Talk:Arabic/Archive 1

message: wait a second...the official language of iraq is Arabic it isnt a co-official language....fix the map
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)
thread_title:  official language of iraq 

message: 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)
thread_title:  blank table 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Semitic language 

message: "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)
thread_title:  mutual comprehensibility 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  [[arabic grammar]] 

message: 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)
thread_title:  What's that?  

message: 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.
: 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)
thread_title:  X-SAMPA 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Dialects - Maghrebi vs Middle Eastern 

message: 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)
thread_title: Translation doubts

message: 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)
replies: text: Kuntu fanii fii diik es-suq esh-shita'an faqaT?  — Yom 21:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh ... "kuntu fanii fii suuq ad-diik shitan faqaT" someone is trying to be clever with arabic that sounds like a string of english profanity :) Benwing 10:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English 

message: 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  to this page. — LinkBot 10:26, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:LinkBot/suggestions/Arabic_language|Link suggestions]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Arabic in IPA transcription 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  etymology of monsoon 

message: 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)
thread_title:  MSA, CA, FuSHa 

message: 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)
thread_title: Similarities to Aramaic and Hebrew

message: :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)
replies: text: Am I sensing a bit of sarcasm in that picture ;)?Heraclius 22:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robin William's shirt 

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  planning on rearranging arabic language articles 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Arabic status in Israel 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Arabic status in Malta