Mosul is a fine Iraqi city that has gifted writers. They usually write about important things that we often would want to cherish. One recent informative blog I have encountered is Mosul4All, which gives us background about a student's experiences in medical school. It's quite a personal take on things and that makes it very unique to some of us.
We just hope more bloggers will be encouraged to write. It's way of expression of our love for our dear Iraq.
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Tuesday, July 8, 2008
One word, two masters: demonstrative agreement with addressee
In Qur'anic Arabic (this is hardly ever applied in Modern Standard), at least in presentative contexts, the word "that" agrees in number and gender not only with the noun it refers to, but also with the addressee. (A YouTube video lecture on this by some shaykh is available for Arabic-speakers.) "That" is morphologically composed of two elements. The first bit agrees with the referent:
The second bit agrees with the addressee:
(In modern standard Arabic, only -ka is normally used here; even in Qur'anic contexts, the other forms' usage seems to be limited.)
Thus in Surat Yusuf, verse 32, Pharaoh's wife, addressing her women friends, says:
Then in verse 37, Yūsuf/Joseph, addressing his two cellmates, says:
Likewise, in Surat al-A`rāf 22, God tells Adam and Eve:
It's not hard to come up with a story for how this grammatical phenomenon could have emerged: li in Arabic means "to" or "for", and the endings it takes are (with one exception) the same as those above, so it could easily have either conveyed a presentative meaning (compare English expressions like "That's London for you!") or, less probably in this case, indicated proximity to the addressee ("Get me that book next to you"). But I have a question for all you wonderful readers who have gotten this far: do you know of any other language that does something like this?
đā-li- masculine singular ti-l- feminine singular đāni- masculine dual tāni- feminine dual 'ulā'i- masculine/feminine animate plural
The second bit agrees with the addressee:
-ka masculine/feminine singular -kumā masculine/feminine dual -kum masculine plural -kunna feminine animate plural
(In modern standard Arabic, only -ka is normally used here; even in Qur'anic contexts, the other forms' usage seems to be limited.)
Thus in Surat Yusuf, verse 32, Pharaoh's wife, addressing her women friends, says:
فَذَلِكُنَّ الَّذِي لُمْتُنَّنِي فِيهِ
fa-đālikunna llađī lumtunnanī fīhi
That is the man about whom you blamed me!
Then in verse 37, Yūsuf/Joseph, addressing his two cellmates, says:
ذَلِكُمَا مِمَّا عَلَّمَنِي رَبِّي
đālikumā mimmā `allamanī rabbī
That is (part) of what my Lord has taught me.
Likewise, in Surat al-A`rāf 22, God tells Adam and Eve:
أَلَمْ أَنْهَكُمَا عَن تِلْكُمَا الشَّجَرَةِ
'a-lam 'anhākumā `an tilkumā ššajarati?
Did I not forbid you from that tree?
It's not hard to come up with a story for how this grammatical phenomenon could have emerged: li in Arabic means "to" or "for", and the endings it takes are (with one exception) the same as those above, so it could easily have either conveyed a presentative meaning (compare English expressions like "That's London for you!") or, less probably in this case, indicated proximity to the addressee ("Get me that book next to you"). But I have a question for all you wonderful readers who have gotten this far: do you know of any other language that does something like this?
Monday, July 7, 2008
One Year, Already
One year ago to the day, MamaDuck and I headed for Abu Dhabi Airport and left the Sandlands. We have not been back, and really have no intention of returning. There's not much we miss about the place - although I haven't had a decent curry since we left. We do miss our friends though.
All things considered, I think leaving was the best thing to do. I just wish we'd done it a few years sooner.
All things considered, I think leaving was the best thing to do. I just wish we'd done it a few years sooner.
Friday, July 4, 2008
The Berbers of southern Egypt
Checking through the 11th-century geographer al-Bakri for information on the linguistic history of Siwa, I was not surprised to see that he says the Siwans were Berber, and not very surprised to see that the people of Bahariya at the time were Arabs and Copts, and those of Farafra Copts alone. I was a bit more surprised, though, when a little further down the page he says that some of the people of Dakhla and Kharja, in southern Egypt (map), were Lawāta Berbers:
It kind of fits with an observation made by several Nubian specialists (I read it in an article by Bechhaus-Gerst) that Nubian - specifically Nobiin, in fact, not the Nubian languages of Kordofan or Darfur - seems to contain Berber loanwords; the easiest to remember, and most convincing, of these is "water", aman (which in other Nubian languages is something completely different, along the lines of essi.) If a dictionary of the Arabic dialects of these oases ever comes out, it would be very interesting to check it for Berber loanwords.
On a more romantic note, al-Bakri also warns those travelling into the desolate lands west of these oases that they will find "great sands... full of palm trees and springs, with no civilisation nor companions, where the murmuring of the jinn is heard unceasingly."
وهذا واح الداخلة كثير الأنهار والعمارات... ومن هذا الواح إلى الواحين الخارجين ثلاث مراحل وهو آخر بلاد الإسلام... وفي بغض الواحات قبائل من لواتة
It kind of fits with an observation made by several Nubian specialists (I read it in an article by Bechhaus-Gerst) that Nubian - specifically Nobiin, in fact, not the Nubian languages of Kordofan or Darfur - seems to contain Berber loanwords; the easiest to remember, and most convincing, of these is "water", aman (which in other Nubian languages is something completely different, along the lines of essi.) If a dictionary of the Arabic dialects of these oases ever comes out, it would be very interesting to check it for Berber loanwords.
On a more romantic note, al-Bakri also warns those travelling into the desolate lands west of these oases that they will find "great sands... full of palm trees and springs, with no civilisation nor companions, where the murmuring of the jinn is heard unceasingly."
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Azaan in Newborn Baby's Ears
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Rafi (Radiallahu Anhu) that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Sallam) called out the Azaan in the ear of his grandson Hasan Bin Ali (Radiallahu Anhuma) when Sayyidah Faatimah (Radiallahu Anha) gave birth to him.(Abu Dawood, Tirmizi )Alhumdulillah I was able to act upon this sunnah with the recent arrival of our baby son. Please remember us all in your
Amir al-Magamee3, Zaid
Zaid is a 21-years-old Chemical Engineer who maintains a blog, Road to Inner Me, where he talks about soccer, college and other things he finds interesting.
All the following blogs are Arabic.
Amir al-Magamee'a, a resident doctor in Kut, and the well-known writer from Kitabat.com has created his own blog to gather some of his writings that tackle heavy politics with heavy language.
Another Kitabat.com writer with his own blog is the serious Ali al-Hamdani.
Abu Hasooni is a seldom-blogging, secular man from Basrah.
Hadeel is a newborn atheist born in 1989, she writes about her difficulties of living in a Muslim society as a woman on her blog.
All the following blogs are Arabic.
Amir al-Magamee'a, a resident doctor in Kut, and the well-known writer from Kitabat.com has created his own blog to gather some of his writings that tackle heavy politics with heavy language.
Another Kitabat.com writer with his own blog is the serious Ali al-Hamdani.
Abu Hasooni is a seldom-blogging, secular man from Basrah.
Hadeel is a newborn atheist born in 1989, she writes about her difficulties of living in a Muslim society as a woman on her blog.
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