A Description of Arabic

Phonology

The Arabic and English phonological systems vary extensively, not only in the range of sounds used, but also in the relative importance of vowels and consonants in expressing meaning. While English has 22 vowels and diphthongs to 24 consonants, Arabic has only eight vowels and diphthongs to 32 consonants.

Consonant Clusters

English has far more consonant clusters than Arabic. Some initial two-segment clusters which Arabic does not have corresponding equivalents to, include: pr, pl, gr, thr, thw, sp. The three-segment initial consonant clusters are entirely absent in Arabic, e.g., clusters such as spr, skr, str, spl. Faced with the challenge of such consonant clusters, Arabic speakers will often insert short vowels in order to "assist" pronunciation in the following manner:

'perice' or 'pirice' for price
'ispring' or 'sipring' for spring

The range of consonant clusters appearing at the end of words is also much smaller in Arabic. In dramatic contrast to English, which has 78 three-segment clusters and fourteen four-segment clusters occurring at the end of words, Arabic has none. Again, faced with such terminal clusters, Arabic speakers tend to insert short vowels to assist pronunciation:

'arrangid' for arranged
'monthiz' for months
'nexist' for next

Teachers will often encounter examples of such pronunciations, which also can carry over into the spelling of such English words by students whose mother tongue is Arabic.

Influence of English Spelling on Pronunciation

While there are no similarities between the Arabic and English writing systems, Arabic spelling within its own system is simple and virtually phonetic. Letters stand directly for their sounds. Arabic speakers attempt, therefore, to pronounce English words using the same phonetic methodology. Add to this the salience of consonants in Arabic and you get severe pronunciation problems caused by the influence of the written form:

'istobbid' for stopped (the 'p' sound does not exist in Arabic)
'forigen' for foreign

Rhythm and Stress

Arabic speakers can have problems grasping the unpredictable nature of English word stress since Arabic is a stress-timed language. In stark contrast with English, word stress in Arabic is predictable and regular. The idea that stress can alter meaning, as in con'vict (verb) and 'convict (noun) is utterly foreign. Arabic words that are spelled identically often appear, and mean completely different things, but will have dissimilar short vowels which count as sounds and change the meaning altogether.

Phrase and sentence rhythms are similar in both Arabic and English languages, and should cause few problems. Primary stresses occur more frequently in Arabic while unstressed syllables are pronounced more clearly. As with English, the unstressed syllable has neutral vowels, but such vowels are not 'swallowed' as in English. Arabs reading English will often avoid contracted forms and elisions, and read with a rather heavy staccato rhythm.

Intonation

Intonation patterns in Arabic are similar to English in contour and meaning. However, Arabic speakers use rising tones rather than structural markers to denote questions, suggestions and offers far more frequently than English-speakers, and this practice is often carried over into the spoken English of Arabic speakers.

When reading aloud however, as opposed to talking, the Arabic speaker tends to intone or chant, reducing intonation to a low fall at the ends of phrases and sentences. Speech making, news reading and religious recitation are all quite different in rhythm and intonation from normal speech. Consequently, Arabic speakers called on to read aloud in front of a group may produce a very unnatural recitation because they see the process of formal reading as distinct from everyday speech..

Grammar

The grammatical structure of Arabic, a Semitic language, is very different from that of Indo-European languages such as English. These great differences must be borne in mind when Arabic speakers are mixed with European students.

The basis of the Arabic language is the three-consonant root. A notion such as writing, cooking, or eating is represented by three consonants in a particular order. All verb forms, nouns, adjectives, participles, etc. are then formed by putting these three-root consonants into fixed vowel patterns, modified sometimes by simple prefixes and suffixes.

Example #1

Root /k/ /t/ /b/ (= writing)
A person who does this for a living kattaab (= a writer)
Passive participle maktoob (= written)
Present tense yaktubu (= he writes it)

Example #2

Root /g/ /r/ /h/ (= wounding or cutting)
A person who does this for a living garraah (= a surgeon)
Passive participle magrooh (= wounded or a battle casualty)
Present tense yagruhu (= he wounds him)

There are over 50 such patterns. While not all forms are found for each root, the three-consonant root is the structural basis of the language.

It follows that Arabic speakers have great difficulty in grasping the confusing range of patterns for all words in English; that nouns, verbs, and adjectives follow no regular patterns to distinguish one from another, and may, indeed, have the same orthographic form. Such regularities of morphology as English has, particularly, in the area of affixes, will be readily grasped by Arabic speakers, e.g. -ing, -able, un-, etc.

Word Order

In formal written Arabic the verb comes first followed by the subject. This convention is followed more in writing than in speech, and may transpose to English writing:

e.g. Decided the minister yesterday to visit the school.

Questions and Negatives; Auxiliaries

The auxiliary "do" has no equivalent in Arabic. Where no specific question word is used, a question is marked only by its rising intonation:

e.g. You went to London?
You like coffee?

Note that the Arabic for "where?" is "wayn?", which is often confused with "when".

Negatives are formed by putting a particle (laa or maa) before the verb:

e.g. He not play football.

The Verb to Be

There is no verb "to be" in Arabic in the present tense. The copula (am, is, are) is not expressed. It is therefore, commonly omitted in English by Arabic speakers, particularly in present progressive forms:

e.g. He teacher.
The boy tall.
He going to school.

Pronouns

Arabic verb forms incorporate the personal pronouns, subject and object, as prefixes and suffixes. It is common to have them repeated in English as part of the verb:

e.g. John he works there.

Articles

There is no indefinite article in Arabic, and the definite article has a range of use different from English. The indefinite article causes particular problems as it is commonly omitted with singular and plural countables:

e.g. This is book or This book (for This is a book)
He was soldier

When the English indefinite article has been learned by the Arabic speaker, it tends to be used wherever the definite article is not used:

e.g. There are a books.
I want a rice.

There is a definite article form in Arabic, though it takes the form of a prefix (al-). It is used, as in English, to refer back to indefinite nouns previously mentioned, and also for unique reference (the sun, on the floor, etc.)

The most common problem with the definite article arises from interference from the Arabic genitive construction:

Most errors of word order and use of articles in genitive constructions are interference of this kind:

e.g. This is the book the teacher.
This is the key door.

It follows that Arabic speakers have great difficulties with the Saxon genitive construction.

The special cases in which English omits the article, e.g. in bed, at dawn, on Thursday, for breakfast, etc. usually take the definite article in Arabic:

e.g. At the sunset we broke our fast.
What would you like for the breakfast?

All days of the week, some months in the Muslim calendar, and many names of towns, cities and countries include the definite article in Arabic, which is often translated, appropriately or not:

e.g. We lived in the India.
We had a flat in the Khartoum.
On Monday we went to Cardiff.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives follow nouns in Arabic and agree in gender and number. This may cause beginners to make mistakes:

e.g. He is man tall. (for He is a tall man.)

Adverbs are used less commonly in Arabic than in English and, except for adverbs of time, do not have a fixed pattern. Adverbs of manner are often expressed in a phrase: quickly is expressed "with speed", and dangerously as "in a dangerous way." There is frequent confusion between the adjective and adverb forms in English, and the adjective form is usually overused:

e.g. He drives very dangerous.

Prepositions and Particles

Arabic has a wealth of fixed prepositions and particles, with both verbs and adjectives. Many of these do not coincide with their direct English translations:
e.g. to arrive to
to be short of
afraid from
angry on
near from
an expert by

Some prepositions have verbal force:

· "On" expresses obligation:
e.g. It is on me that I pay him.

· "To" and "for" express possession:
e.g. This book is to me / for me. (for This book is mine.)

· "With" expresses present possession:
e.g. With me my camera. (for I have my camera with me.)

· "For" expresses purpose:
e.g. I went home for (I) get my book. (for I went home to get my book.)

The Active and Passive Voices

There are active and passive forms for all tenses in Arabic, but they are virtually identical, differing only in the (unwritten) short vowelling. A passive verb in a text is therefore only recognizable as such from its context. The passive voice is used far less frequently in Arabic writing than in English, and hardly at all in everyday speech. Thus while the concepts of active and passive will readily be understood, the uses and forms of the passive cause problems.

Vocabulary

The acquisition of vocabulary is particularly difficult for Arab learners of English. Only a minimal number of words in English are borrowed from Arabic. A small range of mainly technical words, such as computer, radar, helicopter, and television, have been taken into Arabic, but these are common to most languages. Arabic speakers have very few aids to reading and listening comprehension by virtue of their first language, and they should not be expected to acquire English at anything like the same pace as European learners.

Writing System (Orthography and Punctuation)

Arabic orthography is a cursive system, running from right to left. Only consonants and long vowels are written. There is no upper and lower case distinction, nor can the isolated forms of letters normally be juxtaposed to form words.

Arabic speakers must, hence, learn an entirely new alphabet for English, including a capital letter system; and then master its rather unconventional spelling patterns. All aspects of writing in English cause major problems for Arabic speakers, and they should not be expected to cope with reading or writing at the same level or pace as European students who are at a similar level of proficiency in oral English.

A Writing Sample

1. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
2. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.
3. The Beneficent, the Merciful.
4. Master of the Day of Judgment.
5. Thee (alone) do we worship, and Thee (alone) we ask for help.
6. Show us the straight path.
7. The path of those whom Thou hast favored; not (the path) of those who earn Thy anger nor of those who go astray.

Opening sura (chapter) of the Qur'an

Punctuation

Arabic punctuation is now similar to western style punctuation, though some of the symbols are inverted or reversed, e.g. a reversed question mark and comma. The use of full stops and commas is much freer than in English, and it is common to begin each new sentence with And or So. Connected writing in English tends therefore to contain long, loose sentences, linked by commas and "ands."

NOTE: The markings on top and underneath the writing sample provided should not be confused with punctuation. They are, in fact, the short vowels.