# Urdu: Filhaal فی الحال



## Todd The Bod

I did an advanced search and didn't find any definition of the word.  What does it mean, please?


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## panjabigator

The spelling is not intuitive: فی الحال.  It means "now, present" but I typically use/hear it as "in the meanwhile" or "for now".


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## BP.

_fii_=in, _al_-the, _Haal_-present. Arabic borrowing.


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## Koozagar

Some usage examples:
filhaal itnay paisoN meiN hi guzara karo.
filhaal is maslay ka koi hal nahiN hay


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## teaboy

"for the timebeing"


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## Todd The Bod

Koozagar said:


> Some usage examples:
> filhaal itnay paisoN meiN hi guzara karo.
> filhaal is maslay ka koi hal nahiN hay



Thanks to everyone, but how do these two examples translate?


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## panjabigator

Koozagar said:


> Some usage examples:
> filhaal itnay paisoN meiN hi guzara karo.
> filhaal is maslay ka koi hal nahiN hay



(loosely translated)

In the meantime, make do with this much money.
For now, this problem has no solution.


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## harkabir

The assimilation of the long vowel "ee" of fee and the short vowel "a" of al-Haal is a result of a feature of the Arabic language. In speech the definite marker al prefixed to any word is always assimilated with the last vowel of the preceding word.

The Al which takes this assimilation with the previous word's last vowel shows absolutely no vowel over the "A" and has a sukoon / khafeef (circle) over the "L" of the Al it as its own vowel. The absence of any vowel over the "A" of the Al indicates a total lack of any inherent sound for that "A".

In the case of a Sun letter which has the Al prefixed to it the "L" of the Al is omitted all together and the first letter of the Sun letter is simply doubled ie said out twice. In this case neither the "A" nor the "L" of the Al has a vowel over it as both are inherently silent (more on this here)"])

Here are some examples from common names:

نورُ الْحسن Noor Ul-Hasan - said out as "noorul Hasan"
عبدُ الله Abd Ul-Allah - said out as "Abdul-lah"
سراجُ الدّولة Siraaj Ud-Daulah - said out as "Siraajud Daulah" (note that here the Ud is acutally an Ul/Al with a Sun letter "D" following it which results in the omission of the "L" of Ul/Al. )

Another example of the assimilation using a brief sentence:

English: The teacher's son went to his old class today.

Written Arabic (MSA/ESA etc.): اليومَ ذهبَ ولدُ الْمعلّمِ إلى فصلِهِ الْقديمِ

Said out as:  alyauma dhahaba waladul muallimi ilay faslihil qadeemi

All instances of the definitive marker Al in the sentence above get assimilated into the last vowel of the preceding word. Notice the total absence of any vowel signs over the "A" of these Al which take the assimilation. 

Hence the deceptive Fil-Haal,  فی الحال - في الْحال which I too failed to find in an Urdu dictionary and uncovered as pure Arabic much later on 

Another thing to note here is that in although the phrase is written as  فی الحال with a long vowel "ee" at the end of the first word Fee, in MSA and most dialects of Arabic this long vowel "ee" is assimilated as a short vowel "e" with the succeeding Al. Hence "Filhaal" and not "Feelhaal". 

I doubt you wanted to know so much detail about this but I felt like writing it anyway as these were the steps in my journey of the discovery of the rationale behind  فی الحال.

Arabic grammar, pain is so close to pleasure.


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## teaboy

What is a _Sun_ letter?


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## BP.

teaboy said:


> What is a _Sun_ letter?


I'd like to know this one too!


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## harkabir

Well as mentioned in the link I had provided earlier, the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet (abjad) are divided into two groups of 14 letters each. One group is known as the Sun letters حروف شمسيّة (haroof shamsiyya) and the other group is known as the Moon letters حروف قمريّة (haroof qamariyya). 

The Sun letters of the Arabic abjad are:
ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ل ن

Pronunciation:
The Sun letters (شمسية) have a special characteristic wherein whenever the definite particle Al is prefixed to a word starting with any of the 14 Sun letters, the "L" Lam of the Al is not pronounced. Instead of the "L" the initial Sun letter is doubled and pronounced with the "A"of the prefixed "Al". 

In Writing:
This doubling of the initial Sun letter of the word is indicated in writing by a shaddah  ّ as the tashkeel of that Sun letter. Further the "L" of the prefixed Al has absolutely no vowel sign over it to indicate that it is entirely unvoiced (total absence of any short vowel, including the short vowel "a" , as in "cut")

Hence
نور = Noor - light   but   النّور = An-Noor - the light
ثبوت = Thaboot - evidence   but   الثّبوت = Ath-Thaboot - the evidence
دراجة = Daraajah - motorcycle but الد٘راجۃ
so on an so forth.

Hence مسجدُ النّبي - Masjidun-Nabee and not Masjidul-Nabee

The 14 Moon letters do allow the "L" of the the prefixed Al to be voiced. The Moon letters are أ ب ج ح خ ع غ ف ق ك م و ة

Hence
الْمعلّم = Al-Muallim - the teacher
الْحكمة = Al - Hikmah - the wisdom
الْكبير = Al- Kabeer - the great

It helps to keep in  mind that the word Sun in Arabic شمس itself starts with a Sun letter ie ش and that the word Moon in Arabic قمر starts with a Moon letter ie ق and hence
الشّمس and الْقمر

So the Al - Haal of Filhaal is a Moon letter الْحال and the "L" will be voiced, where as in Sirajud-Daulah the "L" of الدّولة will not be voiced but instead the "D" will be doubled and spoken with the initial "A"۔

The correct pronunciation of the Sun and Moon letters is quite a handy thing to know when reading the titles of Urdu books with Arabic in them or when just generally trying to impress people 

Check this link for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_and_moon_letters


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## teaboy

Wow!  (not و...)

I'm trying to see if there is any kind of a pattern or common characteristic which would help memorize or explain which letter is in which camp.  Can't see any.  Since orthography comes after the development of a language, you'd think it might be where the sound is articulated in the mouth (so that those produced in the back of the throat or palate would combine better with or without the voiced ل, for instance), but I see ب  is tossed in with gutterals, and dentals are to be found in both camps.  

Is there any rhyme or reason to the division?


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## harkabir

شاباش
فنکی سوال

Here's the way I learnt the Sun Letters. Except for the last two Sun letters ie Lam and Nun 
all others are in pairs of sound (re-ze, toe-zoe,seen-sheen etc.), 
they are next to each other in the Arabic/Urdu abjad 
and their basic ligature (رسم) is common. 

See for your self:

ت ث
د ذ
ر ز
س ش
ص ض
ط ظ
ل ن - exceptions


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## harkabir

teaboy said:


> Wow!  (not و...)
> 
> Since orthography comes after the development of a language, you'd think it might be where the sound is articulated in the mouth (so that those produced in the back of the throat or palate would combine better with or without the voiced ل, for instance), but I see ب  is tossed in with gutterals, and dentals are to be found in both camps.
> 
> Is there any rhyme or reason to the division?





Actually there is a reason. And it does seem to have some to do with articulation. This division into Sun and Moon does help in Arabic pronunciation and somehow the "L" sound does not go well with the Sun letters. Ash-Shams is so much more mellifluous that Al-Shams. It is not as easy to explain this phenomenon as to simply demonstrate it but once you start using the Sun letters as they should be you'll realize they sound so much better this way.

Even till now most linguist scholars have not been able to explain the peculiar older Semitic sounds of Arabic which is a relatively younger Semitic language. Tomes have been written on the origin of the Al and its derivation from and comparison with the Hebrew Ha and so on. Entire books have been written by Arabic grammarians through the ages on just the "Al". No kidding.


And yes this whole concept is Wow (not و). It is known in linguistics as "gemination" . 


Further علم-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-


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## omlick

harkabir said:


> The assimilation of the long vowel "ee" of fee and the short vowel "a" of al-Haal is a result of a feature of the Arabic language. In speech the definite marker al prefixed to any word is always assimilated with the last vowel of the preceding word.
> 
> The Al which takes this assimilation with the previous word's last vowel shows absolutely no vowel over the "A" and has a sukoon / khafeef (circle) over the "L" of the Al it as its own vowel. The absence of any vowel over the "A" of the Al indicates a total lack of any inherent sound for that "A".
> 
> In the case of a Sun letter which has the Al prefixed to it the "L" of the Al is omitted all together and the first letter of the Sun letter is simply doubled ie said out twice. In this case neither the "A" nor the "L" of the Al has a vowel over it as both are inherently silent (more on this here)"])
> 
> Here are some examples from common names:
> 
> نورُ الْحسن Noor Ul-Hasan - said out as "noorul Hasan"
> عبدُ الله Abd Ul-Allah - said out as "Abdul-lah"
> سراجُ الدّولة Siraaj Ud-Daulah - said out as "Siraajud Daulah" (note that here the Ud is acutally an Ul/Al with a Sun letter "D" following it which results in the omission of the "L" of Ul/Al. )
> 
> Another example of the assimilation using a brief sentence:
> 
> English: The teacher's son went to his old class today.
> 
> Written Arabic (MSA/ESA etc.): اليومَ ذهبَ ولدُ الْمعلّمِ إلى فصلِهِ الْقديمِ
> 
> Said out as: alyauma dhahaba waladul muallimi ilay faslihil qadeemi
> 
> All instances of the definitive marker Al in the sentence above get assimilated into the last vowel of the preceding word. Notice the total absence of any vowel signs over the "A" of these Al which take the assimilation.
> 
> Hence the deceptive Fil-Haal, فی الحال - في الْحال which I too failed to find in an Urdu dictionary and uncovered as pure Arabic much later on
> 
> Another thing to note here is that in although the phrase is written as فی الحال with a long vowel "ee" at the end of the first word Fee, in MSA and most dialects of Arabic this long vowel "ee" is assimilated as a short vowel "e" with the succeeding Al. Hence "Filhaal" and not "Feelhaal".
> 
> I doubt you wanted to know so much detail about this but I felt like writing it anyway as these were the steps in my journey of the discovery of the rationale behind فی الحال.
> 
> Arabic grammar, pain is so close to pleasure.


 
Thanks for taking time to explain the reason why the "al" sort of disappears when you say it.  In Hindi, the spelling of course would not take into account that "al" at all, so most Hindi speakers do not even know of its existence.  The very common word "bilkuul" also is another example of this.  Now I know why it is not spelled the same way in Hindi as in Urdu.


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## harkabir

ah the bikull!!!
that is an entirely different beast from the treacherous jungle that is Arabic. 

it is actually بِ + الكُلّ = بِالكُلّ shortened to بِلْكُل in Arabic dialect/Urdu/Hindi (perhaps in Persian as well, help anyone)

The initial alif of the al-kull takes the the short i vowel of the preceding Bi

The بِ is an Arabic preposition which means "in" in some cases and "with" in others
The الكُلّ is Arabic for all / totality

Taken together they mean in totality or absolutely وغیرۃ

Another example - بِسم الله = بِ + اِسمِ + الله = In + the name + of God
Again here the initial alif of Ism gets merged with the short vowel i of the preceding Bi.


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## panjabigator

*Moderator Note:  

We've gone astray from the orignal post.



			I did an advanced search and didn't find any definition of the word (Filhaal فی الحال ).  What does it mean, please?
		
Click to expand...

Please feel free to consult the Arabic forum to continue this discussion.  (There may even be a relevant thread).

Panjabigator*


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## harkabir

Yes this is not highly relevant to the original topic. But I think this is considered a part of intermediate Urdu and both Gopi Chand Narang and C M Naim explain all about Sun and Moon letters in their textbooks on introductory Urdu.

Useful to know I feel.


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## panjabigator

I just saw the word "filwaqt".  Is this synonymous with "filhaal?"


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## linguist786

panjabigator said:


> (loosely translated)
> 
> In the meantime, make due with this much money.
> For now, this problem has no solution.


do?


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## BP.

panjabigator said:


> I just saw the word "filwaqt".  Is this synonymous with "filhaal?"


It is. However, a related word _fii zamaan_ covers a more diffused span of time.


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## panjabigator

Is it spelled فی الوقت?


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## BP.

Yes sir you're right.


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## Sheikh_14

Fil waqt and fil Haal are perfectly interchangeable synonyms. It is my understanding that the two mean at present, presently and right now, just as much as they mean for the time being. That being said could you use either in lieu of is waqt or abhii? 

I'll proffer an example "what are you doing right now". "Kyaa kar rahii/rahe ho fil-waqt/Haal/aan?" So long as you are using right now to mean presently, it feels that fil-Haal/waqt would do a good job replicating the void left. However, you couldn't say "yahaaN pohancho fil-waqt" I.e. pronto/immediately or at least that's not how I've ever heard the term being used. Meaning of filhaal in English | Rekhta Dictionary. The entry here shockingly suggests that fil-Haal can also mean fouran which is most certainly news to me, I would only take it to mean right now in the sense of at present.


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