# mother tongue



## M-Pink

Hi

How should I say in Hebrew " Arabic as mother tongue" or " my mother tongue is Arabic" 

my try:
ערבית כהשפה האם
הערבית היא השפה האם שלי


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## Tamar

Mother tongue is שפת אם and so:

My mother tongue is Arabic - *שפת האם* שלי היא ערבית
Arabic is my mother tongue - ערבית היא *שפת האם* שלי
Arabic as mother tongue - ערבית כ*שפת אם*


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## hadronic

M-Pink said:


> Hi
> 
> How should I say in Hebrew " Arabic as mother tongue" or " my mother tongue is Arabic"
> 
> my try:
> ערבית כהשפה האם
> הערבית היא השפה האם שלי


 
I'm quite surprised at your *ה*שפה *ה*אם.
Seemingly you speak Arabic as mother tongue, and like in Arabic, this kind of construction (in smikhut) is strictly forbidden. 
lughatu umm <===> sfat 'em <==> a mother tongue
lughatu-l-umm <===> sfat ha-em <==> the mother tongue
 al-lughatu-l-umm <===> ha-sfat ha-'em 

I would have thought that the Arabic-to-Hebrew transition would have been more straightforward..


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## M-Pink

hadronic said:


> I'm quite surprised at your *ה*שפה *ה*אם.
> Seemingly you speak Arabic as mother tongue, and like in Arabic, this kind of construction (in smikhut) is strictly forbidden.
> lughatu umm <===> sfat 'em <==> a mother tongue
> lughatu-l-umm <===> sfat ha-em <==> the mother tongue
> al-lughatu-l-umm <===> ha-sfat ha-'em


 
yes, you are right. But اللغة الأم (Al-lughatu Al-Umm) is not "smikhut"

in smikhut it is لغةُ الأم (lughatu Al-umm)

and we do say in Arabic lughatu Al-Umm and Al-lughatu Al-Umm

*



اللغة الأولى (أيضًا لغة الأم أو اللغة الأم)
		
Click to expand...

* 
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/لغة_أولى


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## M-Pink

And


> lughatu umm <===> sfat 'em <==> a mother tongue


 
we do not say "lughatu umm" this is not correct in Arabic.



> al-lughatu-l-umm <===> ha-sfat ha-'em


 
I did not write השפת האם .. I wrote השפה האם .. I did not know why it is wrong?

can you explain, please?


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## Nunty

When we translate "mother tongue" into Hebrew we are saying, in literal translation to English, "tongue of mother": שפת אם. If I were to say השפה האם, that would literally be "the tongue [is] the mother" and it is devoid of sense.

I am rotten at talking about grammar in every language, I'm afraid. Hope this makes sense.


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## origumi

Nunty said:


> When we translate "mother tongue" into Hebrew we are saying, in literal translation to English, "tongue of mother": שפת אם. If I were to say השפה האם, that would literally be "the tongue [is] the mother" and it is devoid of sense.


But remember that we do have terms like המלכה האם = _the [incumbent] queen's mother, that was formerly the queen_". So one could say something like
*השפה האם* של צרפתית היא לטינית.

This is different from שפת אם of course.


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## Nunty

Yes, you are right. The expression is not devoid of sense. It just doesn't mean the same thing.


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## M-Pink

Thank you both!

I just want to clarify that in Arabic when we say اللغة الأم in literal translation to Hebrew השפה האם
the word "الأم" comes as an adjective for "اللغة" 
like الفتاة الجميلة in Hebrew הבת היפה 
الابن الكبير הבן הגדול .. etc.

In Arabic I usually use اللغة الأم that is why I wrote in Hebrew השפה האם
did not know that it is not used in Hebrew

Thank you for clarifying this to me!

Note: I found from Wikipedia that maybe השפה האם is in Hebrew the so called Proto Language


> ברוב המקרים השפה האם איננה ידועה מראיות וממצאים ישירים והיא מתגלה באמצעות השוואת....


Here is the full text:
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%94_%D7%90%D7%9D

Maybe here the word האם is just an adjective describing השפה


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## Tamar

> Maybe here the word האם is just an adjective describing השפה


That's just it 

השפה האם is a noun + an adj. And that is why you can (and so you did) add ה הידוע on both of them. And that is something you cannot do when you have a smikhut - in this construction you add ה הידוע on the second word ("somekh", the first word is called "nismakh" and it does not get ה הידוע) and therefore: שפת האם
(עורך הדין, בית הספר)


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## hadronic

After checking, it appears (I didn't know either...) that when vocalized, Arabic shows :
1. lughat*u*-l-umm*i* (the tongue of the mother) : "umm" has genitive case (also called indirect ) ==> this _is_ smikhut
2. al-lughat*u*-l-umm*u *(the mother tongue) : both same case ==> this _is_ not smikhut.

In case 1., we actually have determination : a tongue that belongs to a mother.
In case 2., we rather have apposition : a tongue that is a mother ( which would mean "mother-tongue" in Arabic, but "proto-language" in Hebrew, but the grammatical idea underneath is the same I think : apposition). 

Question : would this *השפה האם* look like when not defined (without article) ?
Is that *שפה אם* or *שפה האם* ?
According to M_pink, seems that in Arabic it's lughatu-l-umm (and not lughatu umm).

If that's the case, the אם or "umm" part is NOT an adjective (that would loose its article too).


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## amikama

hadronic said:


> Question : would this *השפה האם* look like when not defined (without article) ?
> Is that *שפה אם* or *שפה האם* ?


שפה אם. שפה האם is grammatically wrong.


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## M-Pink

hadronic said:


> After checking, it appears (I didn't know either...) that when vocalized, Arabic shows :
> 1. lughat*u*-l-umm*i* (the tongue of the mother) : "umm" has genitive case (also called indirect ) ==> this _is_ smikhut
> 2. al-lughat*u*-l-umm*u *(the mother tongue) : both same case ==> this _is_ not smikhut.


 
Hi hadronic 

yes you are right. But usually in Standard Arabic when you read a sentence you pronounce all the vowel points except the vowel point on the last letter in the last word of the sentence, so when we say لغةُ الأُمِ i.e. when الأُمِ Al-Ummi is the last word in your sentence (when it is followed by fullstop) you vocalize it as Al-Umm. 
and the "somekh" in Arabic is genitive that is why we say lughat*u*-l-umm*i*
the *i* is the kasra (-ِ-)

now in the second case i.e. al-lughat*u*-l-umm*u اللغةُ الأُمُ*
Here the word اللغةُ is Mobtada' which comes always nominative (the vowel point is (-ُ-) "Damma" and because the word الأمُ here is an Adjective it takes the same case of the word that it describes that is why -l-umm*u*
has nominative case and the vowel point (the *u*) on الأُم is "Damma".
Also the adjective Al-Ummu should get ال التعريفה הידוע because Al-luughatu is definite.



hadronic said:


> Question : would this *השפה האם* look like when not defined (without article) ?
> Is that *שפה אם* or *שפה האם* ?
> According to M_pink, seems that in Arabic it's lughatu-l-umm (and not lughatu umm).
> 
> If that's the case, the אם or "umm" part is NOT an adjective (that would loose its article too).


 
I'm not sure I understand what do you mean
But Al-Ummu is an adjective for Al-luughatu meaning that Al-luughatu is the mother (al-Ummu) is the original the first.


sorry for talking about Arabic in the Hebrew forum


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## hadronic

I know you don't pronounce those vowels, but pronouncing them enforce the recognition of the smikhut pattern.

My point is :
"al-lughatu-l-ummu" is "THE mother tongue" (vocalized on purpose).
So  how would you say "A mother tongue" ? Would it be "lughatu ummu" or "lughatu-l-ummu" ?
If the answer is "lughatu-l-ummu", then I lay the hypothesis that this "al" is in fact a relative pronoun, introducing a nominal relative clause : "a language THAT IS a mother".
cf. my other post on this in hebrew ה as a relative pronoun.
Could  שפה האם  be possible, considering the ה as a relative pronoun ?


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## M-Pink

A mother tongue is lughaton umm لُغَةٌ أُم 
lughatu-l-ummu is שפת האם (smikhot) literally is "the mother's language"


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