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Arabic in bite-sized parts | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes  Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 97 of 152 12 August 2014 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I've watched Where do we go now? (original title: وهلّأ لوين؟) yesterday.
The movie is a bit heavy-handed with the message, rather like hammer-dropping it, but I had lots of fun reading bilingual credits and the dedication at the end: اًم لنحن 'to our mother(s)' Funnily enough, the word mother was in singular and not in plural... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6060 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 98 of 152 12 August 2014 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a tough one. Let me try to be concise, as I believe we are talking about an exception to a difficult rule. So, we know that Arabic nouns inflect according to five different features, one of them being humanness. If a plural noun refers to nonhuman entities, it takes the feminine singular ending. But "mothers" is as human as it gets, right? Well, there are exceptions to this rule, and I believe that's the case here. In fact, when human plurals are abstract in meaning, the rule reverts to its original form. I believe "our mothers" could fall under that category. Disclaimer #1: I'm doing this a posteriori, that is, assuming that: a) you're quoting correctly (sorry about that), and that b) the original text is correct. Disclaimer #2: I'm not sure I'm interpreting this well. I just wanted to use this example to illustrate a difficult and unusual grammar point. I suggest you to go and check it yourself. Edited by Luso on 12 August 2014 at 6:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fiolmattias Triglot Groupie Sweden geocities.com/fiolmaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6688 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Arabic (Written) | Message 99 of 152 13 August 2014 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||
I did the unreliable google test :) اًم لنحن got zero hits أمهاتنا got almost two million hits My guess is that it is plural that is the norm :) Edited by fiolmattias on 13 August 2014 at 6:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 100 of 152 13 August 2014 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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fiolmattias, I'm pretty sure it was two words and that the second began with a lam, not a ha.
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| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 101 of 152 17 August 2014 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Not directly Arabic-related, but:
I had a trio of friends, siblings (Polish mother, ? father I never met). The boy was named Mustafa, the older girl was Aisha and the younger Binta. Therefore theirs were the first names I'd asked Sarah to spell when I started learning Arabic in Jan 2013. I was very surprised to learn that while Mustafa and Aisha are indeed Arabic names, Binta is not. I did a bit of research that year and it turned out Binta is a name which is used solely in Senegal, with some tentative links to Arabic بنت or maybe something else I forgot, too. A day ago, I was watching Zurich 2014 and there was a Belgian athlete named Nafissatou Thiam - I googled her name and her father is Senegalese. The catch? Aisha's name was either polonised (Aisza) or spelled as Aissatou. Therefore I am reasonably sure the father of the trio was Senegalese :) It's been years since I've seen them, though. Edited by Zireael on 17 August 2014 at 11:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 102 of 152 18 August 2014 at 7:58am | IP Logged | ||
It is kind of hard to tell why it says اًم لنحن. Maybe it is some colloquial thing because it would normally be أم لنا (a mother for us). The pronoun form نحن is used when it is not connected to another word and نا is used when connected to another word as in this example where it is preceded by the preposition ل. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 103 of 152 18 August 2014 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Might be it was أم لنا - it was dark in the cinema and I couldn't write it down immediately and only jotted it down when got back home.
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| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 104 of 152 26 August 2014 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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What does nasara نصارى mean? I've came across it on a friend's FB feed but he doesn't know any Arabic (it was a reference to the Christians in the Middle East).
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