h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Arabic - A711208
Author: PseudoRandom - U191240

The Arabic language

Delighted to see this excellent entry transfer to Peer Review.

I think you've coped well with the difficult task of writing on a specialised subject such as this for a general site such as this! There are still a few terms, however, which readers will probably not understand, and for which even a short parenthetical explanation would go a long way. For example:

the pre-Islamic writers - date? What was there before Islam?

the Mu'allaqat - what is this?

good enough to hang on the Kaaba - what is this?

"Arabic poetry rarely translates well into English, since its sound as well as its meaning plays an essential role in its beauty, and the sonority of Arabic is very hard to imitate in a language as different-sounding as English."

Wouldn't it be generally true to state:
"Poetry rarely translates well, since its sound as well as its meaning plays an essential role in its beauty, and the sonority of any language is very hard to imitate in a different language."

Arab poets - the 'Udhari school especially -- what school is this?

as seen in such romances as Kalilah wa Dimnah - is this a romantic poem, a play, a prose work... what? when?

"In many ways, the Qur'an plays much the same pivotal role in the development of Arabic literature as the King James Bible in English."

Very interesting view - could you expand on that pivotal role just a little?

Of course I don't know if you want to address these points or not - they are just things I got stuck on while reading the entry.



Bels

Hi PseudoRandom,

Good entry. I've spent a couple of weeks trying to learn Arabic, and am now at the stage where I can nearly greet people!

You could also mention -

the heavy use of niceties and formalities in everyday language

the different types of plural (single, double, multiple, general)

the different types of letter depending on whether they appear at the start, middle or end of the word, or alone

that the script reads right to left

that short vowels are not written (apologies if you did mention that, I can't read the article and type at the same time)

Did you mention that east African countries (eg Tanzania) also speak Arabic as an official language? I'm pretty sure India does too.

Finally, this would look much better in GuideML.

Please don't be distracted by the number of points - they're all fairly minor, this is basically a very good article whether you choose to make the changes or not.

Gif

This looks a very interesting entry.

I think the bit about explaining the changes in the words could do with a little bit more work to be as understandable as it could be. I struggled with the first bit. Would it help to give the root stem and then to put the other parts in a table? Although you might not be able to do it, if you're not using guide ML, you could lay it out in table format, one line at a time, showing the differences.

Finally, apart from Kahlil Gibran, the other poet people are most likely to know today is Rumi, so it might be useful to mention him.

ZSF, I guess many people will have their own list of favourite Arabic poets. Mine would certainly include Hafiz and Iqbal.

Thanks for the pointers, everybody! I've tried to address most of them, especially the missing background ones. Two things though: Rumi did write in Arabic very occasionally, but most of his poems (including the greatest) were written in Persian; Iqbal wrote in Persian and his native Urdu, but never Arabic as far as I know; Hafiz wrote in Persian only. While Arabic is an important language on Zanzibar, and was official there until it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania, I don't think it's official there now; in India, though there are 16 official languages, Arabic doesn't seem to be among them.

The changes you have made are a real improvement. This entry is no longer just good, it absolutely rocks awesome!

Your second example word has the number 3 in it as the third consonant. I don't know if this is intentional imitation of an international phonetic symbol or not.

Yep, definitely a good entry. I think you can expect this one to get picked sometime soon.

There are a couple of places where you could let it flow a little more easily, for example:

"Arabic, to a much greater extent than English, is divided into disparate dialects." - Arabic is divided into disparate dialects to a much greater extent than English is.

Also, several of your sentences are very long and linked by semi-colons (also a big failing of mine in my articles!). The article would read more easily if you could split them. Putting in headers would help, too - 'Alphabet', 'Famous Works', etc.

"Some of the most famous poets are the pre-Islamic writers of the Mu'allaqat, as the poems that were then considered good enough to hang on the Kaaba (the central shrine at Mecca) were called, including Imru' ul-Qays and Antar ibn Shaddad;" - this gets a bit confusing. Can I suggest "The Mu'allaqat were the pre-Islamic poems considered good enough to hang on the Kaaba (the central shrine at Mecca). The writers of these, such as Imru' ul-Qays and Antar ibn Shaddad, are still among the most famous Arab poets."?

Gif

Just to let you know that this entry has been scouted, but before I can process it, it needs a little few clarifications as mentioned above.

Can you let me know when the changes have been made so we can send this excellent entry to the Edited Guide?



Ashley

Congrats!

Gif

Yeah, well done. I wish I'd read this earlier, it's fascinating. The main thing I stopped on was the use of the 3's as letters - what is that about? Other than that, a great introduction to a language many Westerners would do well to know at least this much about.

How about one on Japanese?

H.

OK - I shortened the main culprits...

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

interesting bit of trivia:

did you know that you can get a copy of the book of mormon in arabic?