Shadee Elmasry – Lesson 1 The Long Vowels

Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim. One of the things that came up when we

did our first set of videos on Arabic when which we had the text

on the screen is that well, what about people who you know are

still learning. And we figured let's make this a one stop shop.

Let's make Safina online a one stop shop. So the alphabet now is

something that we want to put up and we'll put up part of it.

Publicly, the rest of it will be free, but it will be on Safina

online on the teachable site so people can ask questions. So let's

just take a quick overview. So the Arabic alphabet is actually pretty

easy. Believe it or not, the pronunciation is the harder part.

So your longer vowels are three and if

and if and well, and, yeah, okay, these are your long vowels and

these to the well in the in the also act as constants. Now, the

easy thing about Arabic is that there are a set of eight letters

that are all the same, except for the dots. So that and that makes

it easy for reading or memorizing the letters, but actually makes

reading a bit of a challenge because you have to your eyes have

to make do take two steps, you have to see the what they call the

global element of the letter, which is the plate that you see

here, and then the local element of the letter, which is the dots,

okay, so better than Jeem have got

then Dell and that

the Nura and Zane

seen sheen

solid body, these are the two hardest letters, the body in

particular thought

and a lot.

And then you have your eye again. And again. So you notice it's

basically a series of dots. That's the that's the whole thing is the

issue of the dots. And then you have seven letters that are

separated and that is fat

off calf.

And then calf looks like that at the beginning.

And then

them meme known

her.

Whoa, you have lamb Elif is actually a letter. And then yet

you notice that well when you get repeat here. Because they are both

they double up as vowels and consonants. Okay, they double up

as vowels and consonants. So that's your overview of the

alphabet in general. And I mean, it's easy to sit there and

memorize it. And the thing is, you can't be afraid of Arabic and

nervous and I don't know what to do. And it's actually not that

hard. You just got to swim in whether it's Arabic books or

videos, and constantly write them down and just swim in it. And just

language is learned by acquisition. It's not always so

systematic. And that's one of the things that people get turned off,

or they get intimidated by or they hesitate because they wonder how

can I systematically do this, you don't systematically learn a

language, even though system systems are good, but the

systematic element doesn't work all the time.

So now let's empty the screen. And let's look at the LFO. And the now

the lf you oftentimes see it presented as so. But in reality,

the Hamza is a consonant by itself. And the vowel element is

just the stripe. The Elif is the vowel element. Okay, so you know

what, let's, let's increase the font a little bit here. Let's go

up to 50.

Divided for deck.

So oftentimes, you see the elephant in life. So with the

Hamza, the Hamza is actually a consonant. It's a almost you could

say a letter by itself, right? Even though we don't consider it a

letter. It's not counted as a letter, but in fact, it is the

sound that comes up, which is right up here. Okay. Is the and

here it is by itself. Okay? Is the sound, right? And the LF by itself

is just the stripe. Okay? Just the stripe. Now, for in terms of

meaning, this LF right here that I just highlighted, it renders the

verb that comes after it to be a question. So let's say I said the

verb shut if you drink. That's a verb, right? I want to ask now,

did you drink? So I would make it ash at hippo? Right. So you place

that Elif, and Hamza in front of a word. That's one of the meanings

that that some prefix does. And one of the usages of the edit with

the Hamza is to render something into a question. So Carla mukha

means your pen. If I say a color Mocha, it means is it your pen?

Okay, so that's one of the meanings of the LF with the Hamza.

Now we go to the way it's written. And the let's say we have text.

Let's just throw a bunch of text here. And then we want to add an

ad if you can add an edit, but afterwards

Nothing connects to it. If you notice here, okay, nothing

connects after the Elif. So the NF receives a connection, but it does

not give a connection. It's one of six letters that don't know one of

the few letters that don't give a connection. Okay, then the raw

Zayn Elif well, that six letters that do not connect after it. So

before it connects, but not after. All right, good. So now let's look

at that's the that's your Elif. Now, let's look at the Whoa. Okay.

Now the wo

is actually considered one of the most beautiful letters in the

Arabic language writing the all the Ottoman work and a lot of

these

calligraphers, they just love to make the world, right, they'll

just make wells by themselves or floating in the middle of the

text, you'll see oh, well, okay. It's also the symbol, the symbol

of the the Dhamma is like that. So it's close, because it's obviously

a short vowel version of the well. So that was an easy connection

right there. So now the wo is again a consonant but it's also as

we're studying here, a vowel as the OU sound. Okay? Ooh, sound.

And the wo, by itself has a couple of meanings. The first meaning is

that it is an oath. Okay. Wallahi. Alright, say Wallahi. All right,

it is an oath. Okay. The other meaning of

well is a conjunction. So if you're saying you have, you know,

so and so here, what, and then so and so here, I'm just putting any

letters right at this point. So it's a conjunction, it means and,

right. It's a conjunction meaning and so that's the second meaning

of what has actually eliminated the third one, we're only going to

cover three, so don't worry. The third one is that the well is

something called is stick Neff, which means to begin into idea,

and this is something you'll note in Arabic texts, is that the ABS

until recently never used periods. They just stopped when the

sentence was over. And they marked, they didn't mark the end

of one sentence. Rather, they marked the beginning of the next

sentence with Whoa. Okay, so they marked it with just the letter

well, and many translators end up translating well as en. So you

see, all these sentences begin with it. And they drilled it in

our heads in English language you don't start a sentence with and so

actually, that translation is incorrect. The correct translation

is that it's just a new sentence, you don't need to say anything.

You don't translate it at all, just a marker of a new sentence,

of course, the you pronounce it. And in the Quran, it's there many

times you do pronounce it, but it as a translation in meaning in

English, you don't use it, you don't put anything at all. Now

let's look at how the well connects the well again connects

from the back, let's say you put some letters down and the weld

connects from the back like so.

You want to add Well, you just loop into it. However, if you

continue writing text, there is no connection afterwards. Okay, so

the weld does not connect afterwards, just like the end if

it connects only from the back end. Well, when LFR to the

easiest, let us learn because they have one form. Got one form, they

don't have teeth. They don't change forms from beginning,

middle or end. Again, I'm just putting any letters here for now

until you start knowing words that will add words to it. Now let's

look at the last vowel and that is the right so look to edit, looked

at well, and now we're going to look at the Yep, and the again is

a consonant.

Why sound? Uh, yeah. And it's also the e sound good. So it's a

consonant of the it's the long vowel of it. Sorry, the, the long

vowel of it is the e sound. And it doesn't have any meaning by itself

the IE at the sorry, I should say at the end it does have meaning as

a word but at the end, it does indicate possession. So if I have

the word like God is the word Putnam got them and then I want to

say it's my pen yada yet by me, okay, got me. Now also, if you are

the as a suffix, did I say prefix before I met suffix also has

another meaning which is attribution. So if I say if I want

to be attributed as Hanafi for example, you say Hanna fee. Okay.

Hanafy. So the has as a suffix has two meanings being possession and

attribution. So I'm attributing myself to this method or let's say

you are American, so you say an emery key. Okay, somebody key and

good.

Or you would say, but it's funny.

Right? But it Barney. Alright, so that is attribution. So now you

know a couple of meanings. Now you're not the F with the Hamza

refers to beginning of a question. All right, we looked at three

meanings of the well and then two meanings of the yet. Okay. So

that's three meanings or total of six meanings that you've looked

at. Alright, so now let's look at and usually you might want to jot

this down. I mean, you got the video so you can just watch it

again.

and later if you forget, but these are six basic meanings. And like I

said, there is no specific system, the general system is you're going

to begin with the alphabet to learn Arabic, then you're going to

start learning words, then grammar, right, and so on and so

forth, then you read, but there is no specific system systematic way.

That's the only way you just take whatever you can get. And the more

you review, and the more you just watch videos, because we need a

thick middle class that can read classical Arabic, to end to bring

an end to the reign of nonsense that has taken over the western

hemisphere of bloggers and so called public intellectuals that

are just leading people astray if they had just limited themselves

to talking about anything else beyond theology and Islamic law,

because they are making a mess out of everything with these ideas.

And I hate to be negative, but sometimes negativity. I mean,

think about the Shahada. What is the show had to do? It begins with

false Scots says, There are no false gods, right? So it begins

with the reality that we're in, which is that there are bad things

going on. Now. This is how to rectify it. So actually, if you

think about Islamic theology and Dawa,

it begins and the prophets message, it begins with the

reality. And the reality is that there's a mess, and the reform in

modern idea, modernist ideas, reformed ideas are

totally misrepresenting a sacred tradition that is 1000s of years

old. Sorry, hundreds of years old, right over 1000 years old, I meant

to say, and we certainly have to just get back to the text and

start reading. So if you think oh, my gosh, I can't read Arabic.

Well, listen, you're gonna learn that's how simple it is. Well, you

don't know how to read Arabic, you learn. You start from today, a

year from today, you will say, Well, I'm glad I started a year

ago, I can actually read a sentence. Let's look at the, in

the beginning of the word, it looks like so okay, it's a tooth

with two dots underneath it. And then you could write

any word that you want, right? You could put an end if here, that

sound edit would look, that's how a well would look.

Now let's look at let's say you put, Let's hypothetically, say you

put a 10 letter tag, okay. And then you put a Yeah, again,

there. Yeah, in the middle of the word is this one right here.

Again, it is a tooth and two dots. And then let's say you put a meme

and then you wanted to wrap it off, wrap it up with another yet.

That's how the looks at the end. Okay. At the end, this is not a

word. I mean, it's a word. It means my orphan. I didn't intend

to write that it just I'm just throwing letters out at this

point. Okay, so that's yet yeah, meme. And yet. All right. So that

is the letter yet summarize. These are the long vowels. And we looked

at the meanings, okay, that they represent by themselves. And then

we looked at how they match up in the beginning of the word, middle

of the word and the end of the word. So that's your first lesson

in Arabic. All right. So you take your first lesson, you watch the

video a couple times, and you start putting, you know, get a

pencil. Don't use pen. Because pen is a bit slippery in when it comes

to Arabic, use a pencil and start trying to write this stuff down

and look for it in the Quran. And slowly, slowly, you will get to

the level of reading and slowly, slowly you will get to that level

of vocabulary. And as we start adding consonants, we'll make up

our own vocabulary vault so that you can start studying a Quranic

vocabulary. Just like Kamala