Talk:Arabic/Book/TranslitU

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LakeHMM, I see that you have contributed to the Arabic Wikibook, and I thank you for that. I see you have changed the orthography slightly. Thank you, but in transcribing syllable by syllable a hamza at the beginning of a syllable transcribed as an apostrophe would only confuse beginnners. It is unnessecary at the beginning of a syllable. I think the "ee" and "oo" was working well for transcription of syllables (the idea of the syllables is to be the easiest to read for english people. Thank you. Please reply back. I am also contemplating major transliteration changes, please make some proposals here. --TwoThirty 16:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Why isn't it necessary to denote a hamza at the beginning of the word? Also, using ee and oo is just misleading, because that makes it look like a long e or long o sound, and Arabic has neither. The most logical way to go about it is a long i is ii, a long u is uu, etc. It may make more sense for English speakers with no linguistic knowledge but it's important to identify i with ii. Arabic words are not English words, so they shouldn't be written like they are. Writing things that way not only cripples the linguistic understanding of the student but confuses those who understand short and long vowels.

And what is the whole _, -, -- thing? It seems unnecessary to me. --LakeHMM 00:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC) PS: The transliteration scheme previously used was ii and uu until, as I see, you recently changed it.

You are correct, I did change my transliteration scheme. First let me explain the _, -, -- thing. The dashes indicate spaces between syllables. All of those different type of dashes indicate that (one is an underscore, the other is one dash, the other is two dashes). The purpose is to show the spacing between syllables while still indicating where one word starts and the other begins. - the two syllables around this dash are of the same word -- the two syllables around this dash combination are different words. So -- (dash, dash) separates words and syllables. _ I used for denoting the difference between syllables, where in the non-syllable transliteration system used in the book there is a dash. al-walad (non-syllable) al_wa-lad (indicating syllables) There are far more small functions to be standardized.

I understand that "ee" and "oo" might be confusing to people believing it to be the long "e" sound instead of the sound english people make when pronouncing the letter "e". But "uu" and "ii" have their own problems. "uu" and "ii" are ugly, and people reading any latin based script are not used to the repetition of those letters. I haven't seen an English word using such letter combinations. So "ee" and "oo" are better because a normal literate Anglophone would pronounce it correctly, and they would be easily able to read it. As for people who might confuse "ee" for the long "e" sound they are a minority and all that is needed to prevent their confusion is the following diagram: Transliteration and their IPA equivalents. ee [i:] oo [u:]

As for the hamza at the beginning of a word. It is useful to indicate it in translitartion that is not syllable based. Because this makes sure the person knows that a connecting phonomenom doesn't take place (called waSl in Arabic). But in syllable transliteration any place where such a phonomenom happens is already taken into acount and the reader doesn't even need to know it is happening. al-shamsu wa al-qamaru ash_sham-su--wal-qa-mar notice wal  which happened because there is no hamza on "al". if there was then it( the vowel "a") could never be elided and become "wal". So if an apostrophe (indicating a hamza, of course)was included in syllable transliteration at the beginning of a word it would confuse people, and they would think they have to do something special with their throat when they would pronounce it perfectly without the apostrophe. Note I am talking about syllable transliteration here.

'alam (translation: pain) should be transliterated sylable-wise like so: a-lam But 'a lam (translation:" haven't ...?") a--lam

Some believe that a hamza (glottal stop) at the beginning of a word is this exotic sound that English people never pronounce at the beginning of a word. But the reality is all vowels when they start a syllable are preceded by a glottal stop. At least that's what I believe to be true.

Say: a at in if You started each of those above by pronouncing the glottal stop.

because is can be shortened in English pronounciation to just an s That would mean that is doesn't phonemically begin with a glottal stop. "What is this?" Here the person is saying the "is" with the glottal stop. In English this would be an emphasized version of the following question in casual speech (if not all speech). "what's this?" Here the person is saying the "is" without the glottal stop.

in reality you started with a glottal stop. vowels are never pronounced alone. whenever a vowel is written alone, or starting a syllable, a glottal stop always precedes. Remember a glottal stop is not a rhain (the letter before ghain) it is a hamza which is indicated (in the book) by an apostrophe. --TwoThirty 16:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: The above post was not meant as an attack on anyone. There is no actual correct transliteration system for Arabic. We need to argue about standards, and decide on a few. We could attempt to accomodate multiple transliteration schemes if wikiBooks worked a bit differently. I think that would be the best solution. The issues LakeHMM raised are valid, and I did not mean to belittle those concerns. --TwoThirty 16:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I know about glottal stops, but I'm just saying to correctly transcribe things it's best to include all of the information instead of just going off of what someone would normally do in English.

Same goes for the ee oo thing. English is not your standard Latin alphabet language. In the original Latin alphabet, and in the way most of the rest of the world pronounces it, it's [e:] and [o:]. I understand that perhaps ee and oo would be better for English speakers with no experience or knowledge of any other languages or the way languages work, but we shouldn't just change it to a way that doesn't make sense to cater to whatever misconceptions the reader may have previously have. The whole point of this WikiBook is learning. You're not learning the language correctly if you think "ee" is a long "i". Like I said, it would make sense for someone who didn't know what they're doing, but then you might as well write the whole thing in English to make it easier for the English speaker.

Using the same logic as your transcription scheme, wouldn't all "i"s be transcribed as "ee" because English speakers pretty much never pronounce "i" the same way as it should be in Arabic? And all "u"s would be written "oo" to make it clear they're not pronounces as in "rub". All "a" sounds should be transcribed "ah" because that's how English speakers would read it correctly. "ay" would be written "I" because that's how English speakers would understand. Then you end up with "ahllahhoo sahlmeek" instead of "allahu salmik". Gross. --LakeHMM 06:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand your viewpoint.

I've changed my mind on the "ee", and "oo" argument. It should be transliterated as "ii" and "uu" instead of "ee" and "oo".

However as for the glottal stop. It should never in Arabic syllable by syllable transliteration be written beginning a syllable. This does not in anyway mean that it shouldn't be included in the non-syllable by syllable transliteration.

By the way, I think that "allahu salmik" is actually just a mispronounciation of "allahu yusalima-ka", which became "allah ysalmik" becoming "allahi salmik".

I'm also ready to give up on indication of word boundaries of syllable by syllable transliteration.

I have some more proposals, for the non-syllable by syllable transliteration. We need to call it something other than non- syllable ... --TwoThirty 02:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Some proposals:

haa'
 * represent emphatic letters by making the letter (or digraph) bold

saad daad taa' dhaa'

This should make the transliteration more readable.

a capital "N". Or an "ń" (n with a forward accent) a double dotted "a" that represents the fatHäh before the taa'. and the letter after it can either be a "h" or a "t" to correctly indicate pronounciation.
 * For the indication of tanween.
 * for the indication of taa' marbuuTäh.


 * where a silent alif exists after a "uu" sound such as in the conjugation of plural masculine 3rd person.

uù


 * alif maksuuräh:

aà


 * any "aa" sound not written with a constanant( a letter of the arabic alphabet).

aá

Other long vowels not written constanantly:

ií

uú

Dipthongs at the end of words, should change thus:

au => aŵ ai => aŷ ii => iŷ uu=> uŵ

Why: example: لو العالم lau + al-`aalam lawi al-`aalam

Instead it becomes laŵ + al-`aalam laŵi al-`aalam

syllable by syllable: la-wil-`aa-lam This way, any vowel after the circumflexed "y" or "w" can be added so the student will know what vowel to pronounce when not going word by word.

ň
 * indicating a nuun pronounced as a meem


 * How about capitilization of the first letter of all nouns, and the first two letters initially for nouns at the beginning of sentences.--TwoThirty 02:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)