Learning Arabic in Palestine (pt. 2)

According to the EnglishPal website—a popular resource for English Speakers interested in Palestinian news, culture, shopping, etc.: “Arabic is the official language in Palestine. However, there are different Palestinian dialects throughout the Palestinian areas. The main accents are in the area of Jerusalem, Hebron, Gaza, the North and from the Bedouin population.  It is vital to mention that there is a huge difference between classical (“Fusha”) and spoken Arabic, in speaking and writing. People who learn only ‘Fusha’ Arabic will find it difficult at the beginning to understand the language that local [people] are using in their day-to-day life.”

As my darling wife and I advance in our Arabic proficiency through twice-weekly classes, the complexities of the language are slowly being revealed just as any process of discovery leads the learner to realize the vastness of the unknown that is unknown.  Likewise, after our first few lessons I was coming to the conclusion that Arabic had a relatively high proportion of logical and straightforward guiding principles.   Verbs conjugated according to standard rules; future tense was achieved simply by using the present tense and adding ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next year;’ words were generally spelled phonetically, so as long as you could pronounce the word, you could spell it.  But arcane and complex rules have started revealing themselves over the months, a few of which I will try to explain below—although by doing so, I will probably reveal an less sophisticated understanding to native Arabic speakers than even I know.

Sun letters and Moon letters

In Arabic, letters are considered Sun letters or Moon letters depending on whether they ‘assimilate’ the following letter.  In other words, when pronouncing a two words—one that ends with a sun letter—the next letter is not pronounced and the two words are blended.  This is said better, perhaps, in this explanation from Wikipedia:

“When followed by a sun letter, the l of the Arabic definite article al- assimilates to the initial consonant of the following noun, resulting in a doubled consonant. For example, for "the Nile", one does not say al-Nīl, but an-Nīl. When the definite article is followed by a moon letter, no assimilation takes place.”

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Singular, Dual, and Plural Forms

In Arabic when referring to one object, just as in English, you use the singular version of the noun.  When referring to three objects, you use the plural form.  But when you refer to two objects, you use the dual form.  One book = “kitab.” Two books = “kitaben.” Three books = “kutob.”  So if you need to buy two books, you don’t need to specify “two” kitaben, because the dual form is used exclusively to refer to two objects—just say “kitaben” and the bookseller will hand over two books automatically.

However, the numbering scheme in Arabic includes one additional twist: when referring to eleven or more objects, you revert to the singular form of the noun.  So you would ask the bookseller for 10 kutob but 11 or more kitab. 

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Gender rules

In Arabic, verbs, nouns, and adjectives are subject to gender conjugation.  So, asking your brother where his new red car is would look quite different from asking the same question about your sister’s new red house.  Transliterated, those sentences, respectively, look like this:

Brother: Wen sayartak jadeeda hamra? = Where car (masculine form because it’s your brother’s) new (feminine form because car is feminine) red (again feminine form because car is feminine).

Sister: Wen betik jadeed ahmer? = Where house (feminine form because it’s your sister’s) new (masculine form because house is masculine) red (again masculine form because house is masculine)

And gender rules apply to numbers, too.  So the gender form of numbers change depending on whether you’re talking about one vegetable market (hesba wahada, which is feminine) or one marketplace (souk wahad, which is masculine). 

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So there you have it.  This week’s lesson in three short parts—likely inaccurate and poorly presented, but in order to keep the educational, non-profit status of this blog, I need to convey some semblance of knowledge, information, or instruction at least twice annually. 

Next week, I will return to my long-running series of interviews with the influential Ramallah elite.  I will ask them to share their thoughts and insights on a number of pertinent issues: fracking, the upcoming elections, the environment, volcanoes, rapid badgers, rabid badgers, dapper badgers, rapping badgers, and the troubling increase in north woods battles between dogs and raccoons!