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ال

Hi. Concerning this word, the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic says that ال (ill) is a noun with those meanings. I believe it is related to ء ل ل (ʔ-l-l). —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

pact: اتفاق; covenant: عهد; consanguinity: قرابة; blood relationship: قرابة دم. I have no idea about Hans Wehr's claim. Is it a colloquial word or a literary word? I'm sure it's not a literary word. If it's a colloquial word, it must be stated where is it said. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I just asked a professional in Literary Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic), he said that ill and ʾall don't exist :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Hans Wehr has a very good reputation. There is some information about him at w:ar:هانز فير. Just because there are also other words that mean pact, etc., that does not prove or disprove anything. There is no claim made concerning *ʾall, the pronunciation of one is ʾill, the other is ʾalla. User:Hakeem.gadi is the one who added the page for أل, as well as for ء ل ل (ʔ l l). —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed from the history of the page. I also knew about Hans' dictionary because sometimes people cite from it in Egyptian Arabic, but the point is, the two words don't appear to be modern at all, if they exist, they appear to be rare archaic classical words. If you still want to confirm, ask any Arabic speaker you know and see if he understands both words. I would want to see examples on modern use of such words. They don't even appear in that lexical dictionary (http://www.baheth.info) which has classical words and their uses. If so, how did Hans claim it's a modern written word? Does he have to be correct about every claim he made? Sometimes authors make mistakes or cite from archaic sources because Arabic language and dialects aren't as researched as western languages, like that who claimed that in Egyptian Arabic we call "hunger" gūʕa, while this used to be 200 years ago! For more than 100 years, it's called gūʕ. Finally, you didn't have to revert all my edit in ال, you could have just restored the section which claims that ال means what it means, because it's very important to mention the pronunciation of the definitive article and to explain why people transcribe it as el and al and how they are commonly pronounced by Arabic speakers. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:40, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think these are rare, possibly archaic words. I think w:User:Hakeem.gadi should have a better explanation of them. On Wiktionary, we do include such words (rare, antiquated, obsolete, slang, dialect, etc.). What needs to be done is to try to determine how to categorize these words (antiquated? obsolete? or what?), and then note it in the entries. Hans Wehr usually mentions if a word is only used in a certain area, such as Egypt and Iraq, but he did not qualify ال in any way. But I think w:User:Hakeem.gadi knows about them, since he added the verb.

So far, I have not found or heard of any errors in the Hans Wehr dictionary except for errors of omission (that is, possibly not labeling a word as antiquated or so). I think there have sometimes been printing errors, where some words were left out or sorted in the wrong place, but no errors where nonexistent words were invented. I think it is simply a matter of finding out where and when the words were used, and then marking the entries to show this information. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:58, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

soap opera - أوبرا الصابون

Hi,

Please don't remove translations. You can add though. Although it's a literal translation of "soap opera", it is used and unlike some dictionaries, Wiktionary doesn't try to be purist. If a word is used, it belongs here. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 05:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

That translation is fake and isn't used in any Arabic. Why leave it? To a person from north Africa and the Middle East, he would feel that it's a made-up word. It's not used either in Literary Arabic or in any spoken dialect. Using that in Arabic makes me feel like translating "hot dog" into كلب سخن, when the equivalent for that is سجق/نقانق/سوسيس. Thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I thinks Arabic is too wide to be judged by one person or people from one area. Google gives 11,200 hits on a quoted string and the examples are used in the context of "soap opera". some people love using foreign words, some hate them. Some dialects use many borrowings, some avoid them. I have added (literal, colloquial) to the translation. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 22:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm very aware of what you seem to assume I don't know about Arabic, but still, this translation looks fake and constructed by foreigners, not Middle Easterners or north Africans who actually use the language. Take ice cream as an example. It has many Arabic translations, some are Literary Arabic, others are regional or dialectal, but they are all actual translations for the word, not devised by foreigners. Greetings. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:25, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not questioning your knowledge but I use the facts. Constructed and literal translations are sometimes rejected even by native speakers even if they are used by others. It's especially the case with Arabic. I have already marked the word, which will give readers some indication that it's not a common term in Arabic. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 09:47, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

מנעול

I reverted your edit to this entry, because it was mistaken: we don't use the ʿ character to transliterate Hebrew áyin. —Ruakh_TALK 03:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in. Ruakh, Hebrew translations need more of your attention - standard transliteration, if it exists at all, we don't have many Hebrew contributors. We're all busy but English entries can be addressed by many other Wiktionarians, IMHO. Please don't stop adding Hebrew translations and working on Hebrew entries. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 04:09, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

In the Hebrew Wiktionary they created an explicitly defined standard, using the normal apostrophe to transliterate both of א and ע. So, when I edit anything there, I follow their standard. Here, there's no explicit standard and also the ע and its corresponding Semitic alphabets are commonly transliterated with this ring symbol (ʿ). Many standard transliterations for Hebrew also use this symbol to transliterate ע. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 08:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:About Hebrew. And the sole purpose of your edit to מנעול was to impose your preferred transliteration scheme; if it had been true that "there's no explicit standard", then that edit would still have been wrong. —Ruakh_TALK 12:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is it so easy to throw accusations? The transliteration article isn't easily found. Hadn't you posted it to me I wouldn't had found it. If you compared the English Wiktionary with the Hebrew Wiktionary (he:מנעול), you would see that the transliteration page is easily found in all articles in the left table, next to הגייה^* and linked to the asterisk. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not making any "accusations", and am sorry if you felt that I was. —Ruakh_TALK 18:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

adjective endings

Hi,

Thanks for your Arabic translations and the standardisation of transliteration. I have been using a casual version transliteration for a long time. Please note that we transliterate adjective endings as -iyy (ـي‎) and feminine as -íyya (ـية‎), e.g. . Also, please use ʿ for ع‎.

I have a quick question, how do you pronounce مخمد‎ (cushion) in MSA? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 00:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

For the masculine adjective, it's very rare to pronounce it, even in formal situations, as /ij/. The iyy transliteration also hinders the etymology and orthography of Arabic words. Additionally, since most standard Arabic transliterations prefer ī, I don't think we should use a substandard transliteration or pronunciation. You won't hear Arabic speakers pronounce that way, in this Literary Arabic example, /mɪsˤrij/ ("Egyptian"), you would hear them say /ˈmɪsˤri(ː)/.

I'm not sure about the pronunciation of the word مخمد, as I never knew it and such vocabulary is primarily colloquial and varies regionally, not standardized as this constructed word, but I suppose it may be pronounced máḵmad, knowing Literary Arabic phonology. I didn't add pronunciation for it because I'm not sure. The word appears to be related to مخدة maḵádda "pillow". --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm aware about the pronunciation of ـي‎, it's just the convention too common I prefer to follow, I don't agree that it hinders the etymology, as for orthography, there's an unwritten shadda, so I see no problem either - i, y and ī are all used to transliterate ي‎. As a side note, it's problematic when users come and go and introduce new rules and break previous agreements or conventions. Don't get me wrong, if you're here to stay, we can review the rule. I'm flexible but you can imagine how many existing entries/translations have used -iyy - only as the adjective ending, not when it's a noun ending in ي‎. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 00:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

What if what is being done here in Wiktionary is substandard and consequently wrong? I don't think I should leave something wrong I see. Anyone who would come and go would most probably follow what is more common in proper Arabic transliteration, writing ī, not iyy for the proper transliterations. For this reason I always prefer to follow the more common ways, to avoid potential introductions to unusual customs.

Writing names by Arabic speakers is another story, who don't transcribe in scientific standards, but rather an approximation to how they perceive the phonology of English, if that's the most common foreign language they know, or French and according to common practice. The name /maħmuːd/ should be written Maħmūd or Maḥmūd, yet it's written with normal "h" as Mahmoud or sometimes Mahmood. In addition to other customs, as transcribing غ as gh and خ as kh, other letters are transliterated, not according to their pronunciation in the local names which are normally pronounced in the spoken varieties of Arabic, not in Literary Arabic: ق as k or q (pronounced /ʔ/ or in western dialects /q/) or when pronounced /ɡ/ is transcribed as g; ث as s or th (even if pronounced /s/) or when it's pronounced /θ/ it's mostly transcribed as th; ش as sh (as in English) or ch (as in French). Medial and final glottal stops and the /ʕ/ are commonly transliterated as a and sometimes e, but rarely as h. ج as g or j, depending on its pronunciation: /ɡ, ɟ, ʒ, d͡ʒ/, yet less likely as dj for /d͡ʒ/. Both of ذ and ظ as z or dh (mainly depending on closest pronunciation in the dialect, whether /z, zˤ/ or /ð, ðˤ~ðˠ/). ض may be transcribed as dh or transliterated as d when it's pronounced in dialects as /ðˤ~ðˠ/. Gemination is mostly transcribed by double consonant, but when the consonant is transcribed by a digraph, it is mostly not written doubled, this is also the case for glottal stops and /ʕ/, they are not transcribed with double letters. Long vowels are transcribed without doubling of letters, with the exception of /iː, uː/ which can be transcribed as ee and oo, and they correspond to the spoken variety of Arabic by the speaker with some exceptions as for the definitive article, which is normally pronounced as /el, ɪl/ but sometimes Arabic speakers like to transliterate it as al, not el. Some names of Arabic origin are spelled as how they are normally written by westerners, in English language for example, even if that spelling isn't the closest to the local pronunciation, for example أحمد, is mostly preferred to be spelled as Ahmed, yet it is mostly pronounced with two open vowels, making Ahmad a more correct transcription. محمد is normally pronounced in Egyptian Arabic as [mæˈħæmmæd] but Egyptians mostly prefer to transliterate it as Mohamed or Muhammad... We can keep on thinking of endless examples. I think that's enough for now :) Getting back to the point, we can't rely on customary transcriptions of Arabic speakers and we also can't rely on substandard transcriptions which deviate from pronunciation, especially when we transcribe Literary Arabic words. If you were of those who get annoyed by the diacriticized letters as (ḍ, ḏ, ǧ, ġ, ḥ, ḫ~ḵ, ṣ, š, ṭ, ṯ, ẓ), then the Library of Congress transliteration maybe better in this case, because it uses less diacriticized letters but with problematic digraphs which are mostly making use of the Arabic speakers habit to transcribed some consonants by digraphs (ḍ, dh, j, gh, ḥ, kh, ṣ, sh, ṭ, th, ẓ). --Mahmudmasri (talk) 05:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Module:ar-verb

Hi,

Would you like to get familiar with the Arabic verb module Module:ar-verb? Our champion in creating Arabic verb conjugation templates is Dick Laurent (talk • contribs), I'm taking time to create the conjugations in the module, mainly because of its complexity. ZxxZxxZ (talk • contribs) helped me. There is a lot of work to be done and it's much more complicated than transliteration.

A complete working test (without a maṣdar) is here: User:Atitarev/ar-conjug-I-test, this is a geminated conjugation User:Atitarev/ar-conjug-I-geminate-test (work-in-progress). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I love you, Tolya, but I'm not doing anymore Arabic conjugation on here lol. — [Ric Laurent] — 11:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Love you too, Ric. I will use you as a consultant then. :) --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:45, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Input request

Hi Mahmud,

Your input is desirable regarding transliteration of Arabic at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2013/December#Different_transliterations_for_the_same_language. See the end of the discussion, e.g. transliteration of بوسطن. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:21, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, it's a long discussion. Let me read grasp it... --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Merging Levantine Arabic dialects into one language

Hi Mahmud, I think your input may be useful at WT:RFM#Merge North Levantine Arabic ("apc"), South Levantine Arabic ("ajp"), and Syrian Arabic ("sem-syr") into Levantine Arabic. --WikiTiki89 06:29, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Mahmud, please take a look at شو and إيش (ʔīš). Do you have any concerns that these entries appear under "Arabic" L2 header? I think we can merge Egyptian Arabic with the rest of Arabic as a regional subcategory. That way it will be even easier to add regional contents. I have also replied to you on Wiktionary:Requests_for_moves,_mergers_and_splits#Merge_North_Levantine_Arabic_.28.22apc.22.29.2C_South_Levantine_Arabic_.28.22ajp.22.29.2C_and_Syrian_Arabic_.28.22sem-syr.22.29_into_Levantine_Arabic. All dialectal differences can be handled by unified templates. BTW, there are current discussions about merging Norwegian and Chinese varieties. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:49, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Please note also إيه (ʔīh) and the Arabic section for ايه (one could be made the alternative form of the other). CC: @Wikitiki89, @Stephen_G._Brown. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:01, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I amended all of them: شو,‎ إيش,‎ إيه,‎ ايه. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:49, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Egyptian Arabic -> Arabic

Hi Mahmud,

What do you think of this format of بكرة or بكره? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Here are my amends for بكرة and بكره (non-Levantine form). Bokra shouldn't be considered a synonym for ḡadan, because you can't use it in Literary Arabic and you'd be ridiculed if you normally used ḡadan in Egyptian (or spoken) Arabic.

By the way, that is not a duplicate in بكرة. It is very normal and common here to see words with the same spelling listed in, for example, French and English. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

thank you for your help

Massa al-khayr, how to say thanks for your help in Arabic ? It's "shukran li musāʿada", right? 162.247.122.114 00:19, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• shukran ʿala l-musāʿada (transliterated closest to your scheme)
• Shukran ʻalá l-musāʿadah (Library of Congress)
• šukran ʿalā l-musāʿada (Hans Wehr)
• Šukran ʿalā l-musāʿadah (German Institute)
• ʃukran ʕala l.musaːʕada (Literary Arabic approximated pronunciation)

  IPA^(key): [ˈʃok.ɾɑn ʕæ.læl.mo.sæːˈʕæ.dæ] (Literary Arabic in Egypt)

• ʃukran ʕala l.musaʕada (length of vowels based on Egyptian spoken Arabic)

• IPA^(key): [ˈʃok.ɾɑn ʕæl moˈ.sæʕ.dæ]

• شكرا على المساعدة‎ - شُكْراً عَلَى المُسَاعَدَة (with vowels) - شُكْرًا عَلَى المُسَاعَدَة (tanwīn style)

--Mahmudmasri (talk) 07:14, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

متر is pronounced [ˈmɪtɾ] or [ˈmɪtɐɾ]? 198.99.28.4 21:43, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

/metr/, also /ˈme.ter/ by Levantines. The vowel [ɐ] is the unstressed /ɑ/ by west Asians. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:37, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

How to say "it's" in Arabic? 199.59.78.196 00:43, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

No direct translation. Depending on the sentence. It can be هو huwa, هي hiya, إنه innahu, إنها innaha, يوجد yūgad, or no translation. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

So, how to say it's my house in Arabic? 162.247.120.161 01:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

إنه بيتي innahu bayti (??? house-my) or هو بيتي huwa bayti (he house-my) or هذا هو بيتي hāða huwa bayti (this house-my). --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

صيني is pronounced [ˈsˁiː.niː] or [sˁiː.ˈniː]? 162.247.120.161 01:39, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

With an initial stress: [ˈsˁiː.ni] and normally without elongating the final vowel. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

How to say excuse me (request to pass) in Arabic? 162.247.120.161 21:56, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

You need a dictionary :) There are many ways, depending on the country: Egypt; Egyptian Arabic: [ˈbæʕ.de ˈʔez.næk, ʕæn ˈʔez.næk, læw sæˈmæħt]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:59, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Marḥaban, I've recorded شُكْرًا, I'm Chinese, I've pronounced it correctly? 雞雞 (talk) 01:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is correct. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 15:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The word نعم has one syllable or two? 雞雞 (talk) 00:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Two: /ˈna.ʕam/. Read w:Arabic phonology. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 00:25, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

بخير is pronounced [biˈχiɾ] in Moroccan Arabic, but [biˈχei̯ɾ] in Algerian Arabic? 雞雞 (talk) 02:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Both pronunciations violate both of the phonology of each dialect. Both dialects have no stress. The Moroccan should be something like [bxiɾ], while the Algerian might be [b(ə)xiɾ]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 02:42, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

عاصفة is pronounced [ˈæsˁɪfæ] or [ˈæsˁəfæ]? 雞雞 (talk) 23:36, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

إنجليزي is pronounced [ɪŋɡiliˈzi]? The [ŋ] sound exist in Arabic? 雞雞 (talk) 22:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

[ʕɑ(ː).ˈsˤe.fɑ,   ɪn.ɡɪ.ˈliː.zi] --Mahmudmasri (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

{{ec}}

Hi Mahmud,

On that talk page I have explained the reason for {{ec}}. It's about my edits, not yours! Your input is most welcome and wanted! --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

صَيْف

Hello. In Algerian Arabic, the word "صَيْف" is pronounced [sˤɑif] or [sˤiːf]? Thank you in advance. 138.229.19.202 20:15, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't know. I'm not familiar with Algerian Arabic. however, don't put tashkil marks into consideration, as they are normally only relevant to Literary Arabic pronunciation. If the boy's dialect inside this video is representative of a typical Algerian pronunciation, then it's neither, he said [sˤeːf]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:03, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

cyan milk

Hello!

I've been thinking about creating an entry for the Egyptian color-term لبني for some time, but the derivation of the word is thoroughly obscure to me. A Google search for a thus-colored dress mostly shows cyan outfits (though some of are dark blue or burgundy even). How would this meaning arise from a word that, superficially, looks as if stemming from لبن (“milk”). Even لَبِن (labin, “mudbricks”) are not cyan, but are rather "earthy" or "dusty".

Your percipient insights during the falafel controversy recalled to me the puzzle of لبني in Egyptian. Perhaps you can help? Roger.M.Williams (talk) 09:40, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Dear Roger, you understood the word correctly. I'll answer more elaborately later. Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:51, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Roger. First, it is better to use the Egyptian variant spelling of final undotted لبنى /ˈlæbæni/; it means baby blue (color), also as a description of the sky's light blue color. It seems that ل ب ن has to do with whiteness. The color "white" in Hebrew is לבן /laˈvan/ using the same three equivalent letters. The country, Lebanon, shares the same root as it was called so in the historical Semitic languages apparently as it has snowy "white" mountains. In Egypt, لَبَن /ˈlæbæn/ is "milk", but لَبِن /ˈlæben/ is for the other meaning of muddy/soft, like الطوب اللبن the "muddy" brick. Another word is a milk tooth سن لبنى, often ("mistakenly"?) pronounced /ˈlæbeni/, giving a sense of softness, as in muddy bricks. I need to mention that it can also be "my milk" /ˈlæbæni/, /ˈlæbæn/ + /i/. The second sense, لَبِن /ˈlæben/ is apparently related to بِناء "building". Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)