# All dialects/MSA: There is



## paieye

When I started learning Arabic a few months ago, I was given firmly to understand that there as no expression in Arabic for 'there is' in English or 'il y a' in French.  However, the dictionary gives me 'هناك' as meaning precisely that.

Is this a correct usage ?  If so, can the one word take a plural predicate as well as a singular one   ?


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## Abu Talha

Hello. This is a good question and I would be interested in a detailed discussion. We discussed it here a little bit and this quote especially was very helpful: 





Serafín33 said:


> According to Badawi et al.'s _Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar_, 3.1.3.1 (page 316):
> 
> "A very common method for dealing with indefinite subjects is to introduce the sentence with _hunāka_ هناك or _ṯamma_ ثمّة ‘there’ ([Cantarino] 1:7). It is not necessarily a calque, as this construction occurs also in medieval Arabic, but it is now used to reproduce ‘there is’ and ‘il y a’ regularly: [...]".
> 
> So apparently is one of those Older than They Think cases, but this new increase of its use over يوجد is worthy of notice.


Regarding the last sentence, "... but this new increase of its use over يوجد is worthy of notice," I'm actually not sure if يوجد was the standard way of expressing "there is" in Classical Arabic or if speakers worked their way around it.

As I said, I'd love to know more about this myself.


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## barkoosh

I really feel amazed when I see non-Arabs learning our difficult language. But what amazes me more is seeing that some are being taught things that even native Arabic speakers don't know, use, or even bother to know and use.

If I were a non-English speaker and I wanted to learn English, what English school/teacher would teach me Middle English or even Shakespearean English? Would my first lessons be: _he giveth… thy father… thou art… with this ring I thee wed?_ Definitely not. Why wouldn’t it be the same thing in Arabic? Even if I wanted to learn Shakespearean English, I think that the normal way to do it is to start with modern English. You have to ask the living if you want to know about the dead. Likewise, it’s better to start learning a language in its modern form before delving into its past.

That’s why it’s more correct to say that ‘there is no expression in *Old* Arabic for 'there is' in English or 'il y a' in French’. That’s because in Arabic, there is a ‘there is’. It’s the word هناك. This is a modern usage of the word, and it always stays the same:
هناك رجل في البيت
هناك رجال في البيت
هناك امرأة في البيت
هناك نساء في البيت

It would be nice to see, one day, our non-Arab colleagues ask us their lovely questions, not in _modern _English or French, but in an Arabic that we all share.


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## Pahlavan

Spoken varieties of Arabic have different words for "there is". Most notably, Egyptian/Levatine/Gulf/Hejazi *fi في*, Yemeni *bi-(h) بيه*, Moroccan *kain كاين*, and Mesopotamian *aku اكو​*, among others.

As others have pointed out, the archaic terms _hunāka _*هناك *, _hunālika_ *هنالك* , _ṯamma_ *ثمّة *, and _yūjad _*يوجد *are features of Classical Arabic (and thus Modern Standard Arabic) and are perhaps only heard in the most formal of contexts. As for your question, all of these terms both spoken and literary are unaffected by the number and gender of the predicate, except for _yūjad _*يوجد *which also exists in the feminine singular form _tūjad_ *توجد*.

When you started learning Arabic a few months ago, you were probably taught that the present tense of the _simple copula_ (the verb "to be") does not exist in Arabic. In languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian, the simple copula is vestigial and present only in derivatives. Thus, *انا جوعان = *I (am) hungry. Here, the 1st person singular form of the verb "to be" is _implied_. This should however not be confused with the existential "there is/there exists", which is found in Arabic.


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## Schem

Great post Pahlavan! Very informative, even for a native speaker. 



Pahlavan said:


> Spoken varieties of Arabic have different words for "there is". Most notably, Egyptian/Levatine/Gulf/Hejazi *fi في*, Yemeni *bi-(h) بيه*, Moroccan *kain كاين*, and Mesopotamian *aku اكو​*, among others.



Just wanted to add to the list Guisseemi *Buh بُه*. Also, *Aku *is used in Kuwaiti and a number of smaller Gulf dialects as well.


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## Pahlavan

Cheers Schem! Thank you for your post 



Schem said:


> Just wanted to add to the list Guisseemi *Buh بُه*. Also, *Aku *is used in Kuwaiti and a number of smaller Gulf dialects as well.



The primary Sunni term used in Kuwait is *fi في*, but as you have pointed out there are Iraqis in the Gulf region (primarily Shi'as in Kuwait) as well as tribes/groups of Iraqi ancestry that continue to use the term *aku اكو​* in their speech and this has in turn influenced the local dialects to varying degrees. As in, for example, in Kuwait, the use of the latter term accompanied by other characteristics of Mesopotamian speech can bare certain nuances and have socio-economic implications among certain circles. The two terms, however, do seem to coexist in that dialect as a result of superstrate; they are both in use. And ultimately *aku اكو *is more characteristic of Iraqi and Kuwaiti speech than it is of say Qatari or Emirati, but the term is indubitably of Mesopotamian origin. I have outlined some key features of Muslim Baghdadi Arabic in the following thread, wherein I provide a source for the projected Babylonian Aramaic origin of the existential particle *aku اكو​*.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2367218


The other Gulf dialects primarily use the terms *fi في* or *hast هست *to mean "there is/exists", the latter of which is a Persian loanword (cognate of English _is,_ German _ist,_ Latin _est_, etc., ultimately from Indo-European root *_h1es-_), or a combination of the two. Among the dialects of Bahrain, these two terms are dominant, but *aku اكو* does have some incidence primarily in its negative form, *maaku ماكو.*


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## paieye

Thank you all for these really most interesting contributions.  

As regards "It would be nice to see, one day, our non-Arab colleagues ask us their lovely questions, not in _modern _English or French, but in an Arabic that we all share," you must just give me a little more time...


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## barkoosh

We can wait


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## Abu Talha

barkoosh said:


> Likewise, it’s better to start learning a language in its modern form before delving into its past.


That's a good point, Barkoosh. I think one of the reasons MSA and Classical/Post-classical Arabic are often taught together is because they are so very similar. And it's my personal opinion (nothing more), that it should be fine to study them both together (if one has both of them as his goals) as long as one is careful to note the differences in meaning and usage when such differences arise. Otherwise, a whole lifetime may be spent studying one without getting a chance to move on to the other.

Excellent contributions regarding the existential particle in the various dialects. Very informative!


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## Schem

Pahlavan said:


> The primary Sunni term used in Kuwait is *fi في*, but as you have pointed out there are Iraqis in the Gulf region (primarily Shi'as in Kuwait) as well as tribes/groups of Iraqi ancestry that continue to use the term *aku اكو* in their speech and this has in turn influenced the local dialects to varying degrees. As in, for example, in Kuwait, the use of the latter term accompanied by other characteristics of Mesopotamian speech can bare certain nuances and have socio-economic implications among certain circles. The two terms, however, do seem to coexist in that dialect as a result of superstrate; they are both in use. And ultimately *aku اكو *is more characteristic of Iraqi and Kuwaiti speech than it is of say Qatari or Emirati, but the term is indubitably of Mesopotamian origin. I have outlined some key features of Muslim Baghdadi Arabic in the following thread, wherein I provide a source for the projected Babylonian Aramaic origin of the existential particle *aku اكو*.
> 
> Iraqi Arabic characteristics
> 
> The other Gulf dialects primarily use the terms *fi في* or *hast هست *to mean "there is/exists", the latter of which is a Persian loanword (cognate of English _is,_ German _ist,_ Latin _est_, etc., ultimately from Indo-European root *_h1es-_), or a combination of the two. Among the dialects of Bahrain, these two terms are dominant, but *aku اكو* does have some incidence primarily in its negative form, *maaku ماكو.*


Great post. 

I used to think *Aku *was characteristic of hadhari/sedentary Kuwaiti while the use of *fi* or *feeh *was restricted to Bedouin forms of Kuwaiti. As I was reading, however, I was reminded how *Aku *is almost exclusively used by my friends of tribal Iraqi origin while *fi/feeh* was used by those from families tracing their origins to Najd or El Hassa. Kuwait is a very interesting case, linguistically speaking, in that it's a true melting pot of prominent regions of Arabia with considerable Persian and Indo-Iranian influence.

If I'm not mistaken, *Aku *(and its negative form) is used in a number of Bahrani dialects in El-Gatiif and surrounding areas which is what I was referring to in my post. I also never knew *ast/hast* was used in Gulf Arabic! Quite interesting. Would you mind telling me which dialects use it, primarily?


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## Pahlavan

Thanks Schem, your observation is accurate, you are not mistaken. Bahrain and Qatar are likewise "melting-pots" of different Arabic dialects and foreign influences due to the fairly recent creation of these countries and the resultant influx of different peoples for economic, social, and political reasons. There are, for example, descendants of East Africans, Indians, Iraqis, and Persians that identify firmly as distinct ethnic groups in Bahrain. A number of Bahrani dialects do employ the Mesopotamian word *aku اكو *perhaps more than others, but there is an observed tendency on the island to use *fi/feeh في\فيه* in its place, and as I mentioned, a linguistic study that I read found that the term *aku اكو* has more incidence in Bahrani in its negative form, *maaku ماكو.* (I can find this and send it to you if you're interested!). But ultimately as you have pointed out the term does exist in some Gulf dialects as a result of contact with Mesopotamian dialects and is universally understood, but it is often secondary or tertiary in incidence depending upon the speaker.

The issue of the word *hast هست *is really quite interesting; it was originally introduced by Persians or other Iranian language-speaking groups (*a3jaam اعجام*) that had immigrated to Bahrain and Qatar at least at the beginning of the 20th century and its usage was probably reinforced by the return of descendants of Sunni Arabs who had been living in southern Iran back to the new Arab states in the Persian Gulf (this group is known as the *huwala* الهولة in Bahrain), and has since become a notable feature of Qatari and Bahrani dialects. That being said, the term is today becoming more archaic among Generation Y in Bahrain and Qatar, especially given the trend towards homogenization/standardization of Arabic dialects and the declining usage of words of non-Arabic origin (also happening to Iraqi dialects, which used to employ far more Persian and Turkish vocabulary/idioms before the ascendance of the Ba'ath regime). Currently the term *hast هست*, however, is still employed and understood in those Gulf countries regardless of its future. Note the term also exists in Khuzestani Arabic (a dialect belonging to the Mesopotamian group spoken in southwestern Iran) under the pronunciation of *hassit*, and it is the single, exclusive existential particle employed by the dialect.


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## Ibn Nacer

Bonsoir,

Thank you for this interesting thread.

It seems to me that in some cases no particular word is used to say "there is/are", example :

على المكتب كتاب - There is a book on the desk.
 في البيت رجل - There is a man in the house.

What do you think ?

But if the word is definite which means you would use ? Is correct to write :

على المكتب الكتاب 
 في البيت الرجل

Or 

هناك الرجل في البيت
هناك الكتاب على المكتب

With definite nouns that seems strange, the French translation sounds bad but in arabic is it correct?

Merci.


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## Paterimon

The simple _present _tense of the verb _ to be_ is always implied 
in the Arabic _ nominal sentence  ( _الجملة الاسمية _ ) _which is unknown
in the Indo-European languages (exception is made for telegraphic style.)

_*"There is*_" is banned because it is redundant and (  هناك   ) is really superfluous:
I would therefore suggest: 
في البيت رجل  أو رجال
في البيت امرأة أو نساء


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## إسكندراني

Ibn Nacer said:


> على المكتب الكتاب
> في البيت الرجل
> هناك الرجل في البيت
> هناك الكتاب على المكتب


All four are wrong.


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## Ibn Nacer

Thank you very much.


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## Paterimon

You're  most welcome, dear Friend.
I'm glad you liked the suggestion.


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## tundk

"Il y a" would be "famma" in Tunisian.


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## إسكندراني

tundk said:


> "Il y a" would be "famma" in Tunisian.


ثمّة thamma


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## Paterimon

Also  ثَمَّ


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## Razin'

Actually, it IS "famma" in Tunisian.. While you can still hear people say "thamma" (mostly rural and old) , the standard is definitely "famma".


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## Paterimon

_famma_ is certainly easier to pronounce than _thamma._
The tendency in all dialects is to replace difficult sounds
by easier one.
Compare with the regular replacement of the
Qaaf with a Hamza in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine etc...:
Thus:
 قال  becomes  آل
 حقيقة becomes    حئيئة  and so on.


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## Schem

That's very subjective. I personally find words containing consecutive glottal stops (حئيئة) a lot difficult to pronounce than words that do not (حقيقة).


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## Paterimon

Thank you, Schem. That's interesting. It may may be  due to the fact that in Guisseem you probably pronounce the  ق  as  the _g_ in "_g_et". Right?


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## Xence

Algerians and Moroccans would use *كاين *_kaayen _, and I agree that Tunisians say _famma _which obviously is an alteration of _thamma_.


.


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## Schem

Paterimon said:


> It may may be  due to the fact that in Guisseem you probably pronounce the  ق  as  the _g_ in "_g_et". Right?


I was speaking in terms of MSA. 

But to answer your question, Qaf قاف represents two sounds in Guisseemi Arabic, three if we count the MSA sound. The first one is, as you've pointed out, the [g] sound in "get", it's most common and heard in the majority of words. The other, less frequent, one is [dz] and it's a sound exclusive to Najdi Arabic (Guisseemi included) as far as I know. It occurs in words where the Qaf is preceded by a maksuur consonant (e.g., *dzeleeb **قِليب*, *dzerbeh **قِربه*, *medzbil مِقبل*) and corresponds to the [dj] sound occasionally used to represent the Qaf in Kuwaiti and Khaleeji dialects (i.e. *djeleeb قِليب*, etc).

The first set of Polish examples in the Wikipedia link I provided are an accurate representation of the sound, if you want to know how it sounds.


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## Paterimon

LOL
Things are becoming more exciting.
I could have never imagined that a "Qaf" could be pronounced "dz", let alone "dj"!
I also spent 7 years in Kuwait. They regularly pronounced the (Qaf) as in (Get). Example: _Ya Gleiby
(cozy address).
_
What do you mean by_ "in terms of MSA"?_
In the MSA, the (Qaf) is always pronounced correctly as in the recitation of the Qur'an.
Only in the local dialects could it be mispronounced as a hamza.
By the way, Schem, can you please spell "Guisseem" in Arabic for me?
Thank you for your highly interesting feedback.[/quote]


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## Finland

Hello!



Paterimon said:


> I could have never imagined that a "Qaf" could be pronounced "dz", let alone "dj"!
> I also spent 7 years in Kuwait. They regularly pronounced the (Qaf) as in (Get). Example: _Ya Gleiby
> (cozy address).
> _



I have spent only a year in Kuwait, but I remember quite clearly how the ق in many cases becomes like ج in Kuwaiti Arabic. I am sure you have heard in Kuwait for example when people say "Really?" in Arabic "صدق" so it sounds like they're saying "صدج". Or قدام sounding like جدام etc. This is linked to the phenomenon of ج being pronounced like ي, like in "chicken" (دياي in Kuwaiti Arabic).

HTH
S


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## WadiH

Finland said:


> This is linked to the phenomenon of ج being pronounced like ي, like in "chicken" (دياي in Kuwaiti Arabic).


The two phenomena are unrelated.


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## Finland

Hello!



Wadi Hanifa said:


> The two phenomena are unrelated.



They may be unrelated (I wouldn't be so sure of that, but don't know enough about consonant shifts in dialects to justify an opinion), but I don't think it's wrong to say they are linked. Pronouncing ق as ج, and ك as تش, and ج as ي are all phenomena that occur in similar situations and vowel surroundings, and in similar sociolinguistic and dialectal settings.

Greetings,
S


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## Paterimon

Finland said:


> I have spent only a year in Kuwait, but I remember quite clearly how the ق in many cases becomes like ج in Kuwaiti Arabic. I am sure you have heard in Kuwait for example when people say "Really?" in Arabic "صدق" so it sounds like they're saying "صدج". Or قدام sounding like جدام etc. This is linked to the phenomenon of ج being pronounced like ي, like in "chicken" (دياي in Kuwaiti Arabic).



Thank you, Finland, for sharing your experience.
I did notice the pronunciation of (Jeem) as (Yaa) such as "yabal" for "Jabal".
But somehow I don't recall the similar pronunciation of the (Qaaf). Curious.
Does this phenomenon happen in (Suomi) ? LOL


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## Finland

Hello!



Paterimon said:


> Does this phenomenon happen in (Suomi) ?



Absolutely not, as we have neither the sound ق nor ج in our language ;-)
S


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## Schem

Paterimon said:


> LOL
> Things are becoming more exciting.
> I could have never imagined that a "Qaf" could be pronounced "dz", let alone "dj"!
> I also spent 7 years in Kuwait. They regularly pronounced the (Qaf) as in (Get). Example: _Ya Gleiby (cozy address)._


As I said, this is the less frequent pronunciation of Qaf, that is: it only occurs in cases where the Qaf is preceded by a maksuur consonant. 


> What do you mean by_ "in terms of MSA"?_
> In the MSA, the (Qaf) is always pronounced correctly as in the recitation of the Qur'an.
> Only in the local dialects could it be mispronounced as a hamza.


I meant that it's easier for me to pronounce حقيقة with two consecutive (MSA) qaf's than with two consecutive glottal stops. That was in response to your other post in which you presented the Qaf to Hamza shift in Levantine/Egyptian as a way of simplifying the language.


> By the way, Schem, can you please spell "Guisseem" in Arabic for me?
> Thank you for your highly interesting feedback.


Here you go: القصيم. I think it's important to note, however, that the characteristics mentioned are historically typical of almost all Najdi dialects. Unfortunately, they have been taking on a generational form in which the younger population, in many regions of Najd, prefers dropping them in favor of more "mainstream" equivalents. This particular phenomenon did not find ground in Guisseem which is the reason why some today mistakenly consider the characteristics to be Guisseemi in origin.

This, btw, could also explain why you didn't notice the Qaf to Jeem shift in Kuwait as much. It could be that they're having a similar situation, maybe someone from Kuwait can be of more help here.


Finland said:


> I have spent only a year in Kuwait, but I remember quite clearly how the ق in many cases becomes like ج in Kuwaiti Arabic. I am sure you have heard in Kuwait for example when people say "Really?" in Arabic "صدق" so it sounds like they're saying "صدج". Or قدام sounding like جدام etc.


Exactly. These two in Guisseemi would be _ṣedz _and _dzeddam_ respectively.


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## Hemza

Interesting thread! I learnt a lot of things in 5 minutes .

In Morocco (as in Algeria) it is كاين which is used yet in hassaniya dialect, people use في (pronounced by some "vii" especially in Mauritania). There is also ثمّة as in Tunisian but it is much less used than في.

Also I read that in Tripoli (Libya) people used to say ثمة too but this disappeared, either under Southern/Eastern Libyan influence (except if they also used to say ثمة too and it would be odd since Western Libya is the political center) or Egyptian influence (Egyptians who live in Libya) and it has been replaced by في.


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