If we decide to redirect them to the language articles, that's fine, but it is still proper to have the titles "Arabic language" (al-lughatu-l-`arabiyyatu), "Latin language" (lingua latina). The dab page is at Latin (disambiguation) for purely practical reasons, the adjective 'Latin' still has a variety of meanings, referring to Latins just as much as to their language, and even to Latin America and Latinos. dab (ᛏ) 12:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

"Arabic" is a noun that can only refer to the language. Look it up in a dictionary. That it also happens to be an adjective that occasionally alternates with "Arab" (as in Arab world) is irrelevant. Adjectives are not supposed to have entries in an encyclopedia. Using "Arabic language" in the lead is a perfect example of hypercorrectness. Just look at how its used in the rest of prose. I don't know what would be most proper in Arabic, but the one that should be chosen is the term that is used in Arabic dictionaries, not direct translations of decidedly hoaky English usage.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The case for moving this article to Arabic is a strong as that made for Latin (Esperanto always means the language unless modified otherwise). The noun/adjective argument doesn't work too well here: in English, Arabic is both an adjective and a noun. English often makes no differentiation between many noun/adjective pairs. In Arabic itself, al-`arabī is used informally as a noun, even though it is formally an adjective. However, it is English grammar that is important in the choice of title. The naming conventions are clear that the form 'X language' is only adopted in the case that 'X' by itself doesn't reasonably refer to the language in first instant. Even though we can talk of the Arabic world or Arabic music, when the word is used by itself in English it means the language, just as with Latin. If someone want to move this page, I suggest they go to WP:RM and start the process. Getting onto the other subject here, I am the culprit who put all those varieties in the infobox. This was initially in line with the style taken from SIL's sense of a macrolanguage. This works well for many of these so-called macrolanguages:the infobox gives direct access to the various coding possibilities and links to articles about them. However, in the case of Arabic and Nahuatl, the number of varieties gets a little out of hand. It might be better to find a third option, that of noting that there are other coding possibilities, and a link to them. --Gareth Hughes 18:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with everything you said. It is, then, a question of whether "Arabic language" is hypercorrectness that should be avoided, or merely correctness desirable for an encyclopedia. I tend to opt for the latter. I have no problem with Arabic being a redirect here. dab (ᛏ) 15:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[3]

82.227.203.184 (talk · contribs), your "corrections" were not all good. You mixed up ǧ with ġ, and it's fuṣḥā, not fusḥā -- please fix it. Also, your treatment of ta marbouta is inconsistent, once you have aʰ(?), and once ā, please concentrate :) dab (ᛏ) 22:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Population Figures need updating

The Numbers in this article are out of date... "206 million (Ethnologue, native speakers of all dialects 1998 est.); 286 million (population of Arab countries, CIA World Factbook 2004 est.), excluding Arab minorities in other countries and bilingual speakers"

Firstly the "Ethnologue" number is way off (why is it still there?). Plus I just looked up the CIA World Factbook 2005 (latest available edition) and calculated Arabic speakers to be about 293 Million (although that's just a rough estimate). Also the 2006 edition of CIA World Factbook will be out soon so when it comes out someone should get the latest figures and add them here. (as it will likely have increased significantly again). Hibernian

why is the 206 number "way off"? You would expect the number of native speakers to be smaller than the number of total speakers. Update the CIA number, but you'll have to find another source before you change the number of native speakers. dab (ᛏ) 20:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

---

I heared somewhere that Arabic has as only language except prosa, lyric also Quran as a text form, does anybody has profound knowledge in this topic, i would be intested in this topic.

Bismillah ir Rhman ir Raheem

does "Bismillah ir Rhman ir Raheem" mean "In The Name Of God, The Most Merciful, The Most Compassionate"? and more importantly where does it come from? googling tells me that it is a prayer, but from where? can someone give me some background?--Jaysscholar 17:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not the best transliteration I've seen, but the translation is good. It comes from the very beginning of the Qur'an (sura 1, verse 1), and begins every other sura except sura 9. It is often prayed by Muslims at the beginning of things (e.g. work). --Gareth Hughes 18:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

so how does it look in arabic?--Jaysscholar 19:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This is how it is written - Template:Ar. Cheers -- Szvest 19:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

I have seen it translated as "In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Merciful," because the root of raHmaan and raHiim (rHm) are the same. The first indicates one who is full of the attribute while the second is an adjective of regular intensity. If one wants to be accurate. A better transliteration would be "bismi-llaahi-rrahmaani-rraheem" - it is pronounced as if one word, basically, thanks to waSlah, and such a transliteration preserves the grammatical vowel marks at the end of each word. bi + [ismun -> definite = ismu] = bismi ([i] of "bi" dropped to be replaced by opening vowel of "ismu", [u] (nominative) -> [i] (objective); bismi + allaahu (iZaafah) = bismi-llaahi ([u] (nominative) -> [i] (objective), [a] dropped because of waSlah, replaced by grammatical objective ending of previous word); bismi-llaahi + [al + raHmaanun = ar-raHmaanu ([l] dropped as tashdeed is added to [r] as [r] is a sun letter] (iZaafah) = bismi-llaahi-rraHmaani ([u] (nominative) -> [i] (objective), [a] dropped because of waSlah, replaced by grammatical objective ending of previous word); bismi-llaahi-rraHmaani + [al + raHmiimun = ar-raHiimu ([l] dropped as tashdeed is added to [r] as [r] is a sun letter] (iZaafah)] = bismi-llaahi-rraHmaani-rraHiimi ([u] (nominative) -> [i] (objective), [a] dropped because of waSlah, replaced by grammatical objective ending of previous word; the final [i] is not pronounced as it is at the end of a phrase). Kitabparast 03:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The translation and the transliteration are "over correction." Typical rendering is the Most Merciful, the Compassionate, which gets at the same sense without awkward reptition. The fully inflected transliteratioin is hyper correct, one rarely hears outside certain recitations.

we have an article on basmala. Can you check out Shahadah too, please? I am not sure if the i`rab got mixed up recently. dab (ᛏ) 19:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Algerian Arabic link

The link that I added is to an online, collaborative Algerian Arabic dictionary. Please do not remove as spam until you go and actually visit the web site. Thanks you. Ahmed

This is English wikipedia and I don't think english readers will be interested in this link. You can add your link in Algerian language wikipedia. --Soft coder^Talk 05:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I had to remove that link again. -Ayman 14:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Any reader who is interested enough in the Arabic language to look it up on Wikipedia, may very well be interested enough to find an Arabic online dictionary useful. I know I am. I put the link back, and I think it should stay. Note that it is not a commercial link or spam. Arre 17:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

There is already a link to Webster's Online Dictionary, I don't see a point in listing every online dictionary here, and the new link doesn't work for me now to check it thoroughly... --Ayman 18:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

but this is an algerian dialect dictionary, which is different. let's keep it. providing more information is never a bad thing. Arre 18:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Need help with a place name

Hey guys, this probably isn't the best place to ask, but I need help from someone who knows Arabic. I just finished a stub for Persian Iraq to help out with the missing articles project. Apparently the English transliteration for the region's name is 'Iraq 'ajami (or something similar). Ideally I would also like to include the name in its original Arabic script form, but I can't read Arabic or write with Arabic script, so I'm pretty lost. I somehow managed to figure out the Cyrillic version of Zaysan, but I think I'm beyond my element on this one. Anyone want to help me out on this little scavenger hunt? BTW, I'm not sure if 'Iraq 'ajami is actually Arabic or Persian/Farsi. Maybe you guys could tell me. Supposedly it means "foreign Iraq", so maybe that's a clue that it's actually Arabic (since they are calling Persia "foreign"). Really I have no clue. Sorry if I'm totally barking up the wrong tree :) If you have any hints for me, please send them to my talk page. Thanks! Kaldari 23:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

'Iraq 'Ajami is Arabic, better al-'Iraq al-'Ajami; 'Ajami was a phrase applied to Persia/Persians, and does mean "foreign" - actually more like 'barbarian' in the old Greek sense of "those guys who don't talk like us" - non-Arab in other words. I don't know the phrase is a correct, it doesn't ring a bell but I'm not a Persia/Iraq guy. (Collounsbury 01:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)).

Iraq al-arab (عراق العرب) and Iraq al-ajam ( Iraq ajami )(عراق العجم) are a different places and The Iraq-Iran mountainy border separate them, Iraq al-arab contain the south and middle parts of present Iraq republic and the majority of it's population are arabs but Iraq al-ajam extend from nourth of Ahwas (south-west of Iran) to the middle and central parts of present Iran and the majority of it's population are Persians. The word (ajam or ajami, عجم او أعجمي )is an arabian word mean non-arab person or nations.

Please help with the Classical Arabic Page!!

Well, this article is beautiful, extensive, detailed, but the Classical Arabic page has been largely ignored. Can some of the contributers from this page help me clean it up?--ikiroid | (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Swahili?

Shouldn't it be mentioned? or at least referred to it bears a lot of words borrowed from arabic. In fact it's name come from the arabic word "Sawahli" which means coastal, which is where it is mainly spoken on the east coast of Africa where there was alot of Arab presence.Zakaria mohyeldin 08:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not mentioned because it's uncool to be associated with anything Arabic nowadays.--Karkaron 01:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

There could be a new section on influence on other languages, mainly in vocabulary, which is the case for Spanish, Berber, Farsi, Urdu, and other lanaguages in the area, as well as Swahili, and other languages like Malay. --Drmaik 10:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea; however, it would probably need its own article with a section in this one giving a general overview accompanied by a "main article" message. --Vedek Dukat ^Talk 21:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)