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Why Arabic is Terrific

idlewords.com

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Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#161

Post by glenngillen »

idlewords wrote: post #84
glenngillen wrote: post #83

"The language of the National Designated Other is bound to switch to Chinese in a couple of years" I assume this in reference to the predominant 2nd language for most people? If so, something I've always struggled to agree with is the implication that English is the second language for so many people only because of some fortuitous timing on the part of the British Empire. Technological advancements have certainly he…

I'm talking about the language of the perceived (US) national enemy. This used to be Russian and is now Arabic.

ah! Wasn't a phrase I'd heard before. Makes much more sense in that context.

Thanks

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#162

Post by nivertech »

idiopathic wrote: post #157
nivertech wrote: post #151

Funny thing, that Ancient North Arabian [1] sounds almost like Hebrew. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Arabian

It's not funny, it's inevitable - Arab and Israeli tribes were all Semites (which is why accusing Arabs of being anti-Semitic is annoying, as it implies that we are not Semites) they share a common genetic and cultural heritage, and their languages evolved from common roots. If you ignore the current crazies on both sides, Judeo-Islamic tradition makes far more sense that Judeo-Christian one does.

All you said is right, but please don't mix concepts.

It's funny because Classical Arabic do not sounds like Hebrew at all (except some very basic words). But Ancient North Arabic very similar to Hebrew and other Canaanite languages.

Languages and genetics are two very different things. The reason, that Ancient Hebrews spoke Semitic language doesn't mean they were "Semites". Many people in Canaan were speaking Semitic languages, so it might be Ancient Hebrews just adopted local lingua-franca.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#163

Post by ctrager »

deno wrote: post #26
cwp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'd go with 6 & 7 as reasons Arabic is terrifying.

“The books, she is green” is not very unique to Arabic actually. It's also how you'd say it in Polish, for example. Most languages, that have feminine and masculine forms (unlike English), have some arbitrary rules as to what form to assign for different material objects.

A de facto rule of spoken English: "Everyone should floss their teeth" - Singular nouns of indeterminate gender take plural, and therefore genderless, possessives.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#164

Post by Cushman »

idiopathic wrote: post #154
Cushman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's completely true that English has less character variation than Arabic— as you say, in English there is a choice of upper or lower-case, with occasional changes in meaning. In Arabic, the form of a letter is completely determined by the letter it follows. It's purely a display difference, not a separate character set. There are the diacritics to think about, but outside of the Quran they are simpl…

A couple of corrections I feel I have to make as an Arab. > There are the diacritics to think about, but outside of the Quran they are simply ignored. They are not ignored - when they are present, attention is paid to them. I think what you mean is that Arabic speakers, knowing what the diacritics are, do not bother writing them down. That is not because they ignore them, it is because we have paid such close attenti…

Yeah, I'm sorry, I was highly unclear. What you said is what I meant :) I was saying that the Arabic character set is actually simpler, but vocalized Arabic becomes harder again.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#165

Post by brown »

cletus wrote: post #156
theli0nheart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: I lived in China for a year studying Mandarin, and spent 3 years studying at school. You're wrong in that there is no way to describe characters in Chinese to other speakers. There are certain words you use to describe strokes. The equivalent in English would be something like "there is a cross on the left and a flower on the right." Chinese speakers do this all the time, so I'm kind of surprised you jump to t…

Care to explain how you'd explain this [1] to someone else such that they could reproduce it in a readable fashion? Or one of these [2]? [1] http://necromanc.blogspot.com/2006/05/most-complicated-chine... [2] http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/437-most-comp...

That's the equivalent of explaining how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" -- yeah, it's an English word, but it's ridiculous and nobody really expects you to know how to spell it.

Most simplified characters can be explained with a handful of strokes. Furthermore, many of them can be broken down into "radicals" which are commonly repeated patterns.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#166

Post by philwelch »

idiopathic wrote: post #154
Cushman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's completely true that English has less character variation than Arabic— as you say, in English there is a choice of upper or lower-case, with occasional changes in meaning. In Arabic, the form of a letter is completely determined by the letter it follows. It's purely a display difference, not a separate character set. There are the diacritics to think about, but outside of the Quran they are simpl…

A couple of corrections I feel I have to make as an Arab. > There are the diacritics to think about, but outside of the Quran they are simply ignored. They are not ignored - when they are present, attention is paid to them. I think what you mean is that Arabic speakers, knowing what the diacritics are, do not bother writing them down. That is not because they ignore them, it is because we have paid such close attenti…

American place names are a constant source of confusion and amusement even among Americans, largely because many of them are adapted from American Indian words. You might be a perfectly normal English-speaking American, but if you've never been to the state of Washington before you won't know how to pronounce "Puyallup" or "Sequim" just by reading them.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#167

Post by philwelch »

andrewem wrote: post #97
vbtemp wrote: post #24

Hebrew has virtually the exact same properties, and is quite simple to learn as it is extremely regular, and like all Semitic languages is based off a three-root system. In fact, in a number of conversations with my arab friends I'm stunned just how similar Hebrew and Arabic are (both in good and foul words) and in grammar.

A friend who's a native Hebrew speaker told me that modern Hebrew initially lacked foul words, and so they were borrowed from Arabic.

That makes sense, as modern Hebrew is largely reconstructed ancient Hebrew with added words for things that were invented in the past several centuries. I don't think the people who reconstructed Hebrew would have gone out of their way to include foul words.

What is surprising is that the foul words were borrowed from Arabic, and not Yiddish or any of the other languages commonly spoken by the Jews who settled in Israel.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#168

Post by patrickas »

hasenj wrote: post #158
idlewords wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the first time you hear it because I got it wrong - thanks! Fixed now.

That's because the 'u' is really not the 'u' but the glottal stop ;) (hamza)

u at the beginning is usually for a glottal stop with a dammah above it ( أُ ) while in this case it should be a fatha ( أَ )

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#169

Post by patrickas »

idlewords wrote: post #143
patrickas wrote: post #136

Very interesting article. This is the first time I hear the plural : ustaath -> usaatatha, I am a native arabic speaker and we always use asaatitha. Also an old side project of mine, http://yoolki.com for en-ar transliteration

It's the first time you hear it because I got it wrong - thanks! Fixed now.

You should also fix dukkan -> dukaakiin to become dakaakiin

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#170

Post by nivertech »

cefarix wrote: post #35

Have you ever wondered why numbers are written backwards in English? Why do we write the highest-order digits first and proceed to the lower-order digits? Well these numbers originated in Arabic, and since Arabic is written right-to-left, writing numbers in Arabic actually follows a more logical order: start with the lowest-order digit, and move on to the higher-order ones. Apparently when the concept was brought int…

this is where Big Endianess comes from? ;)
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