Recently, I started learning Arabic (standard Arabic, that is, nothing dialectal) on an absolute beginner’s level with a do-it-yourself course based on textbook, exercises and CDs. I stumbled over two questions the answers to which I haven’t found in the textbook. Both involve possessive suffixes.
The first question: The name for Arabic as a language is formed by taking the nationality noun arab عرب and adding the nisba suffix ي (ya). Ya also is the personal suffix for first person singular (“my”), so “my Arabic” (in a sentence such as “My Arabic is very bad”) would be عربيي. Is that accurate? It appears odd to me because of the two consecutive yas. How would you pronounce it?
Second one: What happens if the personal suffix and the suffix for dual (or regular plural) collide? From examples in my textbooks, I deduce that the personal suffix comes last; the book mentions موظفيقم (“your [second person plural] clerks”) as an example of the rule that the nun from the plural or dual ending is dropped if it collides with a personal suffix. Does that hold true in very case? It seems to me that for “my clerks” موظفيني (with the nun) would be much easier to pronounce than موظفيي, where, again, two yas collide. Would the nuns double when two of them collide, such as in موظفيننا (“our clerks”)?
(I typed the Arabic letters in this post on this virtual keyboard and copied and pasted them. I haven’t found a way to properly include phonetic alphabet here.)
I believe there are a number of Arabic speakers on the board, so maybe one of them will respond before I can get you an answer. Meantime what dialect are you learning? I have access to native Egyptian Arabic speakers.
I also have no answers for you, but I’m curious as to why you’re not using the built-in Arabic capabilities of your system. Is there a modern OS that doesn’t have an input method editor that would let you enter the text? From my experiences with Hebrew, I know it can be a pain to mix left- and right-aligned text, but other than that, I’ve never had a problem (with Windows, in my case).
I’m learning Standard Arabic, i.e. the non-dialectal form used mainly in writing. I understand that this version is not spoken anywhere in its pure form, but it is said to be understood throughout the Arab world, and a good starting point for learning dialects later on, if necessary.
(The textbook includes extra information in every lesson about dialectal peculiarities regarding the grammar and vocabulary covered in the lesson, for Syrian and Egyptian. Besides, the CDs that came along with the book include every dialog in four versions: Standard Arabic, Standard Arabic spoken more slowly to facilitate listening comprehension, Egyptian, and Syrian. But the focus of the course is clearly on Standard Arabic.)
I didn’t even know that Win XP (my OS) included a virtual keyboard. I looked around and found it, and while I haven’t really found out a way to make it type Arabic (I changed the script in its menu to “Arabic,” but it keeps on typing Roman characters nonetheless), I’ll play with it and find out how to do that. Learn something new every day. Thanks!
This phrase does not translate word-for-word from English. In Arabic, one says “the Arabic language” so the possessive would be applied to the word for “language.” I didn’t get enough specifics to render the Arabic for it here, though; sorry.
I’m afraid I didn’t get an explanation for this that I can repeat coherently. :o If I can get more details, I’ll try.
Ah, OK, that makes sense. In this case, I assume it would be لغتي العربية (luġatī al-΄arabīya in my Word-based transcription; I’m not happy with the rendering of Arabic script here, either), then, right?
when stating “my arabic is very bad” you would use the work for speak with this sentence. so it would translate “i speak arabic language very bad” ie. aakalmni lghora elarabeeya…
I missed responding to your issue with the Windows IME. Often when you switch languages, you have to also change the input mode. For instance, my language bar is currently set to Japanese, but the “Input Mode” setting is “Half-width Alphanumeric” (what the Japanese call romaji, which is standard Western characters). I don’t have Arabic set up on this computer, but look for one of the settings to control what characters you’re typing with.