Nunation
Nunation(Arabic:تَنوِين,tanwīn), in someSemitic languagessuch asLiterary Arabic,is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics (ḥarakāt) to anounoradjective.
This is used to indicate the word ends in analveolar nasalwithout the addition of the letternūn.The noun phrase is fullydeclinableand syntactically unmarked fordefiniteness,identifiable in speech.
Literary Arabic
[edit]When writing Literary Arabic in full diacritics, there are three nunation diacritics, which indicate the suffixes-un(IPA:/-un/) (nominative case),-in/-in/ (genitive), and-an/an/ (accusative). Theorthographicalrules for nunation with thefatḥahsignـً is by an additionalاalif(اً, diacritic above alif; orـًا, diacritic before alif; see below), aboveةً (tāʾ marbūṭahتاء مربوطة) or aboveءً (hamzahهمزة).
In most dialects ofspoken Arabic,nunation only exists in words and phrases borrowed from the literary language, especially those that are declined in the accusative (that is, with-an). It is still used in someBedouin dialectsin its genitive form-in,such as inNajdi Arabic.
Since Arabic has noindefinite article,nouns that are nunated (except for proper nouns) are indefinite, and so the absence of the definite articleʼaltriggers nunation in all nouns and substantives except diptotes (that is, derivations with only two cases in the indefinite state, -u in the nominative and -a in the accusative and genitive). A given name, if it is not a diptote, is also nunated when declined, as inأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ الله(ashhaduanna Muḥammadan rasūlu l-lāh(i)/ʔaʃ.ha.duʔan.namu.ħam.ma.danra.suː.lul.laː(.hi)/"I bear witness thatMuhammadis the messenger of Allah. "), in which the wordمحمدMuḥammad,a given name derived from the passive participle ofحَمَّدَ( "to praise" ), is nunated toمُحَمَّدًاMuḥammadanto signal that it is in the accusative case, as it is the grammatical subject of a sentence introduced byأنَّ( "that" ).
Nunation -tanwīnتَنْوِين | |||
---|---|---|---|
Symbol | ـٌ |
ـٍ |
ـً |
Transliteration | -un |
-in |
-an |
Case | Nom
|
Gen
|
Acc
|
Example on the wordبيتbayt | بيتاُ | بيتاٍ |
بيتاً |
Transliteration | baytun | baytin | baytan |
Example on the wordدودةdūdah | دودةٌ |
دودةٍ |
دودةً |
Transliteration | dūdatun | dūdatin | dūdatan |
Example on the wordهدوءhudūʼ | هدوءٌ |
هدوءٍ |
هدوءًا |
Transliteration | hudūʼun | hudūʼin | hudūʼan |
In Levantine Arabic, it is standard to writefatḥatānon thealif,rather than on the previous letter:[1] بيتاً - هدوءاً
Xiao'erjing
[edit]Xiao'erjing is a Perso-Arabic script adopted for writing ofSinitic languagessuch asMandarin(especially theLanyin,ZhongyuanandNortheasterndialects) or theDungan language.This writing system is unique (compared to other Arabic-based writing systems) in that all vowels, long and short, are explicitly marked at all times with Arabic diacritics. In this script, the three nunations are used extensively to represent the alveolar (front) nasal sounds( "-n" ),and also sometimes to represent velar (back) nasal sounds( "-ng" ).
Nunation -tanwīn | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Symbol | ـًا |
ـٌ |
ـٍ |
ْـٍ |
Transliteration | -an |
-un |
-en |
-eng |
Example on a word | بًا |
جٌ |
مٍ |
مٍْ |
Chinese Character | Nửa | Chuẩn | Nhóm | Mộng |
Pinyin | bàn | zhǔn | mén | mèng |
Akkadian language
[edit]Nunation may also refer to the-nending ofdualsinAkkadian(until it was dropped in the Old Babylonian period).[2]
Character encodings
[edit]Preview | ً | ٌ | ٍ | ࣰ | ࣱ | ࣲ | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | ARABIC FATHATAN | ARABIC DAMMATAN | ARABIC KASRATAN | ARABIC OPEN FATHATAN | ARABIC OPEN DAMMATAN | ARABIC OPEN KASRATAN | ||||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 1611 | U+064B | 1612 | U+064C | 1613 | U+064D | 2288 | U+08F0 | 2289 | U+08F1 | 2290 | U+08F2 |
UTF-8 | 217 139 | D9 8B | 217 140 | D9 8C | 217 141 | D9 8D | 224 163 176 | E0 A3 B0 | 224 163 177 | E0 A3 B1 | 224 163 178 | E0 A3 B2 |
Numeric character reference | ً |
ً |
ٌ |
ٌ |
ٍ |
ٍ |
ࣰ |
ࣰ |
ࣱ |
ࣱ |
ࣲ |
ࣲ |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^"تنوين الفتح.. على الألف أم على الحرف الذي يسبقه؟".21 March 2016.
- ^Akkadian grammar: morphologyArchived2009-07-05 at theWayback Machine