Arabic Grammar 2
Value of the original booklet for the Urdu Speaking people
The original booklet ‘Kho-laa-sa-toon-Nauh-w’ is an excellent tool to learn the basics of Arabic language with the “knowledge of how nouns, verbs and words are connected with each other and what follows them.” The effectiveness of this tool really shines when used in conjunction with its sister-book on ‘Surf’ that is the “knowledge that describes method of constructing sentences and changes therein.” This knowledge helped me to sail through with a Master’s Degree in Arabic from the Punjab University in 1959.
Combined use of these two booklets in their original text in Urdu is of tremendous value for those who speak Urdu, particularly the Moslems who want to learn the Arabic – the language in which the Holy Qor-aan was ‘revealed’ as we believe. Some non-Moslems argue that Qor-aan was not a revelation by God but was written by Mohammed (The Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah upon him) since it said “Inna-hoo la-qauo-lo ra-soo-lin ka-reem” (069:041). But that argument really increases the miraculous nature of the Holy Qor-aan if its ‘alleged’ writer who never had a formal schooling knew the Arabic language so perfectly that its standard he set up fourteen centuries ago is still unsurpassed today.
The Arabic alphabets are written from the right to the left. The 29 Arabic alphabets are all included in the 36 alphabets in Urdu. Moslems teach their offspring the Holy Qor-aan from their tender ages enabling them to read it for spiritual blessings – long before they grow up to understand its meanings, teachings, interpretations and the juxtaposition of its principles and precepts. The Arabic language – with one of its unique features known as the ha-ra-kaat or aa-raab that appear on or under each pronounceable letter – is written just like the Urdu besides Persian and other middle eastern languages. Many rules of grammar of the Arabic have been incorporated in the rules of Urdu grammar.
Difficulty for English speaking-people to read and understand Arabic, Urdu and the original book
The English language has only 26 alphabets, is written from the left t the right and its words are formed with their own rules of grammar. One used to English written only in ‘capital’ or ‘small’ letters (‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ in its on-line usage – has problems with the optical recognition of the Arabic alphabets and their varying looks in different forms and formats. For those raised in speaking and reading English, reading of the Arabic text is highly challenging. And utilizing the rules of its grammar that practically tantamount to scaling the Mount Everest for the purposes of learning the Holy Qor-aan and comprehending the spirit of its teachings is very, very difficult if not utterly impossible.
Those speaking the Arabic, Persian or Urdu and reading the Holy Qor-aan know correctly pronouncing words written in Arabic. Those who speak Urdu reap larger benefit from the original text by easy reading and simple learning of why and how the sign, sound and vowel on the last letter of Arabic word change its meanings. This is no different from the terms, phrases and abbreviations used in legal, medical or scientific circles, since all professions have their own one or two worded phrases that compact a huge amount of info which a layman might not understand even when explained in hundreds of words. And one who does not know the Arabic alphabets, vowels and derivative techniques that form words and how their formation changes a word’s meanings usually find all that pretty confusing, like the following provided in the booklet as answers.
(a) Question 88: “Whatever aa-raab is on the predecessor is also on that letter. Maa qa-bul (= the word that comes before it) is called mut-boo (= one that is followed).
(b) Question 89: taa-beh is four kinds: taa-beh naut, taa-beh a-tuf, taa-beh tao-keed and taa-beh ba-dul.
(c) Question 91. taa-be a-tuf is a taa-be in which one of the ha-roo-fay aa-te-fah comes between it and its mut-boo-ou (= one that is followed). In case of a-tuf, the taa-beh is called mau-too-f and the mut-boo-ou is called mau-too-f a-lai-hay.
(d) Question 92: ha-roo-fay aa-te-fah or ha-roo-fay utf are as follows: Ul-Waao (W, V) Ul-Faao (F/Ph) thom-ma um auo laa-kin laa bul
Translation and transliteration of the Kho-laa-sa-toon-Nauh-w
I ventured to translate and transliterate this enormously useful tool to learn the basics of the Arabic for predominantly one reason: I was asked by our Ja-maa-ut – The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam – to do this good deed. This is not meant to be a tool for guaranteed learning of the whole of the Arabic or comprehend all meanings of the Holy Qor-aan or nuances of its teachings. -1-
At its best the usefulness of this work for an ordinary English-speaking person is limited -to get acquainted with the elementary basics of the Arabic grammar. I pray that someone may benefit from this work to start, advance and polish his knowledge of the Arabic and the resultant comprehension and utilization of the Holy Qor-aan. I also hope that this work provides incentive for some to make further contributions in this arena.
The challenges I faced in doing this transliteration and the parameters I set for myself
For this transliteration from the Arabic and the Urdu languages into the English, I have used the following guidelines – only the phonetic sounds of alphabets and vowels as customarily uses in those languages.
1. English alphabet ‘a’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph.
2. English vowel ‘a’ with the sound in the American English like ‘ai’ as in bat, cat, rat = Arabic vowel na-sub or fa-ta-ha (= za-bur in Urdu) followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
3. English vowel ‘a’ pronounced as in ball, call and tall = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph with the vowels of another aliph or aliph with the big or small mudd.
4. English alphabet ‘e’ with its known sound as in be, he, we = Arabic alphabet of “ul-yaao”
5. English vowel ‘e’ with its sound as in bet, pet, set = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
6. English alphabet ‘i’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet of “ul-yaao’ as in REIT, receipt.
7. English vowel ‘i’ with its sounds as in bit, hit and sit = Arabic vowel kus-rah or jurr or (= zair in Urdu) followed by the Arabic vowel of sa-koon or juzm.
8. English vowel ‘i’ with its sound as in bye, cry, fry, pie and tie = Arabic alphabet of ‘a’ with a mudd followed by alphabet ‘hum-za’ with the vowel jurr or kus-rah or Urdu zair under it and followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
9. English alphabet ‘o’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet of “Ul-Waao”.
10. English vowel ‘o’ with its sound as in joke, pope and robe = Arabic letter ul-waa-o or Arabic vowel of dzoom-nah or ra-fa-a (= pay-sh in Urdu).
11. English vowel ‘o’ with its sound as in cob, hop, rob and sob = Arabic letter ul-aliph followed by the sound of Arabic letter ul-waa-o.
12. English vowels ‘oo’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as in boon, soon, typhoon = Arabic vowel of two (= double) ra-fa-a or dzoom-mah in Arabic (= ‘pay-sh’ in Urdu).
13. English vowel ‘i’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as bin, fin, sin and tin = Arabic vowel of two (= double) kus-rah in Arabic and ‘zair’ in Urdu.
14. English vowel ‘u’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as is bun, fun, pun = Arabic vowel of two (= double) fa-ta-ha in Arabic and ‘za-bur’ in Urdu.
And all above are not the total or exhaustive list of phonetically equivalents that I have used. Instead they provide a reasonable proximity to what I have tried to follow in the transliteration I have done.
The challenges I faced in doing this translation and the parameters I set for myself
A translation as its best is difficult to adequately convey the true sense the original writing intended to communicate. To do such a translation simultaneously with its transliteration posed for me a bigger challenge, and that’s why I urge any qualified linguistic in Arabic, Urdu and English languages to offer input for further improvement of this work.
Valuable Suggestions
1. It is absolutely mandatory for anyone trying to understand this book and use it effectively to first master the Arabic alphabets, vowels and the joining techniques used in the Arabic language. For example, the Arabic alphabets us-seen and ul-baao have their approximate equivalents of ‘S’ and ‘B’ in English. In Arabic those two letters are joined by placing on top of or below each letter one of several signs or symbols called fa-ta-ha, dzoom-mah, kus-ra and juzm – their actions described through na-sub, ra-fa-a, jurr and sa-koon respectively. In English, said letters “S” and “B” are read and pronounced on their own, and the methodology to link them and make them readable is to add a vowel between them like SOB or SUB. The permutation and combinations of joining their equivalents in Arabic are enormous, some of them being as follows.
(a) Us-seen and ul-baao without a vowel may not be read or pronounced at all.
(b) Us-seen and ul-baao with the action of na-sub (sign of fa-ta-ha) is read and pronounced as ‘sa’ and ‘ba’.
(c) Us-seen and ul-baao with the action of ra-fa-a (sign of dzoom-mah) is read and pronounced as ‘so’ and ‘bo’. -2-
(d) Us-seen and bl-baao with the action of jurr (sign of kus-ra) is read and pronounced as ‘se’ and ‘be’.
(e) Us-seen or ul-baao with the action of sa-koon (sign of juzm) is read with the sound of the prior letter merging or coming into a stop or dead-end in it – very similar to the result of English vowels ‘I’ and ‘U’ between two consonants like ‘SIB’ or ‘SUB’.
(f) Us-seen with the action of na-sub (sign of fa-ta-ha) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the ‘S’ practically coming into a stop or dead-end in ‘B’. The result will be very close to the word being read and pronounced as ‘SUB’.
(g) Us-seen with the action of ra-fa-a (sign of dzoom-mah) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the letter ‘S’ as if it were followed by ‘O’ or ‘OO’ resulting in the word being read and pronounced like SOB or SOON.
(h) Us-seen with the action of jurr (sign of kus-rah) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of Juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the ‘S’ as if it were followed by ‘E’ resulting in the word sounding like BET, PET.
And all that is regarding the transliteration, while the translating of the Arabic into one’s own language that comes much later is an entirely different ball game.
2. The book kho-laa-sa-toon-nah-w has at times focused on the vowel that comes on the last letter of an Arabic word, and how that vowel changes the format, pronunciation and meanings of that word. The English language punctuation like a stop, comma, parentheses, inverted commas, colon, semi-colon, hyphens are not per se in the Arabic language, but have to be developed by several techniques. So anyone studying a grammar book for the Arabic like the kho-laa-sa-toon-nah-w should have already learnt the vowels in English language are a, e, i , o, u and y, and that they also have their own sounds in pronouncing a word, but those in the Arabic have different characteristics and effects.
(a) Number: They are much greater in number.
(b) Sounds: They give specific sound to a letter on or under which they appear, but have no sound of their own like in English where alphabets vowels are also pronounced as consonants.
(c) Meanings: They have no sound or meanings in themselves.
(d) Effects on meanings of other words: They change the meanings of a word, often tremendously when appearing on or below the last letter of a word.
(e) Silence: A letter without any vowel on or under it is silent, not pronounced, except when ending with the Alif, Wao and Yay.
3. The original booklet frequently uses Arabic vowels and presumes that the student knows how and where they are written and how they are pronounced. But a starter must learn the Arabic aa-raa-b or vowels as following.
(a) Ra-fa-a is close to being the equivalent of ‘o’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘oo’ if followed by the alphabet ‘ul-waao’. A letter that has a ra-fa-aa on top of it is called mur-foo-u. The sign for ra-faa-a is called dzoom-mah and the letter with dzoom-mah on top of it is called mudz-moom. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘oon’ when there are two (= double) dzoom-ma on top the last letter that ends the word.
(b) Na-sub is close to being equivalent of ‘a’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘aa’ if followed by the alphabet ‘aliph’. A letter that has a na-sub on top of it is called mun-soob. The sign for na-sub is called fa-ta-ha and the letter with fa-ta-ha on top of it is called muf-tooh. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘un’ when there are two (= double) fa-ta-ha on top of the last letter that ends the word.
(c) Jurr is close to being equivalent of ‘e’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘ee’ if followed by the alphabet ‘ul-yaao’. A letter that has a jurr under it is called muj-roor. The sign for jurr is called kus-ra and the letter with a kus-ra under it is called muk-soor. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘in’ when two (= double) kus-ra are under the last letter that ends the word. The word jurr is different from that in a hur-fay jaar which changes any vowel on a word’s last letter to a kus-rah when immediately preceding it. Ha-roo-fay-jar is plural for the singular hur-fay jaar
(d) Sa-koon has no real equivalent in English language, but the nearest effect can be illustrated as in bit, cut or set. The sound of the former letter dead-ends in the subsequent letter with a full-stop. Sa-koon shown by the symbol ‘ ^ ’ appears on top of the letter in which the previous letters dead-ends or comes to a stop.
(e) Shudd is a symbol that comes on top of a letter and has the effect of doubling the sound and pronunciation of the leter on which it comes. Nearest example in English is letter W being equivalent of VV, to wit, two V’s. -3-
4. Placing vowel in Arabic is crucial to understanding true meanings of a word, phrase and sentence. The differences that ensue have developed huge controversies, debates and interpretation of the religious scriptures including the Holy Qor-aan. This phenomenon reminds me of an actual personal story I’ve told often in the Arabic and the Holy Qor-aan classes I have taught over the years. One of my Afro-American friends returned to a US Midwest town after visiting a mosque on the East Coast and cheerfully greeted me saying us-sa-laamo-alai-kay. Noticing his mistake, I asked him to call a 10/11-years-old Afro-American kid who was playing nearby. When the boy came near us, I asked him, “Are you a girl or a boy”, and he rather indignantly replied, “Can’t you see I’m a boy?” I then asked him, “What would you do if someone called you a girl?” He signaled with his fist and showed with his gesture that he would give him a punch. At that time I turned to my friend and asked him, “Do you see what happens if you say to a man us-sa-laamo-alai-kay that’s used to greet a woman instead of us-sa-laamo-alai-ka that’s used to greet a man?” He apologized thinking he had unwittingly insulted me. I assured him that he had not offended me, and that I had taken the opportunity to add to his knowledge of the Arabic by making this strong characteristic of the Arabic language crystal clear to him.
September 21, 2007 Abid A. Buttar, Attorney at Law
Arabic Grammar 2 – Basics
Arabic Grammar 2
Value of the original booklet for the Urdu Speaking people
The original booklet ‘Kho-laa-sa-toon-Nauh-w’ is an excellent tool to learn the basics of Arabic language with the “knowledge of how nouns, verbs and words are connected with each other and what follows them.” The effectiveness of this tool really shines when used in conjunction with its sister-book on ‘Surf’ that is the “knowledge that describes method of constructing sentences and changes therein.” This knowledge helped me to sail through with a Master’s Degree in Arabic from the Punjab University in 1959.
Combined use of these two booklets in their original text in Urdu is of tremendous value for those who speak Urdu, particularly the Moslems who want to learn the Arabic – the language in which the Holy Qor-aan was ‘revealed’ as we believe. Some non-Moslems argue that Qor-aan was not a revelation by God but was written by Mohammed (The Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah upon him) since it said “Inna-hoo la-qauo-lo ra-soo-lin ka-reem” (069:041). But that argument really increases the miraculous nature of the Holy Qor-aan if its ‘alleged’ writer who never had a formal schooling knew the Arabic language so perfectly that its standard he set up fourteen centuries ago is still unsurpassed today.
The Arabic alphabets are written from the right to the left. The 29 Arabic alphabets are all included in the 36 alphabets in Urdu. Moslems teach their offspring the Holy Qor-aan from their tender ages enabling them to read it for spiritual blessings – long before they grow up to understand its meanings, teachings, interpretations and the juxtaposition of its principles and precepts. The Arabic language – with one of its unique features known as the ha-ra-kaat or aa-raab that appear on or under each pronounceable letter – is written just like the Urdu besides Persian and other middle eastern languages. Many rules of grammar of the Arabic have been incorporated in the rules of Urdu grammar.
Difficulty for English speaking-people to read and understand Arabic, Urdu and the original book
The English language has only 26 alphabets, is written from the left t the right and its words are formed with their own rules of grammar. One used to English written only in ‘capital’ or ‘small’ letters (‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ in its on-line usage – has problems with the optical recognition of the Arabic alphabets and their varying looks in different forms and formats. For those raised in speaking and reading English, reading of the Arabic text is highly challenging. And utilizing the rules of its grammar that practically tantamount to scaling the Mount Everest for the purposes of learning the Holy Qor-aan and comprehending the spirit of its teachings is very, very difficult if not utterly impossible.
Those speaking the Arabic, Persian or Urdu and reading the Holy Qor-aan know correctly pronouncing words written in Arabic. Those who speak Urdu reap larger benefit from the original text by easy reading and simple learning of why and how the sign, sound and vowel on the last letter of Arabic word change its meanings. This is no different from the terms, phrases and abbreviations used in legal, medical or scientific circles, since all professions have their own one or two worded phrases that compact a huge amount of info which a layman might not understand even when explained in hundreds of words. And one who does not know the Arabic alphabets, vowels and derivative techniques that form words and how their formation changes a word’s meanings usually find all that pretty confusing, like the following provided in the booklet as answers.
(a) Question 88: “Whatever aa-raab is on the predecessor is also on that letter. Maa qa-bul (= the word that comes before it) is called mut-boo (= one that is followed).
(b) Question 89: taa-beh is four kinds: taa-beh naut, taa-beh a-tuf, taa-beh tao-keed and taa-beh ba-dul.
(c) Question 91. taa-be a-tuf is a taa-be in which one of the ha-roo-fay aa-te-fah comes between it and its mut-boo-ou (= one that is followed). In case of a-tuf, the taa-beh is called mau-too-f and the mut-boo-ou is called mau-too-f a-lai-hay.
(d) Question 92: ha-roo-fay aa-te-fah or ha-roo-fay utf are as follows: Ul-Waao (W, V) Ul-Faao (F/Ph) thom-ma um auo laa-kin laa bul
Translation and transliteration of the Kho-laa-sa-toon-Nauh-w
I ventured to translate and transliterate this enormously useful tool to learn the basics of the Arabic for predominantly one reason: I was asked by our Ja-maa-ut – The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam – to do this good deed. This is not meant to be a tool for guaranteed learning of the whole of the Arabic or comprehend all meanings of the Holy Qor-aan or nuances of its teachings. -1-
At its best the usefulness of this work for an ordinary English-speaking person is limited -to get acquainted with the elementary basics of the Arabic grammar. I pray that someone may benefit from this work to start, advance and polish his knowledge of the Arabic and the resultant comprehension and utilization of the Holy Qor-aan. I also hope that this work provides incentive for some to make further contributions in this arena.
The challenges I faced in doing this transliteration and the parameters I set for myself
For this transliteration from the Arabic and the Urdu languages into the English, I have used the following guidelines – only the phonetic sounds of alphabets and vowels as customarily uses in those languages.
1. English alphabet ‘a’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph.
2. English vowel ‘a’ with the sound in the American English like ‘ai’ as in bat, cat, rat = Arabic vowel na-sub or fa-ta-ha (= za-bur in Urdu) followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
3. English vowel ‘a’ pronounced as in ball, call and tall = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph with the vowels of another aliph or aliph with the big or small mudd.
4. English alphabet ‘e’ with its known sound as in be, he, we = Arabic alphabet of “ul-yaao”
5. English vowel ‘e’ with its sound as in bet, pet, set = Arabic alphabet ul-aliph followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
6. English alphabet ‘i’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet of “ul-yaao’ as in REIT, receipt.
7. English vowel ‘i’ with its sounds as in bit, hit and sit = Arabic vowel kus-rah or jurr or (= zair in Urdu) followed by the Arabic vowel of sa-koon or juzm.
8. English vowel ‘i’ with its sound as in bye, cry, fry, pie and tie = Arabic alphabet of ‘a’ with a mudd followed by alphabet ‘hum-za’ with the vowel jurr or kus-rah or Urdu zair under it and followed by alphabet ul-yaoo.
9. English alphabet ‘o’ with its known sound = Arabic alphabet of “Ul-Waao”.
10. English vowel ‘o’ with its sound as in joke, pope and robe = Arabic letter ul-waa-o or Arabic vowel of dzoom-nah or ra-fa-a (= pay-sh in Urdu).
11. English vowel ‘o’ with its sound as in cob, hop, rob and sob = Arabic letter ul-aliph followed by the sound of Arabic letter ul-waa-o.
12. English vowels ‘oo’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as in boon, soon, typhoon = Arabic vowel of two (= double) ra-fa-a or dzoom-mah in Arabic (= ‘pay-sh’ in Urdu).
13. English vowel ‘i’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as bin, fin, sin and tin = Arabic vowel of two (= double) kus-rah in Arabic and ‘zair’ in Urdu.
14. English vowel ‘u’ plus the sound of letter ‘n’ as is bun, fun, pun = Arabic vowel of two (= double) fa-ta-ha in Arabic and ‘za-bur’ in Urdu.
And all above are not the total or exhaustive list of phonetically equivalents that I have used. Instead they provide a reasonable proximity to what I have tried to follow in the transliteration I have done.
The challenges I faced in doing this translation and the parameters I set for myself
A translation as its best is difficult to adequately convey the true sense the original writing intended to communicate. To do such a translation simultaneously with its transliteration posed for me a bigger challenge, and that’s why I urge any qualified linguistic in Arabic, Urdu and English languages to offer input for further improvement of this work.
Valuable Suggestions
1. It is absolutely mandatory for anyone trying to understand this book and use it effectively to first master the Arabic alphabets, vowels and the joining techniques used in the Arabic language. For example, the Arabic alphabets us-seen and ul-baao have their approximate equivalents of ‘S’ and ‘B’ in English. In Arabic those two letters are joined by placing on top of or below each letter one of several signs or symbols called fa-ta-ha, dzoom-mah, kus-ra and juzm – their actions described through na-sub, ra-fa-a, jurr and sa-koon respectively. In English, said letters “S” and “B” are read and pronounced on their own, and the methodology to link them and make them readable is to add a vowel between them like SOB or SUB. The permutation and combinations of joining their equivalents in Arabic are enormous, some of them being as follows.
(a) Us-seen and ul-baao without a vowel may not be read or pronounced at all.
(b) Us-seen and ul-baao with the action of na-sub (sign of fa-ta-ha) is read and pronounced as ‘sa’ and ‘ba’.
(c) Us-seen and ul-baao with the action of ra-fa-a (sign of dzoom-mah) is read and pronounced as ‘so’ and ‘bo’. -2-
(d) Us-seen and bl-baao with the action of jurr (sign of kus-ra) is read and pronounced as ‘se’ and ‘be’.
(e) Us-seen or ul-baao with the action of sa-koon (sign of juzm) is read with the sound of the prior letter merging or coming into a stop or dead-end in it – very similar to the result of English vowels ‘I’ and ‘U’ between two consonants like ‘SIB’ or ‘SUB’.
(f) Us-seen with the action of na-sub (sign of fa-ta-ha) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the ‘S’ practically coming into a stop or dead-end in ‘B’. The result will be very close to the word being read and pronounced as ‘SUB’.
(g) Us-seen with the action of ra-fa-a (sign of dzoom-mah) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the letter ‘S’ as if it were followed by ‘O’ or ‘OO’ resulting in the word being read and pronounced like SOB or SOON.
(h) Us-seen with the action of jurr (sign of kus-rah) and ul-baao with the sign of sa-koon (sign of Juzm) will make it readable with the sound of the ‘S’ as if it were followed by ‘E’ resulting in the word sounding like BET, PET.
And all that is regarding the transliteration, while the translating of the Arabic into one’s own language that comes much later is an entirely different ball game.
2. The book kho-laa-sa-toon-nah-w has at times focused on the vowel that comes on the last letter of an Arabic word, and how that vowel changes the format, pronunciation and meanings of that word. The English language punctuation like a stop, comma, parentheses, inverted commas, colon, semi-colon, hyphens are not per se in the Arabic language, but have to be developed by several techniques. So anyone studying a grammar book for the Arabic like the kho-laa-sa-toon-nah-w should have already learnt the vowels in English language are a, e, i , o, u and y, and that they also have their own sounds in pronouncing a word, but those in the Arabic have different characteristics and effects.
(a) Number: They are much greater in number.
(b) Sounds: They give specific sound to a letter on or under which they appear, but have no sound of their own like in English where alphabets vowels are also pronounced as consonants.
(c) Meanings: They have no sound or meanings in themselves.
(d) Effects on meanings of other words: They change the meanings of a word, often tremendously when appearing on or below the last letter of a word.
(e) Silence: A letter without any vowel on or under it is silent, not pronounced, except when ending with the Alif, Wao and Yay.
3. The original booklet frequently uses Arabic vowels and presumes that the student knows how and where they are written and how they are pronounced. But a starter must learn the Arabic aa-raa-b or vowels as following.
(a) Ra-fa-a is close to being the equivalent of ‘o’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘oo’ if followed by the alphabet ‘ul-waao’. A letter that has a ra-fa-aa on top of it is called mur-foo-u. The sign for ra-faa-a is called dzoom-mah and the letter with dzoom-mah on top of it is called mudz-moom. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘oon’ when there are two (= double) dzoom-ma on top the last letter that ends the word.
(b) Na-sub is close to being equivalent of ‘a’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘aa’ if followed by the alphabet ‘aliph’. A letter that has a na-sub on top of it is called mun-soob. The sign for na-sub is called fa-ta-ha and the letter with fa-ta-ha on top of it is called muf-tooh. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘un’ when there are two (= double) fa-ta-ha on top of the last letter that ends the word.
(c) Jurr is close to being equivalent of ‘e’ in English, and must be pronounced as ‘ee’ if followed by the alphabet ‘ul-yaao’. A letter that has a jurr under it is called muj-roor. The sign for jurr is called kus-ra and the letter with a kus-ra under it is called muk-soor. The sound and pronunciation of the letter turns into ‘in’ when two (= double) kus-ra are under the last letter that ends the word. The word jurr is different from that in a hur-fay jaar which changes any vowel on a word’s last letter to a kus-rah when immediately preceding it. Ha-roo-fay-jar is plural for the singular hur-fay jaar
(d) Sa-koon has no real equivalent in English language, but the nearest effect can be illustrated as in bit, cut or set. The sound of the former letter dead-ends in the subsequent letter with a full-stop. Sa-koon shown by the symbol ‘ ^ ’ appears on top of the letter in which the previous letters dead-ends or comes to a stop.
(e) Shudd is a symbol that comes on top of a letter and has the effect of doubling the sound and pronunciation of the leter on which it comes. Nearest example in English is letter W being equivalent of VV, to wit, two V’s. -3-
4. Placing vowel in Arabic is crucial to understanding true meanings of a word, phrase and sentence. The differences that ensue have developed huge controversies, debates and interpretation of the religious scriptures including the Holy Qor-aan. This phenomenon reminds me of an actual personal story I’ve told often in the Arabic and the Holy Qor-aan classes I have taught over the years. One of my Afro-American friends returned to a US Midwest town after visiting a mosque on the East Coast and cheerfully greeted me saying us-sa-laamo-alai-kay. Noticing his mistake, I asked him to call a 10/11-years-old Afro-American kid who was playing nearby. When the boy came near us, I asked him, “Are you a girl or a boy”, and he rather indignantly replied, “Can’t you see I’m a boy?” I then asked him, “What would you do if someone called you a girl?” He signaled with his fist and showed with his gesture that he would give him a punch. At that time I turned to my friend and asked him, “Do you see what happens if you say to a man us-sa-laamo-alai-kay that’s used to greet a woman instead of us-sa-laamo-alai-ka that’s used to greet a man?” He apologized thinking he had unwittingly insulted me. I assured him that he had not offended me, and that I had taken the opportunity to add to his knowledge of the Arabic by making this strong characteristic of the Arabic language crystal clear to him.
September 21, 2007 Abid A. Buttar, Attorney at Law
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