"Your coffee is there, Rosa."

I guess Duolingo takes either Levantine, Egyptian or Hijazi where those three dialects spell -ak (as the sign of 2nd-person masc. sing.) and -ik (to 2nd-person fem. sing.).

Could it be, There's your coffee? That's location use of هناك, not existential.

"There's coffee, Rosa" is: هناك قهوتُكِ يا روزَا

In Quran, there is a verse, هنالك الولية لله الحق (Al-Kahf : 44)

Thanks. Google Translate gave me "There is loyalty to the true God". Does it mean, "There's a good man, loyal to the true God" - location, or "Loyalty to the true God exists." - existence?

Some scholars say that, the verse literally means: There is the authority for Allaah the Truth. Here هنالك acts as the khabar muqaddam خبر مقدم of الولية لله الحق while الحق is badal بدل of Allaah, ie. الحق is one of the names of Allaah (God).

Hence,

Based on this explanation, it means: when that (will have happened in the Judgement Day), all authorities are totally belong to Allaah the Truth. There are other valid explanations, but I guess this explanation is close to the there is your coffee sentence.

September 13, 2020

Hm. It's still not clear to me whether that indicates location or existence. Also, I've only just noticed that in the Quran quote, the word is هنالك, not هُناك . Are they the same or different?

September 13, 2020

http://www.m-a-arabia.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16717

Katie,

It هُنَالِكَ can indicate location or existence. But I still couldn't find a better example from Quran, like هناك قهوتك. At least, for me, the verse's clearly stated about the "existence" of the truly authority.

Furthermore,

(هنالك) قد تكون في معنى (هناك) كما قال ابن جن، وقد تستعمل (هنالك) للإشارة إلى البعد المكاني، و(هناك) للتوسط المكاني، وقد يشار بهما للبعد المكاني دون اعتبار للتوسط، وقد يراد بـ "هناك" و "هنالك" و "هنا" الزمان

So, the answer for the 2nd question is that: both هُنَاكَ and هُنَالِكَ can have the same meaning and function.

Thank you, Away54. I've copied the reference into my notebook, to read when I'm more fluent at reading Arabic.

Katie, you're welcome!

Note that Google couldn't translate Quran verses (or Classical Arabic statements) accurately, so be careful when you use some electronic translator.

For Quran, I suggest you to read the Quranic translation from the reliable sources, e.g., Sahih International.

Away54, thanks for pointing me to the Saheeh (that's the spelling they use on the book) International of the Quran. I'd forgotten I had it! And now I've found it again. Great... But I've found that sentence, and still find it difficult to understand.

I'm so sorry I've given you a difficult sentence for the example.

But, how about this?

First, we say:

هناك في ذلك المكان ("There is in that place", ... just like when we say: هناك قهوتك)

Then, we add (in the new sentence):

الولية هي لله (The authority is only for Allaah/ God).

Is it clear now?

September 15, 2020