When you're learning Arabic in English with an Israeli teacher, it still helps to know some Hebrew!
"Alif is the letter A. Alif can be either a consonant or a vowel, just like in English: A can be a consonant, as in 'I am', or a vowel, as in 'father'."
how is the "a" in "am" a consonant?
ReplyDeleteIt's not! But the א in אם is.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, "a" sort of is a consonant in "am," for the same reason that the "א" in "אם" is considered one--you can't make a vowel sound without that little click at the beginning (the more modest version of "ayin"). We don't categorize it as a consonant in English, but it still functions that way.
ReplyDeletearamaic will help to, especially for things like numbers.
ReplyDeletearamaic helps for more than numbers, it's the parent language for both Hebrew and Arabic
ReplyDeleteLOL.
ReplyDeleteAlif can't be a consonant, though. that's what separates Hebrew from Arabic orthography; Arabic actually has vowel letters! alif is only /ā/. the glottal stop consonant (a.k.a. Hebrew alef) is represented by the letter hamza ء which is frequently placed on (or under) an alif seat: أ إ
and Benjamin:
Aramaic isn't the parent language of Hebrew or Arabic. unless you hold by the opinion in the Gemara that Aramaic was the original language of pre-Bavel humanity.
hi steg, that was my understanding that hebrew and arabic are offshoots of aramaic, which originated earlier. I have no proof. but i did find this fun graph which seems to prove you right graph
ReplyDeleteit shows that they have a common root, but didn't evolve one from the other. can't win everytime :)
The Zohar was written in Aramaic, and existed before the creation of the universe.
ReplyDeletebenjamin-- aramaic helped me with a lot of basic words, including vegetables and pronouns. but the most dramatic time was when I'd forgotten to learn the numbers till the beginning of class (it was the morning after my 21st, I think) and was able to have them memorized by the time I was called on :)
ReplyDelete