Case endings/I’RAAB
Case endings (Irab)
( Inflection and last vowels )
Irab is a complex topic. The videos below are helpful.
First, what are case endings in Arabic? They are little markings (حركات Harakaat) that are attached to the ends of words to indicate the words' grammatical function. That is, if a word is the subject of a sentence, you use a case ending to indicate that; if a word is the object of a verb, you use another case ending to indicate that. So clearly, using case endings correctly requires a solid knowledge of grammar. If you're a native English speaker who hasn't studied a language with a case system, like Latin or Russian, getting used to this may be difficult.
to start with,
Please note the following three sentences
- Hamid smacked Mahmood
- Mahmood smacked Hamid
- Mahmood smacked Hamid's brother
In these sentences what is it that makes Hamid :
the doer of an action, (in the first)
the receiver of an action (in the second)
and Hamid remains neither the doer nor the receiver but is only used in reference with a new receiver of the action (in the third)
??
While in English the word Hamid remains exactly the same whatever the case, in Arabic there are some changes that take place in the noun by which we can tell the case of the noun.
2 Example of different forms of nouns
حَامِدٌ
حَامِدًا
حَامِدٍ
مُحَمَّدٌ - as in kalima shahadat
مُحَمَّدً - as in azaan
مُحَمَّدٍ - as in durud shareef
Also note:
In English the order of the words in a sentence defines the case of the word.
Hamid smacked Mahmood
(Doer) (Verb) (Receiver)
Now, there is no way that one can write Mahmood smacked Hamid and still try to imply the same meaning as the above sentence,
in other words:
In English:
Hamid (Verb) Mahmood IS NOT EQUAL TO Mahmood (Verb) Hamid
CONCLUSION= order is MOST important.
in Arabic:
Hamid (Verb) Mahmood CAN BE EQUAL TO Mahmood (Verb) Hamid
CONCLUSION= order is NOT the MOST important
How is it possible ?
By changing the Iraab. Something attached at the end of the names makes the names independent of their place in the sentence in Arabic.
above taken from befriending the Quran.Their website is excellant .see link below for more resources.
https://sites.google.com/site/befriendingthequran/4-attributes-of-ism/i-raab<br>
The videos below is from iarabic , Dr Mohsin Saeed and Al Huda diaries and Langfocus . Thanks to them for the excellant videos which are available on youtube.
