Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 February 14

= February 14 =

Pronouncing a famous proverb in Judaeo-Arabic
So, one of my favourite proverbs is roughly translated as ‘Hear the Truth from whomever speaks it’ written by the famous Rabbi Maimonides. He originally wrote it in Judaeo-Arabic, and so it would have been written like so according to the Jewish Museum in Berlin: ‘אסמע אלחק ממן קאלה’ While I am a pretty good Hebrew speaker, and I can read Arabic fairly well, the lack of short vowels when I’ve seen this written means I’m not 100% sure on pronunciation. This is especially so for the last word. I think I have a rough idea of how this expression should be said, but my lack of knowledge of Classical Arabic and the Judaeo-Arabic dialect prevents this. Assistance please? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 29 Shevat 5778 16:31, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * First off, you're not Flinders Petrie, so I don't understand what the purpose of pretending to be him is. I don't know medieval Judeo-Arabic (I believe that Joshua Blau has written something on that topic), but the Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation would be something like [ʔismaʕ alħaqqa min man qaːlahu].  I assume that "min man" assimilates to something like "mimman" in that dialect (in Modern Standard Arabic, such assimilation occurs in the word for "what", but not the word for "who", as far as I can tell)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:41, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I only just now that discovered that we don't have an article on Joshua Blau, which seems rather strange. There are only articles on the French, Romanian, and Hebrew Wikipedias (French and Romanian under "Yehoshua", though he generally went by "Joshua" in his publications in the Latin alphabet). AnonMoos (talk) 20:49, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Interesting, thank you! There’s pronunciations following the ending ק and ה that don’t come through in my modern reading of the Hebrew (I may also go over the Classical Arabic version with a Saudi archaeologist friend). I suppose it’s like how ח can often have an -ah sound that comes after the fricative. And there’s a new project for you then! I’m wondering now, as well, if the medieval Egyptian Hebrew cursive displayed in this image is taken from one of his works or at least similar to how Maimonides would have written out the expression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CursiveWritingHebrew.png Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 2 Adar 5778 10:40, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * FP -- I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by "Hebrew" in this context, since this is an Arabic sentence written with the Hebrew alphabet. The final "a" in [ħaqqa] is an I'rab vowel.  The final "u" of the -hu ending has a similar status to an I'rab vowel, and might not always be pronounced in sentence-final or "pausal" position. AnonMoos (talk) 04:03, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * You don't have to guess what Maimonides' handwriting was like, because many samples of it were preserved. Two are shown in the wikiarticle itself, and more are available under commons:Category:Maimonides and its subcats. --194.213.3.4 (talk) 13:50, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Hebrew (and more content) requested here, please. Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 02:02, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Shirt_58 -- thanks for starting the Joshua Blau article. I added categories, some basic facts from French Wikipedia, and a sentence to clarify that he doesn't work on Arabic only... AnonMoos (talk) 04:03, 18 February 2018 (UTC)