The assorted finds of Artefact Publishing
I have started learning how to read and write Arabic, and I have noticed one thing in particular: you can leave lots of things out. For example, initial hamza, short vowel signs, and shadda. Taken together with the fact that initial alif (ا) can stand for any short vowel, this means that the word ابن could be transliterated as: ibn (which it really is), abn, ibna, ibana, ubina, ubbana, ibinni, etc. Seriously, the number of possibilities is well over a hundred.
Given that this does not cause enormous, crippling confusion among readers of Arabic, I am guessing that Arabic’s use of consonantal word roots (just add vowels and other hangers on to get different but related words) means that context provides most of the necessary disambiguation. In any case, it’s a nice script, even if I much prefer the printed form to the handwritten one (which looks a bit messy).
Posted by jamie on March 25, 2005 10:39+12:00
Posted by: stephen on March 26, 2005 22:05+12:00
Indeed, as noted, aleph (ا) at the start of a word can stand for any of the short vowels. And waw (و) and yeh (ي) can be pronounced in several ways. I don’t know, though I suspect not, whether these different pronunciations equate to different phonemes — as is the case with the English letter i, which can be pronounced in a variety of ways, at least two of which are distinct, as in "windy" (having much movement of air) and "windy" (having much turning around and about).
True enough about the predominance of consonants meaning that lack of vowel marks is not a huge issue. It will be interesting to see, as an adult learner, how much of a problem it proves, and whether the trilateral roots aspect has an influence.
Arabic does have vowel marks, so they presumably are used under some circumstances, though I couldn’t tell you what they are; maybe once the course is finished.
Posted by: Jamie on March 26, 2005 22:24+12:00
Jamie, your guess is widespread and said of other Semitic languages, notably Hebrew and Ancient Egption (or Coptic). Has it ever been investigated?
The triliteral root thing may not be as important as all that though - mere consonant frequency probably explains it. Ts srprsngly sy t wrt ndrstndbl sntncs wth n vwls. I can't see you getting away with that in Hawaiian...
Dunno about Arabic, but Hebrew has "training wheels" in the form of diacritic vowel marks - so called "pointing". This is used in sacred texts, and in teaching children, but omitted in everyday writing.
Posted by: stephen on March 26, 2005 18:37+12:00