Talk:Arabic grammar

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Conjugation
Is اقتران really the term for conjugation in Arabic??? I thought that meant pairing, in fact I know it does, but that doesn't mean it can't mean both.... it isn't تصريف الفعل??? or something close to that?? I know تصريفي means inflectional ... cullen (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Transliteration
Summing up the discussion between NN, jonsafari 23:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC), Soylentyellow 20:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC) and Macrakis 20:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC) about standard transliteration, together with Manual_of_Style_(Arabic):

1. Use the strict transliteration scheme, since this is a lingvistical article.

2. All words and sentences should ideally be: Arabic script (strict transliteration) "translation (neccesary grammar information)"

Please be free to add additional rules of style. What about elidable hamza in al- when preceeding word account for helping vowel? Should this be shown in transliteration? And am I allowed to remove the following discussion (make space and so on). Sda030 (talk) 20:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Use of transliteration vs arabic?
Hi, just wondering why most things are transliterated instead of written in arabic? Perhaps this is useful to linguists, but for arabic learners it is somewhat backwards. Would anyone mind if I added in the Arabic versions of the words and affixes? Do you have any preferences for how I format them (eg, arabic words with transliteration in parentheses)?

Good article though :)


 * As this is an English article about the grammar of Arabic, and not about orthography, it would be a good idea to keep the romanized form first. Maybe something like kitāb (کتاب) "book" would be a good compromise.  –jonsafari 23:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO relevant terms should not only be written in the transliterated version but also in Arabic script as to help with understanding Arabic grammar because I find it personally confusing (as well as difficult to read) if only the transliteration is available - even in the English Wikipedia.--Soylentyellow 20:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The Roman version is more useful for the general encyclopedia user (whether a linguist or not), and should in any case be kept. Those who are learning Arabic will want something more complete and systematic than the Wikipedia article, I suspect.  The Roman form also lends itself better to showing both morphological ya-fʿal-u) and phonetic (yaf-ʿa-lu) patterns.  And with my fonts and on my screen at least, both the letters themselves and the vowel points (harakat) are hard to distinguish except at very large point sizes. --Macrakis 20:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Because Arabic transliteration is unclear, I'm going to begin adding Arabic in parentheses next to the transliterations. murraytheb/مري اذ بكلي (talk) 07:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I vote there be Arabic added in. Anyone who's looking at Arabic grammar's probably going to have some knowledge of how the script works. What's confusing is that the Romanised letters don't accurately reproduce the delicacies of Arabic's marking (such as shaddah and the long vowels, ع and hamza). I'm all for appositional transliteration, but this is an article about a language whose script is non-Western and therefore whose explanations are given in target language.

Lax use of comparison with Indo-European
There seems to be a slight tendency to use comparison with IE languages where the reported typical feature is more or less a peculiarity of Germanic or even English. For example, nominal composition, though common in Germanic (and Greek and Sanskrit), is basically absent from Romance (which uses the parallel to Iḍāfa) and Slavic (predominantly "Nisba"). I don't have the time to work through the entire article, not for now at least, but it would be great if you could have an eye on this.

Apart from that, it's a great article, keep up the good work (my Arabic is too basic to contribute much)!

.
This is quite impressive, but examples (such as actual plural nowns) would make this page incredibly more valuable. Without it, though, it's still quite good.

Most sections need much greater detail (voice, syntax, complete explanation of irregular verbs etc. etc.)

Dbachmann 13:08, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I added a couple of lines to the syntax section but I'm grossly underqualified to do much work on this. User:80.162.81.112
 * thanks. but I would be grateful if you could follow the article's convention of italicizing arabic text, and using the transliteration with diacritics (you can copy-paste form the "phonology" section). dab 23:16, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This paragraph seems to say that the -t feminine marker was not pronounced during the 10th Hindu month of Pausha (follow the link). Am I understanding this correctly? I'm a novice to Arabic (as well as to Wikipedia, excuse me), and I've encountered some seemingly bizarre aspects of the language, but I can't believe that Arabic speakers would change their pronuncation of the feminine gender of nouns for the duration of one month of the year. I'm guessing this statement simply needs clarification or elaboration. kirez 01:35, 01 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * which paragraph? did you forget to include the link? the statement sounds indeed unlikely. dab (&#5839;) 11:17, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah... it seems that "pausa" redirects to Pausha. D'oh! - Mustafaa 01:54, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * (*lol*) I will fix it :oD dab (&#5839;) 07:57, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

transliteration
for ayin please use ʿ not `. dab (&#5839;) 15:51, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

`genus alternans'
I have a question (Mustafaa?): I understand there are a few nouns which have the "feminine" ta marbouta in the singular, but not in the plural, e.g. riqatun, riqu:na "cash". My question is, what about adjective and verbal agreement? does the singular take feminine adjectives and verbs, and the plural masculine ones, or is the plural only "masculine" on the surface and still takes feminine agreement? dab (&#5839;) 10:47, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * In Arabic, inanimate plurals always take feminine singular agreement, irrespective of the gender of their singulars. However, for an animate case - eg `umdah "governor", pl. `umad - both the singular and the plural take masculine agreement. - Mustafaa 18:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * thanks (true, the cash example was stupid). I suppose I knew that :o\ I just never thought about it from a `genus alternans' perspective.... dab (&#5839;) 18:43, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Letter's ain't showing much
A lot of the letters signifying the Arabic alphabet and how to pronounce them is missing in my screen, all I see are little boxes, same thing for the List of Arabic names. Really annoying to try to get around this and go through all these loopholes just to find about why I see these danged Cargo-Crates that stupid Gnomes (Issues with my computer/the files) leave in front of these. Took me almost an hour just to get a small clue of what it is and I'm still confused! Have to print these out now...

I think that the pronouns paragraph needs more attention. What about tuin akal-tu for example?

The issue with the boxes is entirely down to your own set up and not the article. You need to search something like "how to make Arabic letters display on my computer" Gwaka Lumpa (talk) 02:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Arabic Transliteration Conventions
I've also noticed the empty blocks for the "ayn." I totally understand that this can be very frustrating for someone who is looking for more information on Arabic. I'm proposing to use either 9 or ? (probably the former) to remedy the situation, since these characters appear on almost every computer screen. What does everyone think about this? To the person who made a suggestion as to the transliteration of the "ayn," my screen just displayed an empty block and no character.
 * I would go for the previously mentioned option of including both Arabic script and transliterated words. However, for the purpose of people without script support on their browsers, maybe the characters already in widespread use by Arabs for sms/internet. eg "3" for ayn, "2" for hamza, "7" for haa. etc.. As is evident, they were selected because they look like the arabic letters. Bassemkhalifa (talk) 13:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I have another suggestion: in order to help those who are new to the Arabic language, I'm proposing to create a phonological chart with the Arabic letter and its transliteration below it (organized by manner and place of articulation, with the terms linked to explanations in Wikipedia). I do not want to redo someone else's work (because they spent a lot of their time in writing the article in the first place); I just want to make it more clearer for non-specialists.

Carmen1973 02:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * well, there is a good explanation of phonology on Arabic language, and a good explanation of the alphabet on Arabic alphabet, and a good overview of transliteration schemes on Arabic transliteration. No need to repeat this here. As for the ayin symbol, it should be put inside the "Unicode" template, thus: ʻ. If it still doesn't render, I'm afraid lots of articles will be 'broken' for you, and you should try to fix your browser, not Wikipedia. 81.63.114.127 17:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I am well aware of the various Arabic transliteration systems; my problem appears to be with my browser, as you suggested. I have downloaded the IPA fonts, and my browser is set to UTF-8, but still I see boxes. Since you seem to be very knowleadgeable in this subject, do you have any general suggestions and/or links to other websites that would help me fix the problem? I use a PC and have the most recent version of MIE.

Table of Arabic Case Endings
Hello, I have proposed an expansion of the article about section on Arabic case endings. I created a table and included a few examples with the case endings in red for the nonspecialists. I have uploaded it to my talk page. Would you mind taking a look at it and telling me what you think? How can it be improved? Also, what are your opinions/comments/suggestions about both the presentation of the transliterated Arabic and the English translation? Should I have also included the Arabic, or is that overkill? Please feel free to edit the examples to include more or change the existing ones.

Carmen 01:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Organization of grammar
The current organization of the page seems a little awkward. There is a duplicate discussion of case issues in both the "syntax" section and the "noun" section. Also, what is ambiguously identified as the "infinitive" form in the "verb" section is, in the "syntax" section more correctly identified as masdar; however, it's unclear that the document is referring to the same phenomenon.

The verb section could crucially use a discussion of the different forms/measures (awzaan).

A discussion of subject/verb agreement is missing.

Also, since we aren't using the Arabic script for the examples, is using the root fa3ala for the verb forms really the best idea? I know it's conventional, but if you don't have enough background to read in Arabic, it seems things will be easier to grasp if we pick a consonant that English speakers will be able to relate to more easily. Maybe ktb, drs, slm. What is the consensus on this? Chris Jan 31, 2006

Italics and templates
I see that the Arabic transliterations in this article use a special template and are italics. Should the prefixes and suffixes table have the transliterations that way, because I think that may create some problems (would the whole word, or just the prefix/suffix use that form?). I think it's OK now, but what does everyone else think? --Latinus 15:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, is this article aimed at giving the whole picture or just an overview? If we want the whole nine yards, we could add the stem modification charts of the quadriliteral verbs, doubled verbs, verbs with waw as their first radical etc. --Latinus 15:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Impressive
I'm impressed. I'm trying to learn Arabic grammar and every time I look at the article it becomes more fluid and clear. Thanks!

???

 * /ɡ/ became palatalized /ɡʲ/ at the time of the Qur'an, and /ʤ/ in the standard modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. (The dialects variously have /ʤ/ (Arabian Peninsula), /ɡ/ (Cairo), /ʒ/ (North Africa), /j/ (Persian Gulf area), and original /ɡʲ/ (a few isolated pockets here and there).)

"a few isolated pockets here and there"??? How scientific! Could anyone more well versed in Arabic dialectology do us the favor of clarifying that phrase, please???201.21.202.214 19:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Root system
Shouldn't there be a section on the root system (as in kataba (to write), kitAb (book), kAtib (writer), maktaba (office, desk),..., which is a charactersitic of Arabic?--Soylentyellow 23:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * More precisely, its a characteristic of Semitic languages in general, but it definitely should be discussed here. -Fsotrain09 23:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent Change...
I just wanted to show, because I'm anonymous, that I recently made a change to this webpage. I unitalicized the text in the table under Imperfect, under Verbs (6.3). It was VERY difficult to read when it was italicized and looks better this way. Thanks.

Cardinal numbers declensions
Is there a reason why the numbers are declined? Why is the term * 1 wāḥidun listed, and not * 1 wāḥid. It is in my view confusing to decline words, since they can be declined into wāḥidin and wāḥidan as well... I suggest getting rid of the -tu ending in that list.


 * Hey Xevorim, it is convention in all languages without exception to list words out of context in the nominative form. If noun declension exists in a language, nouns technically cannot not be declined.  If it's confusing, then I would suggest further study of the Arabic language to the extent that the trilateral root system is ingrained in your head and it becomes second nature for you to identify '-un' as the nominative suffix, and not the ending of the word itself, unless of course, that is the end of the word before grammatical declensions, which is a inescapable phenomenon of Standard Arabic.  Similarly, when you look up the word for one in German, you won't find all 24 manifestations (4 cases x 2 numbers x 3 genders) of it, you'll find ein unless you're looking up the grammar, which would be more confusing than this instance since the declensions in German often change the entire form and spelling of the word whereas Arabic happens to have declensions that are merely suffixes. cullen (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

There are some mistakes in the translation and vocabulary of the examples in the end of the syntax section.

""'alfun wa-tis`u mi'atin wa-tis`un 'asnāni" "1,909 years"

"ba`da 'alfin wa-tis`i mi'atin wa-tis`in 'asnāni" "after 1,909 years"

"'arba`atun wa-`išrūna 'alfan wa-ṯamānī-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatun wa-sittūna sanatan" "94,863 years"

"ba`da 'arba`atin wa-`išrīna 'alfan wa-ṯamānī-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatin wa-sittīna sanatan" "after 94,863 years"

"'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-ṯnāni sanatāni" "12,222 years"

"ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-ṯnayni sanatayni" "after 12,222 years"

"'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-ṯnāni sanatāni" "12,222 years"

"ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-ṯnayni sanatayni" "after 12,222 years" "

There is no "'asnani" in Arabic!

Corrected:

"'alfun wa-tis`u mi'atin wa-tis`u sineen(a)" "1,909 years"

"ba`da 'alfin wa-tis`i mi'atin wa-tis`i sineen(a)" "after 1,909 years"

"'arba`atun wa-tis`ūna 'alfan wa-ṯamānu-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatun wa-sittūna sanat(an)" "94,863 years"

"ba`da 'arba`atin wa-tis`īna 'alfan wa-ṯamānī-mi'atin wa-ṯalāṯatin wa-sittīna sanat(an)" "after 94,863 years"

"'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-ṯnāni wa-`išrūna sanat(an)" "12,222 years"

"ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-ṯnayni wa-`išrīna sanat(an)" "after 12,222 years"

"'iṯnā `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atāni wa-sanatān(i)" "12,202 years"

"ba`da 'iṯnay `ašara 'alfan wa-mi'atayni wa-sanatayn(i)" "after 12,202 years"

Xevorim (talk) 07:59, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoa! Edits of January 18 contain errors - please verify
Some massive editing by Benwing. It looks like the article needed it, and the new discussion is easy to read, but I think the following points are erroneous. Someone who knows Arabic better than I do should check.
 * "MSA tends to use SVO word order and allow less word order variation"
 * Modern Standard Arabic still uses VSO as the default syntax, but is more flexible than classical, so SVO can sometimes be seen. This is also true of modern dialects.


 * "The exception is in relative clauses, where the verb is usually first"
 * In a relative clause, the first thing is ALWAYS the relative pronoun, where it is used at all. (Relative clauses for indefinite nouns do not use relative pronouns.) The NEXT thing is ALWAYS the verb.


 * "Subject pronouns are normally omitted . . . when using a participle as a verb (participles are not marked for person)."
 * Sorry, I don't understand this one. When is a participle used 'as a verb'? An example might help to clear this up.


 * "Adjectives follow the noun they are modifying, and agree with the noun in case, gender, number, and state"
 * "State"? What's this?
 * Note that non-human plurals are ALWAYS matched up with singular feminine adjectives and verbs. This is an important point and must be made clear. Someplace in the article, there should be some mention of the use of singular verb forms with plural subjects - I don't know whether that would be considered a "syntax" issue.


 * "Subjects are marked with the nominative case, as are objects in non-verbal sentences."
 * Sorry, what's a 'non-verbal sentence'? Can you give an example of an object which appears in the nominative case? (And I don't mean nouns where the case markers are swallowed up, as in 'akala Mūsā l-kūsā.')


 * "The genitive case is used for nouns that modify other nouns and for the objects of prepositions."
 * The 'genitive' case is used for objects of prepositions, and also for the second noun in the two-noun constructs called 'iDāfa' (pardon my non-use of the correct transliteration). Which of the two nouns 'modifies' the other?


 * "There is no dative case; instead, the preposition "li-" is used."
 * True, but there is a whole raft of other cases known in Indo-European languages which are also inapplicable to Arabic. I would delete this sentence.


 * "'inna s-samaa´a zarqaa´u"
 * Two errors here, I think. The adjective should be indefinite, not definite (-un, not -u). I can't remember: what's the gender of sky? And isn't it usually used in the plural? (as-samawātu) Maybe a simpler example would illustrate the point better. How about al-waladu saghīratun?
 * inna wa anna wa layta wa la'alla - could we mention these here?


 * ""'inna", along with its "sister" terms "'anna" ("that", as in "I think that ..."), "'inna" ("that" after qaala/yaquulu "say"), "walakinna" "but" and "ka'anna" "as if" require that they be immediately followed by a noun or attached pronominal suffix, and a following noun must be in the accusative case."
 * This implies that it is correct to say, "Qultu innahu l-walada fī l-madrasati." Is that right?
 * walakinna -> walākinna


 * Deletion of discussion of masdar, Active and Passive partiples, and the different 'kinds' of sentences
 * I don't know whether these should have been taken out. Is the material covered somewhere else in the article?

Cbdorsett 08:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * How about some references?

let me make some comments:


 * 1) MSA and dialects allow less variation than CA because they have no case endings. (MSA is composed as if it had no case endings, and they are added later if necessary.) CA allowed many displacements of objects, prepositional phrases, etc. that would be difficult to parse without case endings. also, p. 683 of "The World's Major Languages": "Colloquial Arabic dialects are basically SVO (although I think most are, I refrain from saying 'all') and there is now convincing evidence that Modern standard Arabic has become SVO as well.  D.B. Parkinson has investigated this by examining newspapers such as Al-Ahraam and Al-Akhbaar from 1970-8 and the conclusion is that this change is still in progress.  There is evidence too that SVO is the more archaic word order since proverbs may still preserve this Proto-Arabic stage, e.g. 'al-jaahilu yaTlubu lmaala wal9aaqilu yaTlubu lkamaala, 'the fool seeks wealth, the wise man seeks perfection'."
 * 2) in a relative clause, dialects do not always put the verb first, and I suspect there are examples of this in MSA, too.
 * 3) Using a participle as a verb is common in dialects, ana maashi 'ilaa al-madrasa.
 * 4) "State" is a common term in Arabic grammar, and comes in three types: definite, indefinite, and construct. perhaps it's not totally correct to say that adjectives must agree in state; rather, attributive adjectives agree in definiteness, but predicate adjectives occur in the indefinite state.
 * 5) Inanimate plurals usually have feminine singular agreement in MSA. some dialects follow this, some don't.  Koranic Arabic allowed for broken inanimate plurals to take broken plural adjectives (W.M. Thackston, An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic, pp. 27-28), and this occasionally occurs in MSA as well (Haywood and Mahmad, A new Arabic grammar of the written language, p. 52).
 * 6) By non-verbal sentence here i mean a sentence without a verb. al-bintu jamiilatun but al-bintu kaanat jamiilatan.  "object" may be the wrong word, "complement" might be better.
 * 7) the second noun of a construct modifies the first.
 * 8) you're right that the comment about dative should probably go; it is left over from the old text.
 * 9) the sentence "the sky is blue" was here before. you're right that the sentence should probably be deleted and that samaa' is masculine (but 'azraq/zarqaa' is a diptote so it won't have -n).
 * 10) as for "Qultu innahu l-walada fī l-madrasati", i don't know whether this is correct, but it looks strange. it wasn't my intention to say that both a pronoun and a noun can follow; if you think it says this, feel free to reword it.
 * 11) as for "deletion of discussion of masdar, Active and Passive partiples, and the different 'kinds' of sentences", i do think this should be discussed, but the previous text said nothing useful -- it just gave arabic terminology, which isn't helpful in an english-language encylopedia article.

feel free to fix up the text.

Benwing 01:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Arabic script
I added Arabic parts in parentheses to a few bits already and would be happy to do the rest of it. The phonology part might not have been necessary, but I tried it anyway. If anyone is sure about any corrections or errors on my part go ahead and fix them. I wanted to ask everyone's opinion of whether it would be better to write it with or without vowel points. I've done them so far without, but if anyone thinks it's better with, then say so. Slamoureux1 23:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing this: it really improves the article. On vowelling, I'm not sure which is preferable... Drmaik 09:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oct. 28 reversion
I reverted because those changes were incorrect.
 * The introduction previously stated the article focused on Classical Arabic. Under your version it says Standard Arabic. Both are wrong. 1. The article should not focus on one particular type of grammar. 2. The article should not say "the article is about" at any point in the article. That qualifies as telling not showing. 3. The official title for modern Arabic is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).
 * When Islam initially spread in the 8th century those who were subjugated did not learn Arabic. It was not until Islam became firmly implanted in the region, decades to centuries after, that they actually took the time to learn the language.
 * The kasra added to the end of a word in its dual form is not pronounced. Most do not write it either.
 * Nun is nun. Ni is not.
 * No links in section titles. Perspicacite 05:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid your reversions are primarily wrong. The article does indeed describe the grammar of Standard Arabic, a cover term for both MSA and Classical (no other varieties use i'rab, for example) The grammar of modern varieties is covered in their relevant articles.
 * Another change moved the ه out of its brackets.
 * You are getting the form of the dual plain wrong: you seem to be mixing it up with plural.
 * -ni refers to the ending of the dual, and yes the kisra is there. Of course it's not normally written, along with haraket in general.
 * fair enough on links on section titles, but grammatical voice is not a fuller treatment of the topic of grammatical voice in Arabic. I'll deal with a couple of other points you raise as well. Drmaik 06:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Letter names should be used in place of transliterated pronunciation whenever possible. Kasra is never transliterated as kasra, nor harakat as haraket. As to the other issues, we'll have to agree to disagree. Perspicacite 06:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I see you reverted without discussion of the issues I raised. You have reinserted a wrong form for the dual, and the main comment you have made concerns my spelling here in talk, whereas talk exists to improve the article. You also reintroduced links in titles, which I removed per your comments, which you objected to above. This is inconsistent in the extreme. But I don't want to get into an edit war, so welcome others to comment, rather than reverting blindly, which seems to be what has just happened. Drmaik 06:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I did post on the talkpage prior to reverting. You have not provided any links that go along with your... interpretation of dual. The fact that I agreed with a minor part of your edit does not mean I am not going to revert it. Calling that "inconsistent in the extreme" is just silly. Perspicacite 06:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've corrected the dual, with a reference. The other issues (Perspicacite is right on the links in section titles) have not been addressed, so unless they are I will revert on these as well. Drmaik 05:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Dont add copyvio material. Perspicacite 06:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * yes, I am sorry about that. I just tried to remove it myself, as I noticed I had changed more than I wanted to, and was trying a partial self rv which didn't, but you got there first. I'm not intending to reinsert that: as you say, it needs attribution, but I do wonder whether that website got some of its material from here. Quite hard to establish either way. Drmaik 06:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Literary Arabic
Why only Literary? Yes, I realize this is formal Arabic but the article is about all of Arabic grammar. Would it not be better to distinguish in the individual sections between Modern Standard and colloquial Arabic? Perspicacite 09:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * well, as it is, everything is about the literary variety. Varieties of Arabic has a good section on general difference between them and Classical, which could be referred to somewhere. Or the page could be moved to the Grammar of Standard/Literary Arabic, but when people talk about Arabic Grammar, they mean of literary. For example, Haywood and Nahmad's grammar concerns the litrary language, without stating so in the title. Drmaik 10:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If it's implied then why does it need to be mentioned? Perspicacite 11:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The implication works only for people who already understand this distinction, which most (or many) of the people reading the article will not. The difference between standard Arabic and its dialects is not on a par with the differences found for European languages. Drmaik 12:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

For the Verb Prefixes and Suffixes section
(Which I look at several times a day, as I'm learning Arabic and it is a huge help) It says that the prefixes for imperfective verbs are (for example) ya, ta, a, etc. However, that's not always the case: for the verb "to love", for example, the respective prefixes are yu (yuhibb) tu (tuhibb) 'u ('uhibb) and so on. Should I change it so that it reads something like "y*-STEM; t*-STEM; t*-STEM-iina; '*STEM", where "*" is that verb's "default" vowel? Deshi no Shi (talk) 15:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I noticed that there's no mention of the damma that follows most verbs. While it's unpronounced and almost never written, it does have significance for Classical Arabic, specifically Qur'anic reading. Should a section or comments be inserted about this? Deshi no Shi (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Roots and their Verbal Nouns and Participles
First of all I'd like to thank anyone and everyone that has contributed to this article.

According to the article, every verb has at least an active participle and most have verbal nouns. Now although the chart provides the vowelings required to form these participles and verbal nouns, a definition does not always exist. With verbal nouns this can simply mean that the particular verb doesn't have a verbal noun, but what about the participles? Is it possible that not all verbs have a corresponding active participle? If this is so it should be noted in the text. I will start by clarifying which derived verbs and nouns actually exist for the root ف ع ل in the chart.

Also, how flexible are the vowelings for all of the derived nouns? For example from the root س ل م we can derive the verb-stem سَلَّمَ (sallama) and according to the chart its active participle would be مُسَلِّمٌ (musallimun) and its passive مُسَلَّمٌ (musallamun). However in the Hans-Wehr dictionary only مُسَلَّمٌ (musallamun) is found. Is it possible that مُسَلَّمٌ (musallamun) is the active participle for this verb-stem, or perhaps that only a passive participle exists for this word, or, again is the voweling flexible? Now for the verb-stem سالَمَ (saalama) the active participle مُسالِمٌ (musaalimun) exists and so does the word مُسالَمة (musaalama[tin]) (again this is according to the (Hans Wehr).  This word is basically in the same form as the passive participle for verb-stem III in the chart, with the exception of the ending.  Are the derivations flexible in this manner as well?

And lastly, can anyone shed any light as to how certain roots have certain verb-stems and why others do not?

Thanks again. codectified 16:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Additional Stem
Even though the article mentions the availability of many stems, I do believe that the 'ifʻawʻala' one is not that rare, especially its maṣdar, as in izliqaq (إزلقاق). So I'm adding it as number XI with the following forms: ifʻawʻala, yafʻawʻilu, ufʻulila, yufʻawʻalu, mufʻawʻilun, mufʻawʻalun, ifʻilalun.

I'm not sure if the numbers assigned to the stems are based on an order that I'm unaware of, but if it is, then the stem I just added might not be number XI, and I would need to rectify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fadibk (talk • contribs) 08:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The form you added is called XII, and I have relabelled it; I have also added brief info on XI, XIII, XIV, and XV. I don't know if it's worth adding full details on them, as they are very rare (according to Wright). --macrakis (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Ordinal numerals
Please check the section. --Anatoli (talk) 21:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Quran and arabic grammar
Is there any relationship between the quran and arabic grammar? Faro0485 (talk) 19:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

--Yes of course. The qur'an uses classical arabic or proper arabic, in which proper grammar rules apply. Much of the rules aren't in use with more modern arabic, but the language is still used today in it's proper form as it was when the quran was revealed 1400 years ago. codectified (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Plural of Paucity
A plural of paucity existed in Classical Arabic in a few words. It seems to have disappeared in colloquial Arabic. It referred to three to ten items.

Why my contributions in the talk page were deleted? they have the aim of improving the article.
Why my contributions in the talk page were deleted? they have the aim of improving the article.

Arabic has infinitive.

dar=he turns, dawaran=to turn

There is another mood in Arabic. حَتَّى إِذَا أَتَوْا عَلَى وَادِ النَّمْلِ قَالَتْ نَمْلَةٌ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّمْلُ ادْخُلُوا مَسَاكِنَكُمْ لَا يَحْطِمَنَّكُمْ سُلَيْمَانُ وَجُنُودُهُ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ

yahtimanna in "la yahtimannakum"

yahtimanna is distinct form yahtiman (energitic mood)

Nisba. There are nisbas with ni,wi,zi (san'aani,mawlawi,razi)

Humanbyrace (talk) 21:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I deleted them because it seemed the page was turning into a forum...I didn't want it to become that way!
 * As for your questions:
 * The infinitive is under the section "Verbal noun (maṣdar)".
 * The energic mood is classified into Energic 1 & Energic 2. Yaf'alan & Yaf'alanna respectively. I don't see why it's worth mentioning in an encyclopedic article but I guess it won't do harm.
 * Nisba is -iy. The -ni and -wi are used if the ending of the noun is in a long vowel. (samaa' --> samaawi etc). There is no -zi in Arabic. It's too much grammatical details if u ask me>


 * Xevorim (talk) 22:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There is nisba with "zi" ending in رازي&مروزي(from ray,from marw respectively)

Also there is infinitive with "an" ending like in "mashyan" مشيان

http://amrdiabcafe.com/forums/t407.html اسباب مشيان الولاد وراء البنات فى الشارع

or djaryan جريان

http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%87_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B7%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%A9 جريان المياه السطحية

Humanbyrace (talk) 12:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Humanbyrace (talk) 12:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

sorry but the verbal noun of "masha" is "mashy" and the one fo "jara" is "jary" ; "jarayan" is another form and I dont think that "mashyan" exists in arabic but these are mistakes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.0.99.138 (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * masha and jara are both stem 1 verbs & it says in the article that their verbal nouns are irregular. Like saala -->sayalaan, sayl. qatala --> qatl. Listing all the possible morphologies is, I think, beyond the scope of this article.
 * The -zi nisba is attributed to non-Arab loan words which were taken as a whole with their non-Arab nisba. For example, Any word with a -zi, -ji, -qi (or -ki), in which the letter before -i of the nisba isn't from the original word...then it was loaned that way to Arabic. Some of the words were even Arabic to start with but were retaken into Arabic after being suffixed with the non-Arab nisba.
 * Some examples: Romanteeqi (from Raman), Qaawaqji (from Qawaq), Razi & Marwazi, qahwajji (altho from Arabic Qahwah). If these words were to follow Arabic grammar for nisba, they would be: Roumiy or Roumaaniy, Qaawaqiy, Raa'iy & marawiy, qahawiy.
 * But there is no rule for adding a nisba other than -i (or in some cases -wi) in Arabic. That is why it should be kept that way in the article.

--Xevorim (talk) 21:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Nisba in persian is either "i" (perhaps loan from arabic)either "ik" but no zi.

"Tshi"&"dji" are respectively suffixes of occupation in Persian and in Turkish (from Persian)

Turkish nisba is "lV" (V standing for i,ı,ü vowels)

Also even regular verbs could have infinitive with "an"(which is very close to German infinitive ending "en",both Arabic and German being apophonic west nostratic lislakh languages)

As for example we can cite: qatlan=to kill

sayalan=to flow

best regards

Humanbyrace (talk) 22:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Is this all to propagate the Nostratic language hypothesis?! The similarity between Arabic and German infinitives are a mere coincidence I believe.
 * By the way, there is a difference between qatlan (the -an here is the accusative case ending + nunation) and sayalaan. Also, any loaned word to Arabic eventually is fitted into an Arabic form. So, even if the Persian nisba is -ik, it will become -iki in Arabic.
 * You can see this in Modern Arabic (standard & colloquial) loans from English. (America --> American --> Amreeki, Amreekani). (Italy -->Italian -->Itaaliy, talyaani), u can't come and say that Arabic has a -ani nisba. Rey was called Rhágai & Rhagae, even if the Arabs called the town Rey, the nisba was borrowed as Razi.
 * --Xevorim (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Poor Reference
There is not a single book listed for further reading! Furthermore, the given reference does not match the huge amount of information, which I'm impressed of, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.79.157.38 (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Complete makeover in progress
I've been so lucky to have a small private project with my teachers about redoing this article. I have made a new structure, while keeping all earlier information. I will also add a lot of information (hopefully), and compress paragraphs so it will be more of an encyclopedic styled article. I will also add any suitable references. Before June 2010 it should be ready for publishing. However, I copied everything from the article (except templates) to Word 2007, for ease of editing, and therefore you will not see any differences before that time. Someone might have to help me converting it back to wiki-style, I cant seem to get neither WikiEd, nor WikiPlus to work properly.

Please do not use time on the same thing as I am doing now (reorganizing). You can, however, add any additional information, spell check, and so on, to the article as normal. i will update my own edition.Sda030 (talk) 17:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I look forward to this, and I wonder how it is coming along. The article as it stands now is somewhat focussed in the wrong direction. By the way, for future reference, you can use your userspace to develop drafts of articles, to save yourself the trouble of having to reconvert things. For example, you could have created User:Sda030/Arabic grammar for this purpose. &mdash;Gordon P. Hemsley&rarr; &#x2709; 18:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, now you tell me... :) Well, I'll sort that out later. By the way, it wont be as amazing as I thought, since my main source (a professor) is a bit busy. But we'll try. 85.164.44.16 (talk) 01:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

History Section
The section on the History of Arabic Grammar is very badly and unclearly written, as well as missing any sources. Can someone please rewrite and organise that section? Also removed part about collection of works by Arab Gramatarians by some Persian scholar - that does not constitute a relevant or significant part of the development of Arabic Grammar - maybe past the notion of making some self-deluded Persian Nationalists think they invented their enemy's language. Also, what sources are there backing up the other gramatarians mentioned in that section being the first? And maybe there should also be a mention relating to the slow development of the Arabic language from Aramaic, therefore difficulty determining the exact first Arab grammatarian and last Aramaic gramatarian.

Also according to both Sources 1 and 2, the only Arab schools were Kufa and Basra, which Source 1 mentions only arose following the rapid rise of Islam. Pink Princess (talk) 12:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Adjectives can precede nouns in Arabic
Thanks for you works

Adjectives can precede nouns in Arabic

for example

rajulun tawil al-qama

Humanbyrace (talk) 18:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "Precede" means "to go before". In the example you give, the adjective isn't preceding the noun, as it's after the noun. However, it is true that the adjective can go before the noun it modifies, but it usually happens as an annexation (the noun is always in the genitive/oblique), and in very particular phrases (idioms), e.g. ...حسن الرأي في Hasanu r-ra'yi fii.. "a good opinion of...".--Serafín33 (talk) 21:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I have a question
First of all thanks for your works I would like to ask if we could say "aynakom" (where are you) in Arabic since we can also say "minkom" (from you)

Also can we say "mankom"=who are you?

Thanks

Humanbyrace (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is NOT a forum, you cannot ask questions about Arabic here, unless it's about changing or adding something in the article. (And no, you can't say *أينكم or *منكم, they should be أين أنت؟ and من أنت؟ instead.)--Serafín33 (talk) 21:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Mr Serafin please permit me to say that you are wrong, indeed we can say "aynakom" (according to Arabic Grammar books like Afghani's grammar) googling "aynakom" gives you near 500,000 results

http://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&hl=tr&source=hp&q=%D8%A3%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%83%D9%85+

Humanbyrace (talk) 18:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Topic-Comment Structure in Arabic
Many of the articles on Arabic have mentioned a shift from VSO word order in Classical Arabic to SVO word order in Modern Standard Arabic and the modern Arabic dialects. However many prominent linguists specializing in Arabic strongly disagree with this assertion. Their explanation is that the apparent shift from VSO word order to SVO word order is actually the result of topic-comment structure, which is found in all varieties of Arabic, and the different types of discourses that are available and analyzed in historical texts versus modern texts and speech. For example, Dr. Kristen Brustad's "The Syntax of Spoken Arabic: A Comparative Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian and Kuwaiti Dialects", Georgetown Univ. Press, 2000, states "However, no frequency studies of modern Arabic have yet been undertaken to either support or challenge this assumption. Both VSO and SVO are common enough in all varieties of Arabic to be considered "basic;" a thorough study of word order typology in all varieties and registers of Arabic would be necessary to show if or how the basic typologies of Arabic have changed over time. Until such a study is conducted, the discussion must remain limited to indirect evidence.” Dr Brustad proceeds to present evidence that VSO remains a basic word order in the modern Arabic dialects and that fronting of nouns (subjects and objects) in all varieties of Arabic is best explained by a topic-comment structure of a topic-prominent sentence structure rather than the contrasting the subject-prominent sentence structure of the VSO word order.

Many others have also suggested similar analyses and this may even be becoming the more-accepted view among linguists specializing in Arabic. Although the topic-comment structure in all Arabic varieties is widely recognized, the articles on Arabic only mention VSO vs. SVO and increased usage subject initial sentences in MSA and dialects. It would be beneficial if someone could please add information about the topic-comment sentence structure in Arabic. (The article on Tuareg Languages mentions the option for the topic-comment sentence structure in those languages/dialects that may be a useful example that could be expanded.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.110.86.55 (talk) 09:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Tenses
It's not entirely correct that kāna yaktubu and kāna kātiban both express the meaning of the Past Continuous Tense. As far as I understand, only the latter does express this meaning whereas the former denotes a habitual, repeated action, i.e. what is expressed in English by 'would'(or 'used to')+inf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.191.241.225 (talk) 00:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Splitting this article
This article is listed at Special:LongPages and it'd be benefitial to split it. It's listed in the Top 50, making it one of the longest articles in the whole of Wikipedia.

If nobody else volunteers, I will do the split.

Azylber (talk) 07:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, it's done now. I've done the following:


 * Created 2 new articles: Arabic verbs and Arabic nouns and adjectives.
 * Moved 2 sections about verbs to the article about verbs, and a section about nouns and adjectives to the corresponding article
 * Written and/or adjusted introductions for the new articles and the stub sections in the main article
 * If there are any errors or problems, please let me know. Azylber (talk) 20:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Seeking permission to add external link (and dead link report)
I'd like to add an external link to this article: consult or download Wright's Arabic Grammar and was about to do so until I saw the warning "Please don't add links without prior agreement". So, who is it that has to agree and how do I communicate with that person? Thank you. Also, the first external link: Arabic Grammar through the Quran is dead. --Akhooha (talk) 18:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * To me that link to Wright seems perfectly fine and reputable. Go ahead! Sda030 (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Arabic grammar. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive {newarchive} to http://quran.uk.net/documentation

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 05:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Content of the noun chart at File:Arabic Noun Chart.png
I received a support request at the MediaWiki Support Desk, where a user complained about the contents of this chart.

Note that I myself do not speak the language and so I cannot judge, if what the chart tells is right or wrong. This image contains a number of words, e.g. explosion and damages, but also the words teacher, children and raised.

However, it is true that many of the words in this image somehow have to do with terror, e.g. damage, explosion, collapse, evacuate, arrest, detention, terrorism. I don't think using words from this wordfield is necessary to explain what this image wants to explain. These explanations can just as well be done with other, neutral words. --87.123.34.27 (talk) 10:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see we are removing images now that someone may have a problem with. You know, if we are censoring now you may as well complete the job. Here are the other projects the image is used on:
 * wikt:Appendix:Arabic verbs
 * nl:Overleg:Idafa
 * Граматика арапског језика
 * And while we are at it, you may as well scrub the verb list from all of Wikipedia as well. Used on 5 different projects (including this very page)! It could after all, offend some people. Once you are done with that go ahead and nominate the images for deletion off of Commons. We must remove these potentially horrible images and their terrible words from all of Wikimedia! Think of the children! Or, instead of blindly censoring things based off the whim of someone who thinks the government is monitoring their downloads you could find a replacement for the image. Or just not censor Wikipedia. Either way would work. --Majora (talk) 19:42, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Can we please speak in reasonable tone with each other? Censorship is what a state may be doing and I am not a state. I am only a user, that is all. All I am saying is that there is absolutely no reason to politicize this article. Pretty much all grammar books I know of can explain things without using offending and possibly inappropriate terms. We should be able to do that as well! --87.123.49.6 (talk) 09:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

'The enclitic forms ـنِي ‎(-nī) and ـنِيَ ‎(-niya) are attached to verbs, prepositions ending in نْ ‎(n)'
Hi, according to wiktionary, there's a form 'ـنِيَ ‎(-niya)', ending in فتحة. Could, sb., please, add a reference to its use with some example? Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:20, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

'presumably, -aw of masculine defective -an plurals is similarly assimilated to -ay'
Hi, I'd like to know both an example of that type of plural, as well as the reason for the uncertainty "presumably" added to the statement. Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:31, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

VSO is not so rare
The article states "Verb initial word orders like in Classical Arabic are relatively rare across the world's languages, occurring only in a few language families including Austronesian, and Mayan.", but VSO is standard in Celtic. -- Evertype·✆ 23:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, it's found in Celtic, but Template:Language word order frequency says it's in 9% of languages, which makes it pretty infrequent. — Eru·tuon 00:18, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, but "only a few language families" is misleading. VSO is found in Indo-European, one of the largest families in the world. -- Evertype·✆ 08:48, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Name of the article
Technically, a language's "grammar" includes phonology. I think this article would benefit from a re-title, but I'm not sure what other name could encompass the kitchen sink that this article is. Catrìona (talk) 20:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a convention of Wikipedia's not to discuss phonology in "[language] grammar" articles. Phonologies get their own separate article, as is the case with Arabic as well, see Arabic phonology (and also the articles for the phonologies of the Egyptian, Levantine, Tunisian and Hejazi dialects). I do agree with your sentiment this article feels like a kitchen sink by the way.--Ser be etre shi (talk) 17:46, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Prepositions
فـ‎ fa- 	[and] then This is a conjunction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamour (talk • contribs) 15:43, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Problems in 'Less Formal Pronominal Forms' in 'Pronouns'
The section mentioned has a few errors which I tried to clear but would like if somebody would properly fixed it. -ka, -ki, -hu, do not produce consonant clusters as the noun they are attached to will always have a short vowel at the end to denote case, so the word would be 'kitābuka', 'kitābaka', or 'kitābika', depending on case, and in no situations would it be 'kitābka'. -ak, -ik, and -uh are produced by eliding the short vowel on the pronoun itself rather than switching them. Could the section be revised and possibly rewritten?

تلک vs دلک
Hai 2402:3A80:192B:4D21:0:0:0:2 (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

تلک vs دلک
Hai 2402:3A80:192B:4D21:0:0:0:2 (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

== اردو میں ترجمہ کریں: الأمة العربية ليست كالامم ولا ترمى اهدافا تافهة محدودة بل لها هدف سام رفيع هو الحاض البشرية جمعاء وهدايتها الى الحق والسعادة والرشاد وهى امة قد رباها مرشدها الأكبر رسول الله بسيرته السنية على حب العدل والايفاء بالعهود و اتفاق الاموال في وجود  الخير والتأخى فى نصرة الحق والترفع عن سنفسات الأمور ==

اردو میں ترجمہ کریں: الأمة العربية ليست كالامم ولا ترمى اهدافا تافهة محدودة بل لها هدف سام رفيع هو الحاض البشرية جمعاء وهدايتها الى الحق والسعادة والرشاد وهى امة قد رباها مرشدها الأكبر رسول الله بسيرته السنية على حب العدل والايفاء بالعهود و اتفاق الاموال في وجود الخير والتأخى فى نصرة الحق والترفع عن سنفسات الأمور 87.228.186.226 (talk) 09:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)