The spoken Arabic of Egypt, grammar, exercises, vocabularies

488 Pages·2009·24.44 MB·English

&I
THE SPOKEN ARABIC
OF EGYPT
" "
A KEY
TO THE EXERCISES IX
THE SPOKEN ARABIC OF EGYPT
By J. SELDEN WILLMORE, M.A.
Demy8vo, sewed, 3s. lid. net
Press Notices of the First Edition of
"The Spoken Arabic of Egypt"
—
The Ration says: "Xot since Spitta's epoch-making work
have we had so detailed an examination and so complete a
statementoftheactualfactsofthedialectsofEgypt.
—
Egyptian Gazette. "An able, exhaustive, and scholarly
treatmentoftheve—rnacularofEgypt . . . thismostablework.
Tin'Athenaeum. "Much the best bookon thesubject that
hassofarappeared . . . thesystem of transliteration adopted
isexcellent,simple,yetadequate."
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
HANDBOOK
OF
SPOKEN EGYPTIAN ARABIC
COMPRISING A SHORT GBAMMAK AND AN ENGLISH-ARABIC
VOCABULARY OF CURRENT WORDS AND EXPRESS!
Square 16mo, cloth. 2s.
THE SPOKEN ARABIC
OF EGYPT
GRAMMAR, EXERCISES, VOCABULARIES
BY
SELDEN WILLMOEE,
J. M.A.
ONE OF THE JUDGES uF THE NATIVE COOT
APPEAL AT CATRO
SECOND REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
0%
o|«-l
LONDON
DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE
1905
Pnm
INTRODUCTION
Professor Sheldon Amos once remarked to me that Egyptian
Arabic had been a hopeless puzzle to him, which he d
of ever being able to master, until he fell across Spitta
I
grammar of the language. Then all became clear at once.
Spitta's work was indeed a model of the way in which a sp
living language should be scientifically studied. But it was
necessarily the work of a pioneer. It opened the way which
others should follow and complete.
The work that was begun by .Spitta seems to me to have
been finished by Mr. Willmore. The present volume contains
an exhaustive account of the Oairene dialect of Egyptian
Arabic as it is spoken to-day. On the practical side it will
1).- welcomed by those who live in Egypt and wish tounderstand
and be understood by the natives. But it will be quil
much welcomed by the studen—t of scientific philology. It tells
him what he wants to know how a living Semitic lane
pronounce.- it- words and forms it.- grammar. For
consists of sounds, not of written symbols, and its grammar is
that of ordinal}- conversation. What has been termed anti-
quarian philology is doubtless important to the historian or the
literary scholar; for linguistic science it is of little use. T
living organism alone can yield scientific results; the spellings
of a past age or the grammatical forms which exist only in
hooks are a hindrance rather than a help to scientific research.
It Lb, of course, essential that the living organism should be
represented as accurately and exactly as possible, [n
word.-, we must have a notation which shall reproduce the
pronunciation of a language with approximate accuracy. Tie-
defective Arabic alphabet, with it- diacritical mark.- md poverty
INTRODUCTION
vi
of vocalic symbols, is out of the question. It belongs to a pre-
scientific age and people, and is wholly unfitted to represent
the living sounds of a modern Arabic language. For this we
must have recourse to some modification of the Latin alphabet.
What this modification shall be will depend on the immediate
object in view. If the object is purely scientific, we may make
our choice between the alphabets of Lepsius,Alexander J. Ellis,
or Sweet; if, on the other hand, it is mainly practical, there is
nothing better than the alphabet adopted in the " Sacred Books
of til.- East," or that adaptation of Spitta Bey's alphabet which
is to be found in the present work. This latter reproduces
the pronunciation of the Cairene dialect with all the accuracy
needed by the practical student. It sets before us a Semitic
language as it really exists, not an artificial jargon such ae
been imagined bygrammariansof theold schoolor thecompilers
of newspaper articles.
A. 11. SAYCE.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
The new edition has been called for by the publisher in viewof
the continued demand for the Grammar both in Europe and in
Egypt since the first became exhausted six months ago. A
complete alphabetical list of the words used inthe Exercises on
the Accidence has been inserted, and an Appendix containing a
few additional grammaticalnotes and the work has been gene-
rally revised. A Key to the Exe;rcises, including the Stories,
has been published separately.
In Europethe book has been favourably received, buta long
and careful critique which appeared in the Journal ofthe- Royal
Asiatic Society for April 1902 contains certain remarks to which
it is necessary to reply. The writer complains, firstly, that I do
not " keep up," as Spitta does, "a regular comparison between
al and colloquial Arabic." The reason of this, he Bays,
•• La apparent when the Author's Preface is examined. From it
may be gathered that hedoesnot believe that (Jairene isderived
from classical Arabic.'" The reason why I do not throughout
haw parallels between the classical and colloquial is that the
Grammar is not intended to be a comparative one. It is not,
like Spitta's, addressed to scholars alone, but in particular to
those who seek a practical knowledge of the everyday speech of
the people. It is my firm conviction that, when the object i-
merely a practical one, the colloquial dialect should be taught
without reference to the literary, and before the Latter is
ipted. It would be difficult to quote an instance of a
person who has learnt to converse fluently in an Oriental Lan-
.•• after having become accustomed to the literary style, and
this even after a great many year- of residence in the country.
It has been my object t<> show that Cairene Arabic has a
of its own. and that it La quite unnecessary, if not wholly
incorrect, t<> base it on that of the Quraish. The reviewer
adds thai I generally reject the service of a guide, whose place
vii
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
viii
is poorly supplied by a little casual assistance which I derive
from Hebrew, Syriac, or Amharic [Aramaic?]. Bui the simi-
larity between the Hebrew and spoken Arabic verb waa long
ago remarked by Wright, and other scholars have acknowle
other pointsof resemblance, to which I have drawn attention in
the Preface to the First Edition and elsewhere. A writer in
the .Journal Asiatique of the year 18">U -ays: "En general
L'Hebreu a plus de rapports avec I'arabe vulgairequ'avec I'arabe
Litteral . . . et il en n-sulte que ce que nous appelons I'arabe
vulgaire est egalemeut on dialects fori ancien;" and Renan
(Histoire des Langues SSmitiques) "L'arabe vulgaire
:
bien plus rapproche' que I'arabe litteral de 111' breu <-t du I
itiel des Langues Semitiques." The similarity 1"'
Oairene and Aramaic grammar and the forms which words
me in these two languages is v>r\ -;riU•:._:. For example,
tie- literarj Arabic thamanin f. thamaniyatun eight, thaurun
".'. dhira'un urm, appeal- in Aramaic as temaney f. temanj
anddera', in Egyptian Arabic as tamanya, diraV
,
vernacular shirsh root exists in Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic, but
not in classical Arabic; the noun qashsh, regarded, it seems, by
puristsasavulgai word, is used in 'In- Bookof Exodus I
the stubble which tie' Israelites gathered fortheir bricks. M\
in drawing attention to these poiit ambiance
I'• sen bhe Egyptianvernacular andancient Semiticlangu
remove at leasl one prejudice against the former by show-
ing that tic title of 'arabi maksur (or mekassar is bestowed
upon i* in tie- erroneous assumption thai its wordsand forma
are merely corruptions of Koranic Arabic which pi in
I
since the Hejira, and that because it- grammar diffi
\ . wygrammar it has do grammar at .ill! Max Aluller
in a most instructive passage thai " It is a mistake to inu.
thatdialectsareeverywherecorruptionsofthe literary langv
. . . The} an1 parallel streams which existed Long before the
tin..- when die- of them was raised to that tempoi
which i- the resull of Literary cultivation. Dialects axial
vious to the formation of Literary Langua
Language is bul one out of iuan\ dialects ; nord ill follow
that, after one of them ha- been raised to the dignity
Literary Language, the others Bhould suddenly he silenced or
. ,. "i i 'hancerj Arabic, follows the Hebrew in
senting tie- Koranic i/i and •/// by sibilants, thus II
', while Aramaic Vi
represent them Lnvariabl] bj t and d
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
ut
strangled. On the contrary, they live on in full vigour,
. . .
though in comparative security; an<l unless the literary and
courtly languages invigorate hemselvesbyaconstantly renewed
I
intercourse with their former companions, the popular dialects
will sooner <>r later assert their ascendancy."1
The reviewer doubts whether the final letters of ab, akh,
and a few other words noted in ? 24 are in reality doubled, and
remarks that "a double consonant closing a syllable would be
pronounced in exactly the sameway as a -ingle one; its dupli-
cation could only lie apparent when it isfollowed by a 'helping'
vowel." Itwas because I had heard the helping vowel thai 1
wrote these consonants double. Moreover, it is not exact to
say that a final doubled consonant is pronounced in precisely
the same way as a single one (see § 24, Remark b).- 1 observe
with the exception of ab, all these words are written with
. man! in Spiro's Arabicvocabulary.3 DammWood,
omitted in the first edition, is now added to the lit
The reviewer next disputes the orthography of the words
written with t, d, 8, and /., instead of t, d, S, and z. and suggests
that •• somebody on the spot should inquire whether the c
nants are really transmuted in the manner indicated.1
only have 1 submitted the spelling of these words to a oa1
and often to more than one native, but in many cases 1 have
found the words written as 1 have given them by persons w
education is only such as to enable them to write phonetically,
or by kdtibe reporting the exact pronunciation of the speaker.
following, for instance, I have recently noticed: nidauwar,
za'bf) lamda, darb (quarter, district), >{. asauwat,
\\n (.</tr gam her). Sometimes I have been cor-
rected when pronouncing a word as it is written in the literarj
I, and told thai " whate—ver it may be in Nahwy,
pronounce in Arabic with a t '' or s or whatever it maybe.
All these things I have earel'ulb noted, ami I do not think that
anybody else "on the spot" would be able to proceed with
i 1 caution than 1 have myself.4
thisrule the Hebrew literary language gradually
way to the popular Aramaic after GOO i:.c.
al " Bpitta.
He doubles the b of ab in the plural only.
um has no* been omitted from the list, though u
and en b) Bpiro in the senseof tobefolded. Both
din i/ and almas appear in bis vocabulary, but the oommon pro-
num-i.ition is all
x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The next observation is as follows:—" Tin- helping or semi-
vowels are not as a rule represented. . . . Itis hard to explain
the reason of the omission of the Bign f<>r hamzah qat* before a
vowel, or to understand how the presence of this consonant can
be divined. When mara is written how i- any one to fa
that it must be pronounced mara?" The helping vowels are
believed to be represented throughout the book wherever they
are pronounced, and 1 have not been able to discover omissions.
As to the omission of the sign qat'a (') the note on p. '2'2 of
Grammarwas intended toconvey that this Bign would be econo-
mise!! before a word beginning with a vowel, as ana / for 'ana,
as its omission there could cause no confusion. When
in the middle of a word, as in mas'ala, it'aggar, it i> al
printed; bui it is not printed in mara, because mara and
mar'a is the only pronunciation in use by all
spina, the reviewer Bays, does nut corroborate m\ view that
the indefiniti article wahid agrees with the noun. Some ej
tdons to the rule have already been given in the
i
footnote), and it must he admitted that wahid
&c . will often be said by natives of the Lower orders v.
constant touch with Europeans, jusi ej will say "
fursha and itiien kurb&g. Manyof them will even commil
barbarisms in conversation with one anothei 'Yeqallidn 1
afrang l>i 1 kal&m hi sabab innuhum 'ashu t Taly&niya wi 1
[grig wi 1 rngllz," a was remarked tome bya nativewhoavoids
such unnatural corruptions Some believe that it hing
to imitate European Arabic. Bui these • ould
suiel\ he avoided by Europeans who wish to speak correctly,
just as they are avoided by the higher clast
They are ool even known to those who have no intei with
Europeans
s ther points of difference between Spitta and
i
pointed <>nt for instance, that the forms it'isam, itfihim,
jiu'ti by Spitta are nol recognised 1>\ me. It may be
forms ate used in Upper Egypt, bu1 1 have been unable
to meet with anyone who ha- beard them in ('aiio. But the
most importanl point i- the concord of the
I voidine; •
iinm.i
sitt. lio1 lamn. tt. I am at .1 |oS8 (•• undIer-' J
ireful at
elusion. No douht \' Will l>e fiv<pitMllI\ heard if the
kei t- in 1 on with a European, o! if i from
Sudan, 01