Arabic Manual. a Colloquial Handbook in the Syrian

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IN MEMORY OF Gerald E. Baggett CO .Sk ? Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/arabicmanualcollOOcrow LUZAC'S ORIENTAL GRAMMARS SERIES. LUZAC'S ORIENTAL GRAMMARS SERIES. Vol. I. Manual of Hebrew Syntax. By J. D. WlJNKOOP and C. VAN DEN BlESEN. 2S. 6d. „ II. Manual of Hebrew Grammar. By J. D. WlJNKOOP and C. VAN DEN BlESEN. 2s. 6d. „ III. A Modern Persian Colloquial Grammar, with Dialogues, Extracts from Nasir Eddin Shah's Diaries, Tales, etc., and Vocabulary. By F. Rosen. \os. 6d. „ IV. Arabic Manual. By F. E. Crow. ARABIC MANUAL : ARABIC MANUAL A COLLOQUIAL HANDBOOK IN THE SYRIAN DIALECT FOR THE USE OF VISITORS TO SYRIA AND PALESTINE, CONTAINING A SIMPLIFIED GRAMMAR, A COMPREHENSIVE ENGLISH AND ARABIC VOCABULARY AND DIALOGUES. THE WHOLE IN ENGLISH CHARACTERS, CAREFULLY TRANSLITERATED, THE PRONUNCIATION BEING FULLY INDICATED. F. E. CROW, I.ATE II. P.. M. VICE-CONSUL AT I'.EIUUT. LONDON L UZAC & Co., PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE 46, Great Russell Street 1901. PRINTED BY E. J. HRILI>, I.EYDEN (HOLLAND). c cor- PREF A CE. It is hoped that the present work will supply a want, which has long been felt by those, who, for purposes of business or recreation, have been led to visit Syria and Palestine. The extensive scope of English and American missionary development, and the yearly in- crease in the influx of tourists to this country may, perhaps, render both useful and acceptable any means, which facilitate the acquisition of colloquial Arabic. This manual has no classical pretensions and is, by no means exhaustive. It is intended, merely, as a practical guide to the spoken language, which may serve to enable those, who wish to deal directly with the natives, to do so, without being obliged to have recourse to the medium of an interpreter. The limited compass of the book has, necessarily, restricted the selection of the vocabulary, and the words chosen will merely satisfy the ordinary and most practical requirements. In using it, allowances must be made for local differences of pronunciation. It should, also, be borne in mind that colloquial Arabic is never written, and that both its pronun- VI PREFACE. ciation and terminology are loose and undefined. English characters are used throughout the work, which places it within the reach of those, who have made no study of Oriental languages. As regards spelling and pronunciation, a system of transliteration has been adopted, for purposes of uniformity, but local difterences of dialect and the arbitrary disregard, in spoken Arabic, for the rules, which govern the formation of the classical language, necessarily preclude an absolutely rigid adher- ence to it. I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful appreciation of the kind assistance which I have re- ceived, in the compilation of this work, from Dr. WORTABET, Messrs. ESPER and FUAD Shoucair and Mr. ConstANTINE KhouRI of Beirut, and from Messrs. Nesif Bey and Michael Meshaka of Damascus. British Consulate. F. E. C. Damascus, October i. 1899 CONTENTS. Page. Orthography and Pronunciation 3 Etymology 10 Paradigms of Verbs 22 Numerals 58 Prepositions 60 Adverbs 63 Conjunctions 70 Interjections 71 Seasons, Months, and Days of the Week 73 Time 74 English and Arabic \'ocabulary 79 Dialogues in English and Arabic 305 ABBREVIATIONS. a. adjective. ad. adverb. c. comparative. c. p. collective plural. com. common to both genders con. conjunction. contr. contracted. d. dual. f. feminine. imp. imperfect. imper. imperative. lit. literally. m. masculine. n. noun. neg. negative. plural. P- p.p. passive participle. pass. passive. per. person. pr. preposition. pres. part. present participle. pro. pronoun. pro. suff. pronominal suffix. s. singular. sup. superlative. V. verb. V. a. active verb. V. n. neuter verb. ARABIC MANUAL. PART I. GRAMMAR. ARABIC MANUAL. I. Grammar. ORTHOGRAPHY AND PRONUNCIATION. The oriental character is not used in this Httle work. The Arabic letters are represented by their approximate English equivalents and the transliteration is completed by figuring the vowel sounds as pronounced. The system of orthography adopted for this purpose has been followed as closely as local differences in pronunciation will admit. It is, however, not rigid and the aim is rather to reproduce, as correctly and as intelligibly as possible, the sound of words as pronounced, than to give a forced rendering of the Arabic letters by the substitution of arbitrary equivalents. Alphabet. The Arabic alphabet consists of twenty-eight letters, which are figured throughout the book by the characters represented in the following table. ARABIC MANUAL. English Arabi c letters. Figured. equivalent. elif a a, e, i or u (modified according to the vowel sound). be b b te t t se s, th s or t jim J J ha hh h khe kh kh dal d d zal oi- thai z, th z re r r zayn 'V • z z sin s s shin sh sh sad s s dad dd d ta t t z, th z za It ' \ 'ain '. none placed before a vowel (gives a hollow sound like the at- tempt to pronounce a vowel without a consonant). ghain '^0<T fe f f ' kaf, 'af k ("a) " when the k sound is omitted, and k when it is pronounced, which is rare. kef k k lam 1 1 mini m m nun n n wow w, oo w, u, u or ow he h h ye y. i y or i GRAMMAR. 5 The hemza is a soft breathing or point of disjunction. It creates a hiatus before the vowel which it introduces and its effect is very similar to the sound made when attempting to pronounce a vowel without a consonant. It is either a radical letter or an inflection prefixed to verbs and is joined to the letter elif, which has no sound of itself in Arabic. When it comes in the middle of a word it is represented by the breathing ' and has a sound very similar to the 'ain, e. g. mu'min a believer, ma'kulat eatables. In the vernacular the hemza in the middle of a word is often replaced by ye e. g. je'iz lawful (pronounced jeyiz); le'i" proper (pronounced leyi"). Vowel sounds. The Arabs have only three vowel signs which are unwritten. They are called fatha, kesra and damma. The fatha has an open sound like the 'a' in 'ashore', e. g. hadd a boundary. The kesra has the sound of 'i' in 'in', e. g. hibr ink. The damma has the sound of 'u' in 'puir, e. g. kutub books. As the oriental character is not used in this book, its object being merely to reproduce the sound of Arabic words as pronounced by means of a system of transliteration, it will be sufficient to note that there are ten vowel sounds and three compound vowel sounds, for each of which a specific character has been adopted, as follows: a long as in father, far written a a a short „ „ ashore, china „ ARABIC MANUAL. e french as in egal (liike a in fate) written e e short merit e w •n V i long marine 1 n 11 i short ill » V « i o long n V old 6 o short n n or « o or oo u long n n too V u u short pull 1) 11 » u ai, ay is pronounced in •this book as in aisle. ey n n V n V n prey. ow n V n V V n powder. Observations on pronunciation. se (figured s or t) is sometimes pronounced *s', e. g. suls a third, and sometimes 't', e. g. ti"il heavy. Its proper pronunciation is 'th' as in 'thick' but it is rarely heard in conversation, 'g' jim (figured j) is pronounced in Syria like a soft or like the *z' in azure, ha (figured h) has an open guttural sound, somewhat akin to 'kh'. khe (figured kh) has a deep guttural sound, resembling the 'ch' in the Scotch word loch. zal or thai (figured z) is generally pronounced 'z' on the plain and 'th', as in 'them', on the mountain. In some places it is pronounced 'd'. 'ain (figured ' before a vowel) has a deep hollow sound, e. g. 'ind-i with me, I have, kaf (figured " when the 'k' sound is omitted and k when it is pronounced). The 'k' sound in this letter has completely disappeared in most parts of Syria and : GRAMMAR. 7 is only retained among the Druses. It is pronounced like the Arabic hemza with a deep hollow sound, e. g. "iddem-i before me; wa"aft I stood; kadir 'ala kill shey The Almighty. y followed by a vowel is pronounced as in yes. •• diairesis, denotes that the vowel, over which it is placed, is to be pronounced separately, as in 'naive', e. g. t'ai come, (imper. fem.) ; mai water. The acute accent is used to indicate the letter or syllable on which the accent falls. Termination. In Syria, after the following letters, the final te (called te marbuta or tied te) the sign of the fem. sing, and the general termination of all fem. words, is changed into ye in the colloquial language and pronounced short 'y' like the in merry. It is here written i after be e.g. darbi a blow. te nebti a plant. 77 77 sc ba'asi a 77 77 mission. jim merji a meadow. 77 77 dal wardi a rose. 77 77 zal khuzi a helmet. 77 77 zayn lowzi an almond.

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