#EveryDayArabic February 5th 2024
In "Dogged" Pursuit of Arabic in Everyday Life
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In "Dogged" Pursuit of Arabic in Everyday Life
Feb 5
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The perennial question of all students of language is: “how do I gain fluency?” Well, today’s answer to this seminal question is easy! Dogged pursuit!
Part of this journey is looking at both the interrelated meanings of the various Morphological Forms (الأوزان الصرفية/al-awzān al-ṣarfiyyah) but also at the meanings that are staring you right in the face but you might overlook them but beginning students often cannot see the forest ‘fore the trees due to the focus on grammar (although, I suppose this little post is, strictly speaking, also about grammar). Take for instance, the word for dog in Arabic: كلب/"kalb". Like almost all words, especially nouns, in the Arabic language, they have a verbal root/component. “Kalb”, or “dog”, is no different. This is made more apparent in the morphological form of “tafā’ala/تفاعل”, or in this case, more specifically, “تكالب/takālaba” which we can think of as “dogged pursuance”. This morphological form typically requires another object to interact with (i.e., the thing which you are doggedly pursuing) and so we also see it in the Eighty Third Chapter of the Qur’ān, Sūrah al-Muṭaffifīn:
وَفِى ذَٰلِكَ فَلْيَتَنَافَسِ ٱلْمُتَنَـٰفِسُونَ
“So let the competitors compete in that.”
Similarly, Dr. ‘Alī Tawfīq al-Ḥamd, the editor for ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s Kitāb al-Miftāḥ fī al-Ṣarf, a classic work on introducing the science of Arabic morphology (ṣarf), states about al-Jurjānī’s poetry:
سَخَّرَ عبد القاهر في بَعْضِ شِعْرِهِ وَوْقِفَهُ من الزمانِ, ونِفاقَ أهلِهِ, وتَكالُبَهم على الدُنيا بكلّ الوسائِل
“Abd al-Qāhir documented in some of his poetry his stance towards the times he lived in, the hypocrisy of his people, and their dogged pursuit of worldly gains using any and all means.”
So as you progress in your studies, as you acquire and build and flesh out your vocabulary, don’t forget to stop and smell the roses, or take man’s best friend for a walk. You just might discover something right under your nose!
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