Useful Arabic Words & Pronunciations
Arabic is the world’s 5th most commonly spoken language with almost 300 million native speakers. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and belongs to the Semitic group of languages. The three main classifications are: Classical Arabic, also known as the language of the Qur’an, Modern Standard Arabic, used in books, newspapers, and media, and Local dialects, which vary by country and region. Arabic words are constructed from threeletter “roots” which convey a basic idea. For example, k-t-b conveys the idea of writing. Addition of other letters before, between and after the root letters produces many associated words: not only “write” but also “book”, “office”, “library”, and “author”. The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 consonants and three vowels – a, i, u; it is written from right to left. Some of the glottal sounds are unique to Arabic. The Arabic words presented opposite reflect the Hijazi dialect.
Arabic/English Equivalents’
alif
a
tah
t
ba
b
zah
z
ta
t
ayn
‘
tha
th
ghayn
gh
jim
j
fa
f
ha
h
qaf
q
kha
kh
kaf
k
dal
d
lam
l
dhal
dh
mim
m
ra
r
nun
n
zay
z
ha
h
sin
s
waw
w*
shin
sh
ya
y*
sad
s
dad
d
* when waw or ya is used as a consonant
Where did this word Which spelling? come from? Did you know that many English words have Arabic origins? Algebra, alchemy, and algorithm are easily identifiable by the ‘al’ which means ‘the’ in Arabic, but how about thise word… Admiral : أمير البحارamīr al-bihār, “commander of the seas”, a title in use in Arabic Sicily and continued by the Normans in Sicily in a Latinized form, and adopted successively by Genoese and French. Modern French is “amiral”. An English form under King Edward III (14th century) was “Amyrel of the Se”. Insertion of the ‘d’ was doubtless influenced by allusion to common Latin “admire”. 90 DESTINATION JEDDAH
Using the Google search engine, we checked for the most common spellings of some Arabic names ... Salam Salaam
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Madinah Madina Medina
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