Transliterated Arabic words ending in '-ah'. Where is this 'h' from?
Raymond Roy
This question has possibly been asked here before, but as far as I am
concerned, I am in the dark.
I am simply wondering why so many feminine Arabic word ending in '-a' in
this language are transliterated with '-ah' ('laTîfa' -> 'Latifah') in
English and possibly in other languages.
Granted, in Arabic, this '-a' is followed by a latent letter; however,
it is not 'h' but '-t', which can be heard in the course of declension
(for instance 'madînata', accusative of 'madîna').
Any clue?
Raymond Roy
Peter T. Daniels
The "-t" is a taa' marbuuta, which is an <h> with two dots, because some
dialects of Arabic had /h/ there as in Hebrew, rather than /t/ (as in
Hebrew when endings are attached).
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Yusuf B Gursey
it's (ta:' marbu:Ta) graphically a ha:' with two dots. the pausal form
was
[-ah] (as determined from the rhyme in old classical poetry), later
this became [-a] and in context it was [at] + case ending. the
standard orthography always followed the pausal forms, so two dots
(when the orthogrpahy was standardized) were added to indicate the
non-pausal pronounciation.
later, as the spoken language drifted towards the modern colloquials
it became
[-a] except in constructs, when it became [-at].
-a:(t) (with *long* a) is pronounced -a: in Egypt but -a:t in Greater
Syria.
> Any clue?
>
>
> Raymond Roy
Yusuf B Gursey
few had [t] in all contexts. Himyari, the non-standard dialect of
yemen had [t] throughout. most seemed to have [t] in context and [-h],
later zero in pause (with "pause" generalized as to how much it had
diverged to the colloquials)