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Tag Archives: Arabic
To Whom It Concerns on the Morrow
Hey, U 2 + 3! June 8 and Jan 9 are two dates written in bright lights for us who love you. Your penultimate mission in Oki is to celebrate the dickens out of that day which will have arrived … Continue reading
Nosegay of ‘Droit de Seigneur’
Consulting an Arabic dictionary involves looking up a word’s “root,” usually comprising three consonants. Words formed from the root are listed, with their translations, along with idioms in which the word occurs. What the root is may not be apparent … Continue reading
Posted in Anthology, Commentary
Tagged Arabic, culture, grammar, language, lexicon, personal, rhetoric, style, syntax, translation
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The Absolute Superlative
Blachère (364) describes how Arabic expresses the “absolute superlative” — i.e., the uttermost degree of something, with no comparison: Par des noms au cas direct indéterminé de valeur adverbiale dont le sens primitif est paroxysme, degré suprême, rendus en franç. … Continue reading
Arabist
WARNING A long and wonkish post. Probably not your cup of tea. BACKGROUND I strove for years to read Arabic. I’ve largely lost what knack I attained. A recent brush with the language brought back how daunting it can be. … Continue reading
A Lash of Good Tongue
“To sit fast badly is better than to be thrown easily.” (Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, p. 124) [sū’(u)-l-istimāk(i) ẖair(un) min ḥusn(i)-ṣ-ṣirƸaẗ(i)] Wright cites the phrase to illustrate the formation of the [ism(u)-n-nūƸ(i)], noun of kind, aka nomina … Continue reading →