Dear Gregg,
First of all, I am very sorry. I am writing these from bed after a week
being away from the outside world, friends, colleagues, etc. So I am in a
bad temper. I think my writing looked like a half-flame...
I apologize from all the poeple on the list...
It seems that most of the texts published in the outside world about
Arabic script are written by non-Arabic writing people, so there is some
ambiguity or incompleteness in them. And those written by Arabic writers,
have a lot of mistakes in English or any other foreign language, so can
not be understood well. (Just like mine ;)
On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Reynolds, Gregg wrote:
> "Wrong." doesn't help much. Do you mean "incorrect" or "incomplete" or ???
> My account of the semantics is a loose translation of an Arabic source. The
> key point is phonetic assimilation ("idghaam"); whether assimilation means
> that /n/ completely disappears or becomes very faint is a side issue in my
> opinion. What counts is that it have distinct semantics.
Ok, let's complete the case. I meant that this is not the only case.
The tanween is written in the alternate form even when followed by
"maabaghee" letters. There are four rules for noon with sukun or tanween
followed by another letter:
1. Idqaam, as you told, when followed by YEH, REH, MEEM, LAM, WAW, NOON.
2. Iqlaab, when followed by BEH.
3. Iz-haar, when followed by guttural letters, HAMZA (any kind), HEH, HAH,
KHAH, AIN, GHAIN.
4. Ikhfaa, in other cases ("maabaghee"). To list the letters, they will be
TEH, THEH, JEEM, DAL, THAL, ZAIN, SEEN, SHEEN, SAD, DAD, TAH, ZAH, FEH, QAF,
and KAF.
Let's not bother that much now with the meaning of the words, or what
happens when we pronounce, but only about our Tanween.
Tanween will be written in the alternate format in cases 1 and 4, that
are both "Idqaam" and "Ikhfaa" (not only Idghaam).
The very important note here is that by this "following" we don't mean
next letter that you write. In arabic there are many cases that the
letter are written but not pronounced (this occurs with ALEF, LAM, WAW,
and YEH). But we mean the next pronounced letter, which may be even four
or five letters ahead.
So, to make examples, there are two cases, one mentioned by Gregg,
(idghaam) in a word like "kitaab-un mubeen" which is written
0643 062A 0627 0628 064C 0645 0628 064A 0646
KAF TEH ALEF BEH DAMMATAN MEEM BEH YEH NOON.
Here DAMMATAN is a place that Idghaam occurs (rule 1), so the /n/ hidden
in it will be pronounced /m/ (kitaab-um-mubeen). It will also be written
in an alternate form that is being talked about.
The other case is Ikhfaa (rule 4). In a word like "kitaab-un kareem"
which is written
0643 062A 0627 0628 064C 0643 0631 064A 0645
KAF TEH ALEF BEH DAMMATAN KAF REH YEH MEEM.
Here the /n/ hidden in DAMMATAN will become weak and faint and somehow
nasal also. Here also, DAMMATAN should be written in the alternate
format we are talking about.
Ok, this seems enough for now. I am a volunteer for writing the purposal.
My employer (Sharif University of Technology Computing Center) pays me for
being on such lists and contributing things like this, and the purposal
can be sponsored by the University.
--Roozbeh
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