Jim Gha and Khor

Arabic, a language as vast as the deserts it echoes through, stands as a testament to linguistic opulence. While English boasts around 600,000 words, Arabic surpasses the one and a half billion work mark, embodying a lexicon that transcends the ordinary. The richness of Arabic lies not only in the sheer abundance of its vocabulary but also in the intricate dance of its consonants and the delicate ballet of diacritical marks.

The Arabic alphabet, adorned with 28 consonants and devoid of vowels, beckons explorers into a realm where pronunciation is an art, guided by diacritical marks that function as ethereal brushes, crafting sounds with a precision that mirrors the cadence of native Arab speakers.

Enter the trio of Arabic consonants – Jim, Gha, and Khor – each wielding an influence that ripples through the linguistic landscapes of Spanish, French, and English in peculiar ways.

In the Spanish realm, the Jim, typically sounding like 'J' in words such as 'Jesus,' takes on a guise of 'H,' transforming 'José' into 'Hosé.' The Gha, resonating as a distinctive 'Gha,' undergoes a metamorphosis in words like 'Jalapeño,' where it morphs into an 'H,' leading to the curious pronunciation of 'Ghalapeño.' The Khor adds its own note to this symphony, leaving an indelible mark on the pronunciation canvas.

Venture into the poetic French domain, and the Gha adopts the sound of 'H,' rendering 'opital' for 'Hospital,' and 'heureux' happing 'happy,' where the Gha is heard silently, yet echoes mysteriously as 'eureux.' The French pronunciation, shaped by the borrowed Arabic consonants, showcases the intricate dance of linguistic borrowing.

As we traverse the English stage, witness the borrowed Arabic trio orchestrating a complex sonnet of sounds. The French-derived 'garage,' with its initial 'G' retaining its Gallic roots, presents the second 'G' bending to the Arabic Jim, pronounced as 'J,' creating a linguistic echo that resonates with a mysterious harmony.

In this linguistic odyssey, Arabic unfolds as a masterful weaver, crafting a tapestry that stretches across borders and languages. The impact of the Jim, Gha, and Khor on the pronunciation of words in Spanish, French, and English stands as a testament to the interconnected beauty of language. Through the subtleties of sound and the richness of vocabulary, Arabic invites exploration into the nuances that make it a linguistic treasure trove.

ARABIC ENGLISH, ENGLISH ARABIC DICTIONARY

ARABIC ENGLISH, ENGLISH ARABIC

English Arabic is a dictionary with a difference. Firstly, it seeks to alphabetizing and romanize the words of the Qur'an to English, then it looks at loanwords of several languages originating from Arabic. It will probably become the most versatile Arabic English dictionary, and English Arabic dictionary online, especially for those hoping to understand European languages and need a good grounding in Arabic. 

However, what needs to be said before we progress, is that the English language is far too inadequate to represent  the Arabic consonants using its 26 letter consonant alphabet of which four are vowels.  The Arabic language has twenty eight (28) consonants, three (3) of  which double-up as long vowels, but it also has 3 short ligature vowels, with 3 consonants functioning as long vowels.  

To make matters interesting, Arabic has no letter P and there are ten (10) Arabic consonants that have no equivalent in English.  Implying that the 22 remaining English language consonants cannot represent the 28 Arabic consonants on a one-to-one basis without some sort of innovation.  

As such, International standards were developed in an attempt to remedy the situation by using symbols, diagraphs and diacritical marks, yet they remain far too difficult for the average English speaker to correctly interpret and pronounce. Over the past 100 years several efforts to standardize the transliteration of Arabic have emerged, non of them able to do justice to Arabic both written and read.

Lane's Lexicon

The US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) proposed a scheme which later developed into the Intelligence Community Standard (IC) scheme which is used for all official US government Arabic publications. 

Other widely used schemes include; International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) scheme, the British Standard (BS) scheme, the Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System (SATTS) scheme, the Encyclopedia of Islam (EI) scheme, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) scheme, the German Institute for Standardization: Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) scheme,  the American Library Association / Library of Congress (ALA/LC)scheme,  the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) scheme, to mention just a few.

Transliteration or rather romanization is about rendering the closest sound using the  English language  to represent non-roman alphabets as are done with Pinyin for Chinese  and Kanji for Japanese. The Arabic English dictionary legend below is a guide to Arabic transliteration spelling and pronunciation.

ARABIC TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Sources preserved the names of some professional Arabic grammarians in the second century of Islam, who studied the Qur'an in order to understand  the structure of the language. Their objective was to determined the Qiyas al-'Arabiyya “the rules of Arabic.” 

One such scholar by the name Sibawayhi wrote the first dictionary with a complete grammar of Arabic known as  Kitab Sibawayhi. Kitab al-'ayn set the trend for  to things to come which wa followed by a long list of ever larger dictionaries that attempted to encapsulate the lexicon of the Arabic language. 

The last of which was the famous  lexicon, Lisan al-'Arab written Ibn Manzur. Today the two most famous Arabic English dictionaries are Lane's Lexicon- Arabic English Dictionary, and  The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern written Arabic, Arabic English Dictionary and the most famous English to Arabic Dictionary is The Oxford English Arabic Dictionary  or current usage. Transliteration in th The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern dictionary is based in the DIN scheme.

Using the Oxford English Arabic Dictionary  is fairly straight forward because worlds assume alphabetical order of the English language , whereas the Arabic English Dictionary is a different ball game altogether. It tabulates words in the Arabic alphabetical order but since Arabic words have in-fixes making sense of it isn't the easy.

Continued on next blog....