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Questions Regarding Arabic

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xaled
Tetraglot
Newbie
Morocco
Joined 4707 days ago

9 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: Arabic (classical), Arabic (Maghribi)*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 81 of 93
29 December 2011 at 9:54pm | IP Logged 
SmilingStraw wrote:
@Xaled: Cool, thanks!

May I ask, what exactly is it that makes Egyptian and Moroccan as distinct as French and Spanish.

From what I can tell, although Spanish and French are bth Romance languages, they differ a lot in many things. Does Moroccan also have a completely different grammar, major changes in vocab etc.? Or would it be more like Spanish and Portuguese. They are very similar, but most Spanish speakers I've met have a lot of trouble listening to spoken Portuguese 9depending on he Portuguese).

Thx a lot! :D


You're welcome :)
Spanish and French grammars aren't completely different, there are lot of similarities between them, specially in tenses.. And almost 2 thirds of their vocab differ only in pronunciation. I think the same is between Moroccan and Egyptian.. I'll give you some examples:

-->Interrogatives, eg: What are you doing?
* Egyptian: [inta] bete3ml eeh?
* Moroccan: sh-ka-t3mel [nta]? or shennu ka-t3mel [nta]?
note that in Morrocan the verb "to do" is generally (dar) and not (3mel) but i used this one to show the difference.

Why did you do this?
* Egyptian: [inta] 3emelti keda leeh?
* Moroccan: 3lash 3melti hakda?

--> Verb conjugation,

eg: I am walking
* Egyptian: ba-tmashsha
* Moroccan: ka-ntmeshsha
eg: We're walking
* Egyptian: be-netmashsha
* Moroccan: ka-ntmeshshaw

Note that in Arabic and some other dialects (like Algerian and Tunisian) the present prefixes (ka) and (ba) doesn't exist, the verb is used directly.

For vocab, i did explained in the previous post that a the majority of Arabic terms are common between the two dialects, but the pronunciation generally differs. Here are some examples:

Egyptian --|-- Moroccan --|--  English
------------------------------------------
gebna ;; jben ;; cheese
ahwa ;; 9ahwa ;; coffee
shay ;; atai ;; tea
mayyah ;; ma ;; water
shahr ;; shhar ;; month

And there are words that both have Arabic origin but they aren't the same like:


Egyptian --|-- Moroccan --|--  English
------------------------------------------
laban ;; 7liib ;; milk
yoom ;; nhar ;; day
masa ;; 3shiyya ;; afternoon
gamoosa ;; ba9ra ;; cow

And finally there are lot of French loan words in Moroccan as i said earlier..

I hope this gives you a good idea..

Edited by xaled on 02 January 2012 at 11:20am

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SmilingStraw
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4902 days ago

35 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 82 of 93
30 December 2011 at 12:11am | IP Logged 
Thanks, Xaled! :)
1 person has voted this message useful



SmilingStraw
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4902 days ago

35 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 83 of 93
01 January 2012 at 1:29am | IP Logged 
Xaled, are you familiar with Hassaniya Arabic?
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xaled
Tetraglot
Newbie
Morocco
Joined 4707 days ago

9 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: Arabic (classical), Arabic (Maghribi)*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 84 of 93
02 January 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged 
SmilingStraw wrote:
Xaled, are you familiar with Hassaniya Arabic?


As i said before, i don't understand most of Hassani Arabic, even though it's the dialect of south Morocco.
1 person has voted this message useful



Luso
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 6053 days ago

819 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 85 of 93
02 January 2012 at 6:59pm | IP Logged 
Excellent thread. I have a couple of questions of my own:

@Humdereel:
Humdereel wrote:
At one point, I decided to practice my Egyptian Arabic in Syria, to see how the natives reacted. They would virtually always understand me, except when I busted out an expression that only Egyptians would use commonly. Many of the Syrians also praised how I knew there standard/classical language as well as the most popular dialect, although they didn't word it in the same way as westerners do.


Could you please elaborate on the way they did word (or express) it? I'm quite curious.

@Xaled:

Even though someone already asked you, and you said you know little about it, I'd really like you to say how you find Hassani Arabic to be different from your own dialect. Is it the words? The pronounciation? Your insight would be appreciated.

Thank you both in advance.

Edited by Luso on 02 January 2012 at 7:05pm

1 person has voted this message useful



xaled
Tetraglot
Newbie
Morocco
Joined 4707 days ago

9 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: Arabic (classical), Arabic (Maghribi)*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 86 of 93
03 January 2012 at 3:37pm | IP Logged 
Luso wrote:

@Xaled:

Even though someone already asked you, and you said you know little about it, I'd really like you to say how you find Hassani Arabic to be different from your own dialect. Is it the words? The pronounciation? Your insight would be appreciated.

Thank you both in advance.


It's alleged that Hassani is the closest dialect to Arabic, due to the geographic isolation.. It's partially correct, because, in spite of the Spanish and French colonization of the Sahara, there are few loan words in the Hassani dialect compared to other Arabic dialects. However, Hassani, like other dialects, have different conjugation, structures and expressions.. I used to ask my Mauritanians friends who studied with me, to translate some sentences to their dialects.. Even though most of it words are Arabic, there are some major deformations in their use like all the other dialects.

There is also the factor of pronunciation, since the Bedouin talk tend to be unclear.. It's like the difference between city and rural talk.

2 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
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1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 87 of 93
03 January 2012 at 10:55pm | IP Logged 
This is interesting - I just say a movie set in modern Tunis, and some of the French-
speaking characters were taking classes in ""modern Arabic" at the University. I didn't
realize that spoken Arabic was so different from Derja that people needed to take a
class in it!
1 person has voted this message useful



Luso
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 6053 days ago

819 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 88 of 93
04 January 2012 at 3:03pm | IP Logged 
xaled wrote:


It's alleged that Hassani is the closest dialect to Arabic, due to the geographic isolation.. It's partially correct, because, in spite of the Spanish and French colonization of the Sahara, there are few loan words in the Hassani dialect compared to other Arabic dialects. However, Hassani, like other dialects, have different conjugation, structures and expressions.. I used to ask my Mauritanians friends who studied with me, to translate some sentences to their dialects.. Even though most of it words are Arabic, there are some major deformations in their use like all the other dialects.

There is also the factor of pronunciation, since the Bedouin talk tend to be unclear.. It's like the difference between city and rural talk.


Thank you for your reply. I find this to be particularly interesting because of historical reasons.

Let me elaborate a little: as you know, the city of Timbuktu was one very important cultural and commercial centre, back in medieval times. And, since some of the most important trade routes were completely independent of the Maghrib, it's understandable that the local dialect(s) would have evolved on their own.

I'm not stating that there were not points in common with today's Morocco, far from it. The network was complete on that side too. I'm just saying that, due to trans-saharan routes, the Mauritanian region was far "closer" to the Arabic peninsula than we may think.

Edited by Luso on 04 January 2012 at 3:07pm



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