# قال الرئيس الايراني



## linguist786

what does this mean please?

قال الرئيس الايراني محمود أحمدي نجاد إن إيران لن تتخل أبدا عن برنامجها النووي. 

i don't speak any Arabic you see.


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## Hieronymus

If I may...

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would never give up its nuclear program.


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## linguist786

Great! thanks a lot! Much appreciated


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## linguist786

which bit of it means "nuclear program" please?


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## Hieronymus

برنامجها النووي = its nuclear program

nuclear program = برنامج نووي


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## elroy

Hello Linguist,

Hieronymus's translation is perfect, but please remember to give your threads meaningful titles in the future.


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## Josh_

Shouldn't *تتخل* be used with the preposition *بـ* ?


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## cherine

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> Shouldn't *تتخل* be used with the preposition *بـ* ?


No, it's تتخلى عن


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## Josh_

There must have been a typo in the original text. There is another word* أخَلَّ، يُخِلُّ* (akhalla, yukhillu) from the root خ-ل-ل that means to adandon/desert and it is used with the preposition بـ . This is the word I was thinking of. In the original text If you remove a ت then you get the word I was thinking of and if you add a ى than you get the the other word -- both with roughly the same meaning. But, I guess since they used the preposition عن they must have meant تتخلى tatakhalli.


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## cherine

I see what you mean Josh. The verb أخلّ didn't come to my mind when I read the text, as I read this peice of news before, and I know it's تتخلى (abandon).
Besides, أخلّ dones't mean abandon while يتخلى does. The verb أخلّ-يُخِلّ means to break a promise أخل بوعده or violate an agreement أخل بالاتفاق.

And yes, the sentence of the first post has a typo, it should be إيران لن تتخلى عن برنامجها


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## linguist786

yes you're all right, because i got it from BBC news. At first they put  تتخل but when i went on it again, they changed it to تتخلى .

nice to see you're all thinking!


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## elroy

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> both with roughly the same meaning.


 
I just wanted to point out that this is a dangerous assumption.  The meanings are not related at all.  One means "to abandon, to give up, to let go of," while the other means (as Cherine said), "to break (a promise), to violate."

I think that's why we all knew تتخلى was meant even with the typo - the other verb would not have made sense here (even with the right preposition).  Furthermore, تتخل is a possible spelling when the verb is مجزوم so it wasn't a "glaring" typo.


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## Josh_

elroy said:
			
		

> I just wanted to point out that this is a dangerous assumption. The meanings are not related at all. One means "to abandon, to give up, to let go of," while the other means (as Cherine said), "to break (a promise), to violate."


From the Hans Wehr:


> IV to offend (ب against), infringe, transgress ( ب s.th. ); to violate, break ( ب s.th., e.g., a rule, a custom ); to fail to fulfill, fail to meet ( ب an agreement ); *to forsake, desert, abandon* ( ب s.o., s.th. ); to disturb, upset, harm, prejudice ( ب s.th. )


(Emphasis mine)

So, I do not think I was totally out of line by saying what I did. It is my understanding that Arabic words have a wide array of meaning and the intended meaning of a word is clear from context. Had تخل been used instead of تتخلى I'm sure the intended meaning would have been clear.


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## cherine

Maybe, but it would have been different. تتخلى عن برنامجها is to drop it, abandon it. But to say لن تـُخِلّ ببرنامجها means to go on but with changes, deviate from it.


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## ayed

Either you "tajzim"--"delete out the last vowel--ى "or leave as it is.
Both are correct .


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## elroy

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> Had تخل been used instead of تتخلى I'm sure the intended meaning would have been clear.


 
The thing is that it _wouldn't _have been used in this sentence with this meaning.  Yes, one of the possible meanings is "to forsake, to desert, to abandon," but that doesn't mean it can be used with any noun to express that meaning. 

Note also that this is the fourth meaning given out of five; the most common ones are given first.


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## Josh_

elroy said:
			
		

> The thing is that it _wouldn't _have been used in this sentence with this meaning. Yes, one of the possible meanings is "to forsake, to desert, to abandon," but that doesn't mean it can be used with any noun to express that meaning.


So then you agree that the two words have a similar meaning with this individual meaning, not all meanings? When I said "with roughly the same meaning" I was only referring to the meaning used in this thread, not all possible meanings -- I would never make that claim. But I agreed, and still do, that تتخلى is the better word, and I would probably only use it given the choice of the two words. When I read the initial post, I read it casually, without deep thought, and the lack of ى threw me off, so I erroneously thought that they used the other word.

Alas, I know I still have a lot of learning to do. Could you, or anyone else, give an example sentence of when the usage of يخل with the meaning of "abandon/desert" would be appropriate? Or with what kind of nouns it would be appropriate with?


> Note also that this is the fourth meaning given out of five; the most common ones are given first.


Of course, but it seems to me that the most common meaning is _to break or violate_ like you and Cherine intimated, so it should have been listed first, not third. In fact, I don't think I'd ever use it to mean _to offend_.


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## elroy

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> So then you agree that the two words have a similar meaning with this individual meaning, not all meanings?


 
Depending on the object, they _can_ have a similar meaning.  For example, when the object is a person, the meaning is almost identical.  So, for example, تخليت عن صديقي and أخليت بصديقي pretty much mean the same thing.



> Alas, I know I still have a lot of learning to do. Could you, or anyone else, give an example sentence of when the usage of يخل with the meaning of "abandon/desert" would be appropriate? Or with what kind of nouns it would be appropriate with?


 
أخل بمركزه - _He abandoned his position._
أخل بصديقه - _He abandoned his friend._ 
(In the above sentences تخلى عن could be substituted without changing the meaning a whole lot.)



> Of course, but it seems to me that the most common meaning is _to break or violate_ like you and Cherine intimated, so it should have been listed first, not third. In fact, I don't think I'd ever use it to mean _to offend_.


 
Fair enough.


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## Josh_

Thanks for the explanation.

One correction, though:



> أخللت بصديقي


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## elroy

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> Thanks for the explanation.
> 
> One correction, though:


 
I don't know if that was much of an explanation, but if you're satisfied that's good enough for me. 

Thanks for the correction.  All the switching back and forth between verbs must have gotten to me!


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