أما

See also: آما, اما, and إما

Arabic

Etymology

Univerbation of أَن (ʔan, “that”) +‎ مَا (mā, relative), the original thought being “that this matter be touched”, “be it that”, or just a dialectal variant of disjunctive إِمَّا (ʔimmā, “be it that”) as أَمَّا (ʔammā) can well be used for positing two alternatives.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʔam.maː/

Conjunction

أَمَّا • (ʾammā)

1. as for; followed by a noun or pronoun, itself usually followed by the particle فَـ (fa-)

   أَمَّا النَّافِذَةُ فَهِيَ مَفْتُوحَةٌ ― ʔammā an-nāfiḏatu fahiya maftūḥatun ― As for the window, it's open.

Usage notes

• أَمَّا (ʔammā) is used to make the following noun phrase the focus of the sentence. While “as for” is a good rule-of-thumb translation, it is often more idiomatic to use “but” or no conjunction at all.

Derived terms

• أَمَّا بَعْدُ (ʔammā baʕdu)

Descendants

• Maltese: imma
• Moroccan Arabic: أما (ʔamma)
• → Azerbaijani: amma
• → Bashkir: әммә (əmmə)
• → Persian: اما (ammâ)
• → Turkish: ama
• → Urdu: اما (ammâ)

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Moroccan Arabic

Etymology

From Arabic أَمَّا (ʔammā).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʔam.ma/

Conjunction

أَمَّا • (ʔamma)

1. as for
2. but