Talk:How to Read Arabic
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I thought there'd be no problem in transcribing here part of a discussion regarding Arabic that took place on the Unilang forum.
- Psi-Lord 20:16, 16 Feb 2004 (EST)
'I was reading something about Arabic on the Wiki and I've got a question...
When talking about the sukuun, we have:
Quote: "Arabic uses a special symbol called Sukuun ( ْ ), which tells you that "no vowel follows this Consonant" (and it conveniently looks like a small Zero, telling you so)"
And then there are two examples. The second one is okay — it compares بَيَ (baya) and بَيْ (bay). I'm curious about the first one though, where the words compared are بَوَ (bawa) and بَو�?ْ (baw) — I may be missing something, but, if the sukuun marks the consonant as vowelless, why's there a kasra there?'
- (Psi-Lord)
'A mistake, I suppose... Anyway those are just examples... A word never ends with a sukun, even if sometimes it can be uttered ending with a consonants.'
- (leppie)
"aw = fat-ha followed by waw" This one doesn't have Arabic next to it, unlike almost everywhere else on the page (where you get Arabic right next to the letter name). How about an example of this, right after this text? (I don't know how to type one myself; actually I've not even learned the letter names.) Toma
Hey I am the one who wrote this, I'll fix those errors asap, thanks! Give me any other critique you wish, I'd appreciate it. Leppie I wish I'd see you on IRC more often so we could practice Arabic. I am wondering what you mean by no words ending in sukuun, right off the top of my head, most conjugations of the Jussive form of verbs end in sukuun as a rule.
Justen
I think this is a really neat page, btw. This is the first presentation of Arabic letters that doesn't scare me away :) Toma
I don't know if it is a browser issue, but I see the same thing twice in the Arabic following this:
Note that Kasra can be written under the shadda but above the consonant, or under the consonant as usual:
babbi = بَبّ�? or بَب�?ّ
Oooh, they look different here in this window! The kasra is above in the right one. So, it must be a browser problem.
I could not find the typos you talked out, with the sukuun, but I notice you wrote this a few weeks ago so I've probably fixed them in the meantime. Also, it's impossible to show arabic examples of the dipthongs in an isolated form, which is why they aren't shown. They are shown however using baa ب, since you need a Consonant to "carry" the short vowel :) I'm glad you liked the page, it's modeled after a Book I have on Arabic letters, but only as inspiration! I am not copying anything :D I hope to get the rest of the letters done soon
Justen
