Arabic/XofYand

We are going to learn about X and Y structures, and we will learn about the Arabic word for "and".

and = (wa)و

This seems simple enough. There is one thing to remember though. و (wa) always is included in the word that follows it. It is not considered a separate word in Arabic.

Correct: والولد

Incorrect: و الولد

Both mean "and the boy", but due to an Arabic spelling rule, that says one letter words must connect to following words what is 3 words in English, "and the boy" ,is one word in Arabic, "andtheboy".

Here are examples of X of Y structures so you understand what you will learn.

The cat of the neighbour. OR The neighbor's cat. The dog of the man. OR The man's dog.

Did you notice that the first sentence uses "the X of Y" format, while the second uses apostrophe (an apostrophe is this sign: ' )and then an "s". In Arabic There is no " apostrophe s" type of structure. Whenever you translate The neighbor's cat, the word "cat" will come first in Arabic and "the neighbour" will come right after it.

Remember how Arabic doesn't use a word for "is" in sentences like "The boy is big". Arabic also doesn't use a word for "of" in sentences like "the cat of the neighbour".

So now, you might be asking how do you say "the cat of the neighbour" if there is no word for "of". It has to do with sentence structure.

In English it looks like this. the ____1____ of ______2_____

= In Arabic it will look like this ــــــ1ــــــــ ال ــــــ2ـــــِ

Note: "1" stands for the first word. "2" stands for the second word.

For example: the boy of the city.

ولد الـمدينة

(wa-la-dul<_ma-dii-na-ti) مدينة(ma-dii-na) means "city".

Note that the last letter of ""is a تاء مربوطة (taa'--mar-buu-Ta) meaning closedت(taa). This variant ofت(taa) looks like a ه(haa) with two dots on top. It is pronounced as "h" when you stop at that word (although the "h" sound is very faint) and at all other times it is pronounced as the normal "t" sound, as in "talk".

The structure "the boy of the city" can be translated as one of the following. Each one means the same thing. The only difference is that each one has a different function in the sentence. walad+u al-madiinati=(wa-la-dul_ma-dii-na-ti)

walad+a al-madiinati=(wa-la-dal_ma-dii-na-ti)

walad+i al-madiinati=(wa-la-dil_ma-dii-na-ti)

I'll write out an "X" where the three sentences differ.

(wa-la-dXl<_ma-dii-na)

The difference is a vowel that attaches to the word for "boy": (wa-lad). This vowel indicates something called grammatical case. This will be explained later, And we will use the "u" ending for all the following examples, because that is the default case.

The man's dog/ the dog of the man. كـَلـْبُ الرَّجُلِ

kalb + u + al + rajul = (kal-bur<_ra-jul)

The woman's dog/ the dog of the woman.

كـَلـْبُ المَرْأةِ

kalb + u + al + mar'a (kal-bul<_mar-a)

Now let's use و (wa)." و (wa)" means "and" in Arabic.

كـَلـْبُ الرَّجُلِ وَكـَلـْبُ المَرْأةِ

kalb+u +al+rajul+i+ wa+kalb+u+al+mar'at (kal-bur<-ra-ju-li—wa_kal-bul<-mar-a)

The man's dog, and the woman's dog.