Arabic-L:Acronyms

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Thu 04 Oct 2001
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message to listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
           unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: Acronyms vs. blends
2) Subject: more acronyms
3) Subject: more acronyms
4) Subject: UNSCOM

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date:  04 Oct 2001
From: "sattar.izwaini at stud.umist.ac.uk" <Sattar.Izwaini at student.umist.ac.uk>
Subject: Acronyms vs. blends

It is important to differentiate between acronyms and blends. Some
of the examples given, such as basmala, Hamdala, Hawqala, and
sabHala, are actually blends where words are clipped and joined
together to generate a new word that produces other words such
as verbs, adjectives and adverbs, e.g. basmala: yubasmil,
mubasmilan etc.
Acronyms, on the other hand, are roughly initialisms. First letters
of words that compromise an expression are put together. An
acronym are usually pronounced as a word. It normally refers to an
entity, such as organizations and governmental institutions etc.
Examples: UNESCO, FatH.

Kind regards

Sattar Izwaini

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Date:  04 Oct 2001
From: mughazy <mughazy at students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: more acronyms

Dear members of the list
Here are some more acronyms that are read as independent letters

Sad, laam, meem     Salla allhu 3alihi wasalam
geem, meem, 3ien    gumhureyyet maSr al-3arabiyya (Arab Republic of Egypt)
sheen, meem, meem   sharika maSreyya musaahima
qaaf, meem          qabl al-meelad (B.C.)
meem                meeladeyya (A.D.)
heh                 hijreyya (A.H.)
qaaf, 3ein          qiTaa3 3aam (public sector),
                     Also quwaat musallaHa (armed forces)
teh                 telifoon (phone)
seen, teh           segel tugaari (business record)
Saad,beh            Sandooq bareed (Postal Box)
sheen               street
Saad                SabaaHan (a.m.)
meem                masaa?an (p.m.)
geem                geneih (Egyptian pound)
kaaf, meem          keelo metr (kilometer)

Some titles
alef                ustaaz (Mr.)
daal                doctor (Dr.) or (prof.)
alef, daal          ustaaz doktoor
meem                muhanddis (engineer)
seen                sabeq (former)

There are many more register-specific ones that you can find only in
classified ads.
Hope these help

Mustafa A. Mughazy
Graduate student
Depatment of Linguistics
University of Illinois
Urbana Champaign

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
Date:  04 Oct 2001
From:  Jackie Murgida <jmurg at star.net>
Subject: more acronyms

Also, there's sl`m [sallaa allahu `alayhi wa-sallam, I think]...right? Which
I've seen as PBUH in English. And AlAkh [for ilaa aakhirihi].
Jackie

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Date:  04 Oct 2001
From:  Mutarjm at aol.com
Subject: UNSCOM

Greetings / tahaiya tayyiba wa b3ad...
Yaa halla biljemaa3.

UN Special Commission on Iraq (common English acronynm of UNSCOM) appears in
Arabic media as

        unsiikowm < alif-noon-seen-kaf-waw-miim,
                        also sometimes as < alif-noon-seen-yaa-kaf-waw-miim >.

American media reference were: "UNS-com" ("uns" pronounced as in "buns").

HTH. Khair, in sha' Allah.
Regards,
Stephen H. Franke
(UNSCOM inspector, Baghdad, 1991)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L:  04 Oct 2001