# و wa (conjunction)



## eac

Very simple question: is وَ similar to فَ and كَ, in that it is attached directly to the following word?  Which is correct, وقال (no space), or و قال (with a space)?  Obviously, since و is a non-connecting letter anyway it's difficult to tell.


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## elroy

No space.


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## linguist786

Proof:


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## eac

Thanks a lot!


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## Ali.h

When there are two words that have the definite article and between them is the conjunction "and", does the _and/wa_ get placed right in the middle (i.e. between the two words)? Or close to (i.e. right before) the second definite article?

Here are two examples:

*العائلة والأقرباء*

AND

*العائلة و الأقرباء*


Notice in the first example the "wa" is placed right before the definite article _al_ of "al-aqrabaa", and in the second example the wa is placed in the middle.

Can someone explain which one is correct, and please if you can also give explanation as to why. Thank you


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## mu3taz

The second one is correct. The conjunction "و" is a stand alone word...so you leave space before and after  "و"


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## ihsaan

Really? I was always taught to write it together with the following word.


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## Serafín33

I was also taught to always join it to the following word!

Is this something that changes by region? Is the و attached in Saudi Arabian Standard Arabic, but it's not in Jordanian Standard Arabic, or something like that?


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## xebonyx

I was taught the way mu3taz understands it, and one mnemonic device that was explained to me is that the connected waw reflects a "backwards" comma (of course in relation to the English left-to-right writing system).


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## ihsaan

Ah, okay. That's strange because an Arabic professor told me that it was not correct to have a space between the waw and the following word. .


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## mu3taz

ihsaan said:


> Really? I was always taught to write it together with the following word.





Neqitan said:


> I was also taught to always join it to the following word!
> 
> Is this something that changes by region? Is the و attached in Saudi Arabian Standard Arabic, but it's not in Jordanian Standard Arabic, or something like that?



Let me check it ...


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## mu3taz

Hi
Ok guys... i think i was wrong
After a little research  i found the following:
As a rule, you don't leave a space between "و" and the word after.


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## Sidjanga

Hi,





mu3taz said:


> (...)As a rule, you don't leave a space between "و" and the word after.


Where did you find this rule?


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## mu3taz

Sigianga said:


> Hi,Where did you find this rule?



Actually i reviewed two books that i have explaining rules of classical Arabic grammars...


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## Serafín33

This is very interesting. Arabic natives, what is the most common way you see the waaw in your countries? Attached or unattached? 

At the Arabic Wikipedia, I've seen it mostly attached, but I've also seen articles with it completely unattached...


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## clevermizo

Neqitan said:


> I was also taught to always join it to the following word!
> 
> Is this something that changes by region? Is the و attached in Saudi Arabian Standard Arabic, but it's not in Jordanian Standard Arabic, or something like that?



There is only one Standard Arabic, although some conventions are in fact followed slightly differently from place to place. However و is always attached to the word that follows it. It is not a standalone word like في or مع. It works like بـِ or لـِ.


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## Josh_

Yes, واو العطف is always, ALWAYS supposed to be attached to the word next to it. Cherine has her incorrect hamza placement pet peeve and I have my incorrect waaw al-3aTf placement pet peeve. 

Even if there is not a specific rule written about this, consider this -- would you write "he contacted the teacher" as "اتصل ب المدرس," or "she told them" as "قالت ل هم?" No, right? 

The point is that no other one letter particles are written by themselves, rather they are attached to the word after them. So why would و be any different? It wouldn't. The fact that it is a non-connecting letter should make no difference at all; it is still a part of the word next to it.

This question was actually already asked here.


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## Serafín33

clevermizo said:


> There is only one Standard Arabic, although some conventions are in fact followed slightly differently from place to place.


That is what I refer to with [country] Standard Arabic.


Josh_ said:


> Yes, واو العطف is always, ALWAYS supposed to be attached to the word next to it. Cherine has her incorrect hamza placement pet peeve and I have my incorrect waaw al-3aTf placement pet peeve.
> 
> Even if there is not a specific rule written about this, consider this -- would you write "he contacted the teacher" as "اتصل ب المدرس," or "she told them" as "قالت ل هم?" No, right?
> 
> The point is that no other one letter particles are written by themselves, rather they are attached to the word after them. So why would و be any different? It wouldn't. The fact that it is a non-connecting letter should make no difference at all; it is still a part of the word next to it.
> 
> This question was actually already asked here.


And that is exactly what makes me wonder if this isn't but yet another influence from English/French.

What is her pet peeve on the placement of the hamza, by the way?


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## xebonyx

Neqitan said:


> What is her pet peeve on the placement of the hamza, by the way?



Probably when it's not written where it should be or written where it shouldn't; and misused above the alif or below, etc.

The standalone position of the waw must be a common error, then, because it's frequently written.


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## Josh_

Neqitan said:


> And that is exactly what makes me wonder if this isn't but yet another influence from English/French.


Yes, I have wondered that as well.




xebonyx said:


> Probably when it's not written where it should be or written where it shouldn't; and misused above the alif or below, etc.


Yes, that is correct.



> The standalone position of the waw must be a common error, then, because it's frequently written.


Yes, unfortunately, it is a common error, which probably arose due to the fact that it is a non-connecting letter and/or an influence of other languages, as we mentioned above.


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## Stranger_

Salam

I have noticed that the conjunction "و" is always connected to the word following it. My question is: why? Doesn't this make it rather difficult to know whether it is a conjunction or part of the following word? 

In Persian, we always put a space between this conjunction and the next word because this is the standard way of writing it.

Regards,


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## ajamiyya عجمية

In Arabic, all one-letter words must be connected to the following word.  That is why you can never put "و" at the end of a line.


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## Nubar Pasha

My suspicion is, like serafin33 said, that the sometimes stand alone و is an English/French influence that is becoming more common in written Arabic the way the comma has/is. Modern Standard Arabic is not a dead language, after all. If you google "و " (with quotation marks and spaces around the و), you see it used as such all the time on the internet.


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## Ramisadeh

Moderator's Note: The following discussion is split from this thread, as it bears no relation whatsoever to the topic of that thread.
[...]
Also please put a space after و and don't be like Arabs these days who insist on joining و with the following words
[...]


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## Interprete

[...]
By the way, why insert a space between "wa" and the word that follows it? it seems absolutely no one does that.
[...]


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## bejl1

When has not joining it ever been the norm?


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## Matat

[...]


Ramisadeh said:


> Also please put a space after و and don't be like Arabs these days who insist on joining و with the following words


This is incorrect. It is actually a mistake not to attach the و to the next word. The و has to be placed on the adjacent word. In Arabic, a particle which is a single letter cannot act as a word on its own. You can't write ف قال. It has to be فقال. Similarly, one would write مررت بخالد, not مررت ب خالد. The و is no different. The only reason people get confused with the و and think that they don't have to attach it is because the letter و is one of the letters that doesn't connect to the next letter, but that fact does not make it any different than all other single-letter particles. So in the original sentence, it should be وكان and ورجالاته.
[...]


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## Jamal31

Ramisadeh said:


> Also please put a space after و and don't be like Arabs these days who insist on joining و with the following words


Is that a joke?



Matat said:


> The only reason people get confused with the و and think that they don't have to attach it is because the letter و is one of the letters that doesn't connected to the next letter.


I find that a lot of Pakistanis who are over-attached to their language separate the Waw like in Urdu when writing Arabic texts.


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## Ramisadeh

[...]
Thirdly: about joining و with the following word, clearly it is a controversial issue, I only recently learned that most scholars consider it the correct way to write و Which I think is rather absured and I won't abide by it

The problem with older books is that they used to write words so close to each other that you could not tell whether و was seperated by a space or not since it was also very close to the word before it. That's why modern scholars made that rule and you wouldn't find the rule mentioned by older scholars.


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## Ramisadeh

Look at these kufi font writings and you can see how و is seperated from the word after it


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## be.010

[...]


Ramisadeh said:


> Thirdly: about joining و with the following word, clearly it is a controversial issue, I only recently learned that most scholars consider it the correct way to write و Which I think is rather absured and I won't abide by it


Ramisadeh, the standard in (modern?) Arabic writing/typing is that there's no space between و and the following word. A key reason for that is to avoid having a و at the end of the line and the next word المعطوف at the beginning of the next one, regardless of whether there had been any rule for that in classical Arabic (which I doubt).


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## bejl1

Ramisadeh said:


> clearly it is a controversial issue, I only recently learned that most scholars consider it the correct way to write و Which I think is rather absured and I won't abide by it



If it's a controversial issue then can you elaborate on who exactly propagates for your view? If everyone does a thing then it's not controversial, and I have never seen a printed text do it differently. Like you said, it used to be that writers did not even put the space inbetween words, let alone between the و and the following word, so how exactly are you claiming that it's a modern convention?


Ramisadeh said:


> View attachment 18833 View attachment 18832 Look at these kufi font writings and you can see how و is seperated from the word after it



It's not that و is seperated, it's that every letter that disconnects is seperated, even if the segments are in the same word. This is how the sentence would look like:

و كان ا لا حتلا ل ا لأ مر يكي للعراق و ر جا لا ته شكل ا لأ ر ضية الخصبة نمت فيها بذ و ر الد و لة ا لأ سلا مية

So is this the above how you write? I doubt it.


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## Ramisadeh

It is controversial cause it is not just me that thinks that و should be followed with a space after it, look it up on the internet, there's even a post on this very forum asking about the matter.


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## bejl1

I have searched and what I found was Matat has already mentioned, that wau is just like fa, ba, etc. I also looked up the threads on this forum, and the few people who claimed that there should be a space did not give any argument as to why. The only argument I could find though was that the wau should be separated as to not confuse it with wau as a radical in the word, but if we approve of this then we must also separate fa since it too can be confused, otherwise one would be inconsistent.


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## Matat

Ramisadeh said:


> It is controversial cause it is not just me that thinks that و should be followed with a space after it, look it up on the internet, there's even a post on this very forum asking about the matter.


Many people thinking it to be true does not make it a controversial issue. It could simply be a خطأ شائع, and that's what it is in this case. It would only be controversial if there was a significant number of Arabic linguists who thought differently, not if many common Arabic speakers thought differently. I don't know of any linguist who says otherwise to the fact that the و should be attached.


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## elroy

In Arabic (and, incidentally, Hebrew), _*all*_ single-letter حروف are attached.  This includes أ، بـ، سـ، فـ، كـ، لـ and, _of course_, و.  There is absolutely no logical reason to treat و differently.  With few sporadic (and mysterious) exceptions, I've always seen it attached.


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