# Latin/Greek prefixes in Arabic



## Ahenger

Are there any prefixes in Arabic? Like Latin "pre-, post-, sub-, super-," or like Greek "micro-, anti-" etc.

I know a few prefixes for verbs, like for future tense but i couldn't find any prefixes for nouns. Do you know any?


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## HotIcyDonut

Those are expressed in a lot of ways:

adjectival structures:

بندقية مضادة للدبابات (anti-tank rifle)
منطقة فرعية (subdistrict)
معرفة مسبقة (prescience)
علم زائف (pseudoscience)

Or particles:

اقتصاديات ما بعد الندرة (post-scarcity economics)
لوحات الكهوف ما قبل التاريخ (prehistoric cave paintings)

Or iDafa:

شبه الموصل or plural أشباه الموصلات (semiconductor)
شبه علم (quasi-science)

Or comparative structure:

سرعة أسرع من الضوء (superluminal speed)

And sometimes they are just transliterated:

صواريخ الهايبر-سونيك (hypersonic missiles)

Which is what happens with SI units:

كيلومتر (kilometre)
ميليغرام (milligramme)

Maybe there's smth else, no idea…


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## Ahenger

Oh, i found some:

Jedîd - جديد - Neo-

قوميه جديد - Neo-Racism?


In Ottoman Turkish, there are a few examples:

فوق العاده - Fevqal3âde(t) - Extraordinary
تخت البحر - Taxtalbahr - Submarine
حس قبل الوقوع - Hiss Qablalvuqu3 - Premonition


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## analeeh

Although those are Arabic words in structure, there are far less of those in Arabic itself: preposition-noun combinations (تحت البحر is literally 'under water') are not usually turned into nouns in their own right. There may be some examples, but I can't think of any right now.

جديد (it would be العنصرية الجديدة or النيوعنصرية, with the latter using the Greco-Latin prefix borrowed from English) is just an adjective: العنصرية الجديدة is just 'new racism'.


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## HotIcyDonut

Some examples could sound quite ambiguously, though, if no provided context.

ثقافة تحت الأرض — the underground culture (not mainstream, low popularity, small fan communities).

Or it could be read literally, i don't know, the context might be smth like a reference to الثقافة المعمارية, maybe the text we read is about an architectural design of specific subterranean architecture, you know, tombs of emperors, pagan shrines built underground, whatever.


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## analeeh

ثقافة تحت الأرض sounds funny to me. I would expect الثقافة ما تحت الأرض. The _maa _here turns the whole prepositional phrase into a sort of pseudo-adjective. I'm also not used to seeing تحت الأرض used in the English sense of 'underground', and a quick google reveals only two examples, one of which is an Arabic gloss of the English expression!


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## WadiH

There are no prefixes/suffixes similar to Latin/Greek.  There are various patterns based around three-letter stems (or roots).  Practically all words are created on the basis of these patterns.  Some of these patterns will add an extra consonant in the beginning, middle or end of the root, but these are different from true prefixes/suffixes.


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## Ihsiin

There are some neologisms that make use of prefixes, such as لاديني for 'anti-religious', but these are not generally considered to be very stylish (at least, I don't consider them to be stylish). Such affixes are not traditionally used in Arabic word construction.


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## Hemza

analeeh said:


> It would be العنصرية الجديدة or النيوعنصرية


It is a detail but regarding the expressions "النيوعنصرية" or "العنصرية الجديدة" I would like to know to which extent they're used amongst Arabic speakers. Is it a clear and accepted distinction (from an old considered form of racism) or is it referring to phenomena occurring outside Arab countries thus being a transliteration?


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## HotIcyDonut

Ihsiin said:


> There are some neologisms that make use of prefixes, such as لاديني for 'anti-religious', but these are not generally considered to be very stylish (at least, I don't consider them to be stylish). Such affixes are not traditionally used in Arabic word construction.


لا is not for "anti-", it's more like غير
لاديني — irreligious
لابشر — unhuman
اللاوجود — non-existence
اللاشيء — nothing(ness)


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## bearded

I wonder if Arabic 'category' prefixes, such as mi- for instruments (cf. miknasa) or ma- for places (cf. madrasa), etc. ,  can somehow be compared to Latin/Greek prefixes/suffixes.  No prefixes are occurring to me at the moment, but I was thinking of Greek suffixes like -logia/logy (cf. phonology) or -graphia/graphy (cf. geography), which in a way indicate that the word belongs to a category (for -logia: science, for -graphia: writing..).


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## Ahenger

bearded said:


> I wonder if Arabic 'category' prefixes, such as mi- for instruments (cf. miknasa) or ma- for places (cf. madrasa), etc. ,  can somehow be compared to Latin/Greek prefixes/suffixes.  No prefixes are occurring to me at the moment, but I was thinking of Greek suffixes like -logia/logy (cf. phonology) or -graphia/graphy (cf. geography), which in a way indicate that the word belongs to a category (for -logia: science, for -graphia: writing..).



Maybe: علم اللسان = philology?
عالم اللسان = Philologist


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## entangledbank

The _mi-_ and _ma-_ are prefixes, in that they're additional to the triliteral semantic root, but they're more like the _-ia_ of Greek, or _-ma(t-)_, very general categorial things, with hardly any meaning of their own.


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## WadiH

They're not prefixes because you don't just glue them onto existing words.  They are part of a larger pattern around a triconsonontal stem (which itself is not a word and the vowels inside differ themselves according to the same patterns).


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## Ihsiin

HotIcyDonut said:


> لا is not for "anti-", it's more like غير
> لاديني — irreligious
> لابشر — unhuman
> اللاوجود — non-existence
> اللاشيء — nothing(ness)



You are correct - I now need to play back every conversation I’ve had to enumerate the times I’ve inadvertently made a fool of myself. But with regards to the topic, these are examples of prefixes being used in Arabic.


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## Mahaodeh

Hemza said:


> It is a detail but regarding the expressions "النيوعنصرية" or "العنصرية الجديدة" I would like to know to which extent they're used amongst Arabic speakers. Is it a clear and accepted distinction (from an old considered form of racism) or is it referring to phenomena occurring outside Arab countries thus being a transliteration?


Racism is definitely عنصرية, this you can use without a second thought. However, as an expression for neo-racism, I’d go with العنصرية الحديثة. The difference is that جديد is used for something new in the sense of not being changed by use yet, it refers to the state of the thing described itself. حديث means new in the sense that it recently came to be, it refers to the time in which it was created.

I can see نيوعنصرية being used, but it somehow doesn’t click right with me. I don’t mind these modern prefixes but this one may not have become common enough for me to feel that it’s natural.


HotIcyDonut said:


> لا is not for "anti-", it's more like غير
> لاديني — irreligious
> لابشر — unhuman
> اللاوجود — non-existence
> اللاشيء — nothing(ness)


what’s an “unhuman”? Do you mean inhuman? If so then it’s لا إنساني. I’ve never come across either of them, both لابشر and unhuman are not words up to my knowledge.

Note that there is a space between the لا and the following word so it’s technically not a prefix. I know that some might write them Connected but that’s a spelling mistake.


Ihsiin said:


> but these are not generally considered to be very stylish (at least, I don't consider them to be stylish). Such affixes are not traditionally used in Arabic word construction


What makes you say that? These words may have not been very common in pre-Islamic times, but but the concept existed in others such as لا زال ولا جرم.They are also older than you think, expressions such as لا مبالاة ولا نهاية have been used since the late Middle Ages. I’d say that if something has been used for several hundred years, that makes it traditional, don’t you think? It’s really not a new invention.


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## HotIcyDonut

Mahaodeh said:


> what’s an “unhuman


I used it to avoid confusion between a noun and an adjective. Saw it here: 


	
	






__ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=737271469778839&id=683967158442604
			




A made-up word, but whatever.


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## Mahaodeh

Oh, that’s different. This not a real term, it’s made up for the comic book story. The English term is used contrary to what it actually means here. I’m not sure if comic book inventions qualify as examples of general use


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