Loadstar 216/216.d81/t.arabic

Text File | 2002-01-01 | 9.4 KB | 360 lines

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            A R A B I C

  Program and Text by Rick Kephart


    Arabic is one of the major
languages of the world.  It is the
official language of more than a dozen
countries in Africa and the Middle
East. It is the language of the
Islamic religion. It is also used by
some Christians, particularly
Christians of the Maronite or Melkite
Rite of the Catholic Church. It is a
Semitic language, like Hebrew.

    This program shows how the Arabic
alphabet is read. It contains 280
Arabic words which are related to
English words, so it is possible to
guess their meanings by sounding them
out.

    There are several ways in which
the words can be related:

 A word can pass directly from Arabic
into English. Words beginning with the
prefix "al-" (which means "the") often
come from Arabic, such as "alkali".
Some other English words directly from
the Arabic include "mohair", "emir",
"ramadan", "harem", "genie", "sheik",
and "sofa".  (The prefix "the" is not
added to words in this program unless
it is part of the English word.)

 An Arabic word can pass into English
after passing through one or more
languages along the way, often Latin,
French, or Spanish. Some examples of
these are "alcohol" and "algebra"
(through Latin), "caraway" (through
Spanish), "caliph", "lute", "sultan",
"vizier", and "saffron" (through
French), "cipher", "cotton",
"gazelle", "sumac", and "tariff"
(through Spanish then French).

 A word can also pass through Arabic
from another language, such as the
word "jasmine", which passed through
Arabic and French, originally from
Persian ("yasmin").

 An Arabic and an English word can be
cognate, that is, both derived from a
third language. Some examples of this
are "cardinal" (from Latin), "icon"
(from Greek), "gondola" and "macaroni"
(from Italian), "champagne" and
"ballet" (from French), and "khaki"
(from Urdu, the language of Pakistan).

 A word can pass from English into
Arabic. Some examples of this are
"radar", "baseball", and "banjo".


 The Alphabet
 ------------

    The Arabic language is written
right-to-left instead of left-to-
right as all Western languages are
written.

    Arabic is a difficult language to
read for several reasons:

    The Arabic alphabet, like the
alphabets of all Semitic languages,
contains only consonants. There is a
system of indicating vowels with lines
and other marks around the letters,
but these are not normally used. Some
of the consonants do at times function
as long vowels, as the English letter
"y" does.

    Another thing which makes Arabic
particularly difficult is the variety
of forms a letter may take depending
on where in a word the letter occurs.
Most letters must be connected to
letters preceding or following them,
unless that letter cannot be joined.
The position in the word (initial,
medial, final, independent) changes
the appearance of most letters, and
some can also change depending on the
particular letter they precede or
follow. Also, there are several ways
in which letters can be joined.
Letters can be joined on top of each
other, as well as in a straight line.

    One more thing making Arabic
difficult is that there are many
Semitic letters which cannot be
expressed in English (and English
letters with no exact Semitic
equivalent).

    In this program, a display of the
28 letters of the Arabic alphabet may
be viewed on the "alphabet screen".
These are the "independent" forms of
the letters: the way they are written
when not joined to a letter before or
after them. Each individual letter in
a word may be pointed out and located
in the alphabet, to identify the
different forms.

    In the names of the letters, the
English letters written in italics
stand for Arabic letters with no exact
English equivalent.

    In the names of the letters
"ghain" and "'ain" the "a" and "i" are
both short.

    The first letter "ha" is a harsh
"h" sound, in-between the English "h"
sound and the sound of "ch" in the
German "acht" (which is the letter
"kha" in Arabic).

    The difference between the letters
"tha" and "thal" is: "tha" is the "th"
sound in "thank", and "thal" is the
"th" sound in "thou".

    The letters "sad", "dad", and the
other "ta" and "za", are made with the
middle of the tongue raised in the
mouth.

    The letter "qaf" ("Q") is like a
"k" or "c", but made in the back of
the throat.

    The letter "ghain" is like "g" but
guttural, a "g" sound made without the
tongue touching the top of the mouth.

    The letters "'alif" and "'ain" are
called "glottal stops".  "'alif"
represents a break in speech between
vowels, like a Cockney "bo'le"
(bottle).  "'ain" represents a tense
push before a vowel, which cannot be
expressed in English.

    The letter "ya" sometimes
indicates a long "e" sound.

    The letter "waw" sometimes
indicates a long "u" sound.

    The letter "'alif" in a word
usually indicates a long "a" as in
"father".

    A wavy line (madda) over 'alif
always means a long "a".

    There are other marks, which do
not appear in this program. A letter
which is not followed by a vowel often
has a tiny circle over it (sukun).
When a consonant is doubled, a mark
that looks like a tiny, diagonal
number "3" is often written over it
(shadda). The glottal stop may be
depicted by a symbol that looks like a
tiny, backwards number "2" over a
"carrier" letter: "'alif", "waw", or
"ya" (hamza). There is also a mark
that resembles a tiny, script capital
"D" after a word, which indicates an
"n" at the end of a word.

    The letter "ha" at the end of a
word, with two dots above it, is a
feminine grammatical ending,
pronounced "t". This final "t" sound
is never in the English words.

    Numbers in Arabic are written in
the opposite direction from English
numerals: from lowest place to highest
place, instead of from highest place
value to lowest as in English. But
Arabic is always written
right-to-left, even when writing
numbers. This means that numbers come
out with the digits in the same order
as they would be in English!


 Using The Program
 -----------------

    The program begins by displaying
the Arabic alphabet in independent
form. The names of the letters appear
beneath each letter. The first letter
of the name is the sound of the
letter. After the program has finished
doing some initializing, it will
request you to press a key to begin.

    The left half of the screen is
Arabic, the right half is in English.

    The heading on the left is the
word "Arabic Language" (alulghat
al'arbiyat) in Arabic, across from the
word "English" on the right.

    At the bottom of the screen is the
number of words correct out of the
total words presented so far.

    In the Arabic area of the screen,
these two numbers are written in their
Arabic form: number correct on the
left, total on the right.

    In the center on the left, an
Arabic word will be shown.  You must
sound it out to guess the English word
(or 2-word phrase) it means, and press
RETURN.

    There are no capital letters in
Arabic. If the word is a person's
proper name (usually a first name), it
will be written in blue. If it is the
name of a place, it will be written in
green. Otherwise it will be written in
black.

    Press the F1 function key to view
the alphabet. The Arabic word will be
written at the top of the screen, with
a pointer pointing to the first
letter.  All the letters in the word
will be highlighted in the alphabet in
blue. The letter being pointed to will
be highlighted in red. Use the
left-right cursor key to move the
pointer back and forth along the word,
to find each individual letter in the
alphabet.

    You can press the F3 function key
to show the correct answer. You will
then be asked whether you want to QUIT
back to LOADSTAR or go on to the next
word.

    The F5 function key will enable
you to QUIT the program and return to
LOADSTAR.

    If your answer is incorrect, you
will be informed that you're wrong and
given 4 options:

  R - re-try the same word.

  S - show what the word was.

  C - continue on to the next word
      without revealing what that word
      meant.

  Q - quit back to LOADSTAR.

    If you go through all 280 words,
you can either exit to LOADSTAR or mix
the words up again and start over
again.


 Hints
 -----

    A few hints for figuring out the
English words:

    There are English letters which
Arabic does not have, such as "p" and
"v".

    "P" is usually written as "ba".
Any word with the letter "ba" may have
a "b" or a "p" in English.  "P" may
also be written as "fa".

    "V" is usually written as "waw".

    The letter "waw" is usually "o" or
"u" in English, or it may be a
consonant "w" sound.

    The letter "'alif" can also be an
"o" in English, but it is usually "a".

    The last letter of words is often
different from the last letter in
English. It is usually best not to pay
too much attention to the final letter
in the Arabic word when trying to
figure out the English word.

    It is mainly a matter of guessing
where to place the vowels, and which
vowels to use. You should use the "R"
("Re-try") key a lot even after you
begin to become familiar with the
alphabet: you'll still need to keep
guessing until you find the right
vowels.

 RK


 [DAVE'S AFTERMATH:] Just reading
these "simple" instructions should
help us understand why understanding
the Arabian culture is not "simple." I
am no linguist, but it it seems
obvious from the above that Bin Laden,
et. al. do not think like we do. Their
reality map is as radically different
as a desert wilderness and a verdant
mountain glen.

 Labeling that which is different as
evil is an act of evil itself.

 DMM