Talk:حسن

If possible, we should have the gender for Arabic nouns. It would also be nice to include the feminine form of adjectives, and possibly the plural versions. I can't recall just which forms there are - dual? — Hippietrail 14:00, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mess

Stephen G: The mess I'm talking about is all those words being on the same page. They shouldn't be. You wouldn't have goodness and advante on the same page, right? Jon Harald Søby 09:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

This is nothing like goodness and advante. Arabic-to-English dictionaries proceed by roots, most of which are triliteral. All the words on this page have the triliteral root حسن.

Arabic verbs are unusual in that there are eleven verb classes. Class I is the simplest form (hásana). Class II is formed by doubling the second radical: hássana. (But, since double letters are not written in Arabic, both forms are spelt حسن). Class III is like Class I with the first vowel lengthened: há:sana. Class IV prefixes a glottal stop, drops the first vowel, and adds an initial helping vowel to make it pronounceable: ’áhsana. Class V prefixes "t" to Class II: tahássana. And so it goes.

Semantically, Class I is the simple verb. Class II is intensive, causative, declarative, denominative. Class III is conative ("to try to") and always transitive. Class IV is causative. Class V is the reflexive of Class II, also passive. Class VI is reciprocal, denotes pretence. Class VII is reflexive, then passive. Class VIII is reflexive, sometimes passive. Classes IX and XI denote colors and bodily defect (to be red, to be blind, etc.). Class X means asking or thinking that Class I should be done, thus causative.

The important thing is that all of these Verb Classes pertain immediately to the root (in this case, H-S-N حسن).

Note also that the nouns and adjectives are also spelt حسن in the masculine singular forms.

If you ever have a chance to see a good Arabic-to-English dictionary (such as Hans Wehr’s Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic), you will see what I mean. You have to have a certain familiarity with the language before you can even look a word up, due to the fact that you must first reduce the word in question to its root form. For instance, تقدم (taqáddum = precedence, priority) is found under قدم (qádama = to precede). Some words are very tricky, because certain radicals (especially the glottal stop, y and w) often disappear in many of the forms of a word, and you have to know what it is before you can find it.

Simply put, Arabic dictionaries work very differently from European dictionaries. All of the words on this حسن page belong here. What is needed are the redirects for each of the forms, to bring the searcher to this page. —Stephen 10:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand, but I still believe that all of those forms should have their own pages. You wouldn't put tables and table on the same page. Or, well, you could, but according Wiktionary policies, you shouldn't. If this is for a prefix, it should simply state that it is a prefix… Jon Harald Søby 11:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

A few of those forms (the few that have different spellings than simply حسن) could profitably have their separate pages, but they would still need to be on this page. When an experienced student of Arabic looks up the triliteral root حسن, he expects to find what is one this page...just as English-speakers expect to see better and best on the good page.

حسن isn’t a prefix at all, it’s a root. The Semitic languages are extremely root-conscious. All Arabic words are roots, upon each of which one of around 75 set patterns is placed. Where English or German has "words", Arabic has roots...grammar and semantic variation is applied to the roots by the use of vowel patterns. An Arabic dictionary is mostly just roots, with "words" arising in the examples and illustrations.

And that’s why Arabs usually cannot tell you what a "word" in isolation means. In isolation, it’s simply a root...it doesn’t receive its defining pattern until it takes its position in a phrase or sentence.

The three letters حسن, spelt exactly this way, are pronounced variously as: hasuna, husn, hassana, hasan, husnu, husni, husnan, husnin, husnun, hasanu, hasana, hasani, hasanan, hasanin, hasanun, and more. And these exact three letters may be a noun, two different verb classes, an adjective or an adverb, all depending on the precise context. But even the forms that are spelt slightly differently, such as the elatives, still belong to the triliteral root حسن. And while some elatives deserve a page of their own (such as ’akbar اكبر), they still belong on the base page (just as English superlatives and comparatives go on the basic adjective page).

So yes, some of these words could have their own page, but they all still need to be here, because they are the "definition" of the triliteral root حسن. —Stephen 12:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

why is there a cleanup tag here? The entry was clearly written by someone who is aware of Arabic grammar, while the rfc was added by someone who isn't. Unless you want to have Arabic entries with full Harakat (the horror), you will need to keep all these entries on one page. If h2 categorization by stem class is not "standard", well, that is why nobody bothered to lay out a clean About:Arabic language yet. Wiktionary would profit ever so greatly if editors who have no knowledge of $LANGUAGE were content to leave alone $LANGUAGE entries by editors who do have knowledge of $LANGUAGE. 83.78.7.49 18:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The cleanup tag is here because all languages on Wiktionary use the same system. If we have custom ways of layout out Marathi and Maori and Amuzgo as well, how will anybody be able to find anything? It is certain that Stephen is extremely knowledgeable of Arabic but that is besdide the pragmatic issues of building a dictionary of all languages. The reasons we put related and derived words on their own pages are several. 1) Because the people who use translating dictionaries often do not know enough about a language to know whether the word they wish to translate is in dictionary form or an inflected form or a derived form or a form with attached clitics or many other grammatically possibilities. Somebody looking up الأحسن doesn't always know they should be looking under حسن. Those who do know this usually already know the translation. 2) We can't just link all of the complicated forms to the basic form because we are a dictionary of all langauges and in very many cases the same written form will need to redirect to one page for one language and a different page for the next language. Arabic script is used and has been used formerly for many languages besides the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu which are the most famous. For a monolingual dictionary or even a bilingual dictionary for two languages in different scripts I 100% agree that the arrangement on this page is best. Not just for Arabic but for English also. The problem is that multilingual dictionaries have to take a lot more into account. — Hippietrail 10:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

while I disagree with "those who do know this usually already know the translation" (recognizing a prefix or a desinence isn't equivalent to knowing 3,000 Arabic roots), I see your point. The simple fact is that حسن as a verbal root has five entries. Now what is the problem with listing these by stem class instead of "Verb, Verb, Verb, Verb and Verb"? It still says "Verb" on every heading, so those who don't know what to make of the stem class still recognize the entries are about Verbs. The multilingual aspect is fully resolved by having an "Arabic" h2 section, and everything under this h2 section will relate to the Arabic language, regardless whether there is an additional "Farsi" h2 section. Your point that a translation dictionary will be of limited use to people with zero knowledge of either target or source language is very very true, but inherent in the concept itself. We should do all we can to assist people finding things (with redirects, warning templates, the works), but in the end we cannot present things simpler than they actually are. Dbachmann 14:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

note that discussions of such general nature would belong on Wiktionary:About Arabic. Dbachmann 14:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I have no problem with listing the stem class. This is exactly the sort of thing we should do with as many languages as possible. You can never have too much grammatical info on a word. Stem class is quite as important as gender in my opinion. I don't think "Verb #" is the best way to present it just as I wouldn't like "Noun m" and "Noun f". Grammatical info such as gender, countability, plural, inflection goes on the headword & inflection line below the POS line. I would leave "Verb" as POS and put something like "stem class #" on the next line which makes the number less of a mystery to people not so knowledgeable in Arabic. — Hippietrail 09:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

more RFC tagging

When we have a complex English word, we delineate the portions that differ by their etymology. The way this is currently broken apart randomly is just wrong, in so many ways. If these really do conjucate so radically differently, the closest analogy would be multiple etymology sections, right? Why go out of the way, to make this even more complicated, by smushing definitions into a single verb heading, with incorrect multiple inflection templates? --Connel MacKenzie 01:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually looking at the rendered characters, I do not understand why these have been placed on the same page, at all. They are ===Derived terms=== and nothing more. --Connel MacKenzie 01:57, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

On English pages, you can have separated entries for do, did, done, and doing, but all of them also belong on the main page under do. On Russian pages, you have have separate entries for genitive singular, genitive plural, accusative singular, accusative plural, and so on, but all the declension forms also belong all together on the base page. Arabic is verbally oriented, and all of the verb stems, from I though XI, belong together on the base page. Besides this, when you look up an English word, you usually drop the suffixes -s/-es and -ed and look for what’s called the citation form. In Arabic, the vast majority of words are have a triliteral base, and, since Arabic "words" can take on 20,000 or more different forms (not counting spelling differences due to vowel pointing), it is a common practice to strip a word down to its basic root, and this is how Arabic dictionaries are arranged. Besides the verb stem I that is حسن, you have to include the other verb stems. Frequently the same spelling, but with a different pronunciation, also makes a noun. Different languages require a different treatment. Trying to force them into an English mold will only make the articles useless. —Stephen 02:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

On English pages, English entries are not arranged like they are in any other dictionary; they are arranged in the Wiktionary style. Certainly, the notion of having separate entries for each English form is not common outside of Wiktionary.

Please explain what you mean in a tiny bit more detail, with regard to "20,000 or more different forms." Obviously, that is an apples-to-oranges comparison, as you list (currently) 13 different spellings on the page. I am asking why this is not 13 separate pages, each with a ===Related terms=== section, just like it would be, if we were following Wiktionary conventions, here. --Connel MacKenzie 05:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I don’t see thirteen different spellings...I only see five (not counting the feminine and plural forms of nouns, and not counting the definite article in one, and not counting the ===Related terms===). Verb stems I and II are spelled identically, and the noun and adjective are also spelled the same as the verbs, though they are all pronounced differently. Arabic verbs distinguish not just tense and person the way English verbs do, but also number and gender. So, a verb has: the first person singular, first person plural, second masculine singular, second masculine dual, second masculine plural, second feminine singular, second feminine dual, second feminine plural, third masculine singular, third masculine dual, third masculine plural, third feminine singular, third feminine dual, third feminine plural; then all of these persons and numbers occur in the perfect, the imperfect the future, the subjunctive, the jussive, the energetic; and the 2nd persons also have masculine, feminine, singular, dual, and plural imperatives; then most of these persons and numbers have forms in the passive voice; so far we’re just talking about stem I...almost all verbs also have all the above forms in several or most of the other ten stems (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI); besides all of these, each stem also has masculine, feminine and plural active participles and passive participles, as well as verbal nouns, usually including multiple plural forms; then most of these forms take negative suffixes to form compound negatives; on top of all of this, Arabic verbs also take their direct and indirect objects in the form of enclitic pronouns (for example, كتبتيهولهم, katabtihúlhum = you single female wrote it to them...all one word); on top of all of this, most forms may take a variety of prefixes which correspond to English prepositions and conjunctions, such as "and", "for", "to", "then", as well as prefixed particles that indicate a question or urgency (I’m just thinking of these off the top of my head, so I’m probably overlooking a number of forms); then add to this the freedom with which all of these forms may take diacritics that indicate short vowels, long vowels, doubled consonants, nunation, genitives, accusatives, nominatives, construct-state markers, and definiteness/indefiniteness, plus the fact that words may be lengthened at will for esthetic purposes and to justify text, by adding tashdid in one or more places in a word, without limitation. As example of this, using the previous example: كتبتيهـولهم, كـتـبـتـيـهـولـهـم, كتبتيهولهـــــــم, كتبتــيهـــــــــــولهم, all of which say katabtihúlhum; then add any combination of matres lectionis, such as كَتَبْتِيهُولهُمْ, كَبْتــــيهُولهُمْ, aكتَبتِيهــولهـُم, and so on; and then you may select optional letterforms for esthetic effect, such as ڪَتَبْتِيهُولهُمْ, and so on. I once spent some time trying to figure out how many permutations of a word there could be (but not counting vowel pointing, tashdids, swash characters, or anything like that), but strictly the different grammatical and syntatical forms that are possible, and I stopped counting at 20,000. —Stephen 07:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As for separate pages, anyone who knows or who is studying Arabic expects to find these forms on this page, in the same way, as I tried to explain before, that an English-speaker looking something up in an English dictionary, would expect to find the principal parts of a verb listed right with the verb, not on five or six separate pages, and wold expect to find the plural of nouns on the page with the noun, not on an independent page. If you look up see in English, you expect to find the verb and the noun on the same page, along with the principle forms such as past tense, gerund, plural, etc. Someone who knows or studies Arabic expects to find at least the principal forms of a word, especially if that word is a primitive triliteral root, which is the building block of the language. Arabic verb stems are not different words like English obtain, retain, detain...the stems are like more like come, came, coming. —Stephen 08:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)