ALAF KHAN
We know what Past, Present, and Future tenses are. They refer, respectively, to some task that has been done to completion, is still in the process of being done, or is yet to begin. This is true of English, Urdu, and Pashtu grammar. Not so with Arabic, Greek, and Persian. Arabic, for instance, looks at a task as completed, or not yet completed. A completed task is the Past Tense. The one not yet completed includes both Present and Future tenses. He wrote means that the task of writing has been completed. This is Past Tense. He writes refers to a task that is still in the process of being done but not yet finished. This is Present Tense. He will write means that the task is yet to commence. The one not-yet-finished and the one not-yet-begun are lumped together under the term Mudhari () in Arabic and Persian and aorist (ey’uh’rist) in Greek.
Parts of speech. Arabic, unlike English, has only three Parts of Speech: Noun, Verb, and Particle. Pronouns, Adjectives, and Adverbs are all treated as Nouns of one kind or another. That makes Nouns the largest part of Arabic grammar and vocabulary.
What‘s in a name? A rose by any other name shall smell just as sweet, wrote Shakespeare. Not quite so, sir. You won’t get a sweet-smelling flower, or anything else, if you don’t employ nouns. You can’t have language, knowledge, concepts, and transfer of thought from one mind to another without naming all things concrete as well as abstract. Delete the Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives from any book and see what remains — nothing meaningful. Ask someone to bring you that red flower with the sweet smell. The words that, red, flower, sweet, and smell are all nouns of one kind or another. Delete these nouns and that red flower with the sweet smell becomes “— — — with the — —”. What will the person bring you? Nothing, certainly not a rose. Note that the word that is a Demonstrative Pronoun in both English as well as in Arabic. And a Pronoun is a substitute for a noun.
Recall the occasion when the Lord told the angels that He planned to place a vicegerent (Khalifa) on earth. Are You creating on it one who will wreak havoc on it and cause bloodshed, whereas we ceaselessly celebrate Your glory?, asked the angels. I know that which you know not, answered the Lord. And He taught Adam the names — all of them (Al-Quran 2: 30 & 31). It is impossible to conceptualize, identify, or communicate to others the existence, nature, and function of anything without naming that thing, its constituent parts, and all its attributes. Think of all the objects and abstract ideas that man has named, used, invented, or destroyed in the course of history. From the universes and their galaxies to the knife, pen, cigar, Jumbo Jet, tooth, eye, helicopter, atom, electron, Smartphone, Laptop, WhatsApp, French fries, fish, rifle, president, owl, judge, frog, onion, taste, smell, Covid, ballpoint, and billions more are known only by their names. Our bodies have billions of components, each made up of thousands of others that we know and identify by giving them names. No knowledge and civilization can exist without the use of those unique tools, namely, names.
Arabic grammar treats an Infinitive () as the name of a certain task. To walk, to eat, to read, to kill, etc are the names of particular tasks without indicating the tense of their occurrence. Adjectives are the names of certain attributes or qualities, hence Nouns () in Arabic. Pronouns are simply substitutes for Nouns. Words pointing towards something, e.g. this, these, those, that, it, etc are Demonstrative Pronouns and are, therefore, Nouns. His, her, their, mine, yours, etc point to the possession of something or someone by someone or something. All such Possessive Pronouns () are again Nouns. Nouns thus make up the largest part of a language. To be a verb in Arabic and Greek, a word must indicate a Tense, i.e. Past, Present, or Future. A tense less task is a Noun, not a Verb. ‘To write” is the name of a task that one may perform anytime, or never do so, hence a Noun.. Wrote, Writes, and Will write imply Past, Present, and Future Tenses and are, therefore, Verbs. Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi have phonetically much in common. All three will be referred to as Hindi in this discussion.
Those whose mother tongue is Arabic or Hindi cannot pronounce a word that starts with two consonants They have to add a vowel before or after the first letter. Fraud, Glow, Plane, Street, Swat, and Spain thus become Faraud, Galow, Palane, Istreet, Sawat, and Espain. English and Pashtu have no such need. For an Arabic and Hindi speaker, the first or second letter of any word has to be an English vowel. Atom, Extra, Indoor, Office, and Uncle are examples of words that begin with a vowel and are effortlessly pronounced by Hindi speakers. Examples of words that have a vowel as their second letter are salt, self, timber, torn, and butter.
Two consonants sounding as one letter are phonetically treated as one letter. rather than two individual consonants, e,g. sh in shake, shut, and shame; ph in photo, phase, and phone; gh in ghastly and ghost; th in thumb and throat, and ch in child, chin, and chicken. The third letter in such words fulfills the phonetic function of a second letter. Hindi speakers can pronounce these words without having to add an initial vowel because the first two letters already have the sound of one consonant followed by a vowel. Ask an Arabic or Hindi speaker to say Spanish strangers or Swat smoothly and he will say Espanish esatrangers and Sawat esmoothly.
Native English speakers do not pronounce the second B in bomb, bombing, and bombed. It is only in bombardment that the second B is pronounced. Most Indo-Pakistanis pronounce both the B’s with an equal bang: ‘Excellent bombing, officer’. Sounds great, but not to a Brit or a Yankee. The B in climb, climbing, comb, combing, plumber, plumbing, plumbline, thumb, and tomb is also mute like the second B in bombing.
English is now almost globally the language of communication, commerce, diplomacy, and sciences. It is also the tongue that stores some of the most illogical and perplexing words. Sow/sow, bow/bow, ear/ear, mine/mine, and row/row are common examples. Sow can rhyme either with go or with cow. When rhymed with go, it means burying or planting in the soil the seeds of some crop or fruit, e.g. sowing wheat. Sow, when rhymed with cow, means a mature female swine. The sows chew the fodder that the farmer sows. Bow, when pronounced like cow, is the gesture of curtsy by a person to some nobility or by the actors to the applause of their audience.at the end of a stage show. Bow, when uttered like go, means the stringed implement used for shooting arrows like the legendary Robin Hood. A row, sounded like cow is an argument or fight between two persons or two groups. A row, when pronounced like go, is a line of persons, objects, or events, e.g. a row of singers, houses, or clashes. The word flour rhymes with shower, flower, and tower. Almost every Indo-Pakistani rhymes it with floor and store.
There should be no problem with ear and mine. Just remember two short sentences:
(1 ) A wheat ear hit my right ear;
(2) This coal mine is mine.
Numeral adjectives need careful handling. World War 2, World War II, and Second World War are correct. World War Second, World War-2, and World War-II are wrong. It is a different matter if you are dealing with two or more important personages of the same name who have held the same privileged position. Two Queens named Elizabeth occupied the British throne. The one who occupied the throne till 2023 CE was Elizabeth II or Elizabeth the Second. Her great predecessor became Elizabeth the First or Elizabeth I only after Elizabeth 2 had ascended the throne. There was no need for appending a numeral to the first Elizabeth before the coronation of Elizabeth the Second. The same goes for the famous ocean liners named after these two monarchs, i.e. Queen Elizabeth I and II. Native English speakers never say Elizabeth First and Elizabeth Second. Several Popes may adopt the name John Paul. They would become John Paul the Second, John Paul the Third (or John Paul II, John Paul III), and so on. We cannot, must not, and do not append a numeral to the first John Paul before the advent of John Paul II
The words for and since are traps for many writers. For describes the length of time taken by some process or event without denoting the starting point, e.g. for two minutes, for nine days, for twelve centuries. Since, on the other hand, locates an event to a specific point in time, e.g. since 2 p.m. today, since last Friday, since 1746, since Stalin’s death, etc. Never say or write Since long and since two years.
Using few in place of a few is possibly the most oft-committed grammatical sin among Indo-Pakistanis. The Adjective few is vastly different from a few. Few means virtually none, while a few means not very many. Likewise, little means virtually no amount, whereas a little denotes a small amount. Note that few and a few apply to numbers, whereas little and a little describe quantities. “Few of us know the difference between few and a few; the few who know are only a few” is a handy formula to remember. Also recall your conjugation of Few and Little in your school days: few- fewer-fewest, and little-less-least.
It is permissible to use less in lieu of fewer when bulk rather than the actual number is intended. It is, for example, not wrong to write that more or less a dozen candidates came for the interview.
Saying or writing few in place of a few is stronger evidence of one’s being a Pakistani than one’s green passport. Even Imran Khan, an Oxford graduate, Chairman of Pakistan Tahreek Insaf, and an erstwhile Prime Minister of Pakistan committed this sin in his tweet of 26 June 2023 when he wrote: Few days ago PTI workers had also fainted.
Further and farther are two different adjectives, being the Comparative Degrees of forth and far respectively. So we have forth, further, furthest for the one, and far, farther, farthest for the other.
Double Comparatives for describing the same noun, such as relatively poorer and comparatively shorter are common illogicalities. Even a globally famous scholar once spoke of something more better in one of his New York Times videos. Likewise, a famous Pakistani writer-cum-physician blundered when he spoke of something far more better in his interview with a TV channel in January 2017 in its program The Host.
Man has not yet devised a rule that has no exception. Lesser extent and lesser degree are legitimate babies despite being Double Comparatives. Lesser literally means less than less but can stand for less alone It, for example, is not wrong to say that dense fog has badly affected road traffic in London and, to a lesser extent, in Paris.
Violation of the idiom of a foreign tongue is understandable. Many Indo-Pakistanis go for the incorrect as best as I can instead of the correct as best I can. A dash coming after from but not followed by to is irritating. From London —- Washington, or From 23rd October —- 3rd November are examples of what to avoid. Even quality newspapers commit this offense in their advertisements and notices. A seminar will be held from 10 a.m. — 2 p.m. each day from July 22nd —-July 25th 2015. It ought to be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day, from July 22 to July 25, 2015. We don’t say that the President flew from London — Washington, or that the Prime Minister did not speak to his wife from Monday — Friday. A dash is a punctuation mark, Don’t let it grab the seat of a conjunction. Even Wikipedia is guilty of this literary lapse. Its profile of Prof. Francis Robinson contains this piece: President of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1997 — 1999.
A statement enclosed in two commas, two dashes, or two brackets is, as a rule, a parenthetical phrase or clause lodged inside a full sentence. Even some famous writers squeeze bracketed full sentences into another full sentences. Examples will come later. A parenthetical statement is called in Urdu and Persian. Its recognition is easy. Delete the two enclosing parentheses along with the enclosed text, and the remaining text is still a complete sentence. The parenthetical statement must never be a full sentence in itself. Consider this example: “Your application for the post of the Principal of this college has, after full scrutiny of your CV, been rejected by our Selection Board”. Delete the two commas and the enclosed six words in Italics, and you still have a meaningful sentence. Replacing the two commas with brackets shall have the same effect.
Avoid enclosing an unrelated statement in brackets and lodging it inside, or appending it to, your primary sentence. Such pieces may be justifiably called parenthetical muck. Here is what one of our renowned theoretical physicists and a regular columnist of the Daily Dawn (Karachi), wrote about the bogus research papers published by Ph.D. candidates in Pakistan: Some produce as many as 40-60 every year (Dyson’s lifetime total is a mere 50). The same writer wrote again in the Daily Dawn on 29 April 2017: One, favored by the liberal-minded, blames the blasphemy law and implicitly demands its repeal (an explicit call would endanger one’s life). Two independent sentences are masquerading as one. And here is a third example by the same writer. Still worse: the uninvested fund has lost Rs10m a day in interest (the recent decision to invest this by June 20 is way overdue)
The writer here obviously can’t decide where to place the full stop. So he writes none.
A physician from Swat has, in his 2015 memoirs, recorded these statements: During the Second World War men gathered in my father’s cousin’s hujra (hujras are community centers used mainly by men to accommodate guests and for entertainment) to listen to the village’s only radio.
A Pak-American surgeon writes in his 2016 memoirs about one of his friends:
He was then appointed vice-chancellor (president) of M. K. University (not to be confused with M. K. College which is a separate institution), a job he has held for six years. And again: I wrote a letter of resignation, enclosed a check for 5000 rupees (in 1974 that would have been about $250) and sent it to the university. The same author once again: This was a handwritten magazine produced by students under the supervision of our English teacher, Master F. A. Ahmad (Master is a title used for a teacher; the headteacher is called the Headmaster).
The same writer recalls some event and says that he was literally taken aback. Now, that is a physical impossibility. It means that he was transported bodily in space-time to some place in which he once was thirty years earlier. You can be literally taken aback in space, but never in time.
J.A.C. B is an American academician and an authority on Islam. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Misquoting Muhammad is his scholarly book as far as contents go. He, however, gets caught in the parenthetical trap in the following extract: For him and his followers, the Quran brought a message that was rational (miracles were metaphors, angels were forces of nature), civilized (Hudud punishments were meant as mere ceilings for punishment, which should normally be proportional to the crime) and spiritually fulfilling. It preached above all an orientation toward God and a moral law (monogamy was ideal, and men and women were equal, though the latter’s proper place was in the home).
An eminent scholar of international repute has squeezed two adult sheep into one marsupial pouch of a kangaroo. Here is what he should have avoided but didn’t: Restrictions on women’s driving (only Saudi Arabia bans women from driving cars) or working (they are legally permitted to work in most Muslim countries) are country specific and very diverse). Islam: page 99, by J. Esp.
Note the missing partner for the final closing bracket. I have manufactured the following example elsewhere to illustrate such wooly thinking: Our 3 sons have been practicing physicians in the USA for over two decades (our neighbor’s car was stolen last night) before my wife and I joined them for the fifth time.).
Finally, three quotes from an academician, scholar, poet, dramatist, film maker, diplomat, and author of many books:
(1). It is a seminal speech in the history of Pakistan. (The state itself came into being a few days later, on 14th August 1947, which is now celebrated as Independence Day.) A. A; Pak Link, 16 August 2016
(2). —- a history lesson full of insight. (for the sake of transparency, I must state that I wrote the Foreword and have leaned on it for this article).
A.A; PakLink 29 JUL & 26 Sep 2021.
(3). The book is preserved in a glass case in the Wana Mess. Lawrence inscribed a note to the South Waziristan Scouts (details of the letter and other episodes from my time in the Agency are covered in my book Resistance and Control in Pakistan 1991). A. A., Fri. Times, Nov 24
These writers get confused about the correct place for the final Full Stop. It is placed after the closing bracket in some places and inside the bracket in others.
(To be continued)
