Talk:assalamu alaykum

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RFV discussion: January–May 2014[edit]

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Supposedly English. I don't think so. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is originally an Arabic word, however, if you see Turkish "Selâmün aleyküm" in Turkish wikipedia and click English on the left menu, you may see As-salamu alaykum form. --2001:A98:C060:80:19B5:B11A:B9AC:BBB1 11:12, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Compare shalom aleichem --2001:A98:C060:80:19B5:B11A:B9AC:BBB1 11:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This exists in a grey area. There are plenty of English-language books which use the term in the middle of otherwise English sentences, in a number of forms, sometimes even without italics. It is obviously a representation of Arabic, and one might even consider it a mere transliteration rather than a borrowing. But we have kept English sections for some similar entries, e.g. Talk:ayubowan. - -sche (discuss) 16:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If this were an RFD discussion, I would vote keep. But I don't think that assalamu alaykum is the most common spelling. --WikiTiki89 18:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd call it code-switching, not an English phrase. Equinox ◑ 21:41, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not code-switching if it's used by people who don't speak Arabic. --WikiTiki89 22:00, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One doesn't need to speak a language fully in order to engage in code-switching. I don't really speak Spanish, yet when I intentionally use a Spanish word like gracias in an otherwise English discourse, I use it precisely to impart a Spanish sensibility. Likewise if I use merci, or danke, or xièxie, or mahalo, or ...
In this case, assalamu alaykum looks like exactly this kind of code-switching phenomenon -- a foreign term that is used in an English context, but such use is precisely because the term is not English.
I would suggest changing this from ==English== to ==Arabic== and mark it as a romanization.
(FWIW, I strongly oppose the ==English== characterization of ayubowan, again because the term is used precisely because it isn't English, and conveys that non-English-ness.)
‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:05, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But assalaamu alaykum is not used "precisely because the term is not English" and not to "impart an Arabic sensibility". It is used because it is a traditional Islamic greeting. --WikiTiki89 05:11, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Eirikr. Not all common words and not from all languages gain currency in another language. Even common terms for "thank you" and "hello" but if they are used in another language, they become part of it, even if the context is limited. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:29, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Anatoli, Usage of a term in a given language does not automatically make that term a part of that language. There was a similar discussion in April at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#da. I would happily accede that taco is English. However, I would also argue that gracias is not English.
Similarly, I would accede that Allah or Muslim is English, but that assalamu alaykum is not.
  • @Wikitiki, you seem to have almost made my point for me -- "It is used because it is a traditional Islamic greeting", in that it is an Arabic phrase, and Muslims are expected to know at least some Arabic, and imparts the specific sense that it is an Arabic phrase, and establishes the context of Islam and the Arabic language. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If a word is used in everyday life by English speakers who do not speak Arabic, then it is most certainly an English term. Gracias is not used in every day, but only on occasion for effect. --WikiTiki89 06:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
assalamu alaikum failed RVF but I would revisit and restore it. assalamu alaykum is an alternative spelling. See Talk:assalamu alaikum and السلام عليكم (as-salāmu ʿalaykum)--Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, here's an Ngram of all forms that seem to have Ngrams. --WikiTiki89 05:26, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wikitiki, these Ngrams establish that the term is used in English contexts. However, they do not address the argument of whether or not the term is English. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Ngrams are meant to determine the most common spelling, not to establish usage. --WikiTiki89 06:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If no one objects, I'm going to move the page to salaam alaikum. --WikiTiki89 07:18, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have my suspicions that the ngram count of salaam alaikum is skewed by the fact that it parses "as-salaam alaikum" and "as salaam alaikum" as counting for "salaam alaikum". (Certainly google books:"salaam alaikum" suffers from that.) Is there any reason we should expect the "as-" to be dropped by a lot of English speakers and writers? - -sche (discuss) 18:58, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, colloquially in Arabic (and other languages that have borrowed the term), the "al-/as-" (definite article) is often dropped. Compare Persian سلام علیکم (salâm aleykom). --WikiTiki89 19:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to make an ngram comparison of the frequency of the various greetings to the various responses (the presence of absence of "as-" in the middle of the responses should be picked up more reliably than its presence or absence at the start of the greetings), but the Ngram Viewer stopped working and kept returning gibberish; there must be a glitch somewhere and/or it's overloaded. - -sche (discuss) 19:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In case-insensitive mode, it sometimes splits a form into different capitalizations. Is that what you are seeing. --WikiTiki89 19:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinging User:Mzajac, who said here, discussing names, that "We already have a well-exercised standard for what it means [for something to be English]: three attested uses." I commented at the time that this standard left just as much grey area as the other standards under discussion; perhaps he can weigh in on the question of whether or not it applies here / this term is English. Some citations have been typed up here, others are available on Google Books. - -sche (discuss) 19:18, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t agree with the “everyday” pronouncement: most incontestably English words aren’t used every day, or even every single year.

Cf. gracias#English. Plenty of foreign words are understood or even merely recognized by anglophones, and used both for their meaning and effect. Even if a writer is using the word to indicate a speaker’s foreignness, or signal translated speech, or just to sound more hip than a writer who uses a more-common variant like salaam alaikum or salaam#English, it is still English usage. Maybe it requires a label or usage note like foreign or Arabic context or unnaturalized. Maybe our CFI sets the bar too low, but that is a separate question. —Michael Z. 2014-02-05 21:20 z

I think you might have missed that assalamu alaykum was moved to salaam alaikum and turned into an alternative form entry in the process of this discussion, so I think this discussion applies to salaam alaikum as well. --WikiTiki89 21:46, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That looks good to me. —Michael Z. 2014-02-05 22:12 z
Could we come up with context labels for these, and perhaps a protocol for how to write usage notes? I'm not opposed to including such entries; as others have noted, users could conceivably come here looking for these terms, as written in the Latin script. I am opposed to including such entries as English as-is, for in many cases, the definition works out to something like what we see for da: along the lines of “[English term] in [other language]”. This strikes me as very sub-optimal. Context labels and usage notes could go a long way to alleviating my concerns about including such terms as English. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:44, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The appropriate context label is already there: (Islam). --WikiTiki89 02:18, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not only religious but linguistic as well, Arabic (Arabic world, Arabism, Arabic English or something similar) could also be useful. Same would apply to "inshallah" and some other expressions. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:46, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In English it is almost exclusively used by Muslims. --WikiTiki89 02:52, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. If we do use such a label, "Arabism" is probably the best name, in line with "Germanism", "Gallicism", "Anglicism" and other labels. But those other terms are rarely used, and almost never used in {{context}} on sense lines; instead, they seem to be for the most part spelled out in plain text in etymology sections, or used in {{qualifier}} in translations tables. - -sche (discuss) 19:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The entry has been de-tagged. Some precedent (Talk:ayubowan) suggests that strings like this are English, though other precedent (Talk:Gott in Himmel) suggests it is still Arabic, the fact that it wouldn't be the correct spelling (or, in this case, alphabet) in Arabic notwithstanding. It's a grey area; personally, I'm not going to challenge the detagging. Re the question of whether, regardless of language, this spelling is sufficiently attested compared to other spellings : there are two citations of this spelling on the citations page, and others available on Google Books. Re what context tag to use: I think the current one, {{cx|Islam}}, is best; something like "Arabism" (discussed above) would belong in the etymology (where the equivalent of it already is), not on the sense line — compare "Germanism", "Gallicism", "Anglicism", etc. - -sche (discuss) 15:40, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]


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