Roots

Most Arabic words are based on a three letter root. Extracting the root from the word will prove to be a very valued and coveted skill for advanced levels of the language. Getting a feel of how to do it, even early on, is a very important skill.

Arabic Harakat

In many language learning books (ahem, Al-Kitab, ahem) they make a big mistake in my opinion by not introducing harakat earlier to students learning Arabic. Being familiar with these types of diacritical markers helps heaps and heaps in the long run, I assure you.

What are diacritical marks? If you've been trying to sound out some of the words in my examples below, you may have found that the same letters can be pronounced slightly differently despite looking the same in script. The diacritical marks help us to pronounce each letter as it should be pronounced. Let's go over some of the basic ones for now.

These harakat represent Arabic's short vowels: a, u, and i


For example, the letter

ب

can be pronounced as either ba, bu, or bi depending on which type of harakat is introduced into the letter.

This is how they are depicted:

بَ ba

بُ bu

بِ bi
بْ b

Important note: the last diacritical mark, known as a sukoon, in fact just denotes a lack of a short vowel associated with the letter. This is why it is oftentimes not even written.

These harakat can be applied to any letter we have previously learnt, and now allows us to be able to pronounce words with absolute certainty!

Examples:

ُالـــحَــــــمــــــــد

a-l-ha-m-du = alhamdu = praise

ُالــــــبـَـــــنَـــــات

a-l-ba-na-tu = albanat = girls


ُالـــــــبِــــــــنْــــت

a-l-bi-n-tu = albint = girl

Let's dive into it!

Please don't be intimidated by the seemingly foreign looking script! Arabic is a phonetic language and therefore once you memorize the alphabet you will be able to begin reading in no time at all! As you become more familiar, the script will not only be beautiful but also a practical and readable source of information, poetry, creativity and art!

Keep practicing the script until you get it down, then come here for your next lesson!

A famous arabic saying goes like this

لـــن تـعـطـيـك الــلــغـة بـعـضـها حــــتى تـــعـــطيـهـــا كــلـــك

lan tu'tiyaka allughatoo ba'dh-ha hata tu'tiyaha kulaka

The language will not give you a part of itself until you give it all of yourself

The Arabic Alphabet from a Judaic Perspective

If you are familiar with the Hebrew alphabet (or rather, the alephbet), you might find this chart very useful in orienting yourself around the Arabic alphabet. Many of the Hebrew letters correspond very beautifully to the Arabic alphabet, due to the fact that both are Semitic languages.

Source: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/judeo-arabic.htm

Before we can discuss Arabic, an important aspect of learning the language is being very familiar with the alphabet.

I paste below, courtesy of Stanford University's Arabic Program website, (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/arabic/alphabet/chart.html) the Arabic alphabet in its entirety.

Courtesy: Stanford University www.stanford.edu

Once you're confident with these letters and their pronunciations, see if you can scroll down to the previous two postings and actually sound out the words that are provided as examples!

الـــى الــلــقـاء يــاطـــلاب

ila al-liqa' ya tulab

Until next time, O students!

Pronounced BA

Examples:

نبات

Vegetation

بنت

Girl

بنات

Girls

Pronounced A-LEF it is now known as the first letter in the Arabic alphabet.

Examples

الطالب

The Student

الحمد

Praise

المدرسة

The School