here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
He frequently had me read aloud from the texts that we were studying together. \u00a0With regard to Arabic, this isn\u2019t quite as crazy and pointless as it may seem.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arabic is commonly unvoweled, or mostly unvoweled. \u00a0But the vowels are important, and the reader needs to be able to provide them (if only mentally and internally) in order to properly understand the text in question. \u00a0It has been said that, in Arabic, the written text supplies only about sixty to seventy percent of the meaning; the reader must supply the remainder in order to make sense of what\u2019s written.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For instance, to take a simple example, the three unvoweled or unvocalized letters ktb<\/em> might be read as kataba<\/em> (\u201che wrote\u201d) or kutiba<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cit was written,\u201d or \u201cit was fated\/foreordained\u201d) or katb<\/em> (\u201cwriting\u201d) or kutub<\/em> (\u201cbooks\u201d).<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, to choose just one of those for purposes of illustration, katb<\/em> could take any one of several final vowelings to indicate its function in a phrase or in a sentence.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reading it as al-katbu<\/em>, in the nominative case, makes it the subject of a sentence: \u00a0Al-katbu sa\u2018bun<\/em> = \u201cThe writing is difficult.\u201d \u00a0(My apologies to any Arabists out there for my inability to supply diacritical marks or indicate long vowels here.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reading it as\u00a0al-katba<\/em>, in the accusative case, makes the word the object of a verb:\u00a0Qara\u2018a al-katba<\/em> = \u201cHe read the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other hand, reading it as al-katbi<\/em>, in the genitive case, makes it the possessor of something (e.g., su\u2018ubat t al-katbi<\/em> = \u201cthe difficulty of the writing\u201d) or the object of a preposition (al-su\u2018uba fi al-katbi\u00a0<\/em>= \u201cthe difficulty in the writing\u201d).<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, Father Anawati would have me read aloud in order to demonstrate that I actually understood what I was reading. \u00a0Otherwise, it\u2019s just what my friend and now-retired colleague Dil Parkinson likes to call \u201cword salad.\u201d \u00a0That could occasionally be rather intimidating; these were and remain difficult texts.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But sometimes (often) the texts were remarkable in a very positive way. \u00a0Occasionally, Father Anawati \u2014 who obviously imagined me to be some sort of Latter-day Saint clergyman \u2014 would suggest that I use this or that passage, from a philosophical text by Ibn Rushd (Averro\u00ebs) or even from the Qur\u2019an, in one of my \u201csermons.\u201d \u00a0He told me that he himself had done that, quietly and unobtrusively \u2014 truth is, after all, truth, no matter its source, and sometimes it\u2019s expressed very beautifully and with power \u2014 and that none of those in attendance had ever complained.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I confess that I\u2019ve done it, too. \u00a0Only a few times. \u00a0But, as with Father Anawati, nobody has ever complained.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve posted twice previously about my teacher at the Institut Dominicain des Etudes Orientales in Cairo, Egypt, Father Georges Anawati: \u00a0here and here. \u00a0 He frequently had me read aloud from the texts that we were studying together. \u00a0With regard to Arabic, this isn\u2019t quite as crazy and pointless as it may seem. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Zamalek,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/03\/1599px-ESL_2826_copy.jpg\")
<\/a>