Talk:Al-
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[edit] All This "Al-" Thing
The article is nice as it goes, but what I want to know is if there is, as I suspect, a connection between the Romance "a la" and which is found in variations in Italian, French, etc.
I know that Arabic was heavily influenced by Greek and Latin of the Roman Empire; I also suspect that this "al-" thing is derived in from Latin. I do not believe that it is the other way around, simply because the Arabs did not conquer and rule all of Italy and France, as they had Spain and Portugal.
Also, the Hebrew is "Ha". Why are the Hebrew and Arabic words for "the" so different? I believe that "ha" and its variations are the Semitic originals, and that the Greeks and Latins copied "ha" from the Semites, while the Arabs copied "al-" from the Latins.
Can the true facts be verified?
Regards,
WikiSceptic 05:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
- WikiSceptic, the etymology and relation to Hebrew usage are beyond my limited knowledge at the moment. I'll look it up for you. -Fsotrain09 01:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Thanks, -Fsotrain09, I eagerly look forward to the information. Regards. WikiSceptic 14:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
You may find this discussion I had with a fellow user of some relevance to your question:
[START]I have a question about the article 'el', which language borrowed from which? Or is it just a mere coincidence that 'el' in both Arabic and Latin translates to 'the'? --Inahet
- El did not exist in Latin. Latin had no definite article. Canis could mean "dog," "a dog," or "the dog" depending on the context. Spanish el comes from Latin ille, illa which was the self-reflexice pronoun. Cicero ille means "Cicero himself." Some people have argued that Spanish el is from and/or was reinforced by Arabic al, but it's hard to believe when you realize that French has Le, les etc. and Italian has il etc (I'm guessing Romanian has something similar, but I'm not sure). When the Romance languages moved away from being inflected languages and more in the direction of synthetic languages, they needed a definite article so they used the next closest thing that Latin had. This process was probably well under way before the split into separate Romance languaes. But I would be interested to see if you could dig up a source which posits Arabic al as an influential factor in this development.--Hraefen
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- Thank you for replying to my question. I assumed that perhaps the word for the Arabic definite article was borrowed from the Latin word for 'the' via another Semitic langauge (or the other way around), but as you point out, Latin had no definite article and the word el is unique to the Spanish language.
[edit] Article Tone
Is the way the intro is currently written, with the usage examples incorporated into the prose, acceptably encyclopedic? Or does it sound too much like an attempt to teach the language? Any thoughts would be great. -Fsotrain09 22:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- I suppose that it could be perceived as paedagogical. There were examples in the prose before I overhauled it, but I did expand on them. I imagine that this article is being read by someone who has little or no knowledge of Arabic, and I feel that issues about placement of the article, prefixing it to attributive adjectives and its gemination of sun letters are difficult to comprehend without examples. I suppose the examples could be removed from the prose and added below the relevant paragraph as a list of examples with minimal explanation. — Gareth Hughes 22:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The vowel of "al"
The article explains nicely the assimilation of the article to a following "sun letter". However, a question of mine did not get answered: What are the rules for the vowel of the article? In some words, e.g., Hizb ut-Tahrir, the vowel shifts from a to u without any change in the written Arabic form حزب التحرير (ḥzb altḥyr). Can someone explain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.73.12.254 (talk • contribs).
- Yes, this should be explained in the article. It isn't that the vowel of 'al-' is changing, but that it is assimilated with the preceding vowel. What is not mentioned is that 'al-' begins with a همزة الوصل ('hamzatu l-waṣl'). This means that unless it begins a sentence, the vowel following this hamza elides with the preceding vowel. This doesn't cause much of a problem in Modern Standard Arabic, but it does in Classical Arabic. In Classical Arabic, the endings of the nominative, accusative and genitive cases are still used. Thus, in MSA البيت الكبير is 'al-bait al-kabīr', but classically it is 'al-baitu l-kabīru'. However, some classical pronunciation is often retained for proper names. Most notably, عبد الله is '‘abdu llah', but not '‘abdu llahi' — only the internal case ending is retained. The 'i' is ابن ('ibn') also has the same hamza. — Gareth Hughes 12:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
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- Thanks a lot for your explanation. 88.73.128.4 21:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Will someone get the porn off the page?
An article about an Arabic prefix is not the place for porn. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lolilikepigslol (talk • contribs) 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC).
