Short questions

[annaconda]

i.e. in the U.S.A we shake hands

No, you don't. That's too formal!

Perhaps when you're with friends, yes. But everytime I meet someone new, no matter if they are my age or older, I shake their hand. Its very common.

[jaybee]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I was just wondering how people greet each other in Saudi Arabia? (i.e. in the U.S.A we shake hands; France, Iran, etc they kiss on the cheek)

Thanks!

Hey annaconda
In Saudi, the normal way to greet is to shake hands (without the shaking) with a kiss on the cheek.
Sometimes is two kisses on the cheek. Sometimes its one for each.. sometimes it's two on one side then one on the other. But you do this with the people you already know, or have met once before.
In formal situations, such as interviews, people greet by shaking hands.
With friends, it varies. Shake, kiss on the cheek, or a hug. It doesn't matter, especially if your close friends. In the case of meeting someone new for the first time, I suppose a good hand shake would suffice.
My least favorite one is the cheek kissing, because you never know how many kisses you're going to get.. especially with relatives you haven't seen in quite some time. D:

Does anybody know the name of this font?

Sorry, Renaçido. I don't know the name. Could you link to where you found it.
Oh.. but there is this other font that's a little bit similar to this one.
It's the second one of these.

[Bubulus]

Thank you for the link. I've also seen other three fonts that look similar but so far I haven't found the exact font. I'm curious because it's the only one that I've seen where the medial ح,‎ "ـحـ", looks exactly like a د, with the difference being based only according to the position of the letter! (Since د never joins to the next letter.)

I saw it in an issue of National Geographic in Arabic.

[Rémy LeBeau]

How many of you study Arabic (ab initio) at undergraduate or postgraduate level? What are your set coursebooks? For those who use the al-Kitab series, do you think it's feasible to go through al-Kitab 1 - 3 in just a single academic year (+ a summer in Egypt or Syria)?

[shah_mardaan]

how can you say in lebanese dialect "being wise is honour"

[Meera]

How many of you study Arabic (ab initio) at undergraduate or postgraduate level? What are your set coursebooks? For those who use the al-Kitab series, do you think it's feasible to go through al-Kitab 1 - 3 in just a single academic year (+ a summer in Egypt or Syria)?

I study Arabic at college and it is alf ba. But i prefer Ultimate Arabic by living langauge. Al Kitaab series is BORING.

[gaurwraith]

How many of you study Arabic (ab initio) at undergraduate or postgraduate level? What are your set coursebooks? For those who use the al-Kitab series, do you think it's feasible to go through al-Kitab 1 - 3 in just a single academic year (+ a summer in Egypt or Syria)?

In my university we do kitab 2 and 3 through an academic year, but it is 4 hours a week only. So if you add 2 hours it would do for another book by this standard.
But I think you would need more hours to actually get it.

I recommend you the bourguiba institute in Tunisia. If you can spend an academic year there, and are eager to learn, you will learn A LOT. The books and videos used are quite good, much better than al-kitaab, which as has been said is, if not boring, quite uninteresting.

[Hannahanneke]

Hi everyone! Sba7 el-Kheyr

I have a problem with typing Arabic. I would love to type with some kasra's, fat7a's, shadda's, etc., but I never found how to do it... I know you can insert "symbols" in word (microsoft office), but i would like to type it.

Is there any website who puts them automatically? I don't wanna put them all, just enough to be able to read the word.

I hope you understand my question and that someone -please- can help me.
Thanks a lot in advance! Choukran jazilan!

[Gaile Irene]

Try typing the words "Arabic" "keyboard" "layout" in Google and you will bring up different keyboards. You will likely need to experiment to see which is the one you have.

For example, if you have this one
http://www.forlanglab.lsu.edu/exams/Key ... youts.aspx
with the Arabic keyboard as shown at the top,
you would type "h" to get ا, and a shift+"h" or "H" to get أ.

Some of the keys are programmed to type above or below other characters. "S" (shift + "s") will give you ُ. If you type "p" "S" "f", you will/might get حُب. To get the shadde and sukuun you will need to experiment. My computer will not type those symbols unless I change the font from my Persian (and I am not prepared to do that to answer one question!) As you see, typing in Arabic with the diacritics can be complicated.

For an occasional word, it is likely simpler just to go to this site, type there, and cut and paste:
http://www.arabic-keyboard.org/

[linguanima]

Hi guys, I have a small question: I often hear in songs in Egyptian/Eastern dialects the structure 'tab...' (e.g. 'tab izzay tinsani') and wonder what it means. I also heard it used by my teacher in my Palestinian dialect class. I can't find it in my textbooks. I presume, given the contexts I have heard it in, that it is an invariable particle (somewhat like the future 'rah...') expressing the idea of possibility/capacity, translatable by 'can' in English. Could anyone please confirm this hypothesis, and tell me if it is really impersonal (tab a3mal, tab ti3mal etc.)? Thanks!

[jaybee]

Hey linguanima

طب is used quite a lot in colloquial Arabic. It's used in the beginning of clauses to mean: so, well, then. And usually, the 2nd clause should happen because of the first. So, for example:

You passed by the super market? Well, you could've brought some milk.
رحت للسوبر ماركت؟ طب كان جبت معاك حليب

- I have an exam tomorrow!
- Then study.
- عندي اختبار بكرة
- طب ادرسي

but/so why?
طب ليه؟

- I can't find my keys.
- Well, did you look in your pockets?
- ماني قادرة أحصل مفاتيحي
- طب دورت في جيبك؟

Personally, I have lots of tab uh/tab um in between my sentences.

[Bubulus]

Try typing the words "Arabic" "keyboard" "layout" in Google and you will bring up different keyboards. You will likely need to experiment to see which is the one you have.

For example, if you have this one
http://www.forlanglab.lsu.edu/exams/Key ... youts.aspx
with the Arabic keyboard as shown at the top,
you would type "h" to get ا, and a shift+"h" or "H" to get أ.

Some of the keys are programmed to type above or below other characters. "S" (shift + "s") will give you ُ. If you type "p" "S" "f", you will/might get حُب. To get the shadde and sukuun you will need to experiment. My computer will not type those symbols unless I change the font from my Persian (and I am not prepared to do that to answer one question!) As you see, typing in Arabic with the diacritics can be complicated.

That's be cause it's the standard Arabic layout! As in, when you buy a Windows computer in the Arab world, those are the characters printed on the keys alongside the standard American keyboard Latin letters.

Wikipedia has some good images of the different standard Arabic layouts. The Windows one we're talking about (which is also the most common) is listed as the "IBM PC Arabic Keyboard":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Arabic.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_keyboard

Hannahanneke: I found it okay to get used to, you just need to disassociate the letters on the American layout, remembering l is م, w is ص, etc.

If that annoys you too much, you may really wanna try the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. Just copy-paste the characters from somewhere (e.g. arabic-keyboard.org) and create your own keyboard layout. If you want "S" to give ص, just paste it on the key in the interface. You can set the ḥarakāt wherever you want this way.

If you need help, just ask me here, I used to be kind of addicted to this program.

[linguanima]

Hey linguanima

طب is used quite a lot in colloquial Arabic. It's used in the beginning of clauses to mean: so, well, then. And usually, the 2nd clause should happen because of the first. So, for example:

You passed by the super market? Well, you could've brought some milk.
رحت للسوبر ماركت؟ طب كان جبت معاك حليب

- I have an exam tomorrow!
- Then study.
- عندي اختبار بكرة
- طب ادرسي

but/so why?
طب ليه؟

- I can't find my keys.
- Well, did you look in your pockets?
- ماني قادرة أحصل مفاتيحي
- طب دورت في جيبك؟

Personally, I have lots of tab uh/tab um in between my sentences.

Ah thank you! I guess it's short for طيب then?

Is there any dialectological specificity of this particle? Where is it used more often?

[linguanima]

I came across these two sentences in my reading:

فان المثقف العربي يتعرض لاقسى اشكال القمع المادي و الرمزي

لو اردنا ان نقدّم عنواناً جامعاً لنضال المثقفين...

I looked up the highlighted words but the dictionary didn't provide adequate answers. Could anyone please tell me the meaning and the root of مادي and ارد (sukkun on the dad), and which one out of the infinite list of meanings of the word عنوان I should adopt here? Thanks!

[Abu Rashid]

مادي means physical
ارد means want, it should be with hamza though أرد

[Bubulus]

Could anyone please tell me the meaning and the root of مادي

Meaning: "materialistic"; "physical" (either related to the body or the physical world); "objective" (as in a research project, opposed to "subjective"). (Adapted from the entry in the English HW4.)
Root: m-d-d (it's read مادّيّ māddiyyun)

and ارد (sukkun on the dad),

Meaning: "to reply that..." I guess, looking at the basic meaning of the root which involves returning things. It can't be found either in the English HW4 or at sakhr.com's dictionary indeed.
Root: r-d-d ‏’-r-d (EDIT: I should've noticed you said there was a sukūn on the د lol)

and which one out of the infinite list of meanings of the word عنوان I should adopt here? Thanks!

Could you give more context? All I get is "if he had replied (?) to us that we [should?] present a full "mark/sign" (or 'title/heading', maybe even 'example') of the intellectuals' struggle".

‹اردنا› and ‹ان› should be spelled أرد ’aradda-nā aradnā and أن ’an here as well.

ارد means want

Nope, that would be أراد ’arāda (form IV or أفعل verb), root r-w-d.

EDIT: Fixed mistakes...

[Babelfish]

Actually it does mean "want" - the long -a- is shortened before a sukuun, and the alif is dropped accordingly. Hence أراد, أرادت, أرادوا but أردْتُ, أردْنا, أردْتم etc.

[Bubulus]

Thanks, that makes it clear! What do you say about عنوان here?

[jaybee]

Ah thank you! I guess it's short for طيب then?

Is there any dialectological specificity of this particle? Where is it used more often?

I'm not 100% sure of where it isn't used, but I can safely say that you will hear it in varieties of Saudi Arabic and in Egyptian, of course, as well as in Levatine Arabic.

Sorry for the late reply, btw.

which one out of the infinite list of meanings of the word عنوان I should adopt here?

عنوان here means a title, or a name for something. Not sure of what the rest of the text says, but it seems that it was about to propose "an encompassing title/label for the struggle of the intellectuals/educated."

[linguanima]

Hi guys, another question here. I h


قالوا بمن لا ترى تهذي فقلتُ لهم
ألأذنُ كالعين توفي القلبَ ما كانا

ما كنتُ أوّلَ مشغوف بجاريةٍ
يلقى بلقيانِها رَوْحاً و رَيْحاناً

Could anyone tell me i

1. If there is a tanwin on the alif in the last word of the second hemistich of the first verse (kaanaa or kaanan)?

2. What the vocalisation of توفي is?

3. What the ending of مشغوف is?

Thanks