Friday, November 26, 2010

Construction of Arabic Words

If we are familiar with with English words, in the standard writing, the letters are written separately to form a word. Each of the word is separated by a space.

The arabic writing is different. The text is written from right to left. The letters to form a word are joined, there is a simple rule on the ways the letters are joined. Some words can be joined with another word. There is no space required between words.

The followings are some examples on how the letters are joined.

1.            dwelled                     س ك ن   .......   سكن.....the word is pronounced as "sa ka na". It consists of three letters which sound like.. from  right to left   (nun=ك) (ن = kaf).. (س=sin)

2.            worshipped             نسك   ....... ن س ك ..the word is pronounced as "na sa ka".. It consists of three letters which sound like.. from  right to left   (sin=ك)....(س=kaf..)... (ن = nun)..
3.            ate                         أ ك ل        .......  أكل ..the word is pronounced as "a ka la" . It consists of three letters which sound like.. from  right to left   ...(....ل. = lam).(..ك=kaf....)(.أ..= a)

The arabic verbs are divided into 3 types, present tense, past tense and commanding or request. The example in English for the word eat are ...1. he eats     2. he ate     3.please eat .  the earlier example    أكل   means he ate.
The root word for Arabic is past tense, as present tense is the root word for English.

Arabic letter.
There are 28 letters in Arabic, and some of them cannot be translated directly to English. Some of the letters do not have the equivalent sound in English. The letters are:

اب ت ث ج ح خ دذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي ى