ALIF BAA INTRODUCTION TO ARABIC LETTERS AND SOUNDS أنل باء هدخن انé حرèل انظربêة èأصèاتçا The production of this textbook and all accompanying audio and video tapes was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. ALIF BAA INTRODUCTION TO ARABIC LETTERS AND SOUNDS أنل باء هدخن انé حرèل انظربêة èأصèاتçا Kristen Brustad Mahmoud Al-Batal Abbas Al-Tonsi مرستو برèستاد هحهèد انب×ن ظباس انتèوسê Georgetown University Press/Washington D.C. Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. © 1995 by Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1995 this volume is printed on acid-free offset book paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brustad, Kristen. Alif baa : introduction to Arabic letters and sounds / Kristen Brustad, Mahmoud Al-Batal, Abbas Al-Tonsi . p. cm. 1. Arabic language--Writing. 2. Arabic language--Alphabet . I. Al-Batal, Mahmoud. II. Tânisآ, cAbb¨s. III. Title. PJ6123.A54 1995 492' .78--dc20 ISBN 0-87840-292-6 (paper) 95-6981 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface ..................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgments .............................................................................. xiii Introduction: The Arabic Alphabet .................................................. 1 Unit One: انèحدة انأèنé ا alif ....................................................................................... 8 ب baa ....................................................................................... 11 ت taa ....................................................................................... 13 ث thaa ..................................................................................... 15 è (oo) ...................................................................................... 17 ê (ee) ....................................................................................... 18 ààî fatHa ................................................................................... 21 àïà Damma ............................................................................... 21 ààً kasra .................................................................................... 22 Culture HaDritik, HaDritak ............................................................ 26 Unit Two: انèحدة انثاوêة ج jiim ...................................................................................... 27 ح Haa ...................................................................................... 30 خ khaa ..................................................................................... 32 ààٍ sukuun ................................................................................ 34 è waaw ................................................................................... 35 ê yaa ....................................................................................... 36 Culture Meeting and Greeting People ........................................ 40 Unit Three: انèحدة انثانثة أ hamza .................................................................................. 41 د daal ...................................................................................... 44 ذ dhaal .................................................................................... 46 ر raa ....................................................................................... 47 ز zaay ..................................................................................... 49 Culture al-Hamdu lillaah ................................................................. 53 Arabic Dialects ................................................................. 53 Unit Four: انèحدة انرابظة àٌà shadda ................................................................................. 55 س seen ..................................................................................... 57 ش sheen ................................................................................... 60 ص Saad ..................................................................................... 62 ض Daad .................................................................................... 65 Culture Forms of Address ............................................................. 72 Unit Five: انèحدة انخاهسة ة taa marbuuTa ..................................................................... 74 × Taa ...................................................................................... 76 ط DHaa ................................................................................... 79 ظ cayn ..................................................................................... 83 ع ghayn .................................................................................. 87 Culture Taking Leave .................................................................... 94 Unit Six: انèحدة انسادسة ل faa ........................................................................................ 95 â qaaf ...................................................................................... 97 م kaaf ...................................................................................... 100 ن laam ..................................................................................... 104 نا laam alif .............................................................................. 107 ئ hamza on yaa seat ............................................................. 111 ؤ hamza on waaw seat .......................................................... 112 Culture Coffee ................................................................................. 119 Unit Seven: انèحدة انسابظة ه miim .................................................................................... 120 و nuun ................................................................................... 124 çà haa ....................................................................................... 126 آ alif madda ............................................................................ 131 Culture ¢هîظنًàçٍش¢ ............................................................................ 141 Unit Eight: انèحدة انثاهوة انà أنل ناه ............................................................................... 142 آ çîهزة انèîصن ....................................................................... 147 à§ dagger alif ......................................................................... 148 Arabic Numerals and Numbers (1- 10) .................................... 152 Culture Saying Hello ...................................................................... 155 Unit Nine: انèحدة انتاسظة é أنل هîâصèرة ..................................................................... 156 ààë تîوèêو انلîتح ....................................................................... 158 ààىى تîوèêو انضîهٌ ........................................................................ 160 ààي تîوèêو انمîسر ...................................................................... 161 Culture Visiting .............................................................................. 169 Unit Ten: انèحدة انظاشرة Alphabet chart .............................................................................. 170 One-letter particles and prepositions لîà بًà نًà è ................... 172 Justification of margins ............................................................... 174 Handwriting styles ...................................................................... 177 Culture Development of the Arabic Writing System ................ 178 Calligraphy ....................................................................... 179 Appendix: Texts of the Egyptian Colloquial Dialogues on the Accompanying Videotape .................................. 183 English-Arabic Glossary ...................................................................... 193 PREFACE To the Student Ahlan wa Sahlan! Welcome to Arabic! This textbook, Alif Baa, represents the first in a series of textbooks aimed at teaching Arabic to English-speaking students, followed by Al-Kitaab fii Tacallum al-cArabiyya I & II. The present book aims to help you learn to produce Arabic sounds and write its letters, and to introduce to you a number of greetings, common phrases, and basic vocabulary, as well as aspects of Arab culture. The book is accompanied by a set of audio tapes for you to use outside of class and a video tape that you will watch in class with your teacher. The book consists of an introduction, ten units, an appendix and an English-Arabic Glossary. The introduction provides a brief overview of some special characteristics of Arabic, and the ten units present the alphabet in groups following the modern Arabic order, with the exception that all of the long vowels are presented in the first unit. In describing the sounds, we have avoided technical descriptions, opting instead for a more practical approach involving tips and exercises that focus on the points of articulation of the sounds. Following the description of each sound, we have provided a brief explanation of the writing of the corresponding letter. Each unit contains a number of recorded listening exercises and drills on reading, writing, connecting letters, and dictation. We have used only meaningful words in these exercises, because word structure in Arabic is based on consonant-vowel patterns, and listening to a large number of words, even if you do not know their meaning, will help you begin internalizing these patterns and facilitate learning vocabulary. We have also included in this book examples of authentic or "real-life" Arabic from newspapers, books, and magazines. Finally, we have included short cultural notes explaining aspects of the situations that you will see on the accompanying video tape. The appendix provides the texts of all the dialogues on the video tape, and the glossary includes all the vocabulary items introduced in the book. We believe that it is crucial for you to learn to recognize and produce Arabic sounds accurately from the outset, for several reasons. First, you must learn to pronounce Arabic correctly in order to communicate effectively with Arabic speakers. Arabic has its own unique beauty, and the extent to which you learn the sounds correctly reflects, among other things, the degree of respect you have for the language and its speakers. Second, Arabic sounds are not very difficult. Many non-native speakers have learned to pronounce Arabic sounds accurately, and there is no reason why you should not expect to do so as well. Third, it is important to learn the sounds correctly now when you have the time and energy to concentrate on them; later you will be concentrating on other aspects of the language, such as vocabulary and grammar. Fourth, the structure of the Arabic language is such that being able to recognize sounds when you hear them will greatly enhance your ability to learn, understand, and remember vocabulary. Fifth, Arabic is largely phonetic, which means that if you learn the sounds correctly now, you will not suffer from spelling headaches. Finally, we do not agree with the commonly held assumption that Arabic is too difficult for non-native speakers to learn: all languages require a certain amount of exposure, time, and effort, and the ability to learn a foreign language is directly related to both the desire to do so and the belief that you can. Tips for Using This Book: 1. Prepare for active participation in class. Listen to the tapes and prepare the lesson assigned beforehand, so that you will be ready to read and write. Class time should be spent practicing, not listening to lectures. 2. Once is not enough. Whether you are pronouncing new sounds, writing new letters, or studying vocabulary, you should repeat the activity as many times as you can. Repeat until you can produce a sound or write a letter easily. Remember that you are training your brain and your muscles to do new things, and this takes practice. Listen to the tapes as many times as you can, and go back over items that you missed on the homework. Although most of your studies are visually oriented, you learned your native language mainly through hearing and listening, and not through reading and writing. Rediscover your native ability to learn through listening by devoting as much time as you can while working through this book to the listening and dictation exercises. 3. Study out loud. The only way to train your brain and your mouth to speak this language is by doingرthinking about it is not enough! 4. Study in groups. You are much more likely to study actively when you study with others. Good group activities include quizzing and dictating to each other, and making up sentences and dialogues. 5. Review constantly. Set aside part of your study time each day to go over old material and practice sounds and letters you learned previously. This investment will pay off in improved accuracy in listening, speaking, reading and writing. 6. Expect to feel tired occasionally. Being tired is a good signرit means that you are concentrating, and that you are training your muscles to produce new sounds correctly. Remember that you will soon be able to do easily things that tire you at first. We wish you a successful and enjoyable learning experience! To the Teacher The philosophy behind this textbook represents a departure from that of previous alphabet textbooks in several ways. First, it is our belief that everyone can produce Arabic sounds accurately, and that it is necessary to encourage and expect accuracy from the outset. Not only is this the only opportunity you and the students will have to focus all of your attention on the phonetic aspects of Arabic, it is also better to form good habits from the start. Second, we believe that all language skills are important, and that they reinforce each other. The ability to hear the difference between, for example, م and â , is a necessary prelude to being able to produce them, and the ability to do both will aid in mastering Arabic morphology, in writing, and in retaining vocabulary. Third, we believe that Arabic is one language, albeit one rich in varieties, and that each variety embraces its own level or part of the culture. In order to understand the language and the culture, students need to learn both formal and spoken varieties. It is the goal of this textbook series to provide a framework for introducing students to both varieties while focusing on the formal; the extent to which you emphasize each variety will depend on your program and the needs of your students. We have found through experience that this approach does not confuse students, as long as spoken variants are introduced as vocabulary items and expressions. On the contrary, it adds to their pool of vocabulary, and, more importantly, gives them the tools they need to begin communicating with native speakers they might meet or know in their immediate environment, who will not speak to them in formal Arabic. The material in this textbook can be covered in twenty to twenty-five contact hours, depending on the amount of time devoted to the various activities, and assuming that the student will devote one to two hours a night to doing the drills. The book is designed so that the student can do much of his or her learning outside of class. Class time should be spent on practice rather than explanations. We believe that it is crucial for the students to learn the sounds correctly from the outset. In order to help them do so, spend as much class time as possible on activities involving listening, dictation, and reading aloud. Our approach stresses dictation because we believe that the mastery of sounds and the ability to relate sounds and writing must be developed early. Repeat sounds and words many times over, and have students repeat as a group to take the pressure off individual performance. It takes several repetitions of a new or unfamiliar sound in order to identify it, and several more to be able to produce it. The accompanying video tape contains some basic dialogues that were filmed in Egypt in the Cairene dialect. Our decision to use colloquial Arabic was a natural consequence of our desire to include a cultural component in these materials, and to use language forms appropriate to that component. Many culturally important expressions belong to the colloquial register, and introducing the students to them as they naturally occur helps them to feel that they are learning to communicate with Arabs. We decided to use the dialect of Cairo in this first edition of the materials because it is the most widely understood among Arabic speakers. However, it is not our desire to impose the teaching of the Egyptian dialect on anyone; if your own dialect differs, we encourage you to teach your students the forms with which you are comfortable. (We do not believe you will find the differences to be very great.) We hope that you will make use of the accompanying video tape not only for its linguistic value but also for its visual and cultural content. You will need to use the tape in class in order to explain the content. We have distributed the eighteen dialogues over the first nine units. While we have included short cultural notes in the book meant to accompany the video scenes, we have not provided detailed lesson plans in order to give you the flexibility to proceed as you wish and focus on the aspects you deem important. Use the tape and cultural notes as starting points, encourage questions and discussion, and expand as you wish. We suggest that you have the students listen to each dialogue several times as follows: (1) Before explaining anything, have them watch for general content, then discuss, and see what they understood. (2) Have them watch again, as many times as necessary, to listen for individual words or expressions, followed by discussion and explanation of what they heard. (3) Have them watch a final time, after they have understood what is said, to focus on how it is said. After that, the students should be ready to try out the expressions themselves, so let them make up their own situations and act them out. Your own contribution will be vital to the success of these materials. Do not worry about writing out the dialogues. It is good training for the students to develop confidence in their aural and oral skills at this stage, and they need to be encouraged to rely on their زphonographicس rather than their زphotographicس memory. Everybody has natural aural and oral language learning skills, because nobody learned their native language through reading. As the students master the alphabet, they will be able to study from the transcribed texts in the appendix. Of course, no textbook can take the place of a good teacher. It is our hope that these materials will help you to enrich your classroom and make learning Arabic an enjoyable experience for your students. Acknowledgments We would like to express our deep gratitude to all the institutions and individuals who made the production of this book possible. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided the funding for the project through a grant to the School of Arabic at Middlebury College. Middlebury College provided matching funds and staff support. The Egyptian Union for Television and Radio graciously granted permission for us to use a number of its video materials and provided us with copies of a number of its programs. We are grateful to the many people who have helped with different phases of the project. To mention just a few, Mary Nachtrieb and Hicham Hamdar helped with typing, editing, and scanning texts, as well as the preparation of the glossary and appendix. Michael Cooperson drew the pictures and made valuable suggestions after reading the first draft. Devin Stewart read the entire manuscript and gave valuable comments and suggestions. At Middlebury College, David Herren and his staff provided computer support and expertise, and Ernest Longie and his staff provided facilities and support for the recording of the audio tapes and duplication of the video tapes. John Samples, Director of Georgetown University Press, and Patricia Rayner, Production Manager, helped in preparing the final manuscript. A special acknowledgment is due al-Ustaaz Abd el-Hakim El-Tonsi, director of the video scenes accompanying this book, and his staff for their dedicated and highly professional work in producing the video tape. The extra time and effort they put into filming and editing enabled us to complete the project on schedule. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to the students of Arabic at Emory University, The College of William and Mary, and Middlebury College, who put up with the difficulties of working with very rough drafts of this book in 1992 and 1993, and to our colleagues who took on the challenge of working with new materials while under development. Their patience, encouragement, and enthusiasm have been inspirational.