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Too many place words begin with “ma”

In Arabic for my liking that is. For example:

  • ﻣﺼﻨﻊ [maSna'] – factory

  • ﻣﺤﻞ [maHall] – store
  • ﻣﺴﺮﺢ [masraH] – theatre
  • ﻣﻜﺗﺐ [maktab] – office
  • ﻣﻄﺎﺮ [maTaar] – airport
  • ﻣﺪﺭﺳﺔ [madrasa] – school
  • ﻣﻄﻌﻢ [maT'am] – restaurant
  • ﻣﺤﻄﺔ [maHaTTa] – station
  • ﻣﺘﺤﻒ [matHaf] – museum

The “ma” sound in Arabic, if I recall our teacher correctly, indicates the place at which something is done, which does explain the Arabic language’s love of the “ma” at the beginning of place names. But I only have a small brain, so can you blame me for getting a tad confused between airport and restaurant or factory and theatre?

One word I will recall for a while, in fact I believe the 8 of us in the class will: ﺷﺮﻛﺔ [sharika] – company or business. Why will we remember it? One fellow said it as ‘Shakira’. :)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 03:08 and is filed under Language and Linguistics, Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Too many place words begin with “ma””

  1. rain Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 06:45

    i feel so informed…and impressed with your Arabic symbols –
    mawiblog!

  2. Kerensa Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 15:41

    Ooh, you could have fun with mnemonics here…
    maTam – where I fill ma Tum = restaurant
    maHall = mall – place where there are lots of stores..
    No ideas for trying to learn the script.. that looks pretty hard!

  3. Ian Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 23:43

    Oh my: thank you Kerensa! I never thought of mnemonics — they may help indeed. And I love your suggestions. :)

    And dare I confess I actually find the script reasonably easy. It is a bit tough to learn, but once you learn the letters it isn’t as hard as I thought it might be.

  4. http://duchesszone.blogspot.com Says:
    June 19th, 2008 at 05:45

    Hehe! Shakira Shakira!

    Wow…that is awesome you are learning Arabic!