Talk:Modern Standard Arabic/Archive 1

What is meant by the "energetic mood"?

Quality

This article could be much better. It does not answer basic questions like "Who made up MSA?", "When was MSA created?", and "Who sets the standards for MSA?"

It would be good if someone more knowledgable than myself could address these deficiencies.

presentation of the word fuSHa

How come there the dot shows up underneath the letter "s" and the letter "a". It should show up underneath the "s" and "h" in the word. Is this just a problem with my computer. Or did someone misspell it.

This page is all-wrong!! (sorry)

What is referred to here as "Modern Standard Arabic" is really the same Arabic Language of the Quran and (Al-Fus-haa), the difference can be said to be merely the "style" and the word choices.
I'm a native Arabic speaker, by the way.

The page presents five differences,
1 Influence from Dialects
2 Pronunciation
3 Syntax
4 Vocabulary

Let's examine them:
First is "Influence from Dialects", the writer(s) say:
((It is inevitable that an artificially maintained language coexisting with naturally-spoken forms of the same language will allow elements of the latter to creep into the former. This has occurred in Modern Standard Arabic.))

I think this is not true, can you provide an example of where this happened? I can't think of any, and I didn't notice any.

The second point is "Pronunciation"
((When spoken extemporaneously, case endings and mood endings are not observed. The final short vowels on past-tense verb forms drop or change in a way that is similar to the spoken forms.))

This is not a feature of the langauge, this is an error often committed by newscasters and such, but it's not a part or a feature of the language.

For "Syntax", several points are made:
((The verb, as often as not, comes between the subject and object.))
This is not new, it's also present in the "Classical Arabic".

((An existential "There is..." construction has been introduced by calquing the word هناك (hu-naa-ka) or هنالك (hu-naa-li-ka), both meaning "there", in imitation of English sentences such as "There were three problems".))
I cannot really assert that this is false, because I'm not sure about it, but I'd say that I doubt it very much.

((The energetic mood no longer exists in Modern Standard Arabic.))
Sorry, what's the energetic mood?

((Secondary object pronouns were attached directly onto the verb complex in Classical Arabic, but use a separate helper إيا ('iyyaa-) in Modern Standard Arabic.))
Sorry again, what are Secondary object pronouns?! I tried google, but all I got was copies of this wiki page!

The next point is "Vocabulary":
((Much Koranic vocabulary has disappeared or become less commonly used in secular contexts, and Classical Arabic words for common terms often have different Modern Standard Arabic equivalents. This is often due to dialect borrowing.))
Well, again this is a matter of word choice! It's still the same language!!

If you can provide references to reliable sources that back up your points, then go ahead and change the article. Using reliable references is critical because the fact that you are a native speaker is good, but in and of itself it does not mean you are correct about all facets of the language. Lots of native English speakers have no idea about the details of the language. So do some good research to a variety of sources and see if you can coordinate all the material in the various articles on the various Arabic languages. - Taxman ^Talk 16:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, you see, I think it's the actual page that needs reliable sources, specially the first and the second points (influence from dialects, and pronounciation).

You're right though; I specially need confirmation for the Syntax part. For the Vocabulary though, I'm not saying it's false, I'm just saying it's not a valid "difference" between MAS and Classical Arabic, i.e. not something that makes MSA different from FusHa.