26 Comments
I'm sorry "tsuj1g1r1", I can't see how that would shed light on my questions?
362
And Arabs tend to spell their names a certain way when transliterating them to English. If you were to spell Arwa as "Arwaa," I would think that the second A denoted a ع or something, rather than a long vowel. The choice by the course makers to denote a long vowel sound by repeating the vowel letter is actually quite odd. Arabic is rarely romanized that way. We normally use a macron for the long vowels, or don't denote the difference at all. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic
Yeah, I know. There are so many romanization systems. But I find it reasonable to be very accurate in learning materials. So is the final a in Arwa(a) long or short?
- 362
That and in word-final positions, Arabic doesn't distinguish between long and short vowels anyway, because short vowels aren't pronounced in word-final positions at all.
Same word for engineer use in Turkish , Persian , Azerbaijani and In Arabic <-- مُهَنْدِس
Why is it (Muhandisatan 3'areebatan)? In Arabic, the 5abar (خبر) is supposed to end in (un), so (Muhandistun 3'areebatun). Unless there was a fi3l madi naqes (فعل ماضي ناقص) which comes at the beginning of the sentence, (كان, أصبح, ظل, بات, صار), etc.
This is correct, the default should be -u(n), not -a(n) or -i(n). It feels random throughout a lot of this course
'Wierd' is a bit of a negative word to use for someone, how about 'foreign'?
Could anyone explain what kind of letter ى in "Arwa" is. I understand that it somehow represents an a-sound. But it is neither an alif nor a fatha.
it is a variant of an alif (the vowel form) called an alif maqsuurah (a shortened alif)
Tbh the rules of when to employ an alif and when to employ an alif maqsoorah are a bit complicated at this stage of learning, best to just think of it as a different way of writing alif.
To be completely accurate, there is a very subtle sound difference between an alif and a shortened alif but the difference pretty much unheard unless one is very versed with Arabic sounds.
So for practical purposes best to consider it as an alif vowel pronunciation at this stage.
Thanks "FIX"! Alif as a vowel represents a long a. Does alif maqsuurah ("a shortened alif") represent a short a? Or is it that no matter what length the vowel sign is, the vowel length at the end of a word is always short?
hmmm, alright, since yu asked... this may be a long explanation :D
it is primarily aesthetic, its function is 'softening' the word, where a regular alif (alif mamdoodah or 'stretched alif') may mess up harmony.
as a result, it follows strict rules of placement. The rules, as I stated, are complicated. Here is an example of several:
A shortened alif is placed in nouns that have more than three letters provided the letter preceding it is not a yaa2 (ي) مستشفى مصطفى
EXCEPT when there is a difference in meaning depending on a version with a stretched alif and a version with a shortened alif يحيا v/s يحيى
and EXCEPT when the word is borrowed from elsewhere other than classical Arabic: أمريكا أوروبا except certain proper nouns that have some connection to Arabic (like a name originally Hebrew or influenced by medieval Arab culture): عيسى بخارى
and that is just nouns, there is a whole other set of rules and exceptions and rules in the exceptions for verbs, pronouns, etc.
which is why it is easier to just know which words have them at this stage...
For pronunciation, the best I can explain it - it is NOT a short vowel like a fat7a ( َ ) but: it is very close to a long vowel like a regular/stretched alif, the difference will likely not be heard unless one is very familiar with Arabic sounds. But, it subtly ends with a very soft 'h' (much softer than an English h as in hat).
Basically, the way you end a regular alif is aa (if at the end of sentence is your breath dies down with the voice still in it, so the volume lowers down until inaudible). The way you end an alif maqsoora is: as your breath dies down and just before the volume is inaudible, the voice is gone so it becomes a voiceless breath or a very soft 'h' - the h being at a lower volume than the 'a' preceding it.
In arabic terms, that would be like a vowel (halfway between long and short) BEFORE the letter (the only case where a vowel is pronounced before the letter) h, and the h is at a lower volume.
Imagine below uppercase letters at a regular volume and lowercase letters at half the volume, and a smooth transition: ARWAah
