menu Podcast

Since London is renowned for its haunted houses, it is hardly surprising that Ehab and Mohamed have now ventured into the realm of the supernatural. Perhaps we might have a few podcasts about ghosts and other supernatural entities.

I once lived near a reputedly haunted house. I never saw anything unusual when I looked through the letter box or the front window, but the people who moved in shortly after a murder and two suicides only stayed for a few months because they couldn’t sleep at night.

As Mohamed likes horror films, he’ll probably enjoy the YouTube video entitled “shabah (ﺸﺒﺢ al-tariiq (ﺍﻠﻄﺮﻴﻖ”. The video has been uploaded by moon4ae. The final episode is very funny, and some of the dialogues might be presented in an intermediate podcast.

I love this lesson

Several linguistic problems need to be examined in greater detail. Let’s begin with the third sentence. “Lastu” (ﻠﺴﺖ is the first-person singular of “laysa” (ﻠﻴﺲ , and “laysa” (ﻠﻴﺲ is one of the strangest verbs in the Arabic language. Here are its principal peculiarities:

1. Although it is inflected with past-tense suffixes, it invariably refers to the present and therefore has to be rendered in English by present-tense verb forms.

2. It negates nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even presentative devices like “hunaaka”.

3. Since it is a sister of “kaana”, its complement is in the accusative case (mansuub). This is why Ehab says “’insaanan”. “An” is an indefinite accusative ending which is obligatory in classical Arabic and optional in MSA.

Now let’s have a look at the final sentence. “Haraba” (ﻫﺮﺐ is normally rendered as “flee”, “run away” or “escape”. In the present instance, however, these dictionary equivalents are unusable. In this kind of situation a native speaker of English would never say “Let’s flee”, “Let’s escape” or “Let’s run away.” The correct translation is “Let’s get out of here!” If you run a Google search you’ll discover that this word combination is the most-used piece of dialogue in English film history. “Yalla nahrub” has to be translated as a unit. Word-for-word translations nearly always sound ridiculous.

Finally, something needs to be said about the supernatural entity which utters the penultimate sentence. If it isn’t human it can’t be a ghost. It must be a demon. If it is lurking in a graveyard it might be a ghoul, i.e. an evil spirit believed to plunder graves and feed on corpses. (People who have read the “Arabian Nights” might remember the story of Sidi Nouman.)

“Ghoul” is “ghul” (ﻏﻮﻞ in Arabic, and “ghost” is “shabah” (ﺸﺒﺢ. You can see that the English word “ghoul” comes from Arabic. “Gh” is a transliteration of the letter “ghayn” (ﻍ. Unlike “ghul”, “shabah” has not been exported to the English language community. It is quite a difficult word because it has two broken plurals: shubuuh (ﺸﺒﻮﺡ and ‘ashbaah (ﺃﺸﺒﺎﺡ.

Your comments are very interesting and insightful as usual, Desmond. However, if a ghost/demon were really on my heels, I don't think I would bother to utter a grammatically and idiomatically correct sentence. All I'd probably do is produce a high-pitched "RUUUUUUUN!"

Thanks for your latest lessons, guys.

@ Karen

Even screams and interjections are often culture-specific. If you accidentally bump into people or tread on their toes, you'll notice that the cries they utter vary from country to country. Since I'm a polyglot my own interjections are subject to considerable variations. I don't always think in the same language.

Some musings on the root (ء ن س) of إنسان (insaan) (= human being).

ناس (naas) (= people) and آنِسَة (aanisa) (= young unmarried lady, ‘Miss’) also come from the same root.

آنَسَ / يؤنس (aanasa / yu'nis) (= to entertain with one’s company) is the form 4 Hollow verb.

آنستونا (aanastoonaa) is a polite expression to guests. It means ‘You are very good company!'

And its reply is الله يؤنسك (allaah yu’nisaka).

Without trying to be politically correct, you can use ghost and ghoul interchangeably, and no one will beat you with a stick for it. The good part about all of this is that there is no such thing as ghosts to begin with. In the life we live in, we have humans and Jinn, and among them you have good and bad. So if the "thing" wasn't human, he MUST have been from among the Jinn, (not a Demon) and even then you can tire yourself out trying to determine whether he was a naughty or nice one.

marhaban, I have a question, are pdf transcript and audio transcript same in all podcasts? what is the difference?

Hi Gracie, the difference is that the audio ones have a small AP icon next to each sentence that reads out the sentence when clicked allowing you to hear the sentence while looking at it.

@gracie: welcome aboard the Learner's Express

Mohamed: "ana harabt min as-sijn. from prison"
Ehab: "when was that?"
Mohamed: "huh?"
Ehab: "when was that?"
Mohamed: "what?"
Ehab: "you escaped from the prison"
Mohamed: "I didnt escape from prison"
Ehab: "you just said that"
Mohamed: "I wasnt in prison"
Ehab: "you just said that"

lol

@ aliyah.m

Four points need to be made here. First, believing in ghosts has nothing to do with political correctness. Second, “ghost” and “ghoul” cannot be used interchangeably (see the definitions in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary). Third, the identity of the supernatural being in the podcast is unimportant. As far as Arabic grammar is concerned, ghosts, ghouls, demons and jinn all belong to the same category (ﻋﺎﻗﻞ. Fourth, the Arabic word “jinniyy” (ﺠﻨﻲ can mean “demon” as well as “genie”. The djinn (ﺠﻦ played an important role in pre-Islamic mythology, and in the pre-Islamic world there were no clear-cut boundaries between demons and djinn or between demons and gods. The djinn were considered as divinities of inferior rank.

The reason there were no boundaries is simple: They were ignorant of the facts of life. An example is how people used to worship wind and fire. They simply didn't have a 'clue'. Im not surprised at knowing that in the pre-islamic world there were no clear cut boundaries. No, I'm not shocked at all, since it was Islam itself which taught mankind the upright nature and educated them about the facts of life. This, however, is a different story and should be saved for a different forum. In English, (and I have about 24 years of experience), we DO use ghost and ghoul interchangeably, regardless of what the dictionary says. As always, your input is as valuable as anyone elses. Thanx again Des!

@Desmond - I forgot to mention that the political correctness I spoke of was not referring to the 'belief' in ghosts, but it was referring to the fact that no one will take you to jail if you use ghost/ghoul interchangeably, and as I said before, we do use it interchangeably in America and no one rings the alarm of causes any jalabah about it.

that last line should read:

'or' causes any jalabah about it

@ aliyah.m

You are probably right when you say that some Americans use “ghost” and “ghoul” interchangeably, and you are certainly right when you say that nobody will be jailed for confusing ghosts with ghouls. If the incorrect use of English were a criminal offence, American prisons would be full to overflowing, and many prominent American politicians, including some former presidents, would be behind bars.

The fact remains that “ghost” and “ghoul” should not be used interchangeably. The lexicographers are right, and people who use “ghost” and “ghoul” interchangeably are wrong.

It is essential that language should be used correctly because lexical and grammatical errors inevitably hinder communication and often give rise to serious misunderstandings. Your incorrect use of pronouns and articles, for instance, makes your comments hard to read. Here are some examples:

“So if the “thing” wasn’t human he MUST” “He” can’t refer to “thing” because “thing” is neuter.

“They were ignorant”. The pronoun “they” has no antecedent. To be more precise, the antecedent is in your mind, but not in your text.

“the upright nature”. This is incomprehensible. What upright nature? There ought to be a prepositional phrase or a relative clause here.

“we do use it interchangeably”. “It” can’t refer to two words.

Questions on the excellent PLC. It identifies orally as equivalent to "we escape" two words/phrases I would write down as li nahrub and li nafora min huna. Question 1: Is a separate "li" in those two phrases correct? If so, how do you break down the phrase meaning? Question 2: if the "li" is rather connected as a particle, how do you break down the "li-na" (analyze the "na" particle, which evidently stands for "we") within the word-phrase? Shouldn't it be at the beginning of the word? Incidentally the PLCs are terrific, but I would ask everyone except Ehab/Mohamed to turn up the recording volume so that soft voices can be heard.

@Chazyouwin

1. لنهرب

"li" in this case means "let"

2. لنفر من هنا

There is another way to say "let" and that is

دع - this word can be used as an appeal or an implore, among other things

da3+nee = دعني = let me
da3+naa = دعنا = let us

you could have also said: دعنا نهرب من هنا

دعني لوحدي = let me to myself (leave me alone)

Thanks Aliyah.m. I don't believe we've heard about "li" as "let" in the podcasts as of yet. When it is added to the rest of the words do the other parts of the words contain a "we," or do they just begin coincidentally with a "na"?

Entering into this debate over "ghost" and "ghoul" equivalence, I think growing up in the U.S. I somehow associated a ghoul with malevolence and a ghost with a mere spirit of a dead person. I wouldn't have thought of a ghoul and a ghost as equivalent. It would indeed be very strange to think of Casper as "The Friendly Ghoul."

@Chazyouwin lol. Casper is my friend!

The prefix ن appears at the beginning of present tense verbs and = we

The suffix نا appears at the end of past tense verbs (how convenient!) and = we

Even if you remove the "li", nahrub نهرب still means "we escape" because of the prefix ن

أهرب I escape (ahrub)
تهرب You escape (tahrub)
نهرب We escape (nahrub)

Are you familiar with verb conjugations?

@Aliyah.m - Yes, familiar with what has been taught here. What threw a spanner into the works was the presence of the "li" meaning "let" as an extra addition at the beginning of the word. I believe you have now clarified everything. Thank you!

In Arabic, an order or a command is given using the imperative mood of the verb. It is formed from the second person (‘You’ singular / plural) jussive mood of the verb, and involves deletion of the subject marker تـ and using alif instead. (For details, refer my comment in the Beginner lesson – Baby talk: Be careful.)

But an ‘indirect’ order or encouragement or suggestion can be expressed by prefixing the particle ل (li) to the first person (‘I’, ‘we’) or the third person (‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’) jussive mood of the verb WITHOUT deleting the subject marker. This is called لام الأةر (permissive or hortative imperative). It can be translated as ‘May …..!’ or ‘Let …. !’

Sometimes, the particle ل may be preceded by the conjunction فـ (fa) or و (wa). In such cases, the short vowel is dropped from ل (ie, li becomes fal or wal; NOT fa-li or wa-li)

For example,
يشرب (yashrabu) = He drinks (the standard present tense)
(The jussive of yashrabu is yashrab)
اشرب (ishrab) = Drink! (the imperative, giving order or command)
ليشرب (li-yashrab) = Let him drink!
فليشرب (fal-yashrab) = So let him drink!
وليشرب (wal-yashrab) = And let him drink!

Sorry for the typo. The correct word is - لام الأمر

@ vinod

You’ve provided a very plausible explanation of the “fal” which is sometimes used to form a hortative imperative. There is a good example at the beginning of the dialogue presented in the podcast entitled “Let’s go!”

Perhaps I ought to mention ﻫﻴﺎ (hayyaa). This is a hortative particle which is followed by a first person plural verb in the jussive mood. I’ve often encountered this particle in educative videos where people converse in archaic classical Arabic.

It is important to distinguish between two senses of “let”. This verb frequently introduces a hortative imperative, but it is also used in the sense of “permit”. There is a typical example in the podcast entitled “Techie Talk”. "Da’ny (ﺪﻋﻨﻲ 'ara (ﺃﺮﻯ" could be rendered in English as “Just let me have a look” or “Let’s have a look”. In French this would be “Faites voir”, and in German I would say “Lassen Sie mal sehen!”. In the Lebanese dialect a completely different expression is employed: "haat (ﻫﺎﺖ lashuuf (ﻠﺸﻮﻒ".

A few weeks ago I wanted to have a look at a sentence one of my students had just written in his notebook (ﺪﻓﺘﺮ. When I said "Da’ny (ﺪﻋﻨﻲ 'ara (ﺃﺮﻯ" he didn’t understand, so I switched to the Lebanese dialect and said "haat (ﻫﺎﺖ lashuuf (ﻠﺸﻮﻒ". Immediately his eyes lit up. He replied in his native Lebanese dialect and handed me his notebook.

Perhaps I should also say something about the Arabic verb that puzzled Charles. The past tense of this verb is ﻓﺮ (farra), and the corresponding present tense form is ﻴﻓﺮ (yafirru). It is generally rendered in English as “flee” or “escape”, but in many cases “run away” or “get out” may be more appropriate translation equivalents.