Let me know what you thought of the video! And don’t forget to use my link (bit.ly/speak-arabic-now) for 20% Off Spoken Arabic Classes-there’s a guaranteed refund if you decide it’s not for you, so there’s no reason not to sign up!!
Really great video, hope you'll do more long form videos. Also, i would recommend not speaking that fast, cause you aren't limited anymore to one-minute mark
ビル does not come from the English word "bill". It is a shortening of the word ビルディング, which is a borrowed word of "Building". Since saying "Building" but with a vowel attached to every consonant is exhausting and time consuming, the Japanese shortened the word to just ビル (biru) as we are one to do. I suppose it would be pronounced bill if you reimported the shortening but that's not the case so the video is wrong. Great video btw, I love phonetics (I think that's the word) and etymology and it looked like a lot of effort and research was put into this! P.S. I'm not an expert, butI would like to add that while if a Japanese person heard an L sound, they would consider it a different form of the R sound (in Japanese), this is probably more of a symptom of the L sound just not being present in Japanese (or at least the standard dialect). There are no words for the L sound so R is probably just the closest sounding thing we have for it; there's no way to transcribe the L sound specifically in Japanese.
Hi there, I absolutely love your videos and have learnt a lot about the world’s linguistics, culture, and people. I’m from Najran, a somewhat large city in South Arabia. Don’t live there at all and have mostly stayed abroad. Yet, my fascination for the city’s history dating back to 2000 years have grown on me, partly because of your content 😅. I do frequent rock hunting there along with seeing my family to analyze the hieroglyphics inscribed on them to better understand ancient Arabian history. Studying how languages sounded back then ignite a spark of discovery that are presented spectacularly by your videos. You SERIOUSLY deserve more publicity to go along with the thorough and in-depth videos you make. I wish you great success in achieving your goals in life and above all, better Mondays. Thank you so much!
Wow thank you for the incredibly kind words, it really means a lot!! I’m honored to be able to tap into a connection to your heritage with my videos :)
Video is nonsense, the kid doesn't know what he's talking about. The Aramaic word for God is "Alaha" too sounds familiar? Written without the confusing vowels it is written A-L-H ܐ ܠܗܐ (alap-lamed-he) as found in Targum or in Tanakh (Daniel, Ezra), Syriac Aramaic (Peshitta), reduced from the Arabic original (of which Aramaic is a dialect continuum as will be explained) it is written in the Arabic script 'A-L-L-H' (Aleph-Lam-Lam-Ha) add an A before the last H for vocalization. The word God in another rendition in Hebrew ʾĕlōah is derived from a base ʾilāh, an Arabic word, written without confusing vowel it is A-L-H in the Arabic script, pronounced ilah not eloah. Hebrew dropped the glottal stop and mumbled it, aramic mumbled a little less and it became elaha. Infact both are written written A-L-H in Arabic, it is pronounced i in Arabic and not A because it is an Alef with hamza below (إ أ ) They are two different forms of Alef. And it mean "a god", it is the non definitive form of A-L-L-H, in which the Alef is without a glottal stop/hamza,(ا), but this kind of nuance is lost in the dialect continua. infact "YHWH" itself is an Arabic word as discussed by Professor. Israel Knohl (Professor of Biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the paper" YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name." jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The yeshua rendition of Isa (his name in the Qur'an) PBUH which is purported to be the name of Jesus is KNOWN to had been taken from greek. Western Syriac also use "Isho". Western Aramaic (separate from Syriac which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic) use "Yeshu". Western Syriac has been separate from Western Aramaic for about 1000 years. And sounds don't even match up. Syriac is a Christian liturgical language yet the four letters of the name of Jesus «ܝܫܘܥ» [ = Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic: «ישוע» ] sounds totally different in West vs East Syriac, viz. vocalized akin to Christian Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic «ܝܶܫܽܘܥ» (Yēšūʿ) in West Syriac, but pronounced more akin to Muslim Arabic Quran character name Isa in East Syriac «ܝܑܼܫܘܿܥ» (ʾĪšōʿ). The reason for this confusion is their dropping of phonemes. Only someone that has no idea what the letters are or how they sound would have a name ending in a pharyngeal fricative like the ayin, if it were to be used in a name it would have had to be in the beginning, thus the Arabic rendition is the correct one. An example in English is how the appended -d is a common error amongst the English pronouncing Gaelic names. The name Donald arose from a common English mispronunciation of the Gaelic name Donal. Just how it is with donal becoming donald and the two becoming distinct and the original being regarded as something seperate so too did Isa PBUH turn to Iesous turn to jesus and when they tried going back to the original they confused it for yeshua ( ysu is how it is actually written) for Isa PBUH ( 3'eysah ) Schlözer in his preparation for the Arabia expedition in 1781 coined the term Semitic language: "From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische)." -Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German By Han F. Vermeulen. He was only half right though, Arabic is the only corollary to "proto-semitic", infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical as will be shown. "protosemetic" Alphabet (28), Arabic Alphabet (28), Latin transliteration, hebrew (22) 𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼 ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي A b t ṯ j h kh d ḏ r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h w y א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת Merged phonemes in hebrew and aramaic: ح, خ (h, kh) merged into only kh consonant remain س, ش (s, sh) merged into only Shin consonant remaining ط, ظ (ṭ/teth, ẓ) merged into only ṭ/teth consonant remaining ص, ض (ṣ, ḍ/Tsad ) merged into only ḍ/Tsad consonant remaining ع, غ (3'ayn, Ghayn) merged into a reducted ayin consonant remaining ت, ث (t/taw, th) merged into only t/taw consonant remaining The reason why the protoS alphabet here is 28 and not 29, is because the supposed extra letter is simply a س written in a different position, but it was shoehorned to obfuscated. In Arabic letter shapes are different depending on whether they are in the beginning , middle or end of a word. As a matter of fact, all of the knowledge needed for deciphering ancient texts and their complexity was derived from the Qur'an. It was by analyzing the syntactic structure of the Qur'an that the Arabic root system was developed. This system was first attested to in Kitab Al-Ayin, the first intralanguage dictionary of its kind, which preceded the Oxford English dictionary by 800 years. It was through this development that the concept of Arabic roots was established and later co-opted into the term 'semitic root,' allowing the decipherment of ancient scripts. In essence, they quite literally copied and pasted the entirety of the Arabic root. Hebrew had been dead, as well as all the other dialects of Arabic, until being 'revived' in a Frankensteinian fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries. The entire region spoke basically the same language, with mumbled dialect continuums spread about, and Arabic is the oldest form from which all these dialects branched off. As time passed, the language gradually became more degenerate, Language; When one looks at the actual linguistics, one will find that many were puzzled by the opposite, that is, how the other "semetic" languages were more "evolved" than Arabic, while Arabic had archaic features, not only archaic compared to bibilical Hebrew, Ethiopic, "Aramaic" contemporary "semetic" languages, but even archaic compared to languages from ancient antiquity; Ugaritic, Akkadain. What is meant here by Archaic is not what most readers think, it is Archaic not in the sense that it is simple, but rather that it is complex (think Latin to pig Latin or Italian or Old English, which had genders and case endings to modern English), not only grammatically, but also phonetically; All the so called semitic languages are supposed to have evolved from protosemetic, the Alphabet for protosemitic is that of the so called Ancient South Arabian (which interestingly corresponds with the traditional Arabic origins account) and has 28 Phonemes. Arabic has 28 phonemes. Hebrew has 22, same as Aramaic, and other "semitic" languages. Now pause for a second and think about it, how come Arabic, a language that is supposed to have come so late has the same number of letters as a language that supposedly predates it by over a millennium (Musnad script ~1300 BCE). Not only is the glossary of phonemes more diverse than any other semitic language, but the grammar is more complex, containing more cases and retains what's linguists noted for its antiquity, broken plurals. Indeed, a linguist has once noted that if one were to take everything we know about languages and how they develop, Arabic is older than Akkadian (~2500 BCE). And then the Qur'an appeared with the oldest possible form of the language thousands of years later. This is why the Arabs of that time were challenged to produce 10 similar verses, and they couldn't. People think it's a miracle because they couldn't do it, but I think the miracle is the language itself. They had never spoken Arabic, nor has any other language before or since had this mathematical precision. And when I say mathematical, I quite literally mean mathematical. Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken? The creator is neither bound by time nor space, therefore the names are uttered as they truly were, in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. In fact, that writing appears to have been a simplified version of it. Not only that, but it would be the equivalent of the greatest works of any particular language all appearing in one book, in a perfect script and in the highest form the language could ever take. It is so high in fact, that it had yet to be surpassed despite the fact that over the last millennium the collection of Arabic manuscripts when compared on word-per-word basis in Western Museums alone, when they are compared with the collected Greek and Latin manuscripts combined, the latter does not constitute 1 percent of the former as per German professor Frank Griffel, in addition all in a script that had never been recorded before. Thus, the enlightenment of mankind from barbarism and savagery began, and the age of reason and rationality was born from its study. God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
Languages degrade, they do not "evolve". It is a tool for thinking, not communication, it is what seperates other lifeforms from humans. The mere fact that translation is even possible underlies a common origin for all languages, orca whales seperated from their birth pod are unable to communicate with other whales if they get adopted, they are only able to track the others visually. Mecca is mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (8th century BC) as Makan, a region ruled by the Arab queen Samsi. Others have proposed that Mecca is referred to in the Old Testament as Paran or Teman, places associated with Ishmael and his descendants. Still others have pointed out that Mecca is attested in some ancient South Arabian inscriptions as Makkah or Makkahum, meaning "temple" or "sanctuary". The name of Mecca is first recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who calls it Macoraba in the 2nd century AD but Greek has a limited ability of capturing Arabic it is infact Markorava (Μακόραβα) and not Macroba as is often localized Greek is known to morph to suit tongue of speakers, the word for Jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The original is "Isa" as it is in the Quran Arabic. Classical Arabic has largest phonemic inventories among semitic languages. It has 28 consonants (29 with Hamza) and 6 vowels (3 short and 3 long). Some of these sounds are rare or absent in other semitic languages. For example, - Classical Arabic has two pharyngeal consonants /ʕ/ (ع) and /ħ/ (ح). These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic). - Classical Arabic has two emphatic consonants /sˤ/ (ص) and /dˤ/ (ض) These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic). - Classical Arabic has two glottal consonants /ʔ/ (ء) and /h/ (ه), which are produced by opening and closing the glottis ). Akkadian has lost the glottal stop /ʔ/, while Aramaic has lost both the glottal stop and the glottal fricative /h/. - Classical Arabic has six vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, /æ /, /e/, /o/, which can be short or long. Akkadian has only three vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, which can be short or long, while Aramaic has only two vowel phonemes /a/ and /i/, which can be short or long. |Classical Arabic | 28 consonants, 29 with Hamza and 6 vowels; some consonants are emphatic or pharyngealized; some vowels are marked with diacritics | Complex system of word formation based on roots and patterns; roots are sequences of consonants that carry the basic meaning of a word; patterns are sequences of vowels and affixes that modify the meaning and function of a word | Flexible word order, but VSO is most common; SVO is also possible; subject and object are marked by case endings (-u for nominative, -a for accusative, -i for genitive); verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different moods and aspects | | Akkadian | 22 consonants and 3 vowels; some consonants are glottalized or palatalized; vowels are not marked | Similar system, but with different roots and patterns; some roots have more than three consonants; some patterns have infixes or reduplication | Fixed word order of SVO; subject and object are not marked by case endings, but by prepositions or word order; verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different tenses and aspects | | Aramaic | 22 consonants and 3 vowels (later variants have more); no emphatic or pharyngealized consonants (except in some dialects); vowels are not marked (except in later variants such as Syriac) | Simple system of word formation based on prefixes and suffixes; some roots or patterns exist, but are less productive than in Arabic or Akkadian | Let's start with a simple sentence: ## The house is big Arabic: البيتُ كبيرٌ al-bayt-u kabīr-un Proto-Semitic: *ʔal-bayt-u kabīr-u Hebrew: הבית גדול ha-bayit gadol Akkadian: bītum rabûm Amharic: ቤቱ ገደሉ betu gedelu As can be seen, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (noun-adjective), the same definite article (al-), and the same case endings (-u for nominative). Hebrew and Akkadian have lost the case endings and changed the definite article (ha- and -um respectively). Amharic has changed the word order (adjective-noun) and the definite article (u-). But Arabic is not only similar to Proto-Semitic, it is also pre-Semitic, meaning that it is the original form of Semitic before it split into different branches. This is because Arabic preserves many features that are not found in any other Semitic language, but are found in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. These features include: - The definite article al-, which is derived from the demonstrative pronoun *ʔal- 'that'. This article is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the article n- in Berber and the article p-, t-, n- in Egyptian. - The dual number for nouns and verbs, which is marked by the suffix -ān or -ayn. This number is rare in other Semitic languages, but it is common in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. - The imperfective prefix t- for verbs, which indicates the second person singular feminine or third person plural feminine. This prefix is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the prefix t- in Berber and Egyptian. - The passive voice for verbs, which is marked by the infix t between the first and second root consonants. This voice is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the passive voice in Egyptian and Berber. Finally, a more complex sentence: The letter was written with a pen. Arabic: كُتِبَتِ الرِّسَالَةُ بِالقَلَمِ kutiba-t al-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Proto-Semitic: *kutiba-t ʔal-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Hebrew: המכתב נכתב בעט ha-michtav niktav ba-et Akkadian: šipram šapāru bēlum Egyptian: sḏm.n.f p-ẖry m rnp.t Berber: tturra-t tibratin s uccen Here, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (verb-subject-object), the same passive voice marker (-t-), the same definite article (al-), and the same preposition (bi-). Hebrew has changed the word order (subject-verb-object), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (ha-) and the preposition (ba-). Akkadian has changed the word order (object-subject-verb), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (-um) and the preposition (bēlum). Arabic has three cases for nouns: nominative, accusative, and genitive. Other Semitic languages have lost or reduced these case endings; Akkadian has only two cases: nominative and genitive-accusative. Hebrew has no case endings at all. Arabic a complex verbal system that includes 19 main forms (awzān) that indicate different meanings and functions. These forms are derived from the root-and-pattern morphology, where the consonants of the root fill the slots of the pattern. For example, the root k-t-b means "write" and can form different verbs such as kataba "he wrote", kattaba "he made (someone) write", kātaba "he corresponded", aktaba "he dictated", etc. Other Semitic languages have simpler verbal systems that include fewer forms and meanings. For example, Hebrew has only seven main forms (binyanim) This means that Classical Arabic can encode more information in a given unit of speech than other languages, and that it is not only closer to the original sound system of protosemitic, it predates it. We can see that Arabic has more grammatical features than the other languages, such as case endings, mood endings, and root and pattern system, sounds that were lost or changed, more verb and noun forms to emphasize different aspects of the sentence. These features make Arabic more expressive and precise than the other languages, as it can convey more information and nuances in a single word or phrase. Arabic is therefore older and more original than the other languages. Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing? Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken? God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
As a Muslim, when we learn how to recite the Quran, we first learn Makharij, translated as ‘exit points’ which were the points of articulation you were talking about. These differ from MSA pronunciation, for example ر is pronounced by doing a slight trill, then putting the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, whilst leaving a slight gap at the very tip for air to pass through, rather that a full on trilled /r/. This is believed to be the proper way of pronouncing letters properly in Classical/Quranic Arabic, and was how the Qurayshi tribe of Muhammad (saw) pronounced these letters. I don’t know how to represent it in the IPA, but, at least how I was taught, ض is pronounced in 2 steps: Pressing - The sides and tip of the tongue are pressed against the roof of the mouth. Pressure is applied to the sides while the tip is just in contact. There should be a gap of air pressing against the sides and tip by shaping the tongue like a spoon Sliding - The tongue slides across to the alveolar ridge near the back of the teeth, widening the gap of air. The vocal cords are vibrating. If there is a vowel, then the air is released, but if there is a sukoon, then no air is released. This is why ض is not regarded as a Qalqalah letter (basically a plosive) requiring air to be released. So, this does match the previous description of ض being a fricative/continuous sound, and the tongue going to the molars, but Tajweed was only documented 3 centuries after Hijra, and, after all, this is one dialect, and of course, Arabic had, and still has, many dialects which could have used different sounds. Whilst I do believe this description is the most accurate pronunciation of ض, this was quite an intriguing theory. Btw keep up with the long-form content! Loved this one
Just for the record, the modern ض absolutely does NOT adhere to the sifat of rikhwah, not even in the slightest. The modern daad is without a doubt a letter of shidda (plosive). There is consensus among Qurraa that rikhwah means you are able to do a continuous sound of the consonant for as long as you have air in your lungs (aka a fricative),this is impossible to do with the modern daad. Please try it out yourself, try ti make a continous sound with every other letter of rikhwah (س ش خ ز ذ ظ ص) you’ll see that will be able to make a continuous sound. If you try it with the modern daad, it is completely impossible to do. If you do try to add the sifat of rikhwah to tbe modern daad it ends up making a sound that resembles ظ, not anything close to the modern daad which is pronounced essentially as an emphatic daal. Despite this, most modern qurra put their heads in the sand and just ignore it, or even try to adjust the meaning of rikhwah to mean something else. Classical scholars all mentioned in their books thats the ض sound should resemble the ظ, differing only in makhraj as they have all the same sifaat. It truly is a shame that today only a small minority of scholars today pronounce the letter daad in the classical manner, with these scholars almost exclusively coming from the salafi and deobandi traditions, with the notable exception of turkish qurra.
If anyone is interested in hearing what the classical daad sounded like, I have a playlist with recordings of scholars who still preserve the original pronunciation.
@@dranflame_1236 so you are talking about the modern aka MSA ض right, and not the classical ض used in Quran recitation? Because I was taught it was a rikhwah letter by my teacher. Also, yeah, hearing the classical daad would be nice, actually
I was going to mention that it’s easier to explain its sound by comparing it to the Welsh sound, but voiced. However, I see that you’ve already included that in the footnote.
Nope. The Welsh is unilateral (tongue makes contact on only one side so air escapes out the other side - I once saw a study that said 3/4 of Welsh speakers made contact on either the left or right, I forget which, but it wasn't 50/50).
i was listening to this in the background and got flabbergasted at the lack of views, the production quality of this video is hella good for only 300 views in 20 mins
Why would you be shocked that a video posted only 6 HOURS ago (at the time I'm writing this, anyway) doesn't have many views? That's like saying "I'm utterly amazed that this totally original song that the artist JUST PUT OUT A FEW SSCONDS AGO only has been heard by a few people!! Why haven't more people heard this song that literally just came out a few mins ago, it's so good!" You get what I'm saying? Give it some time, Rome wasn't raised in a day lol
3:22 This makes so much sense because in Death Note, Light Yagami, the main character gets the name "Kira" for killing many criminals using the Death Note. Kira is based on the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer."
As an european who doesn't know much about the arabic language(s)/linguistics or semitic languages in general, this video was very informative and interesting. Pls do more long form content, it's great! :)
fun fact: some scholars believe that Hebrew used to have the ض sound up until the start of biblical times, and only then it was lost. possibly because of the influence of the Phoenician writing system that was used to write stuff (including the Bible), since Phoenician lost those sounds (and some others Hebrew did preserve) way before that and as such their writing system didn't have them. edit: read the thread for the discussion, but the TLDR is Ugaritic, which is closer to Hebrew than Phoenician, had letters for all the consonants in Arabic, including ذ, ث, خ, and both ض and ظ.
Jew here: doubt it. considering we know how our letters looked 3000 years ago because of archeology and we know that each letter makes a unique sound I heavily doubt that one of the letters suddenly randomly makes the sound ض . Simple reason of: Biblical Hebrew was relatively phonetic and even more biblical Hebrew dialects don't have that sound. Regardless on whether you're talking about current or old ض edit: Ig I could add more info, in old Hebrew the letter similar to ض would be צ/ץ (it has two forms) which currently makes the "ts" sound but it used to make the "sˤ" sound which, well, isn't ض and we have no reason to believe it should be.
@@TheRedRosjust curious but how can yoube sure that the sound each letter makes has remained the same for all these years? How can be sure that they werent pronounced differently 3000 years ago?
@@TheRedRosPaleohebrew writing was borrowed from the Phoenicians, whose NW Semitic language had undergone severe reduction of its phonemic inventory. There's good linguistic reason to presume pre-exilic biblical Hebrew had more sounds than are recorded in the letters. In this particular case, there's even a Biblical proof: the story of Shibboleth. Go and check out the wiki page, it's interesting.
@@TheRedRos exactly what @SNDKNG was saying. just like we know šin and śin were both written ש despite being different (I'll remind you the Tiberian Niqqud is about a thousand years younger), we know Ugaritic, which is the closest language to Hebrew to have its own writing system, had 27 consonants for which they had letters, much more than the 22 Phoenician ones. most importantly, there's distinction between /ħ/ and /x/ (that in classical Hebrew was written as ח and soft כ), letters for /ð/ and /ɣ/ (corresponding to ذ/soft ד and غ) , a letter for /θ/ located where ש is supposed to be with a separate letter for /ʃ/ (this is likely their version of the šin/śin distinction) and most interestingly, two letters, one said to be a variant on ט and the other a variant on ד, now understood to be the equivalents of ظ and ض respectively so Ugaritic had ح/خ distinction, د/ذ/ض distinction, س/ش/ث/ص distinction, ت/ط/ظ distinction and ع/غ distinction. (and of course ك/ق distinction, also present in Hebrew). those are all the consonants of classical Arabic, present in the language closest to Hebrew.
@@botanicalitus4194He doesn't, he's making stuff up. Hell, it's obvious that many letters encoded more than one sound even 2000 years ago (begadkefat and the hebrew name for Gomorrah are good examples)
I have just stumbled upon your video and decided to watch it. I must say that I have never viewed a non native speaker of Arabic do such a comprehensive video about this topic. Your analysis and explication are extremely informative and edifying in a multifaceted manner. I am a native Arabic speaker and study linguistics at university, so this is very relatable to me. Keep up the good work cuz you are doing a phenomenal job. Peace and Love from Morocco ✌
As a muslim child, I had to learn reading the Qur'an. And reciting the Qur'an with proper pronunciation and articulation is a must. The first step of learning is identifying the Arabic letters, and the second step is Makhraj, the rule of Arabic letter pronunciation. I remember my Ustad repeating each letter with me for hours just to get the pronunciation right. ض was surely one of the toughest ones to pronounce.
Yeah, me too. My father pronounce it more like a full mouth ل or just a straight up ظ, and when I got enrolled in a tajweed class it took quite a while to remove that habit 😅
I am a native speaker living in Egypt but my hardest letter was probably ج for some reason In daily speech where I live we usually don't say that letter the same way that is present in the Qur'an But eventually I got it Alhamdullah Now according to my teacher I have some trouble making Ikhfa' with ن when it is followed by ك when reciting the Qur'an
@@jaeger2235 the Quran is translated, however the translation is not regarded as a Quran, but a Tafsir. As Muslims, in our culture, we read the Quran in its original language and recite it in our prayers in Arabic. We don’t have to learn the entire language but we just need to recite it in Arabic properly
This was really, really good as a piece of long-form linguistics content - not even considering the format's new to you. It maintains a lot of the energy and style of your shorts, but the quality of both the research and the production was absolutely top notch; and your general ability to at least *roughly* nail some of these pronunciations, and your willingess to do so, is great. I really hope you do more of this stuff.
Please make more videos like this. The unique quirks of different languages and its roots are so interesting. Or how specific families of languages like the Semitic languages have the same roots and exploring these roots and the similarities. Or random questions or statements that make me curious like in this video title. I like how you basically took us to find out what ظ really sounded like by giving more and more clues.
I believe that's a mistake, that most of the people from the Indian subcontinent make, especially Urdu and Hindu speakers. Although we learn how to read Arabic from childhood, we were never taught it in a way a native would pronounce the letters
@@fmkhan213 Definitely not a reading mistake and not in just Indian subcontinent. As a native Turkish speaker studying Turkic languages and history, I can say that there is a pattern and the "dad" letter is consistently corresponds to a modern "z" sound that is found in Turkish. Ramazan is just one example, another one mentioned in your video is "arz" meaning earth in modern Turkish, both written and pronounced as "arz".
I think we can confirm with a high degree of knowledgeable confidence how the letters sounded, at least during the time of the beginning of Islam. This is because the Arabs, and later the Muslims, transmitted the Quran orally and were diligent in preserving its pronunciation and the articulation of the letters (مخارج الحروف). They established this as a field of study, passed down from generation to generation.
this video is great! i’m Lebanese and i love linguistics but unfortunately i never learnt Arabic because i left Lebanon at a young age. i hope you cover more about Arabic or other Semitic languages. i wonder if you could do a video on Punic or Maltese?
Alex here with Lingua Verna! If you want to learn Lebanese Arabic, check out the link in the video description. We'd love to have you in our next spoken Arabic class.
I've never heard human1011 mention Maltese despite always doing content about Arabic and Semitic languages - is he aware of it's existence and it being the only official Semitic language of the European Union?
As a fellow Lebanese American, your shorts got me interested in linguistics and it motivated me to start learning French, but this was genuinely one of the most interesting videos I've seen in a while. I'm also an audio engineer, so if you want help with the audio issues, I'd love to help out. But please keep up the long form content!
00:39 Is there any evidence that Arabic linguistics in that era believed that only Arabic as the ض sound? I never personally came across that claim from any known Lughawi or historical records at the time, so it would be nice to know. Thank you I am also skeptical about two arguments you made for ض having been different before. The first one is you displayed how classical linguists described the articulation points(Makhārij) of ض to get an idea of how it would have been back then and you mentionned how one would expect it to be at the tip of the tongue as is the [d] sound but that would not be correct for the ض we pronounce today as it is an entirely different letter to [d], we don't use the tip of the tongue to pronounce it. What we do use is the exact position Yūsuf as-Sakkāki displayed in that diagram you showed, that is where all students of Arabic Makhārij are taught to pronounce ض, so it actually shows that the articulation point of ض has been taught the same for over a millenia at the very least. Secondly, the way Seebwayh described (what we call the صفة/trait) of ض is the same as we learn it today, which is why in the science of Tajwīd, there are only 5 letters of القلقة(al-Qalqalah) contained in the mnemonic: قطب جد The ض is not one of them for the exact reason Seebawayh described. I think these two arguments not only fail to show a variation in the ض as time went on, but it also shows the longevity of the ض as all the classical references describing ض are all in line with how Arabs understand the ض today. It was an interesting video, though. I would love to see your feedback on the points I made against your argument, perhaps as a reply to this comment or a video if you prefer. Thank you again
Most people don't actually know the meaning rikhawah. That is where the confusion comes from. because the way most people pronounce ض as today is not with rikhawah, even though they say it is.
This is a great linguistic video on a rather obscure topic, fantastic work! If there are any Muslims here who may be worried about the ramifications of the letter daad not being preserved, the classical daad is in fact still preserved in quran recitation in quite a few regions, including south asia and turkey. There are also still quite a few arab scholars who preserve the sound in their isnaad. Most notably, the “big three” shuyukh of salafism, ibn uthaymeen, ibn baaz and al albani all made separate fatawa supporting the classical pronunciation of daad, and while they all have been passed for a few decades their pronunciation is still preserved to a degree in the salafi movement. Also just something Ive noticed, essentially all modern scholars who preserve the pronunciation pronounce the letter as an interdental, not an alveolar consonant.
@@heromys9463 I'm not a scholar, so take this with a grain of salt :) It is important that the tip of the tongue must not go beyond the incisors (front teeth). Put the tip of your tongue at the back of the top of your mouth behind the front teeth as if you are pronouncing a "heavy" L sound, then close your teeth and press the side of the tongue against the molars on either side (or both sides if you can), and expel the air from there. If you heard the "ll" sound in Welsh, then ض is similar in that both are lateral sounds, but ض is voiced and pharyngealized. The resulting sound is very similar to ظ, but it comes from the side of the tongue instead of the front, and your teeth remain closed.
I really love your long form videos, your enthusiasm and passion for language is contagious. Explanations are crystal clear and I appreciate the work you put into this video and your shorts! ❤
Near 2 thirds into the video i was quite upset that you hadn't mentioned the side tongue pronounciation as details by the ancient grammarians but glad to see you saved the best for last
If it’s what I think it is, then the Mehri dialect in question is more like ðˡˤ. So, similar, but not quite identical, to the actual Arabic sound, which is generally accepted to be ɮˤ. There are Arab tribes who have the same as the Mehri sound, but that's probably a result of the general trend of merging ɮˤ into ðˤ in Arabic generally (most dialects underwent this by the 10th century, in what appears to have been a 3-century long process--we know this from people writing about it. Merging Dhaa' and dhaal into their plosive counterparts started in the 11th century in Egypt and North Africa). If it's the dialect in question, IIRC the women speaking it often have a voiceless lateral affricate instead, which was likely much closer to the original pronunciation before Arabic influence. Mehri generally is sort of in a transitional state between an all-ejective emphatic set--as in Ge'ez, for instance--and an all-pharyngeal one-as in Arabic. So, for all we know, when Sibaywayh was writing, Mehri didn't have that ðˡˤ sound in any dialect. There's even a high chance that this sound only exists in Mehri because of Arabic influence. It would explain why the innovative pronunciation is with the men, not the women (if my information is accurate): the men have greater exposure to Arabic. Thus, at the very least, the statement remains accurate to the time it was first used: Arabic was, when the grammarians got to work, the only language known with ɮˤ in the 8th and 9th centuries. And depending on how strict we are, that might still be the case.
11:39 it really silly to me that am Mahri and i spoke Mahri as a kid while while also speaking Arabic due to being Arab in a Arab country so my native tongue was basically both😭
In Indonesian، ض is very rarely transliterated as "d". Nowadays it's more often as "dh" (but to be fair it's only to differentiate it from د, because ض is indeed very challenging to pronounce) Older transliteration has "dl" for it and still used in some extent. For example the biggest Islamic organization in Indonesia نهضة العلماء, is still transliterated as "Nahdlatul Ulama"
Just found this video and your channel, and I'm already a HUGE fan of your content. Keep up the great work, can't wait to learn more from you. Sincerely, a fellow Lebanese etymology/linguistics nerd.
I love the long form format as you can include way more information that would otherwise be lost in a short, so thank you for doing this! I do have a suggestion though: it would help the viewer/listener to absorb the knowledge much better if you could speak more slowly. Since you're not in a rush to make a video in under one minute, I think you can take your time :)
Arabic ض was borrowed into Malay as L when words like فَرْضٌ and رِضًا were respectively borrowed into Malay as “perlu” (obligatory) and “rela” (willing). Does this possibly have anything to do with that old pronunciation of Arabic ض? (Loved the video btw! Hope you’ve got more videos like this coming up 😆)
In my native language Malayalam, Muslims tend to pronounce it as a third l that is not part of the native Malayalam phonology. (Malayalam has two native ls).
Fun fact: The fortition of pharyngealized lateral [lˤ] into [dˤ] (later [d] > [tɦ] > Mandarin t- [tʰ]) also happened in Old Chinese. Further details for historical linguistics enjoyers: Non-pharyngealized [l] shifted to [lʲ] (later [j]). Furthermore, their voiceless counterparts [l̥ˤ] and [l̥] became [tʰˤ] (later [tʰ]) and [ɕ]; as a result, for the Old Chinese quadruple [lˤ], [l], [l̥ˤ], and [l̥], modern-day Mandarin has t- [tʰ] (mid-rising tone if unchecked), y- [j] (or r- [ʐ]), t- [tʰ] (high level tone if unchecked), and x- [ɕ] (or sh- [ʂ]). To further complicate things, [l(ˤ)r] becomes [ɖ(ˤ)] > [ʈɦ] > Mandarin ch- [tʂʰ] (with the mid-rising tone if unchecked).
@@amacsizbirkisi That’s the thing… I know that’s where most of the information comes from, but I haven’t been able to find any articles or books or going into detail as to what exactly that information is. I’m more interested in the phonological evolution of Old Chinese to the modern Sinitic Languages than I am in the specifics of Old Chinese pronunciation itself, and there are no resources that I’m aware of that present the information by describing regular sound correspondences the way the commenter is presenting it
According to Wikipedia عدّها الخليل بن أحمد في حيز الجيم والشين، وهما من الأصوات الغارية التي تخرج من الغار وهو سقف الحنك الصلب. فقال وهو يذكـر أحياز الحـروف في كتاب العين " ثم الجيم والشين والضـاد في حيـز". أما سيبويه فقد وصف صوت الضاد في القرن الثاني الهجري وصفا دقيقا في كتابه " الكتاب" فيقول في إخراجها "ومن بين أول حافة اللسان وما يليه من الأضراس مخرج الضاد". وهنا يحدد سيبويه مكان إخراج صوت الضاد بأنها جانبية. كما يذكر بانه من الاصوات المجهوره والرخوة والمطبقة.
i think that also makes sense seeing how many languages pronounce ض as a z like in persian, turkish, and urdu ramadan is pronounced as ramazaan/ ramzaan
Love these videos that get into the depths of specific features of Arabic! So many videos cover the basics, like I’ve heard the same story a million times 😭
@@mahmoudhabib95 I think he said he learned it on his own. Which makes sense, being born and raised in the US there's no Arabic in school or anything. I'm also Lebanese American btw, but I grew up speaking Lebanese Arabic with my parents, fortunately.
it's the first time I saw someone interested in Arabic... didn't expect that to be honest, a lot of people say that we are.. not so nice...I'm happy that you talking about our language . thank you ❤❤
I'm Jewish but I am interested in dialects of Arabic and tried studying south Levantine Arabic.. and there's also dr. Taylor Jones (YT channel language Jones) who studies a bunch of languages, including Levantine btw, but also Farsi, which isn't even Semitic. A lot of people love different cultures, even from countries that are 'hostile' in terms of governmental policies
Great question! It could be taken as further evidence that ض was originally a fricative, unlike its modern standard pronunciation. However I believe the reason many languages realize ض as a /z/ (Turkish did this too) is that many dialects of Arabic merge the sounds of ض and ظ, and since ظ is often realized as [zˤ], ض gets interpreted that way too. For a widespread example in Arabic, take the phrase "بالضبط" in which ض is pronounced as an emphatic z.
it is probably because the sound that he was describing is closer to z than to d, and assuming that sound wasn't found in persian, persians who were amongst the first non semitic lanuage speaking peoples who integrated arabic loan words in their language opted to use z to replace the ض
I'm planning on getting into the field of linguistics, and this video was so much fun! As well as being very well researched and formatted, the video was engaging and exciting, and you explained the technical stuff so that a beginner could understand. Thank you so so much and good luck for your future videos!
Great first foray into long form! You could make a video on how scripts are adapted into various languages where the phonology differs wildly from the original language the scripts were made for, for instance the Hebrew script in Yiddish, Kanji in Japanese, various forms of the Perso-Arabic script such as Jawi for Malay, Arabi Malayalam, Ajami for Swahili and so on.
Salam Al-laykum First: Thank you so much for creating these excellent and educational videos. They are both informative and greatly appreciated. Second: I came across a response video from a RUclips channel called Arabic101, titled "Responding to FALSE information about the origin of ض | Arabic101." I believe it would be beneficial to watch that video as well, as it discusses the correct pronunciation of the letter ض and provides insight into its linguistic background. Wishing you all the best as you continue to excel in both learning and educating 😃
@@TheRpoil Based on what evidence? arabic101 doesn't even know the definition of rikhawah. As I said go watch Tulaib Zafir´s 2 hour long video on the issue.
Arabic 101's learning content is cool, but I don't trust them at all on linguistics - they tried to argue English and all languages evolved from Arabic one time, which is patently untrue
Thanks!! This was very useful. I was taught that ض was pronounced differently in university years ago, but i never had the opportunity to actually hear how it sounded.
Love that you've made this video. Thank you. But I'd like to point out something that needs to be corrected, I believe. The ض in Arabic is not Plosive (شديد، من الشدة) at all. It is rather that the plosive ضاد that we hear is a recent mispronunciation that is actually a دال مفخمة. The ضاد in Arabic is absolutely fricative (رخو، من الرخاوة). In both variants, the one that sounds like د and one that sounds like ظ. Shaykh Al-Husari recites it in the Qur'an that way, and so do all accurate reciters. In fact, it is called الضاد الطائية (the one pronounced in Egypt, levant region, etc.) and there is الضاد الظائية (which is the one you found in Asseer, but it is also mispronounced in Algeria, Tunisia, and other places and a ظ). In fact, if you just search for الضاد الطائية والضاد الظائية, you'll find a few books discussing the debate in detail (For example: الأقوال الجلية في الضاد الظائية والضاد الطائية). There is also a channel by a Qur'an teacher, فارس عنتر, who is teaching how to get the رخاوة (fricativeness?) of the ض. Another one is لطفي الفخفاخ, and there are many others. The commonly mispronounced ض is just a دال مفخمة, not a ضاد (but I don't know how to translate التفخيم and الترقيق). The way it had been pronounced, at least for the last 1450 years, has been preserved in the Qur'anic teaching style. I personally use الضاد الظائية when reciting because I believe it is closer to the one Sibawayh and Ibn-ul-Jazri had described (as one that is closer to being a ظ than being a fricative-ط). But when I am leading the prayers in congregation, I'd use the طائية to avoid confusing people since it is too alien to them and they are not aware of this misconception; and the طائية sounds a lot like the plosive D sound they're so used to hearing. While I disagree, quite a lot, with the hypothesis that it became called "لغة الضاد" due to its being plosive, I thank you for making this video, I absolutely love it. Keep up the great content! EDIT: and yes, I am that same person who kept commenting about the ضاد in all the previous shorts and videos, probably.
The video is based on the misbelief that the reasno why Arabic is called Lughat al-Daad, the language of the Daad, is ebcause that sound does not exist in other languages, the full original sentence is Lughat Al-Daad wa al-Mudaad, meaning the language which contains the thing and its opposite. Unlike other languages, almost all words in Arabic have antonyms, their symmetrical opposite, a characteristic only found in the natural world ( Physics ~ Matter v Anti-Matter, Positive/negative spins, etc). Indeed the daad is not the only sound unique to Arabic, the Ayin, Ghayn, Haa are also unique consonants that were dropped from other "semitic" languages, as early as 2500 BCE. The Aramaic word for God is "Alaha" too sounds familiar? Written without the confusing vowels it is written A-L-H ܐ ܠܗܐ (alap-lamed-he) as found in Targum or in Tanakh (Daniel, Ezra), Syriac Aramaic (Peshitta), reduced from the Arabic original (of which Aramaic is a dialect continuum as will be explained) it is written in the Arabic script 'A-L-L-H' (Aleph-Lam-Lam-Ha) add an A before the last H for vocalization. The word God in another rendition in Hebrew ʾĕlōah is derived from a base ʾilāh, an Arabic word, written without confusing vowel it is A-L-H in the Arabic script, pronounced ilah not eloah. Hebrew dropped the glottal stop and mumbled it, aramic mumbled a little less and it became elaha. Infact both are written written A-L-H in Arabic, it is pronounced i in Arabic and not A because it is an Alef with hamza below (إ أ ) They are two different forms of Alef. And it mean "a god", it is the non definitive form of A-L-L-H, in which the Alef is without a glottal stop/hamza,(ا), but this kind of nuance is lost in the dialect continua. infact "YHWH" itself is an Arabic word as discussed by Professor. Israel Knohl (Professor of Biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the paper" YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name." jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The yeshua rendition of Isa (his name in the Qur'an) PBUH which is purported to be the name of Jesus is KNOWN to had been taken from greek. Western Syriac also use "Isho". Western Aramaic (separate from Syriac which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic) use "Yeshu". Western Syriac has been separate from Western Aramaic for about 1000 years. And sounds don't even match up. Syriac is a Christian liturgical language yet the four letters of the name of Jesus «ܝܫܘܥ» [ = Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic: «ישוע» ] sounds totally different in West vs East Syriac, viz. vocalized akin to Christian Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic «ܝܶܫܽܘܥ» (Yēšūʿ) in West Syriac, but pronounced more akin to Muslim Arabic Quran character name Isa in East Syriac «ܝܑܼܫܘܿܥ» (ʾĪšōʿ). The reason for this confusion is their dropping of phonemes. Only someone that has no idea what the letters are or how they sound would have a name ending in a pharyngeal fricative like the ayin, if it were to be used in a name it would have had to be in the beginning, thus the Arabic rendition is the correct one. An example in English is how the appended -d is a common error amongst the English pronouncing Gaelic names. The name Donald arose from a common English mispronunciation of the Gaelic name Donal. Just how it is with donal becoming donald and the two becoming distinct and the original being regarded as something seperate so too did Isa PBUH turn to Iesous turn to jesus and when they tried going back to the original they confused it for yeshua ( ysu is how it is actually written) for Isa PBUH ( 3'eysah ) Schlözer in his preparation for the Arabia expedition in 1781 coined the term Semitic language: "From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische)." -Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German By Han F. Vermeulen. He was only half right though, Arabic is the only corollary to "proto-semitic", infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical as will be shown. "protosemetic" Alphabet (28), Arabic Alphabet (28), Latin transliteration, hebrew (22) 𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼 ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي A b t ṯ j h kh d ḏ r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h w y א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת Merged phonemes in hebrew and aramaic: ح, خ (h, kh) merged into only kh consonant remain س, ش (s, sh) merged into only Shin consonant remaining ط, ظ (ṭ/teth, ẓ) merged into only ṭ/teth consonant remaining ص, ض (ṣ, ḍ/Tsad ) merged into only ḍ/Tsad consonant remaining ع, غ (3'ayn, Ghayn) merged into a reducted ayin consonant remaining ت, ث (t/taw, th) merged into only t/taw consonant remaining The reason why the protoS alphabet here is 28 and not 29, is because the supposed extra letter is simply a س written in a different position, but it was shoehorned to obfuscated. In Arabic letter shapes are different depending on whether they are in the beginning , middle or end of a word. As a matter of fact, all of the knowledge needed for deciphering ancient texts and their complexity was derived from the Qur'an. It was by analyzing the syntactic structure of the Qur'an that the Arabic root system was developed. This system was first attested to in Kitab Al-Ayin, the first intralanguage dictionary of its kind, which preceded the Oxford English dictionary by 800 years. It was through this development that the concept of Arabic roots was established and later co-opted into the term 'semitic root,' allowing the decipherment of ancient scripts. In essence, they quite literally copied and pasted the entirety of the Arabic root. Hebrew had been dead, as well as all the other dialects of Arabic, until being 'revived' in a Frankensteinian fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries. The entire region spoke basically the same language, with mumbled dialect continuums spread about, and Arabic is the oldest form from which all these dialects branched off. As time passed, the language gradually became more degenerate, And then the Qur'an appeared with the oldest possible form of the language thousands of years later. This is why the Arabs of that time were challenged to produce 10 similar verses, and they couldn't. People think it's a miracle because they couldn't do it, but I think the miracle is the language itself. They had never spoken Arabic, nor has any other language before or since had this mathematical precision. And when I say mathematical, I quite literally mean mathematical. Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken? The creator is neither bound by time nor space, therefore the names are uttered as they truly were, in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. In fact, that writing appears to have been a simplified version of it. Not only that, but it would be the equivalent of the greatest works of any particular language all appearing in one book, in a perfect script and in the highest form the language could ever take. It is so high in fact, that it had yet to be surpassed despite the fact that over the last millennium the collection of Arabic manuscripts when compared on word-per-word basis in Western Museums alone, when they are compared with the collected Greek and Latin manuscripts combined, the latter does not constitute 1 percent of the former as per German professor Frank Griffel, in addition all in a script that had never been recorded before. Thus, the enlightenment of mankind from barbarism and savagery began, and the age of reason and rationality was born from its study. God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
Language; When you look at the actual linguistics, you'll find that many were puzzled by the opposite, that is, how the other "semetic" (why in quotes will be revealed later) languages were more "evolved" than Arabic, while Arabic had archaic features, not only archaic compared to bibilical Hebrew, Ethiopic, "Aramaic" contemporary "semetic" languages, but even archaic compared to languages from ancient antiquity; Ugaritic, Akkadain. What is meant here by Archaic is not what most readers think, it is Archaic not in the sense that it is simple, but rather that it is complex (think Latin to pig Latin or Italian or Old English, which had genders and case endings to modern English), not only grammatically, but also phonetically; All the so called semitic languages are supposed to have evolved from protosemetic, the Alphabet for protosemitic is that of the so called Ancient South Arabian (which interestingly corresponds with the traditional Arabic origins account) and has 28 Phonemes. Arabic has 28 phonemes. Hebrew has 22, same as Aramaic, and other "semitic" languages. Now pause for a second and think about it, how come Arabic, a language that is supposed to have come so late has the same number of letters as a language that supposedly predates it by over a millennium (Musnad script ~1300 BCE). Not only is the glossary of phonemes more diverse than any other semitic language, but the grammar is more complex, containing more cases and retains what's linguists noted for its antiquity, broken plurals. Indeed, a linguist has once noted that if one were to take everything we know about languages and how they develop, Arabic is older than Akkadian (~2500 BCE). |Classical Arabic | 28 consonants, 29 with Hamza and 6 vowels; some consonants are emphatic or pharyngealized; some vowels are marked with diacritics | Complex system of word formation based on roots and patterns; roots are sequences of consonants that carry the basic meaning of a word; patterns are sequences of vowels and affixes that modify the meaning and function of a word | Flexible word order, but VSO is most common; SVO is also possible; subject and object are marked by case endings (-u for nominative, -a for accusative, -i for genitive); verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different moods and aspects | | Akkadian | 22 consonants and 3 vowels; some consonants are glottalized or palatalized; vowels are not marked | Similar system, but with different roots and patterns; some roots have more than three consonants; some patterns have infixes or reduplication | Fixed word order of SVO; subject and object are not marked by case endings, but by prepositions or word order; verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different tenses and aspects | | Aramaic | 22 consonants and 3 vowels (later variants have more); no emphatic or pharyngealized consonants (except in some dialects); vowels are not marked (except in later variants such as Syriac) | Simple system of word formation based on prefixes and suffixes; some roots or patterns exist, but are less productive than in Arabic or Akkadian | Arabic is the only corollary to proto-semitic, infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical for anyone with a somewhat functioning mass between their ears. hebrew, aramaic, rest of madeup dialect continua only have 22 letters of the 29 protosemitic letters Arabic has all 29. The difference betweeen Arabic and the other creoles and Pidgin is the same as that between Latin and pig latin or italian. Arabic is written in an alphabetic script that consists of 28 consonants and three long vowels. For example: قرأ زيد كتابا qaraʾa zayd-un kitāb-an Zayd read a book This sentence is composed of three words: qaraʾa (he read), zayd-un (Zayd), and kitāb-an (a book). The word order is verb-subject-object, which is different from English but similar to Proto-Semitic and Akkadian. The word zayd-un has a suffix -un that indicates the nominative case, which is equivalent to "the" in English or "-u" in Akkadian. The word kitāb-an has a suffix -an that indicates the accusative case, which is equivalent to "a" in English or "-a" in Akkadian. Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed ancestor of all Semitic languages. It is not written in any script, but linguists use a system of symbols to represent its sounds. For example: ʔanāku bēlīya ʔašū I am his lord This sentence is composed of three words: ʔanāku (I), bēlīya (my lord), and ʔašū (he). The word order is subject-object-verb, which is different from English but similar to Arabic and Akkadian. The word bēlīya has a suffix 'ya' that indicates possession, which is equivalent to "my" in English or "-ī" in Arabic. The word ʔašū has a prefix ʔa- that indicates the third person singular masculine pronoun, which is equivalent to "he" in English or "huwa" in Arabic. I'll compare Arabic with Proto-Semitic and show how Arabic preserves features that are lost or changed in other Semitic languages. Let's start with a simple sentence: ## The house is big Arabic: البيتُ كبيرٌ al-bayt-u kabīr-un Proto-Semitic: *ʔal-bayt-u kabīr-u Hebrew: הבית גדול ha-bayit gadol Akkadian: bītum rabûm Amharic: ቤቱ ገደሉ betu gedelu As can be seen, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (noun-adjective), the same definite article (al-), and the same case endings (-u for nominative). Hebrew and Akkadian have lost the case endings and changed the definite article (ha- and -um respectively). Amharic has changed the word order (adjective-noun) and the definite article (u-). But Arabic is not only similar to Proto-Semitic, it is also pre-Semitic, meaning that it is the original form of Semitic before it split into different branches. This is because Arabic preserves many features that are not found in any other Semitic language, but are found in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. These features include: - The definite article al-, which is derived from the demonstrative pronoun *ʔal- 'that'. This article is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the article n- in Berber and the article p-, t-, n- in Egyptian. - The dual number for nouns and verbs, which is marked by the suffix -ān or -ayn. This number is rare in other Semitic languages, but it is common in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. - The imperfective prefix t- for verbs, which indicates the second person singular feminine or third person plural feminine. This prefix is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the prefix t- in Berber and Egyptian. - The passive voice for verbs, which is marked by the infix t between the first and second root consonants. This voice is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the passive voice in Egyptian and Berber. Finally, a more complex sentence: The letter was written with a pen. Arabic: كُتِبَتِ الرِّسَالَةُ بِالقَلَمِ kutiba-t al-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Proto-Semitic: *kutiba-t ʔal-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Hebrew: המכתב נכתב בעט ha-michtav niktav ba-et Akkadian: šipram šapāru bēlum Egyptian: sḏm.n.f p-ẖry m rnp.t Berber: tturra-t tibratin s uccen Here, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (verb-subject-object), the same passive voice marker (-t-), the same definite article (al-), and the same preposition (bi-). Hebrew has changed the word order (subject-verb-object), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (ha-) and the preposition (ba-). Akkadian has changed the word order (object-subject-verb), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (-um) and the preposition (bēlum). Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
Yes, I am saying that many of them, including many Qur'an teachers, have a misconception about the letter ض being a دال مفخمة that is non-fricative, contradicting a well-known written consensus that it is fricative. Why? Because it sounds similar to the دال but it stops without a قلقلة (just hear Shaykh Al-Husari reciting the word الأرض and stopping after it. There is no قلقلة specifically because it is fricative. In fact, if you open Shaykh Al-Husari's book, أحكام قراءة القرآن الكريم, and go to page 119, you'll see that he describes the دال as having six characteristics: الجهر، الشدة، الاستفال، الانفتاح، الإصمات، القلقلة. Then he describes the ضاد as having six different characterisics: الجهر، الرخاوة (fricativeness)، الإستعلاء، الإطباق، الإصمات، الاستطالة. There is no قلقلة in the ضاد at all. In fact, in the same book, page 60, there is a footnote by the editor/muhaqqiq (Minyar) in which he mentions that the letter ضاد is often mixed with the ظ، ط، د، and even ل، غ، and ذ due to the proximity of its makhraj to theirs. He also proceeds to quote the scholars' statements that it is most often mixed with the ظاء. The footnotes later in page 64 indicate the difference between the characteristics of the ضاد as opposed to the د، ل، ذ، and غ. Anyway, what happens is that today not many people are learning to recite the Qur'an by apprenticeship وبالتلقي, so they don't have this feedback-based learning on how to pronounce the letter. Instead, they'd have Shaykh Al-Husari or Abdulbasit running 24/7 and they try to imitate them most of the time, so while they do learn lots of ahkaam at-tajweed this way (via trial and error, and I myself am one such person), it is very easy to mistake the Egyptian ضاد for a دال مفخمة, and mistake the رخاوة that the Shaykhs - may Allah's mercy be upon them - for the شدة of the دال. It is such a fine detail that led us to this ironic ignorant arrogant mocking of the gulf arabs for reciting Al-Fatiha in that way. This arrogance has reached amazing levels to the extent that some claim that "the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Pakistanis, Iranians, Tunisians, and pretty much everyone in the whole Islamic world will never have a prayer accepted" because they supposedly don't recite the fatiha properly. Actually, they do. The person claiming that is just too ignorant. Then they'd go on trying to correct the ok ضاد to the wrong one that the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم has never pronounced, riding their egos and prides to belittle others (I am not excluding myself, I used to be one until I learnt about it; had an identity crisis for a while because of that). By Allah, the Qur'anic ضاد is fricative! 😁
The fact that so many other, geographically disparate languages change ض to a /z/ sound instead of a /d/ also lends credence to it having been a fricative. Love the long form content, keep it up!
I recommend watching Arabic 101's video discussing this video. Some of the points brought up in this video are incorrect, and he explains why in detail. Not hating, just informing
Rather, South Asian Muslims changed the Arabic sound because they couldn't pronounce the original letter. Urdu has multiple Arabic letters that are all pronounced like Z. And then people that couldn't pronounce Z changed it to a J.
That's more because of the persian influence, which was the official language of India for centuries, and modifies a lot of different arabic sounds to a generic "z". The "romjan" pronunciation is uniquely Bengali, which treats Z and J as allophones. @Slanovich @akmukherjee1971
In Egypt they also say Z for this letter. Wuzu for wudu. This is a perfectly acceptable variant. South Asians and others should have no inferiority complex about the change in pronunciation of this letter just because our tongues roll different.
Great video! It's worth noting that in Hebrew, Sad, Dad, and Za all merged into Sadi. In most dialects of Aramaic Dad shifts to Ayin as you mentioned, but an interesting feature of OId Aramaic is that they transcribed Dad as a Qaf instead of an Ayin (see Jeremiah 10:11)
11:36 Mongolian also contains the phoneme [ɮ] (Voiced Alveolar Lateral Fricative) but it's never pharyngealized in it. Only the Classical Arabic of the Noble Qurʾān contains the pharyngealized one.
this video was super insightful. i had no idea how important historical documents are in linguistics. you're a great communicator and look forward to more long form content. ما شاء الله
Your third option is probably the most likely like you stated. Your comparisons of the modern Ramadan to the classical pronunciation got me really smirking. There is a comparison that brings it home really well (I am not capable of speaking Arabic, but I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole video) the classical and old Russian Ramazan instead of the modern Ramadan. I always asked myself where Russia got the ze sound from, now I know.
@@sleepy4205 In the Middle East, a handsome man should have thick eyebrows. Thin eyebrows are considered a feminine trait. We Kurds and Persians have very thick eyebrows 😅
@@sleepy4205nope, thick eyebrows require more grooming and maintenance (like adjusting the shape, plucking the edges so the eyebrow shape is smooth, and brushing) but its worth it because they are so beautiful.
On the topic of loanwords!!! Javanese, a language spoken in Indonesia, loaned رَمَضَان _(ramaḍān)_ as ꦫꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀ _(ramelan),_ with an /l/! It even loaned وُضُوء _(wuḍū2)_ 'ablustion' as ꦮꦸꦢ꧀ꦭꦸ _(wudlu)_ /wud̪̥l̪u/ 'ibid.' When I realized this for the first time I was taken aback because, why would there be an /l/ in there? On a related note, the sound ظ /ðˤ/ is consistent loaned with an /l/ sound! Take for example: - ꦭꦲꦶꦂ _(lair)_ /l̪air/ from ظاهِر _(ẓāhir)_ - ꦭꦺꦴꦲꦺꦴꦂ _(lohor)_ from ظُهْر _(ẓuhr)_ - ꦲꦥꦭ꧀ _(apal)_ from حَافَظَ _(ḥafaẓa)_
This might be unwarranted but: for longer form videos, there's probably no need for you to exaggerate expressions so much (I get that you're a shorts/tiktok guy primarily). Gives an uncanny, unhinged vibe to an otherwise very informative video. Edit: in Japanese, ビル is primarily used to mean "building" (as in, a structure). ビル as meaning "bill" is much less common. Your point still stands though.
Nothing wrong with his expressions. Delighted to see the animation. Some cultures are warm, others are frozen-faced and constrained. He belongs to the warmer tradition, being Mediterranean.
This kind of videos is great for listening to while I'm doing something (not that I ignored you, but since the video is mostly relying on audio and not so much on visuals, it works), keep it up! Also, as someone who loves anthropology, your linguistics videos are very helpful not just with understanding the languages themselves, but the history and implications of how they relate to each other as well.
i enjoyed so much ! it's very detailed but not too much for it to b e confusing or not easy to understand, i am also thankful that you give the sources of each point you talk about
@@TakeOneSiptranslated is the wrong word but considering it's an oral tradition, with the addition that all languages evolve over time, it's definitely plausible. All it requires is tiny changes over generations. One generation wouldn't even see the difference but if you took a generation and then another generation that was 10 or 20 later, then you would hear the differences. If you think it can happen to every other language except your special one then I fear that's just ignorance/special pleading.
@@TakeOneSipI don't really care if it's problematic. I care about what's true. Considering this happens all the time across languages and cultures, it's quite plausible. Why is it problematic though? Wouldn't you rather know what's true than only listen to things that confirm your assumptions? Plus, there are already versions of that Arabic sound in other dialects. It already exists and it's not something new. It's new to you and me who were ignorant of this knowledge. Double also! We already know that the Quran was revealed in several dialects, with different pronunciations so why is this problematic again?
You are one of my favourite short-form linguistic creators (if not my favourite) and I'm so glad you're finally making some long-form content. Please keep up the good work :3!
In regards to the Spanish perception of the letter ض, I'd like to tell you one fun fact. Indonesian transliteration of ض is often written with the letter combination "dl". So the word Ramadan would sometimes be written as "Ramadlan".
You know even during the time of the prophet muhammad (saw) , arabic had many variations too. You had the qurayshi dialect, yemeni dialect, banu tameemi dialedt etc. Some words and lettwrs were pronounced differently like ص [(saw) sound] where some tribes made a more س [(s) sound] or even a more ز [zay sound] like zzirat. Or even imalah like the "e" sound in how we pronounce " elephant".
@@humanteneleven I fact checked this with my teacher. This is not the reason. It's because its not 'kitabun' but 'ALkitab', it is THE book from the father of Nahw himself and it is THE book if you want to study Al-lughatul Arabiyah i also got laughed at by the entire class for asking that question 😃😃
Let me know what you thought of the video! And don’t forget to use my link (bit.ly/speak-arabic-now) for 20% Off Spoken Arabic Classes-there’s a guaranteed refund if you decide it’s not for you, so there’s no reason not to sign up!!
@humanteneleven Many arabs pronounce it as zwaad instead of daad
Really enjoyed the video! Incredibly well-produced and fascinating too!
Nice
Really great video, hope you'll do more long form videos. Also, i would recommend not speaking that fast, cause you aren't limited anymore to one-minute mark
ビル does not come from the English word "bill". It is a shortening of the word ビルディング, which is a borrowed word of "Building". Since saying "Building" but with a vowel attached to every consonant is exhausting and time consuming, the Japanese shortened the word to just ビル (biru) as we are one to do.
I suppose it would be pronounced bill if you reimported the shortening but that's not the case so the video is wrong.
Great video btw, I love phonetics (I think that's the word) and etymology and it looked like a lot of effort and research was put into this!
P.S. I'm not an expert, butI would like to add that while if a Japanese person heard an L sound, they would consider it a different form of the R sound (in Japanese), this is probably more of a symptom of the L sound just not being present in Japanese (or at least the standard dialect). There are no words for the L sound so R is probably just the closest sounding thing we have for it; there's no way to transcribe the L sound specifically in Japanese.
1:19 For a moment there i expected him to say, "...Or do we?"
Vsauce has trained my brain to a concerning degree lmao
missed opportunity 😩
Exactly lol🤣..
😂😂😂😂😂
"Can you eat yourself?"
me too
Hi there, I absolutely love your videos and have learnt a lot about the world’s linguistics, culture, and people. I’m from Najran, a somewhat large city in South Arabia. Don’t live there at all and have mostly stayed abroad. Yet, my fascination for the city’s history dating back to 2000 years have grown on me, partly because of your content 😅. I do frequent rock hunting there along with seeing my family to analyze the hieroglyphics inscribed on them to better understand ancient Arabian history. Studying how languages sounded back then ignite a spark of discovery that are presented spectacularly by your videos. You SERIOUSLY deserve more publicity to go along with the thorough and in-depth videos you make. I wish you great success in achieving your goals in life and above all, better Mondays. Thank you so much!
Wow thank you for the incredibly kind words, it really means a lot!! I’m honored to be able to tap into a connection to your heritage with my videos :)
يامي؟
What are the words that have ض in Mahri? Couldn't it be Arabic loan words?
Video is nonsense, the kid doesn't know what he's talking about. The Aramaic word for God is "Alaha" too sounds familiar?
Written without the confusing vowels it is written A-L-H ܐ ܠܗܐ (alap-lamed-he) as found in Targum or in Tanakh (Daniel, Ezra), Syriac Aramaic (Peshitta), reduced from the Arabic original (of which Aramaic is a dialect continuum as will be explained) it is written in the Arabic script 'A-L-L-H' (Aleph-Lam-Lam-Ha) add an A before the last H for vocalization.
The word God in another rendition in Hebrew ʾĕlōah is derived from a base ʾilāh, an Arabic word, written without confusing vowel it is A-L-H in the Arabic script, pronounced ilah not eloah. Hebrew dropped the glottal stop and mumbled it, aramic mumbled a little less and it became elaha. Infact both are written written A-L-H in Arabic, it is pronounced i in Arabic and not A because it is an Alef with hamza below (إ أ ) They are two different forms of Alef. And it mean "a god", it is the non definitive form of A-L-L-H, in which the Alef is without a glottal stop/hamza,(ا), but this kind of nuance is lost in the dialect continua.
infact "YHWH" itself is an Arabic word as discussed by Professor. Israel Knohl (Professor of Biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the paper" YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name."
jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The yeshua rendition of Isa (his name in the Qur'an) PBUH which is purported to be the name of Jesus is KNOWN to had been taken from greek. Western Syriac also use "Isho". Western Aramaic (separate from Syriac which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic) use "Yeshu". Western Syriac has been separate from Western Aramaic for about 1000 years. And sounds don't even match up. Syriac is a Christian liturgical language yet the four letters of the name of Jesus «ܝܫܘܥ» [ = Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic: «ישוע» ] sounds totally different in West vs East Syriac, viz. vocalized akin to Christian Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic «ܝܶܫܽܘܥ» (Yēšūʿ) in West Syriac, but pronounced more akin to Muslim Arabic Quran character name Isa in East Syriac «ܝܑܼܫܘܿܥ» (ʾĪšōʿ). The reason for this confusion is their dropping of phonemes. Only someone that has no idea what the letters are or how they sound would have a name ending in a pharyngeal fricative like the ayin, if it were to be used in a name it would have had to be in the beginning, thus the Arabic rendition is the correct one. An example in English is how the appended -d is a common error amongst the English pronouncing Gaelic names. The name Donald arose from a common English mispronunciation of the Gaelic name Donal. Just how it is with donal becoming donald and the two becoming distinct and the original being regarded as something seperate so too did Isa PBUH turn to Iesous turn to jesus and when they tried going back to the original they confused it for yeshua ( ysu is how it is actually written) for Isa PBUH ( 3'eysah )
Schlözer in his preparation for the Arabia expedition in 1781 coined the term Semitic language:
"From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische)." -Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German By Han F. Vermeulen.
He was only half right though, Arabic is the only corollary to "proto-semitic", infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical as will be shown.
"protosemetic" Alphabet (28), Arabic Alphabet (28), Latin transliteration, hebrew (22)
𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼
ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي
A b t ṯ j h kh d ḏ r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h w y
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
Merged phonemes in hebrew and aramaic:
ح, خ (h, kh) merged into only kh consonant remain
س, ش (s, sh) merged into only Shin consonant remaining
ط, ظ (ṭ/teth, ẓ) merged into only ṭ/teth consonant remaining
ص, ض (ṣ, ḍ/Tsad ) merged into only ḍ/Tsad consonant remaining
ع, غ (3'ayn, Ghayn) merged into a reducted ayin consonant remaining
ت, ث (t/taw, th) merged into only t/taw consonant remaining
The reason why the protoS alphabet here is 28 and not 29, is because the supposed extra letter is simply a س written in a different position, but it was shoehorned to obfuscated. In Arabic letter shapes are different depending on whether they are in the beginning , middle or end of a word.
As a matter of fact, all of the knowledge needed for deciphering ancient texts and their complexity was derived from the Qur'an. It was by analyzing the syntactic structure of the Qur'an that the Arabic root system was developed. This system was first attested to in Kitab Al-Ayin, the first intralanguage dictionary of its kind, which preceded the Oxford English dictionary by 800 years. It was through this development that the concept of Arabic roots was established and later co-opted into the term 'semitic root,' allowing the decipherment of ancient scripts. In essence, they quite literally copied and pasted the entirety of the Arabic root. Hebrew had been dead, as well as all the other dialects of Arabic, until being 'revived' in a Frankensteinian fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The entire region spoke basically the same language, with mumbled dialect continuums spread about, and Arabic is the oldest form from which all these dialects branched off. As time passed, the language gradually became more degenerate,
Language; When one looks at the actual linguistics, one will find that many were puzzled by the opposite, that is, how the other "semetic" languages were more "evolved" than Arabic, while Arabic had archaic features, not only archaic compared to bibilical Hebrew, Ethiopic, "Aramaic" contemporary "semetic" languages, but even archaic compared to languages from ancient antiquity; Ugaritic, Akkadain. What is meant here by Archaic is not what most readers think, it is Archaic not in the sense that it is simple, but rather that it is complex (think Latin to pig Latin or Italian or Old English, which had genders and case endings to modern English), not only grammatically, but also phonetically; All the so called semitic languages are supposed to have evolved from protosemetic, the Alphabet for protosemitic is that of the so called Ancient South Arabian (which interestingly corresponds with the traditional Arabic origins account) and has 28 Phonemes. Arabic has 28 phonemes. Hebrew has 22, same as Aramaic, and other "semitic" languages. Now pause for a second and think about it, how come Arabic, a language that is supposed to have come so late has the same number of letters as a language that supposedly predates it by over a millennium (Musnad script ~1300 BCE). Not only is the glossary of phonemes more diverse than any other semitic language, but the grammar is more complex, containing more cases and retains what's linguists noted for its antiquity, broken plurals. Indeed, a linguist has once noted that if one were to take everything we know about languages and how they develop, Arabic is older than Akkadian (~2500 BCE).
And then the Qur'an appeared with the oldest possible form of the language thousands of years later. This is why the Arabs of that time were challenged to produce 10 similar verses, and they couldn't. People think it's a miracle because they couldn't do it, but I think the miracle is the language itself. They had never spoken Arabic, nor has any other language before or since had this mathematical precision. And when I say mathematical, I quite literally mean mathematical.
Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken?
The creator is neither bound by time nor space, therefore the names are uttered as they truly were, in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. In fact, that writing appears to have been a simplified version of it. Not only that, but it would be the equivalent of the greatest works of any particular language all appearing in one book, in a perfect script and in the highest form the language could ever take. It is so high in fact, that it had yet to be surpassed despite the fact that over the last millennium the collection of Arabic manuscripts when compared on word-per-word basis in Western Museums alone, when they are compared with the collected Greek and Latin manuscripts combined, the latter does not constitute 1 percent of the former as per German professor Frank Griffel, in addition all in a script that had never been recorded before. Thus, the enlightenment of mankind from barbarism and savagery began, and the age of reason and rationality was born from its study.
God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
Languages degrade, they do not "evolve". It is a tool for thinking, not communication, it is what seperates other lifeforms from humans. The mere fact that translation is even possible underlies a common origin for all languages, orca whales seperated from their birth pod are unable to communicate with other whales if they get adopted, they are only able to track the others visually.
Mecca is mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (8th century BC) as Makan, a region ruled by the Arab queen Samsi. Others have proposed that Mecca is referred to in the Old Testament as Paran or Teman, places associated with Ishmael and his descendants. Still others have pointed out that Mecca is attested in some ancient South Arabian inscriptions as Makkah or Makkahum, meaning "temple" or "sanctuary". The name of Mecca is first recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who calls it Macoraba in the 2nd century AD but Greek has a limited ability of capturing Arabic it is infact Markorava (Μακόραβα) and not Macroba as is often localized Greek is known to morph to suit tongue of speakers, the word for Jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The original is "Isa" as it is in the Quran Arabic.
Classical Arabic has largest phonemic inventories among semitic languages. It has 28 consonants (29 with Hamza) and 6 vowels (3 short and 3 long). Some of these sounds are rare or absent in other semitic languages. For example,
- Classical Arabic has two pharyngeal consonants /ʕ/ (ع) and /ħ/ (ح). These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic).
- Classical Arabic has two emphatic consonants /sˤ/ (ص) and /dˤ/ (ض) These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic).
- Classical Arabic has two glottal consonants /ʔ/ (ء) and /h/ (ه), which are produced by opening and closing the glottis ). Akkadian has lost the glottal stop /ʔ/, while Aramaic has lost both the glottal stop and the glottal fricative /h/.
- Classical Arabic has six vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, /æ /, /e/, /o/, which can be short or long. Akkadian has only three vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, which can be short or long, while Aramaic has only two vowel phonemes /a/ and /i/, which can be short or long.
|Classical Arabic | 28 consonants, 29 with Hamza and 6 vowels; some consonants are emphatic or pharyngealized; some vowels are marked with diacritics | Complex system of word formation based on roots and patterns; roots are sequences of consonants that carry the basic meaning of a word; patterns are sequences of vowels and affixes that modify the meaning and function of a word | Flexible word order, but VSO is most common; SVO is also possible; subject and object are marked by case endings (-u for nominative, -a for accusative, -i for genitive); verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different moods and aspects |
| Akkadian | 22 consonants and 3 vowels; some consonants are glottalized or palatalized; vowels are not marked | Similar system, but with different roots and patterns; some roots have more than three consonants; some patterns have infixes or reduplication | Fixed word order of SVO; subject and object are not marked by case endings, but by prepositions or word order; verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different tenses and aspects |
| Aramaic | 22 consonants and 3 vowels (later variants have more); no emphatic or pharyngealized consonants (except in some dialects); vowels are not marked (except in later variants such as Syriac) | Simple system of word formation based on prefixes and suffixes; some roots or patterns exist, but are less productive than in Arabic or Akkadian |
Let's start with a simple sentence:
## The house is big
Arabic:
البيتُ كبيرٌ
al-bayt-u kabīr-un
Proto-Semitic:
*ʔal-bayt-u kabīr-u
Hebrew:
הבית גדול
ha-bayit gadol
Akkadian:
bītum rabûm
Amharic:
ቤቱ ገደሉ
betu gedelu
As can be seen, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (noun-adjective), the same definite article (al-), and the same case endings (-u for nominative). Hebrew and Akkadian have lost the case endings and changed the definite article (ha- and -um respectively). Amharic has changed the word order (adjective-noun) and the definite article (u-).
But Arabic is not only similar to Proto-Semitic, it is also pre-Semitic, meaning that it is the original form of Semitic before it split into different branches. This is because Arabic preserves many features that are not found in any other Semitic language, but are found in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. These features include:
- The definite article al-, which is derived from the demonstrative pronoun *ʔal- 'that'. This article is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the article n- in Berber and the article p-, t-, n- in Egyptian.
- The dual number for nouns and verbs, which is marked by the suffix -ān or -ayn. This number is rare in other Semitic languages, but it is common in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber.
- The imperfective prefix t- for verbs, which indicates the second person singular feminine or third person plural feminine. This prefix is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the prefix t- in Berber and Egyptian.
- The passive voice for verbs, which is marked by the infix t between the first and second root consonants. This voice is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the passive voice in Egyptian and Berber.
Finally, a more complex sentence: The letter was written with a pen.
Arabic:
كُتِبَتِ الرِّسَالَةُ بِالقَلَمِ
kutiba-t al-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i
Proto-Semitic:
*kutiba-t ʔal-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i
Hebrew:
המכתב נכתב בעט
ha-michtav niktav ba-et
Akkadian:
šipram šapāru bēlum
Egyptian:
sḏm.n.f p-ẖry m rnp.t
Berber:
tturra-t tibratin s uccen
Here, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (verb-subject-object), the same passive voice marker (-t-), the same definite article (al-), and the same preposition (bi-). Hebrew has changed the word order (subject-verb-object), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (ha-) and the preposition (ba-). Akkadian has changed the word order (object-subject-verb), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (-um) and the preposition (bēlum).
Arabic has three cases for nouns: nominative, accusative, and genitive. Other Semitic languages have lost or reduced these case endings; Akkadian has only two cases: nominative and genitive-accusative. Hebrew has no case endings at all.
Arabic a complex verbal system that includes 19 main forms (awzān) that indicate different meanings and functions. These forms are derived from the root-and-pattern morphology, where the consonants of the root fill the slots of the pattern. For example, the root k-t-b means "write" and can form different verbs such as kataba "he wrote", kattaba "he made (someone) write", kātaba "he corresponded", aktaba "he dictated", etc. Other Semitic languages have simpler verbal systems that include fewer forms and meanings. For example, Hebrew has only seven main forms (binyanim)
This means that Classical Arabic can encode more information in a given unit of speech than other languages, and that it is not only closer to the original sound system of protosemitic, it predates it. We can see that Arabic has more grammatical features than the other languages, such as case endings, mood endings, and root and pattern system, sounds that were lost or changed, more verb and noun forms to emphasize different aspects of the sentence. These features make Arabic more expressive and precise than the other languages, as it can convey more information and nuances in a single word or phrase. Arabic is therefore older and more original than the other languages.
Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing?
Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken?
God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
As a Muslim, when we learn how to recite the Quran, we first learn Makharij, translated as ‘exit points’ which were the points of articulation you were talking about. These differ from MSA pronunciation, for example ر is pronounced by doing a slight trill, then putting the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, whilst leaving a slight gap at the very tip for air to pass through, rather that a full on trilled /r/. This is believed to be the proper way of pronouncing letters properly in Classical/Quranic Arabic, and was how the Qurayshi tribe of Muhammad (saw) pronounced these letters.
I don’t know how to represent it in the IPA, but, at least how I was taught, ض is pronounced in 2 steps:
Pressing - The sides and tip of the tongue are pressed against the roof of the mouth. Pressure is applied to the sides while the tip is just in contact. There should be a gap of air pressing against the sides and tip by shaping the tongue like a spoon
Sliding - The tongue slides across to the alveolar ridge near the back of the teeth, widening the gap of air. The vocal cords are vibrating. If there is a vowel, then the air is released, but if there is a sukoon, then no air is released. This is why ض is not regarded as a Qalqalah letter (basically a plosive) requiring air to be released.
So, this does match the previous description of ض being a fricative/continuous sound, and the tongue going to the molars, but Tajweed was only documented 3 centuries after Hijra, and, after all, this is one dialect, and of course, Arabic had, and still has, many dialects which could have used different sounds. Whilst I do believe this description is the most accurate pronunciation of ض, this was quite an intriguing theory.
Btw keep up with the long-form content! Loved this one
Just for the record, the modern ض absolutely does NOT adhere to the sifat of rikhwah, not even in the slightest. The modern daad is without a doubt a letter of shidda (plosive). There is consensus among Qurraa that rikhwah means you are able to do a continuous sound of the consonant for as long as you have air in your lungs (aka a fricative),this is impossible to do with the modern daad. Please try it out yourself, try ti make a continous sound with every other letter of rikhwah (س ش خ ز ذ ظ ص) you’ll see that will be able to make a continuous sound. If you try it with the modern daad, it is completely impossible to do. If you do try to add the sifat of rikhwah to tbe modern daad it ends up making a sound that resembles ظ, not anything close to the modern daad which is pronounced essentially as an emphatic daal. Despite this, most modern qurra put their heads in the sand and just ignore it, or even try to adjust the meaning of rikhwah to mean something else. Classical scholars all mentioned in their books thats the ض sound should resemble the ظ, differing only in makhraj as they have all the same sifaat. It truly is a shame that today only a small minority of scholars today pronounce the letter daad in the classical manner, with these scholars almost exclusively coming from the salafi and deobandi traditions, with the notable exception of turkish qurra.
If anyone is interested in hearing what the classical daad sounded like, I have a playlist with recordings of scholars who still preserve the original pronunciation.
@@dranflame_1236 so you are talking about the modern aka MSA ض right, and not the classical ض used in Quran recitation? Because I was taught it was a rikhwah letter by my teacher. Also, yeah, hearing the classical daad would be nice, actually
@@dranflame_1236spot on. Jazakallah
In the Classical Arabic of the Noble Qurʾān, ض is a *Pharyngealized Voiced Alveolar Lateral Fricative* [ɮˤ]
I was going to mention that it’s easier to explain its sound by comparing it to the Welsh sound, but voiced. However, I see that you’ve already included that in the footnote.
Nope. The Welsh is unilateral (tongue makes contact on only one side so air escapes out the other side - I once saw a study that said 3/4 of Welsh speakers made contact on either the left or right, I forget which, but it wasn't 50/50).
i think it would be /ʎ̝̊ˤ/ or /ʟ̝̊ˤ/ (lateral fricative, backed sound, pharyngealised, both unique)
@@geckofeet Some dialects of Cantonese in China have this LL, interesting.
OMG THAT GUY ESCAPED THE SHORTS
While I do like your shorts content, THIS is the type of video I always wanted to see from you. Please, keep these coming!
I agree!
Too bad his video ( presented here) is utter nonsense from beginning to the end.
@@amben6619 You’re really just out here to trash on the guy and promote another channel. You aren’t making a good case for your argument.
i was listening to this in the background and got flabbergasted at the lack of views, the production quality of this video is hella good for only 300 views in 20 mins
That's because he's a shorts creator. He knows how to make videos, but he rarely makes long form videos, so not that much people are watching it
@@pw_powerway2701 also the comment was posted within an hour of the video being uploaded lol
Why would you be shocked that a video posted only 6 HOURS ago (at the time I'm writing this, anyway) doesn't have many views? That's like saying "I'm utterly amazed that this totally original song that the artist JUST PUT OUT A FEW SSCONDS AGO only has been heard by a few people!! Why haven't more people heard this song that literally just came out a few mins ago, it's so good!"
You get what I'm saying? Give it some time, Rome wasn't raised in a day lol
Only 300 views in 20 mins? That's really not bad, I wish I got that much
It’s not THAT bad considering it’s his first proper video
3:22 This makes so much sense because in Death Note, Light Yagami, the main character gets the name "Kira" for killing many criminals using the Death Note. Kira is based on the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer."
Great example!!!
Anime fan spotted
Yeah don't they explain that in the show
I think Hirohiko Araki was thinking along similar lines when naming the character(s) Yoshikage Kira.
@@humanteneleven4:27 Other older adaptation has it like "z" like in urdu and parsi its called ramzaan
As an european who doesn't know much about the arabic language(s)/linguistics or semitic languages in general, this video was very informative and interesting. Pls do more long form content, it's great! :)
fun fact: some scholars believe that Hebrew used to have the ض sound up until the start of biblical times, and only then it was lost. possibly because of the influence of the Phoenician writing system that was used to write stuff (including the Bible), since Phoenician lost those sounds (and some others Hebrew did preserve) way before that and as such their writing system didn't have them.
edit: read the thread for the discussion, but the TLDR is Ugaritic, which is closer to Hebrew than Phoenician, had letters for all the consonants in Arabic, including ذ, ث, خ, and both ض and ظ.
Jew here: doubt it. considering we know how our letters looked 3000 years ago because of archeology and we know that each letter makes a unique sound I heavily doubt that one of the letters suddenly randomly makes the sound ض . Simple reason of: Biblical Hebrew was relatively phonetic and even more biblical Hebrew dialects don't have that sound. Regardless on whether you're talking about current or old ض
edit: Ig I could add more info, in old Hebrew the letter similar to ض would be צ/ץ (it has two forms) which currently makes the "ts" sound but it used to make the "sˤ" sound which, well, isn't ض and we have no reason to believe it should be.
@@TheRedRosjust curious but how can yoube sure that the sound each letter makes has remained the same for all these years? How can be sure that they werent pronounced differently 3000 years ago?
@@TheRedRosPaleohebrew writing was borrowed from the Phoenicians, whose NW Semitic language had undergone severe reduction of its phonemic inventory. There's good linguistic reason to presume pre-exilic biblical Hebrew had more sounds than are recorded in the letters. In this particular case, there's even a Biblical proof: the story of Shibboleth. Go and check out the wiki page, it's interesting.
@@TheRedRos exactly what @SNDKNG was saying. just like we know šin and śin were both written ש despite being different (I'll remind you the Tiberian Niqqud is about a thousand years younger), we know Ugaritic, which is the closest language to Hebrew to have its own writing system, had 27 consonants for which they had letters, much more than the 22 Phoenician ones.
most importantly, there's distinction between /ħ/ and /x/ (that in classical Hebrew was written as ח and soft כ), letters for /ð/ and /ɣ/ (corresponding to ذ/soft ד and غ) , a letter for /θ/ located where ש is supposed to be with a separate letter for /ʃ/ (this is likely their version of the šin/śin distinction) and most interestingly, two letters, one said to be a variant on ט and the other a variant on ד, now understood to be the equivalents of ظ and ض respectively
so Ugaritic had ح/خ distinction, د/ذ/ض distinction, س/ش/ث/ص distinction, ت/ط/ظ distinction and ع/غ distinction. (and of course ك/ق distinction, also present in Hebrew).
those are all the consonants of classical Arabic, present in the language closest to Hebrew.
@@botanicalitus4194He doesn't, he's making stuff up. Hell, it's obvious that many letters encoded more than one sound even 2000 years ago (begadkefat and the hebrew name for Gomorrah are good examples)
I have just stumbled upon your video and decided to watch it. I must say that I have never viewed a non native speaker of Arabic do such a comprehensive video about this topic. Your analysis and explication are extremely informative and edifying in a multifaceted manner. I am a native Arabic speaker and study linguistics at university, so this is very relatable to me. Keep up the good work cuz you are doing a phenomenal job. Peace and Love from Morocco ✌
As a muslim child, I had to learn reading the Qur'an. And reciting the Qur'an with proper pronunciation and articulation is a must. The first step of learning is identifying the Arabic letters, and the second step is Makhraj, the rule of Arabic letter pronunciation. I remember my Ustad repeating each letter with me for hours just to get the pronunciation right. ض was surely one of the toughest ones to pronounce.
Yeah, me too. My father pronounce it more like a full mouth ل or just a straight up ظ, and when I got enrolled in a tajweed class it took quite a while to remove that habit 😅
I'm glad that I learned it, even tho I still can't fluently speak Arabic, at least I can brag on "speaking 4 languages" 😂
I am a native speaker living in Egypt but my hardest letter was probably ج for some reason
In daily speech where I live we usually don't say that letter the same way that is present in the Qur'an
But eventually I got it Alhamdullah
Now according to my teacher I have some trouble making Ikhfa' with ن when it is followed by ك when reciting the Qur'an
Wait the Quran isn’t translated outside of Arabic? As a Christian I can’t imagine having to learn another language to read the gospel.
@@jaeger2235 the Quran is translated, however the translation is not regarded as a Quran, but a Tafsir. As Muslims, in our culture, we read the Quran in its original language and recite it in our prayers in Arabic. We don’t have to learn the entire language but we just need to recite it in Arabic properly
This was really, really good as a piece of long-form linguistics content - not even considering the format's new to you. It maintains a lot of the energy and style of your shorts, but the quality of both the research and the production was absolutely top notch; and your general ability to at least *roughly* nail some of these pronunciations, and your willingess to do so, is great. I really hope you do more of this stuff.
Please make more videos like this. The unique quirks of different languages and its roots are so interesting. Or how specific families of languages like the Semitic languages have the same roots and exploring these roots and the similarities. Or random questions or statements that make me curious like in this video title. I like how you basically took us to find out what ظ really sounded like by giving more and more clues.
This is very good for a first longform vid! I enjoyed watching this very much!
4:20 some languages even use the "z" sound as in "ramazan"
I believe that's a mistake, that most of the people from the Indian subcontinent make, especially Urdu and Hindu speakers. Although we learn how to read Arabic from childhood, we were never taught it in a way a native would pronounce the letters
@@fmkhan213 Definitely not a reading mistake and not in just Indian subcontinent. As a native Turkish speaker studying Turkic languages and history, I can say that there is a pattern and the "dad" letter is consistently corresponds to a modern "z" sound that is found in Turkish. Ramazan is just one example, another one mentioned in your video is "arz" meaning earth in modern Turkish, both written and pronounced as "arz".
@@adnanhepvar3
Not only in Turkish , Tatar and Kazakh substitute D for Z too
We say ramazan in Serbo-Croatian too.
@@AdamHallileso all turkic languages
I'm Saudi and loved this video! Very interesting and great analysis, habibi!
I think we can confirm with a high degree of knowledgeable confidence how the letters sounded, at least during the time of the beginning of Islam.
This is because the Arabs, and later the Muslims, transmitted the Quran orally and were diligent in preserving its pronunciation and the articulation of the letters (مخارج الحروف). They established this as a field of study, passed down from generation to generation.
We definitely need more long format videos
this video is great! i’m Lebanese and i love linguistics but unfortunately i never learnt Arabic because i left Lebanon at a young age. i hope you cover more about Arabic or other Semitic languages. i wonder if you could do a video on Punic or Maltese?
Maltese is genuinely such a fascinating language and it sounds so cool
Alex here with Lingua Verna! If you want to learn Lebanese Arabic, check out the link in the video description. We'd love to have you in our next spoken Arabic class.
I've never heard human1011 mention Maltese despite always doing content about Arabic and Semitic languages - is he aware of it's existence and it being the only official Semitic language of the European Union?
As a fellow Lebanese American, your shorts got me interested in linguistics and it motivated me to start learning French, but this was genuinely one of the most interesting videos I've seen in a while. I'm also an audio engineer, so if you want help with the audio issues, I'd love to help out. But please keep up the long form content!
00:39 Is there any evidence that Arabic linguistics in that era believed that only Arabic as the ض sound? I never personally came across that claim from any known Lughawi or historical records at the time, so it would be nice to know. Thank you
I am also skeptical about two arguments you made for ض having been different before. The first one is you displayed how classical linguists described the articulation points(Makhārij) of ض to get an idea of how it would have been back then and you mentionned how one would expect it to be at the tip of the tongue as is the [d] sound but that would not be correct for the ض we pronounce today as it is an entirely different letter to [d], we don't use the tip of the tongue to pronounce it. What we do use is the exact position Yūsuf as-Sakkāki displayed in that diagram you showed, that is where all students of Arabic Makhārij are taught to pronounce ض, so it actually shows that the articulation point of ض has been taught the same for over a millenia at the very least. Secondly, the way Seebwayh described (what we call the صفة/trait) of ض is the same as we learn it today, which is why in the science of Tajwīd, there are only 5 letters of القلقة(al-Qalqalah) contained in the mnemonic: قطب جد
The ض is not one of them for the exact reason Seebawayh described. I think these two arguments not only fail to show a variation in the ض as time went on, but it also shows the longevity of the ض as all the classical references describing ض are all in line with how Arabs understand the ض today. It was an interesting video, though. I would love to see your feedback on the points I made against your argument, perhaps as a reply to this comment or a video if you prefer. Thank you again
There is not, in fact many scholars said that ظ is the most unique sound in Arabic
And they didn't claim it's only found in Arabic
Most people don't actually know the meaning rikhawah.
That is where the confusion comes from. because the way most people pronounce ض as today is not with rikhawah, even though they say it is.
4:28 the transliteration using dl can still be found in Indonesian, especially older texts, although nowadays it's mostly gone
This is a great linguistic video on a rather obscure topic, fantastic work! If there are any Muslims here who may be worried about the ramifications of the letter daad not being preserved, the classical daad is in fact still preserved in quran recitation in quite a few regions, including south asia and turkey. There are also still quite a few arab scholars who preserve the sound in their isnaad. Most notably, the “big three” shuyukh of salafism, ibn uthaymeen, ibn baaz and al albani all made separate fatawa supporting the classical pronunciation of daad, and while they all have been passed for a few decades their pronunciation is still preserved to a degree in the salafi movement. Also just something Ive noticed, essentially all modern scholars who preserve the pronunciation pronounce the letter as an interdental, not an alveolar consonant.
Albani is Albanian who grew up in Syria. How would he know? Especially because Syrian dialect has the ض actually very close to د
I would like to learn that pronunciation, I saw your playlist.
Do you perhaps have a link that explains on how to pronounce it?
@@tamimatorfrom his teacher who got it from his teacher … who got it from the prophet ﷺ
That’s how isnaad works…
@@heromys9463 I'm not a scholar, so take this with a grain of salt :) It is important that the tip of the tongue must not go beyond the incisors (front teeth). Put the tip of your tongue at the back of the top of your mouth behind the front teeth as if you are pronouncing a "heavy" L sound, then close your teeth and press the side of the tongue against the molars on either side (or both sides if you can), and expel the air from there. If you heard the "ll" sound in Welsh, then ض is similar in that both are lateral sounds, but ض is voiced and pharyngealized. The resulting sound is very similar to ظ, but it comes from the side of the tongue instead of the front, and your teeth remain closed.
@@tamimator Syrians pronounce the ض as it is, whatever you said is just wrong.
I really love your long form videos, your enthusiasm and passion for language is contagious. Explanations are crystal clear and I appreciate the work you put into this video and your shorts! ❤
Near 2 thirds into the video i was quite upset that you hadn't mentioned the side tongue pronounciation as details by the ancient grammarians but glad to see you saved the best for last
please make more long-form content! loved this video as a native Arabic speaker and a viewer of your regular videos!
If it’s what I think it is, then the Mehri dialect in question is more like ðˡˤ. So, similar, but not quite identical, to the actual Arabic sound, which is generally accepted to be ɮˤ.
There are Arab tribes who have the same as the Mehri sound, but that's probably a result of the general trend of merging ɮˤ into ðˤ in Arabic generally (most dialects underwent this by the 10th century, in what appears to have been a 3-century long process--we know this from people writing about it. Merging Dhaa' and dhaal into their plosive counterparts started in the 11th century in Egypt and North Africa).
If it's the dialect in question, IIRC the women speaking it often have a voiceless lateral affricate instead, which was likely much closer to the original pronunciation before Arabic influence. Mehri generally is sort of in a transitional state between an all-ejective emphatic set--as in Ge'ez, for instance--and an all-pharyngeal one-as in Arabic. So, for all we know, when Sibaywayh was writing, Mehri didn't have that ðˡˤ sound in any dialect. There's even a high chance that this sound only exists in Mehri because of Arabic influence. It would explain why the innovative pronunciation is with the men, not the women (if my information is accurate): the men have greater exposure to Arabic.
Thus, at the very least, the statement remains accurate to the time it was first used: Arabic was, when the grammarians got to work, the only language known with ɮˤ in the 8th and 9th centuries. And depending on how strict we are, that might still be the case.
If someone’s dad speaks it than it’s worth the title “Language of Dad”
You literally are the best talker on this site, by a country mile. Just the way you speak is so perfect.
Outstanding video. Thank you! Your depth of knowledge requires long form. Keep them coming.
11:39 it really silly to me that am Mahri and i spoke Mahri as a kid while while also speaking Arabic due to being Arab in a Arab country so my native tongue was basically both😭
Mahri sounds really cool!!
كيف تنطقون حرف الضاد في اللغة المهرية أخي الكريم؟
I don't understand. Why is it silly?
@@FahadAyaz no it’s like funny to me, i watched the video and when he said “except Mahri” i was like “ahahah”
@@fyviane thanks man
Thanks!
In Indonesian، ض is very rarely transliterated as "d". Nowadays it's more often as "dh" (but to be fair it's only to differentiate it from د, because ض is indeed very challenging to pronounce)
Older transliteration has "dl" for it and still used in some extent. For example the biggest Islamic organization in Indonesia نهضة العلماء, is still transliterated as "Nahdlatul Ulama"
Still the standard form also the pronunciation of ض in Indonesia is "d" nothing different with د
@@somebody700 I'm not an Arabic speaker. Would you mind telling me your point about where does the sound come from? 🙏
@@somebody700 I tried to. But so far I only got ح came out 😂😂😂
Just found this video and your channel, and I'm already a HUGE fan of your content. Keep up the great work, can't wait to learn more from you.
Sincerely, a fellow Lebanese etymology/linguistics nerd.
This is your first long form video???? It’s absolute perfection, loved every minute, please make more😄
I love the long form format as you can include way more information that would otherwise be lost in a short, so thank you for doing this! I do have a suggestion though: it would help the viewer/listener to absorb the knowledge much better if you could speak more slowly. Since you're not in a rush to make a video in under one minute, I think you can take your time :)
Arabic ض was borrowed into Malay as L when words like فَرْضٌ and رِضًا were respectively borrowed into Malay as “perlu” (obligatory) and “rela” (willing).
Does this possibly have anything to do with that old pronunciation of Arabic ض?
(Loved the video btw! Hope you’ve got more videos like this coming up 😆)
Totally!! Similar to the “Ramadan” linguistic comparison like at 4:25 or so
What's the source for this? If this is true, that's quite fascinating.
In my native language Malayalam, Muslims tend to pronounce it as a third l that is not part of the native Malayalam phonology. (Malayalam has two native ls).
@@humanteneleven Oh, I just noticed Tamil and Hausa having just an L for Arabic ض like Malay does! I thought they all had “dl” at first
@@belle_pomme Wiktionary and the online Indonesian dictionary (it lets you see the etymology of a word only when you’ve logged in to the site)
Wonderful, informative and pronounced with a lot of care and admiration.
Pure pleasure to watch.
I'd like to see way more long form content from you
Great video! Love your long form content!
Fun fact: The fortition of pharyngealized lateral [lˤ] into [dˤ] (later [d] > [tɦ] > Mandarin t- [tʰ]) also happened in Old Chinese.
Further details for historical linguistics enjoyers: Non-pharyngealized [l] shifted to [lʲ] (later [j]). Furthermore, their voiceless counterparts [l̥ˤ] and [l̥] became [tʰˤ] (later [tʰ]) and [ɕ]; as a result, for the Old Chinese quadruple [lˤ], [l], [l̥ˤ], and [l̥], modern-day Mandarin has t- [tʰ] (mid-rising tone if unchecked), y- [j] (or r- [ʐ]), t- [tʰ] (high level tone if unchecked), and x- [ɕ] (or sh- [ʂ]). To further complicate things, [l(ˤ)r] becomes [ɖ(ˤ)] > [ʈɦ] > Mandarin ch- [tʂʰ] (with the mid-rising tone if unchecked).
Would you happen you have any resources on old Chinese pharyngelization?
It’s hard to find detailed descriptions of phonetic evolution, especially in non-western languages
Most of that info about historic Chinese spelling comes from rime books and poems (as verses need to rhyme)
@@amacsizbirkisi That’s the thing… I know that’s where most of the information comes from, but I haven’t been able to find any articles or books or going into detail as to what exactly that information is. I’m more interested in the phonological evolution of Old Chinese to the modern Sinitic Languages than I am in the specifics of Old Chinese pronunciation itself, and there are no resources that I’m aware of that present the information by describing regular sound correspondences the way the commenter is presenting it
That's amazing. Does the Xiao'erjing (Chinese written in Arabic script, I think?) relate to any of these?
You are right! We had a whole chapter in linguistics, in Tunisia, concerning this sound! Thanks for sharing!
According to Wikipedia عدّها الخليل بن أحمد في حيز الجيم والشين، وهما من الأصوات الغارية التي تخرج من الغار وهو سقف الحنك الصلب. فقال وهو يذكـر أحياز الحـروف في كتاب العين " ثم الجيم والشين والضـاد في حيـز".
أما سيبويه فقد وصف صوت الضاد في القرن الثاني الهجري وصفا دقيقا في كتابه " الكتاب" فيقول في إخراجها "ومن بين أول حافة اللسان وما يليه من الأضراس مخرج الضاد". وهنا يحدد سيبويه مكان إخراج صوت الضاد بأنها جانبية. كما يذكر بانه من الاصوات المجهوره والرخوة والمطبقة.
Very cool video! Nice and informative. I am arab and I have learned so much. I really love Arabic 💕
i think that also makes sense seeing how many languages pronounce ض as a z like in persian, turkish, and urdu ramadan is pronounced as ramazaan/ ramzaan
Turkish and Urdu derive this pronunciation from Persian.
im learning arabic right now and this video was so informative and interesting!! thanks king
Arabic 101 has made a response to your video, explaining a lot of errors.
His video is wrong
Honestly, I think this long-form thing works really well, would watch more
1:09 sheesh what a fire adlib
Love these videos that get into the depths of specific features of Arabic! So many videos cover the basics, like I’ve heard the same story a million times 😭
Lets go longform vid
@@Hamza-b2q I like etymology and linguistics
@@JanRyczkowski based
I know next to nothing about Arabic, but really enjoyed your presentation. I look forward to more!
Great video! Love your short-form content, but now I'm certainly looking forward to more long-form content!
Fascinating! A great video, engagingly presented. Shukran jazeelan.
As an Arabic speaker, I'm amazed. Thank you so much, and please, keep 'em coming! ❤
He's white Lebanese. But still a native Arabic speaker, btw.
@@freepagan ah I see!
@@mahmoudhabib95 I think he said he learned it on his own. Which makes sense, being born and raised in the US there's no Arabic in school or anything. I'm also Lebanese American btw, but I grew up speaking Lebanese Arabic with my parents, fortunately.
Thank you! I really appreciate this kind of educational material on youtube!
finally a long form content! please post more of these 🙏❤
Man that was incredible
it's the first time I saw someone interested in Arabic... didn't expect that to be honest, a lot of people say that we are.. not so nice...I'm happy that you talking about our language . thank you ❤❤
He is Lebanese iirc
He is arab
lebanese to be exact
@imtissal_chami will thanks for telling me❤
@@zulthyr1852thanks for telling me ❤❤
I'm Jewish but I am interested in dialects of Arabic and tried studying south Levantine Arabic..
and there's also dr. Taylor Jones (YT channel language Jones) who studies a bunch of languages, including Levantine btw, but also Farsi, which isn't even Semitic.
A lot of people love different cultures, even from countries that are 'hostile' in terms of governmental policies
This was sooooo much fun and super good, excited to see more content of you like that!
I have a question why do we in Persian pronounce ض as /z/?
how did it evolve like that?
I'd like him make that video
Great question! It could be taken as further evidence that ض was originally a fricative, unlike its modern standard pronunciation. However I believe the reason many languages realize ض as a /z/ (Turkish did this too) is that many dialects of Arabic merge the sounds of ض and ظ, and since ظ is often realized as [zˤ], ض gets interpreted that way too. For a widespread example in Arabic, take the phrase "بالضبط" in which ض is pronounced as an emphatic z.
it is probably because the sound that he was describing is closer to z than to d, and assuming that sound wasn't found in persian, persians who were amongst the first non semitic lanuage speaking peoples who integrated arabic loan words in their language opted to use z to replace the ض
@@humanteneleven thank you for answering me ,i wasn't expecting you to answer
@@SQh7I asked the same question but he answered yours but my question has been answered
I'm planning on getting into the field of linguistics, and this video was so much fun! As well as being very well researched and formatted, the video was engaging and exciting, and you explained the technical stuff so that a beginner could understand. Thank you so so much and good luck for your future videos!
Great first foray into long form! You could make a video on how scripts are adapted into various languages where the phonology differs wildly from the original language the scripts were made for, for instance the Hebrew script in Yiddish, Kanji in Japanese, various forms of the Perso-Arabic script such as Jawi for Malay, Arabi Malayalam, Ajami for Swahili and so on.
i have been trying to learn arabic for years now, never has its linguistics been so accessible to me. keep up the good work!
Salam Al-laykum
First:
Thank you so much for creating these excellent and educational videos. They are both informative and greatly appreciated.
Second:
I came across a response video from a RUclips channel called Arabic101, titled "Responding to FALSE information about the origin of ض | Arabic101."
I believe it would be beneficial to watch that video as well, as it discusses the correct pronunciation of the letter ض and provides insight into its linguistic background.
Wishing you all the best as you continue to excel in both learning and educating 😃
Arabic101 has no idea what he is talking about, rather listen to Tulaib Zafirs´s 2 hour video, which confirms all that has been said here.
Arabic101 is absolutely clueless about linguistics. He is biased and is desperate to confirm his own priors.
@@nicco-sixtynope Arabic101 is actually correct.
@@TheRpoil Based on what evidence? arabic101 doesn't even know the definition of rikhawah.
As I said go watch Tulaib Zafir´s 2 hour long video on the issue.
Arabic 101's learning content is cool, but I don't trust them at all on linguistics - they tried to argue English and all languages evolved from Arabic one time, which is patently untrue
Thanks!! This was very useful. I was taught that ض was pronounced differently in university years ago, but i never had the opportunity to actually hear how it sounded.
Love that you've made this video. Thank you.
But I'd like to point out something that needs to be corrected, I believe.
The ض in Arabic is not Plosive (شديد، من الشدة) at all. It is rather that the plosive ضاد that we hear is a recent mispronunciation that is actually a دال مفخمة. The ضاد in Arabic is absolutely fricative (رخو، من الرخاوة). In both variants, the one that sounds like د and one that sounds like ظ. Shaykh Al-Husari recites it in the Qur'an that way, and so do all accurate reciters. In fact, it is called الضاد الطائية (the one pronounced in Egypt, levant region, etc.) and there is الضاد الظائية (which is the one you found in Asseer, but it is also mispronounced in Algeria, Tunisia, and other places and a ظ).
In fact, if you just search for الضاد الطائية والضاد الظائية, you'll find a few books discussing the debate in detail (For example: الأقوال الجلية في الضاد الظائية والضاد الطائية).
There is also a channel by a Qur'an teacher, فارس عنتر, who is teaching how to get the رخاوة (fricativeness?) of the ض. Another one is لطفي الفخفاخ, and there are many others.
The commonly mispronounced ض is just a دال مفخمة, not a ضاد (but I don't know how to translate التفخيم and الترقيق).
The way it had been pronounced, at least for the last 1450 years, has been preserved in the Qur'anic teaching style.
I personally use الضاد الظائية when reciting because I believe it is closer to the one Sibawayh and Ibn-ul-Jazri had described (as one that is closer to being a ظ than being a fricative-ط). But when I am leading the prayers in congregation, I'd use the طائية to avoid confusing people since it is too alien to them and they are not aware of this misconception; and the طائية sounds a lot like the plosive D sound they're so used to hearing.
While I disagree, quite a lot, with the hypothesis that it became called "لغة الضاد" due to its being plosive, I thank you for making this video, I absolutely love it. Keep up the great content!
EDIT: and yes, I am that same person who kept commenting about the ضاد in all the previous shorts and videos, probably.
The video is based on the misbelief that the reasno why Arabic is called Lughat al-Daad, the language of the Daad, is ebcause that sound does not exist in other languages, the full original sentence is Lughat Al-Daad wa al-Mudaad, meaning the language which contains the thing and its opposite. Unlike other languages, almost all words in Arabic have antonyms, their symmetrical opposite, a characteristic only found in the natural world ( Physics ~ Matter v Anti-Matter, Positive/negative spins, etc). Indeed the daad is not the only sound unique to Arabic, the Ayin, Ghayn, Haa are also unique consonants that were dropped from other "semitic" languages, as early as 2500 BCE. The Aramaic word for God is "Alaha" too sounds familiar?
Written without the confusing vowels it is written A-L-H ܐ ܠܗܐ (alap-lamed-he) as found in Targum or in Tanakh (Daniel, Ezra), Syriac Aramaic (Peshitta), reduced from the Arabic original (of which Aramaic is a dialect continuum as will be explained) it is written in the Arabic script 'A-L-L-H' (Aleph-Lam-Lam-Ha) add an A before the last H for vocalization.
The word God in another rendition in Hebrew ʾĕlōah is derived from a base ʾilāh, an Arabic word, written without confusing vowel it is A-L-H in the Arabic script, pronounced ilah not eloah. Hebrew dropped the glottal stop and mumbled it, aramic mumbled a little less and it became elaha. Infact both are written written A-L-H in Arabic, it is pronounced i in Arabic and not A because it is an Alef with hamza below (إ أ ) They are two different forms of Alef. And it mean "a god", it is the non definitive form of A-L-L-H, in which the Alef is without a glottal stop/hamza,(ا), but this kind of nuance is lost in the dialect continua.
infact "YHWH" itself is an Arabic word as discussed by Professor. Israel Knohl (Professor of Biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the paper" YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name."
jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The yeshua rendition of Isa (his name in the Qur'an) PBUH which is purported to be the name of Jesus is KNOWN to had been taken from greek. Western Syriac also use "Isho". Western Aramaic (separate from Syriac which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic) use "Yeshu". Western Syriac has been separate from Western Aramaic for about 1000 years. And sounds don't even match up. Syriac is a Christian liturgical language yet the four letters of the name of Jesus «ܝܫܘܥ» [ = Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic: «ישוע» ] sounds totally different in West vs East Syriac, viz. vocalized akin to Christian Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic «ܝܶܫܽܘܥ» (Yēšūʿ) in West Syriac, but pronounced more akin to Muslim Arabic Quran character name Isa in East Syriac «ܝܑܼܫܘܿܥ» (ʾĪšōʿ). The reason for this confusion is their dropping of phonemes. Only someone that has no idea what the letters are or how they sound would have a name ending in a pharyngeal fricative like the ayin, if it were to be used in a name it would have had to be in the beginning, thus the Arabic rendition is the correct one. An example in English is how the appended -d is a common error amongst the English pronouncing Gaelic names. The name Donald arose from a common English mispronunciation of the Gaelic name Donal. Just how it is with donal becoming donald and the two becoming distinct and the original being regarded as something seperate so too did Isa PBUH turn to Iesous turn to jesus and when they tried going back to the original they confused it for yeshua ( ysu is how it is actually written) for Isa PBUH ( 3'eysah )
Schlözer in his preparation for the Arabia expedition in 1781 coined the term Semitic language:
"From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische)." -Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German By Han F. Vermeulen.
He was only half right though, Arabic is the only corollary to "proto-semitic", infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical as will be shown.
"protosemetic" Alphabet (28), Arabic Alphabet (28), Latin transliteration, hebrew (22)
𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼
ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي
A b t ṯ j h kh d ḏ r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h w y
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
Merged phonemes in hebrew and aramaic:
ح, خ (h, kh) merged into only kh consonant remain
س, ش (s, sh) merged into only Shin consonant remaining
ط, ظ (ṭ/teth, ẓ) merged into only ṭ/teth consonant remaining
ص, ض (ṣ, ḍ/Tsad ) merged into only ḍ/Tsad consonant remaining
ع, غ (3'ayn, Ghayn) merged into a reducted ayin consonant remaining
ت, ث (t/taw, th) merged into only t/taw consonant remaining
The reason why the protoS alphabet here is 28 and not 29, is because the supposed extra letter is simply a س written in a different position, but it was shoehorned to obfuscated. In Arabic letter shapes are different depending on whether they are in the beginning , middle or end of a word.
As a matter of fact, all of the knowledge needed for deciphering ancient texts and their complexity was derived from the Qur'an. It was by analyzing the syntactic structure of the Qur'an that the Arabic root system was developed. This system was first attested to in Kitab Al-Ayin, the first intralanguage dictionary of its kind, which preceded the Oxford English dictionary by 800 years. It was through this development that the concept of Arabic roots was established and later co-opted into the term 'semitic root,' allowing the decipherment of ancient scripts. In essence, they quite literally copied and pasted the entirety of the Arabic root. Hebrew had been dead, as well as all the other dialects of Arabic, until being 'revived' in a Frankensteinian fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The entire region spoke basically the same language, with mumbled dialect continuums spread about, and Arabic is the oldest form from which all these dialects branched off. As time passed, the language gradually became more degenerate,
And then the Qur'an appeared with the oldest possible form of the language thousands of years later. This is why the Arabs of that time were challenged to produce 10 similar verses, and they couldn't. People think it's a miracle because they couldn't do it, but I think the miracle is the language itself. They had never spoken Arabic, nor has any other language before or since had this mathematical precision. And when I say mathematical, I quite literally mean mathematical.
Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken?
The creator is neither bound by time nor space, therefore the names are uttered as they truly were, in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. In fact, that writing appears to have been a simplified version of it. Not only that, but it would be the equivalent of the greatest works of any particular language all appearing in one book, in a perfect script and in the highest form the language could ever take. It is so high in fact, that it had yet to be surpassed despite the fact that over the last millennium the collection of Arabic manuscripts when compared on word-per-word basis in Western Museums alone, when they are compared with the collected Greek and Latin manuscripts combined, the latter does not constitute 1 percent of the former as per German professor Frank Griffel, in addition all in a script that had never been recorded before. Thus, the enlightenment of mankind from barbarism and savagery began, and the age of reason and rationality was born from its study.
God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
Language; When you look at the actual linguistics, you'll find that many were puzzled by the opposite, that is, how the other "semetic" (why in quotes will be revealed later) languages were more "evolved" than Arabic, while Arabic had archaic features, not only archaic compared to bibilical Hebrew, Ethiopic, "Aramaic" contemporary "semetic" languages, but even archaic compared to languages from ancient antiquity; Ugaritic, Akkadain. What is meant here by Archaic is not what most readers think, it is Archaic not in the sense that it is simple, but rather that it is complex (think Latin to pig Latin or Italian or Old English, which had genders and case endings to modern English), not only grammatically, but also phonetically; All the so called semitic languages are supposed to have evolved from protosemetic, the Alphabet for protosemitic is that of the so called Ancient South Arabian (which interestingly corresponds with the traditional Arabic origins account) and has 28 Phonemes. Arabic has 28 phonemes. Hebrew has 22, same as Aramaic, and other "semitic" languages. Now pause for a second and think about it, how come Arabic, a language that is supposed to have come so late has the same number of letters as a language that supposedly predates it by over a millennium (Musnad script ~1300 BCE). Not only is the glossary of phonemes more diverse than any other semitic language, but the grammar is more complex, containing more cases and retains what's linguists noted for its antiquity, broken plurals. Indeed, a linguist has once noted that if one were to take everything we know about languages and how they develop, Arabic is older than Akkadian (~2500 BCE).
|Classical Arabic | 28 consonants, 29 with Hamza and 6 vowels; some consonants are emphatic or pharyngealized; some vowels are marked with diacritics | Complex system of word formation based on roots and patterns; roots are sequences of consonants that carry the basic meaning of a word; patterns are sequences of vowels and affixes that modify the meaning and function of a word | Flexible word order, but VSO is most common; SVO is also possible; subject and object are marked by case endings (-u for nominative, -a for accusative, -i for genitive); verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different moods and aspects |
| Akkadian | 22 consonants and 3 vowels; some consonants are glottalized or palatalized; vowels are not marked | Similar system, but with different roots and patterns; some roots have more than three consonants; some patterns have infixes or reduplication | Fixed word order of SVO; subject and object are not marked by case endings, but by prepositions or word order; verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different tenses and aspects |
| Aramaic | 22 consonants and 3 vowels (later variants have more); no emphatic or pharyngealized consonants (except in some dialects); vowels are not marked (except in later variants such as Syriac) | Simple system of word formation based on prefixes and suffixes; some roots or patterns exist, but are less productive than in Arabic or Akkadian |
Arabic is the only corollary to proto-semitic, infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical for anyone with a somewhat functioning mass between their ears. hebrew, aramaic, rest of madeup dialect continua only have 22 letters of the 29 protosemitic letters Arabic has all 29. The difference betweeen Arabic and the other creoles and Pidgin is the same as that between Latin and pig latin or italian.
Arabic is written in an alphabetic script that consists of 28 consonants and three long vowels. For example:
قرأ زيد كتابا
qaraʾa zayd-un kitāb-an
Zayd read a book
This sentence is composed of three words: qaraʾa (he read), zayd-un (Zayd), and kitāb-an (a book). The word order is verb-subject-object, which is different from English but similar to Proto-Semitic and Akkadian. The word zayd-un has a suffix -un that indicates the nominative case, which is equivalent to "the" in English or "-u" in Akkadian. The word kitāb-an has a suffix -an that indicates the accusative case, which is equivalent to "a" in English or "-a" in Akkadian.
Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed ancestor of all Semitic languages. It is not written in any script, but linguists use a system of symbols to represent its sounds. For example:
ʔanāku bēlīya ʔašū
I am his lord
This sentence is composed of three words: ʔanāku (I), bēlīya (my lord), and ʔašū (he). The word order is subject-object-verb, which is different from English but similar to Arabic and Akkadian. The word bēlīya has a suffix 'ya' that indicates possession, which is equivalent to "my" in English or "-ī" in Arabic. The word ʔašū has a prefix ʔa- that indicates the third person singular masculine pronoun, which is equivalent to "he" in English or "huwa" in Arabic.
I'll compare Arabic with Proto-Semitic and show how Arabic preserves features that are lost or changed in other Semitic languages.
Let's start with a simple sentence:
## The house is big
Arabic:
البيتُ كبيرٌ
al-bayt-u kabīr-un
Proto-Semitic:
*ʔal-bayt-u kabīr-u
Hebrew:
הבית גדול
ha-bayit gadol
Akkadian:
bītum rabûm
Amharic:
ቤቱ ገደሉ
betu gedelu
As can be seen, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (noun-adjective), the same definite article (al-), and the same case endings (-u for nominative). Hebrew and Akkadian have lost the case endings and changed the definite article (ha- and -um respectively). Amharic has changed the word order (adjective-noun) and the definite article (u-).
But Arabic is not only similar to Proto-Semitic, it is also pre-Semitic, meaning that it is the original form of Semitic before it split into different branches. This is because Arabic preserves many features that are not found in any other Semitic language, but are found in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. These features include:
- The definite article al-, which is derived from the demonstrative pronoun *ʔal- 'that'. This article is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the article n- in Berber and the article p-, t-, n- in Egyptian.
- The dual number for nouns and verbs, which is marked by the suffix -ān or -ayn. This number is rare in other Semitic languages, but it is common in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber.
- The imperfective prefix t- for verbs, which indicates the second person singular feminine or third person plural feminine. This prefix is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the prefix t- in Berber and Egyptian.
- The passive voice for verbs, which is marked by the infix t between the first and second root consonants. This voice is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the passive voice in Egyptian and Berber.
Finally, a more complex sentence: The letter was written with a pen.
Arabic:
كُتِبَتِ الرِّسَالَةُ بِالقَلَمِ
kutiba-t al-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i
Proto-Semitic:
*kutiba-t ʔal-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i
Hebrew:
המכתב נכתב בעט
ha-michtav niktav ba-et
Akkadian:
šipram šapāru bēlum
Egyptian:
sḏm.n.f p-ẖry m rnp.t
Berber:
tturra-t tibratin s uccen
Here, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (verb-subject-object), the same passive voice marker (-t-), the same definite article (al-), and the same preposition (bi-). Hebrew has changed the word order (subject-verb-object), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (ha-) and the preposition (ba-). Akkadian has changed the word order (object-subject-verb), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (-um) and the preposition (bēlum).
Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing.
God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.
@@sbzush are you saying almost all Muslims living right now saying it wrong?
That's a lot of information, thank you!
Yes, I am saying that many of them, including many Qur'an teachers, have a misconception about the letter ض being a دال مفخمة that is non-fricative, contradicting a well-known written consensus that it is fricative. Why? Because it sounds similar to the دال but it stops without a قلقلة (just hear Shaykh Al-Husari reciting the word الأرض and stopping after it. There is no قلقلة specifically because it is fricative. In fact, if you open Shaykh Al-Husari's book, أحكام قراءة القرآن الكريم, and go to page 119, you'll see that he describes the دال as having six characteristics: الجهر، الشدة، الاستفال، الانفتاح، الإصمات، القلقلة. Then he describes the ضاد as having six different characterisics: الجهر، الرخاوة (fricativeness)، الإستعلاء، الإطباق، الإصمات، الاستطالة.
There is no قلقلة in the ضاد at all. In fact, in the same book, page 60, there is a footnote by the editor/muhaqqiq (Minyar) in which he mentions that the letter ضاد is often mixed with the ظ، ط، د، and even ل، غ، and ذ due to the proximity of its makhraj to theirs. He also proceeds to quote the scholars' statements that it is most often mixed with the ظاء. The footnotes later in page 64 indicate the difference between the characteristics of the ضاد as opposed to the د، ل، ذ، and غ.
Anyway, what happens is that today not many people are learning to recite the Qur'an by apprenticeship وبالتلقي, so they don't have this feedback-based learning on how to pronounce the letter. Instead, they'd have Shaykh Al-Husari or Abdulbasit running 24/7 and they try to imitate them most of the time, so while they do learn lots of ahkaam at-tajweed this way (via trial and error, and I myself am one such person), it is very easy to mistake the Egyptian ضاد for a دال مفخمة, and mistake the رخاوة that the Shaykhs - may Allah's mercy be upon them - for the شدة of the دال. It is such a fine detail that led us to this ironic ignorant arrogant mocking of the gulf arabs for reciting Al-Fatiha in that way. This arrogance has reached amazing levels to the extent that some claim that "the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Pakistanis, Iranians, Tunisians, and pretty much everyone in the whole Islamic world will never have a prayer accepted" because they supposedly don't recite the fatiha properly. Actually, they do. The person claiming that is just too ignorant. Then they'd go on trying to correct the ok ضاد to the wrong one that the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم has never pronounced, riding their egos and prides to belittle others (I am not excluding myself, I used to be one until I learnt about it; had an identity crisis for a while because of that).
By Allah, the Qur'anic ضاد is fricative! 😁
The fact that so many other, geographically disparate languages change ض to a /z/ sound instead of a /d/ also lends credence to it having been a fricative. Love the long form content, keep it up!
I recommend watching Arabic 101's video discussing this video. Some of the points brought up in this video are incorrect, and he explains why in detail. Not hating, just informing
check community tab.
@0n1c420 Thanks for telling me about that! I didn't see it
@@0n1c420 that post is cope
thanks I watched it because of you
Arabic 101 also has a video about Arabic being the ancestor of English and Latin. I would hardly trust a channel like this.
This was a phenomenal video! Love the content & would definitely watch more long form!
In North Indian languages, Ramadan is pronounced as "Ramzan" or "Romjan", so the best assumption is kinda true.
Same in Central Asia
Rather, South Asian Muslims changed the Arabic sound because they couldn't pronounce the original letter. Urdu has multiple Arabic letters that are all pronounced like Z. And then people that couldn't pronounce Z changed it to a J.
In Bosnia we also say "ramazan"
That's more because of the persian influence, which was the official language of India for centuries, and modifies a lot of different arabic sounds to a generic "z". The "romjan" pronunciation is uniquely Bengali, which treats Z and J as allophones. @Slanovich @akmukherjee1971
In Egypt they also say Z for this letter. Wuzu for wudu.
This is a perfectly acceptable variant. South Asians and others should have no inferiority complex about the change in pronunciation of this letter just because our tongues roll different.
Man, I feel like I’ve been waiting years for long-form content from you! Thank you so much for delivering 🙏🏽
Great video! It's worth noting that in Hebrew, Sad, Dad, and Za all merged into Sadi. In most dialects of Aramaic Dad shifts to Ayin as you mentioned, but an interesting feature of OId Aramaic is that they transcribed Dad as a Qaf instead of an Ayin (see Jeremiah 10:11)
Thank you for providing footnotes and sources!
11:36 Mongolian also contains the phoneme [ɮ] (Voiced Alveolar Lateral Fricative) but it's never pharyngealized in it. Only the Classical Arabic of the Noble Qurʾān contains the pharyngealized one.
this video was super insightful. i had no idea how important historical documents are in linguistics. you're a great communicator and look forward to more long form content. ما شاء الله
These videos are so cool for some reason
Your third option is probably the most likely like you stated. Your comparisons of the modern Ramadan to the classical pronunciation got me really smirking. There is a comparison that brings it home really well (I am not capable of speaking Arabic, but I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole video) the classical and old Russian Ramazan instead of the modern Ramadan. I always asked myself where Russia got the ze sound from, now I know.
In Russia Z sound in Ramazan came from Turkic folks. Words "namaz" and "uraza" too. And these words came to Turkic languages from Persian.
It’s so weird but I think I have a crush on his eyebrows
In some countries like Iran, they consider thick eyebrows a sighn of beauty and wisdom.
@Sharon-rr1li
Aren't thick eyebrows a sign of beauty in your culture?
I thought all cultures considered thick eyebrows to be a sign of beauty. 😅
@@not.sardar wow i thought my thick eyebrows were ugly
@@sleepy4205
In the Middle East, a handsome man should have thick eyebrows. Thin eyebrows are considered a feminine trait.
We Kurds and Persians have very thick eyebrows 😅
@@sleepy4205nope, thick eyebrows require more grooming and maintenance (like adjusting the shape, plucking the edges so the eyebrow shape is smooth, and brushing) but its worth it because they are so beautiful.
PLEASE do more long videos this one was amazing
Highly informative and delightful
This is academic level (meaning profoundly thought) but still easy to understand. Bravo! 👏
Thank you very much
On the topic of loanwords!!! Javanese, a language spoken in Indonesia, loaned رَمَضَان _(ramaḍān)_ as ꦫꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀ _(ramelan),_ with an /l/! It even loaned وُضُوء _(wuḍū2)_ 'ablustion' as ꦮꦸꦢ꧀ꦭꦸ _(wudlu)_ /wud̪̥l̪u/ 'ibid.'
When I realized this for the first time I was taken aback because, why would there be an /l/ in there?
On a related note, the sound ظ /ðˤ/ is consistent loaned with an /l/ sound! Take for example:
- ꦭꦲꦶꦂ _(lair)_ /l̪air/ from ظاهِر _(ẓāhir)_
- ꦭꦺꦴꦲꦺꦴꦂ _(lohor)_ from ظُهْر _(ẓuhr)_
- ꦲꦥꦭ꧀ _(apal)_ from حَافَظَ _(ḥafaẓa)_
This might be unwarranted but: for longer form videos, there's probably no need for you to exaggerate expressions so much (I get that you're a shorts/tiktok guy primarily). Gives an uncanny, unhinged vibe to an otherwise very informative video.
Edit: in Japanese, ビル is primarily used to mean "building" (as in, a structure). ビル as meaning "bill" is much less common. Your point still stands though.
This ^
Nothing wrong with his expressions. Delighted to see the animation. Some cultures are warm, others are frozen-faced and constrained. He belongs to the warmer tradition, being Mediterranean.
Man, you are good! Delightful vid
6:23 forgive the inner child in me, but in hebrew, this sounds exactly like "יוסוף עשה קקי" which means "yusuf took a dump"
More long-form content please, this was fantastic
لغة الضاد جاءت من مؤسسين وادباء النهضة العربية بداية القرن العشرين والذين سموا جمعيتهم بجمعية (ضاد)
This video is so interesting ! I love it keep on doing such formats it's great
This kind of videos is great for listening to while I'm doing something (not that I ignored you, but since the video is mostly relying on audio and not so much on visuals, it works), keep it up!
Also, as someone who loves anthropology, your linguistics videos are very helpful not just with understanding the languages themselves, but the history and implications of how they relate to each other as well.
Change your profile picture 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Please talk slowly so that we can understand.
i enjoyed so much ! it's very detailed but not too much for it to b e confusing or not easy to understand, i am also thankful that you give the sources of each point you talk about
As an Arabic native speaker, this was really informative and amusing to watch. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your research
So you believe him that the dhad could have been translated differently just centuries ago
@@TakeOneSiptranslated is the wrong word but considering it's an oral tradition, with the addition that all languages evolve over time, it's definitely plausible. All it requires is tiny changes over generations. One generation wouldn't even see the difference but if you took a generation and then another generation that was 10 or 20 later, then you would hear the differences.
If you think it can happen to every other language except your special one then I fear that's just ignorance/special pleading.
@@TakeOneSiplanguage changes like every decade lmao it isn't that hard to believe
@@FahadAyaz are you saying the Quran itself was pronounced differently !
Very problematic
@@TakeOneSipI don't really care if it's problematic. I care about what's true. Considering this happens all the time across languages and cultures, it's quite plausible.
Why is it problematic though? Wouldn't you rather know what's true than only listen to things that confirm your assumptions?
Plus, there are already versions of that Arabic sound in other dialects. It already exists and it's not something new. It's new to you and me who were ignorant of this knowledge.
Double also! We already know that the Quran was revealed in several dialects, with different pronunciations so why is this problematic again?
You are one of my favourite short-form linguistic creators (if not my favourite) and I'm so glad you're finally making some long-form content. Please keep up the good work :3!
Actually in turkmeneli turkish we say the letter ض, for example ضاغ.
and "ض" is not the rarest latter but its “ظ” which only exists in arabic.
Arabs live in their own bubble. And they are known for been ignorant about other cultures also . ض can be found in several langues
In regards to the Spanish perception of the letter ض, I'd like to tell you one fun fact.
Indonesian transliteration of ض is often written with the letter combination "dl". So the word Ramadan would sometimes be written as "Ramadlan".
You know even during the time of the prophet muhammad (saw) , arabic had many variations too.
You had the qurayshi dialect, yemeni dialect, banu tameemi dialedt etc.
Some words and lettwrs were pronounced differently like ص [(saw) sound] where some tribes made a more س [(s) sound]
or even a more ز [zay sound] like zzirat.
Or even imalah like the "e" sound in how we pronounce " elephant".
I am always looking for linguistic content, so thanks a lot for this wonderful video!
Sibawayh really made a book called 'The Book' - okay then 😀😀
😂 I’m pretty sure he left it unnamed so other people just ended up calling it “the book”
@@humanteneleven I fact checked this with my teacher. This is not the reason.
It's because its not 'kitabun' but 'ALkitab', it is THE book from the father of Nahw himself and it is THE book if you want to study Al-lughatul Arabiyah
i also got laughed at by the entire class for asking that question 😃😃
A channel called Arabic 101 responded to this video!