# jund جند



## machadinho

Hi. Unfortunately I don't speak this most beautiful language, but I would like to know the morphological gender of the word _jund_ (the Caliph’s standing army). Thank you.


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## Masjeen

It's masculine
jundi = Soldier
jund =Soldiers


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## machadinho

So it's plural as well. Thanks a lot!


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## Masjeen

Yes it is plural and it means "Soldiers".. army in Arabic is "Jayish"..


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## machadinho

Right. So it seems a bit redundant to say "They served as soldiers in the
_jund_."


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## lukebeadgcf

machadinho said:


> So it's plural as well. Thanks a lot!



It's not a plural technically. It lends itself to translation in English as a plural, but it is morphologically different from normal plurals in Arabic and the pattern this word follows is not considered by many Arab grammarians to belong to the plural patterns. In Arabic, this word is referred to as اسم الجمع or 2ism ul-jam3 "collective noun."

This word is usually masculine, but William Wright states that أسماء الجمع or 2asmaa2 ul-jam3 "collective nouns" can be masculine or feminine.

Hope that helps.


machadinho said:


> Right. So it seems a bit redundant to say "They served as soldiers in the
> _jund_."



According to Hans Wehr, it can also simply denote "army."


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## Masjeen

lukebeadgcf said:


> According to Hans Wehr, it can also simply denote "army."



True..


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## machadinho

Thanks you all!


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## Abu Rashid

I think a better translation into English is garrison, as it could also refer to a city or a district where troops had been stationed to maintain military dominance over the place.

eg. Jund Falasteen.


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## ayed

It could be "al-_jundiyyah'to_ mean'militarism' as well.


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## Masjeen

Abu Rashid said:


> I think a better translation into English is garrison, as it could also refer to a city or a district where troops had been stationed to maintain military dominance over the place.
> 
> eg. Jund Falasteen.



I disagree with you. garrison in arabic is حامية "hamyya"..  for "Jund Falasteen" it only means  "soldiers of Palestine" or "army of Palestine"..  jund as a term has never been used  to refer  to a city or a district gurds.


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## Abu Rashid

Not to say it's linguistically authoritative but the wikipedia article about it disagrees.



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Jund Filastin (Arabic: جند فلسطين‎, "the military district of Palestine") was one of several sub-provinces of the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphate province of Syria... According to al-Biladhuri, the main towns in the district at its capture by the Rashidun Caliphate, were Gaza, Sebastiya, Nablus, Caesarea, Ludd, Yibna, Imwas, Jaffa, Rafah, and Bayt Jibrin.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jund_Filastin


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## cherine

I agree with Masjeen. Garrison is 7aamiya حامية . Jund is one of the plural form of the word جندي soldier.


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## Ustaath

It did mean a district ruled by military in Ummayid times as well. Not Garrison but district.

In Spain, some autonomous districts still use the word 'Junta'  to refer to the governing body of autonomous regions  and of course |Al Andalus was an Ummayid dynasty.

This meaning has become archaic in Arabic but was common at the beginning of the Arab Muslim Expansion -
 now we mostly use Jund as a collective noun- in this case masculine

the plural of jundi is not jund- but junud -

jund is an 'entity'  - like the rather old fashioned English word "host' while junood is plural -

هذا الفرق هو بين صيغة الجمع و أسماء الجمع


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## cherine

Yes, thanks for the correct, Ustaath. I was meaning to say اسم الجمع .


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## Tracer

Ustaath said:


> In Spain, some autonomous districts still use the word 'Junta' to refer to the governing body of autonomous regions and of course |Al Andalus was an Ummayid dynasty.


 
Yes, but Spanish *JUNTA* is not related to Arabic *JUND*. It is cognate with English *JOIN or JOINT* and has its origins in Latin: *iunctus.*

Also, *"J"* in Spanish is pronounced like English *"H"* (_Juan *[hwan]* = John_) and not like English *"J"* or Arabic *"ج"*


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## إسكندراني

In fact, in Spain, it is pronounced خ, further detaching it from ج - however there are plenty of places and words in Spain which experienced pronunciation changes, for example 'algeciras' الخثيراس was originally الجزيرة


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## Ustaath

Tracer said:


> Yes, but Spanish *JUNTA* is not related to Arabic *JUND*. It is cognate with English *JOIN or JOINT* and has its origins in Latin: *iunctus.*
> 
> Also, *"J"* in Spanish is pronounced like English *"H"* (_Juan *[hwan]* = John_) and not like English *"J"* or Arabic *"ج"*



in Spain its actually خ

thank you, it's such an easy trap to fall in, isn't it ?


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## Abu Rashid

By garrison I meant a garrisoned town/district, not an actual group of soldiers forming a military garrison in a fort. That would be limiting the term garrison to a purely descriptive term for soldiers, which is what I am trying to show is not the case in Arabic, that it did indeed refer to a parcel of land also, that was held by garrisoning soldiers in the region.

In times long gone, a garrison was often used to establish dominance over an area which could not easily be ruled due its distance or its size. I believe the word jund referred to this kind of practice, ie. of establishing a military garrison in a region, in order to dominate it. Yes the literal meaning of garrison is translated to حامية but I think it maps across quite well when we consider the way Arabs in Ummayyad times used the word jund.


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## Ustaath

we keep learning! thanks, I guess this makes you feel better when you know that Arabs who are quite proficient in English struggle too


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## Tracer

Re: Spanish *"J"*

*"In fact, in Spain, it is pronounced" خ*
*"In Spain, it's actually pronounced" خ*
===========

Not to make a mountain out of a molehill, I nevertheless feel I must disagree with the above 2 statements equating the Spanish sound *“J”* with Arabic خ 

Although sounding similar, the sounds are quite distinct. Spanish *“J”* does not have the distinctive “rasping” sound of Arabic خ and the positions of the tongue, a sine qua non of correct pronunciation in any language, are very different. 

In fact, خ is much closer to German* “ach”* (as in “Achtung”) than to Spanish* “J”* (even in Spain).

I’ve attempted to pronounce the *“J”* in the Spanish (Jorge, jinete, ajeno, Jesus, joven, empuja, etc etc) with a خ sound, and it sounds “inauthentic”, which means…… it sounds silly. They’re not the same sound.

In fact, Spanish *“J”* sounds much closer to Arabic ح than it does to خ 

If you don’t believe me, listen to a some native Spanish on the radio, TV or YouTube and see if you can really hear a خ I assure you, you won’t be able to because it’s not there.

(But of course, often we “hear” what we want to hear)


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## Ustaath

dunno, it might be auto-suggestive,but it sounded pretty much like 'kh' to me the few summers I spent in Costa del Sol... definitely closer to 'kh' than to 'h' anyways -


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## Sheikh_14

Coming back to the wiki article mentioned earlier, what would the jury seated have to say for the following:
Jund is indeed not a word in the singular but neither is it an expansive plural as is the word Army. It ranks somewhere between the two for according to the article its original meaning was a division of an army. It itself can be pluralized in the form of ajnaad which could than though not necessarily equate it to an entire army.


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## Abu Talha

ثلاثة جنود is used often in print for "three soldiers". Should this correctly be ثلاثة جنديين?


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## Abu Talha

Abu Talha said:


> ثلاثة جنود is used often in print for "three soldiers". Should this correctly be ثلاثة جنديين?


Any input here?
Should ثلاثة جنود mean "three armies", not "three soldiers"?


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## analeeh

No, I think جنود is a plural of paucity in this case. A lot of collective nouns with singulars have plurals which are plurals of paucity or... the opposite, plurals of 'lots'. The plural of paucity is used with numbers from 3-10 and implies a small number, the plural of large numbers is used to imply 'more' than the simple collective. So for example with شجرة:

شجر 'trees'
شجرة 'tree'
ثلاث شجرات 'three trees' - plural of paucity
أشجار - trees - plural of large numbers


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## cherine

Never heard or read جنديون as a plural for جندي. The plural is جنود.


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## Abu Talha

Thanks analeeh, cherine.
I only found one reference to جنديون : in the Arabic bible. The reason ثلاثة جنود looks suspect to me is because for other collective nouns, the sound feminine plural is used with numbers from 3-10. See this post:
http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/the-plural-of-collective-nouns.2511526/#post-12650460

Obviously جند is different in that its اسم الوحدة is جندي , not جندة. But still جنود is listed in the dictionaries as a plural of جند. And we have established earlier in this thread that جند is a unit (e.g., battalion, regiment, etc) of soldiers.


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