28 Letters

MarHaba! I have officially completed my first week of Arabic classes! I am so excited that my Arabic-learning journey has finally begun. Albeit, I am very nervous. I have to learn an entirely new alphabet, and I have to learn how to write and read from right to left! (Yes, even my textbook reads like that!) Now, without further ado, here’s how my first week went!

Tuesday, August 25

My professor started class by introducing herself and then asking us to introduce ourselves in English. She explained that at the end of the semester, we would be introducing ourselves again but in Arabic. There’s only six of us students, which I like, because that means more individual attention. 

After introductions, my professor asked us to write down as many Arab countries as we could. My list was pretty lengthy (thank you, Intro to Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies class!), but I had included Iran and Turkey. Those two countries are not Arab countries. Rather, Iran is technically Persian, and they speak Farsi. Turkey’s people are Turks, and they speak Turkish. (And Israel, while in the middle of the Arab World, is a Jewish nation.) There technically is no official list or definition of the Arab world, but most people refer to the Arab League to mean the Arab world. There are twenty-two members, and they include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. (Not to pat myself on the back, but I wrote down fifteen of the twenty-two countries.)

Now, what makes all these countries “Arab countries”? It’s not religion or a particular form of government. Rather, it’s language. Specifically, the Arabic language. 

There are three major influences that have helped create what we know today as the Modern Standard Arabic, which is the formal and written version of Arabic that is used throughout the Arabic world. The first is classical Arabic poetry, which was passed down orally from person to person or tribe to tribe. The second influence was the Qur’an, as the religious text helped pave the way for a standardized Arabic language. Lastly, the stories that comprise One Thousand and One Nights (where we get stories like Aladdin) helped standardize the language as well. 

Finally, my professor introduced the full alphabet to us by writing it on the board (her handwriting is so pretty!) and telling us the English equivalent (if there is one). There are twenty-eight letters in the Arabic alphabet, and the language is phonetic, so there are virtually no silent letters. (This makes for writing out the Arabic word in Latin letters much easier). Lastly, she wrote all of our names on the board to show how there are certain letters that do not connect to the following one. 

Overall, I was feeling very overwhelmed by the end of class, but I also felt good. My professor is very sweet, and I know that if I have any questions I can always ask her. 

The homework that was due for Thursday was to read chapter one of my textbook… which I did at 11PM on Wednesday… oops!

Thursday, August 27

Thursday's class was a little bit different as we met virtually via Zoom. 

We started by learning basic greetings in Arabic and learning how to say “Hello! My name is… I am from the city of…” It felt great to be able to say something so basic in Arabic for the first time, even if I did have to look at my notes and my pronunciation wasn’t the best. 

We learned how to write five Arabic letters. There’s a lot more to it than just the independent letters one might see in a chart. Each letter has four different forms. There’s the independent form, which is the letter just by itself. There’s the beginning form, which is used when a letter starts a word. The medial form is used when connecting letters in the middle of a word. And the end form is used at the end of the word. Like I said earlier, there are a few letters that connect only to the preceding letter, and the following letter doesn't connect.

Here’s the first three letters of the alphabet and their various forms: 

We also learned the letters wāw [w / ū / ∅] and yāʾ [y / ī]. The letter wāw looks like this: و. And the letter yāʾ looks like this: ي. We learned these letters out of order because they have more than one function besides being a consonant. Other functions include changing the sound of other letters, adding a possessive, and becoming the word “and.” 

At the end of class, my professor assigned us homework that’s due Tuesday, and we introduced ourselves again in Arabic like we did at the beginning of class using the same lines as before. 

I’m excited to see how this semester is going to go, and I hope I can persevere for the long run. It has been ascribed to Charlemagne the saying, “To have another language is to possess a second soul.” I hope one day I can so intimately know the Arabic language that it feels like I have another soul. 

Arabic Word of the Week

peace / salam / سلام