Learn To Write Arabic

[smk]

  On 11/25/2012 at 1:42 AM, Ghost Plane said:

 

The Persian Diversion's mom wrote out the alphabet for me, but without someone to hold my hand and show me the proper forms like I was a child, I find myself making the letters backward. :bonk:

 

So are you practicing along with the lessons? I have yet to see anyone's practice sheet, it'll be good to see someone trying :-)

 

S.

[Ghost Plane]

Just watching so far. :embarrassed_smile: Getting uninterrupted time to sit down and play with my pens is virtually impossible at the moment. :bonk:

 

The few times I tried to copy Momma PD's sheet by myself, I find myself reversing and going left to right. So I definitely need a literal hand holder.

 

I'm actually fairly ambidextrous for purposes of writing English, so I'm wondering if I emulate my left-handed overwriter if it would make things easier? One hand per alphabet?

 

Got to drift over to Azam's house and see if I can borrow her children's workbooks.

[smk]

Lessons 7 and 8 are online and linked in the first post. These conclude the basic letter forms.

 

The next step is to learn the different shapes of the letters and joining rules - fun!

 

S.

[firefinch]

  Quote

 

So are you practicing along with the lessons? I have yet to see anyone's practice sheet, it'll be good to see someone trying :-)

 

S.

 

 

Hello smk. You have truly reminded me of my Arabic grammar lessons in secondary school, that is between 1983-1987. Arabic was a compulsary subject for us in Malta at that time. Despite being imposed on us, I didn't do bad in the language, although since then I simply did not practice it any longer and so forgot everything about the language.

 

Your videos spurred me to actually try my hand again at arabic writing. I'll scan my practice sheet (obviously written with one of my fountain pens) and upload it later on.

 

christopher

[smk]

Great to know you'll be joining Christopher. I'll be looking forward to seeing your exercises.

 

Speaking of fountain pens, I broke out my Marlen especially for writing these lessons as it has an M nib that seems like a Broad to me as I generally like finer nibs. With a dry ink (MB Midnight Blue) it writes a bit finer than it's usual line.

 

Salman

 

ps. Is anyone else actually learning from these lessons?

[Ghost Plane]

And yet my Marlen B feels like an M to me

 

It's beyond useful to be able to repeat a video over and over again to get the hang of it.

[smk]

Thanks GP, its great to know these lessons are useful.

 

S.

[Rich L]

Again, let me say I love this thread because it's another way to get beautiful script on paper. My writing is rusty and this gets me going on it again. One thing I might suggest is a few short sentences or phrases that would go beyond just writing individual letters especially because the form changes depending on where in the word it is. Is there such a thing as "The quick brown fox ..." in Arabic that uses every letter at the beginnin, middle, and end of the word??

 

One thing that helped me was writing what was (is) on the Saudi Arabian flag (if you need to you can ignore the religious overtone) and some of the common verses in the Koran. I had Muslims teaching me this way back in the seventies. Also, rewriting text I found in Arabic books and newspapers. Now it's easy because BBC Arabic is on line. It's also fun to see how English names and new words get transliterated into Arabic. Case in point "Gangnam Style" is غانغنام ستايل It has that awful "ghain" in it - twice! You'll note some shorthand with the letter "seen" ( س ) and the new, even more effective, technique for the "double dot." Boy, I really am rusty at this!

 

Cheers,

Rich

[pmhudepo]

Salman, thank you for creating these video instructions. Although I have no immediate interest in learning to write Arabic, I spent a fun hour yesterday writing along with your videos. I thought it might be cool to be able to write my own name in Arabic, but I haven't seen the letter "p" just yet.

 

Patrick.

[smk]

  On 11/25/2012 at 10:41 PM, Rich L said:

Again, let me say I love this thread because it's another way to get beautiful script on paper. My writing is rusty and this gets me going on it again. One thing I might suggest is a few short sentences or phrases that would go beyond just writing individual letters especially because the form changes depending on where in the word it is. Is there such a thing as "The quick brown fox ..." in Arabic that uses every letter at the beginnin, middle, and end of the word??

 

Thanks Rich.

 

I'm not aware of any 'quick brown fox' type sentence. It would be too long anyway. Calligraphy is generally taught by showing the individual alphabet followed by learning and practicing how each letter is joined with all the other letters. Its quite long but by the time you're done with that the forms are fixed in your memory.

 

Handwriting is quite different and you get to develop some of your own ways to join letters. A lot depends on the style of one's teacher. I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can with little regard for aesthetics - I do use all shortcuts available to me in my own handwriting and it'll be very confusing to try and teach that style.

 

  Quote

One thing that helped me was writing what was (is) on the Saudi Arabian flag (if you need to you can ignore the religious overtone) and some of the common verses in the Koran. I had Muslims teaching me this way back in the seventies. Also, rewriting text I found in Arabic books and newspapers. Now it's easy because BBC Arabic is on line. It's also fun to see how English names and new words get transliterated into Arabic. Case in point "Gangnam Style" is غانغنام ستايل It has that awful "ghain" in it - twice! You'll note some shorthand with the letter "seen" ( س ) and the new, even more effective, technique for the "double dot." Boy, I really am rusty at this!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

That's my plan too. I just wanted to start at the beginning since I was asked to help at that level. I was thinking of taking a pause here to let people catch up a bit before proceeding into the joining (that and I'm getting tired of listening to the sound of my own voice in the videos :-)

 

You might be rusty but that lettering is pretty good and perfectly readable. Did you ever use qalams or oblique nibbed pens when learning?

 

Salman

[smk]

  On 11/26/2012 at 8:55 AM, pmhudepo said:

Salman, thank you for creating these video instructions. Although I have no immediate interest in learning to write Arabic, I spent a fun hour yesterday writing along with your videos. I thought it might be cool to be able to write my own name in Arabic, but I haven't seen the letter "p" just yet.

 

Patrick.

 

Ah - but there is no 'p' sound in Arabic. A lot of Arabs have problems even pronouncing it in English.

 

A 'p' is usually substituted by 'baa'. Also, the 'taa (t)' doesn't sound like the 't' sound we are used to, its sounds like halfway between a 't' and 'th'. You can use 'taa' for the 't' though.

 

Farsi and Urdu has the letter 'pay' which looks like a 'baa' but has three dots underneath. 'pay' produces the 'p' sound.

 

Urdu has the letter 'tey' which looks like a 'baa' with a little 'taa' on top rather than any dots. 'Tey' produces the 't' sound used in 'Patrick'.

 

Patrick in Arabic: بيترك

 

Patrick in Persian: پیترک

 

Patrick in Urdu: پیٹرک

 

Salman

[pmhudepo]

Wow, thanks! Looks like I need to stick around for more lessons: joins and, I guess, some "extra" dots for vowels or pronunciation.

[Ghost Plane]

Gonna be awhile before I get past the isolated letters.

[firefinch]

  On 11/25/2012 at 8:52 PM, smk said:

Great to know you'll be joining Christopher. I'll be looking forward to seeing your exercises.

 

Speaking of fountain pens, I broke out my Marlen especially for writing these lessons as it has an M nib that seems like a Broad to me as I generally like finer nibs. With a dry ink (MB Midnight Blue) it writes a bit finer than it's usual line.

 

Salman

 

ps. Is anyone else actually learning from these lessons?

 

Hi Salman,

 

Here is my attempt in writing the Arabic alphabet. I'm still a bit shaky but I'm hoping it gets better! I look forward to the joining of the letters and the vowels a, i and u.

 

christopher

[smk]

That is very well done Christopher - and you did all the lessons in one go - brilliant.

 

Only a couple of minor adjustments:

 

The 'Saad' and 'Daad' need to have the first loop a bit flatter - the horizontal like should be about the same angle as the notches in your 'seen'.

 

Also, the stem of the 'laam' should be straight, like an 'alif' followed by a bowl like the 'noon'.

 

The letters are perfectly recognizable the way you wrote them, these adjustments will help with legibility in the combined form.

 

I have started preparing the lessons on joins and diacritical marks but it'll take a day or two to finalize them. Keep practicing until then.

 

Salman

[firefinch]

  On 11/27/2012 at 10:26 AM, smk said:

 

Only a couple of minor adjustments:

 

The 'Saad' and 'Daad' need to have the first loop a bit flatter - the horizontal like should be about the same angle as the notches in your 'seen'.

 

Also, the stem of the 'laam' should be straight, like an 'alif' followed by a bowl like the 'noon'.

 

Salman

 

Thanks a lot Salman for your encouragement and your feedback. I need to practice more to write all the letters as they should be! Regarding the Daad and the Saad, I vaguely remember that they were indeed flatter.

 

I look forward to your next lesson.

 

christopher

[smk]

Lessons 9, 10 and 11 are added. These show the different forms of letters depending on where they fall in the word. There's also an exemplar that summarizes the joined shapes for all the letters.

 

S.

 

ETA: I changed the camera angle for these videos - please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Edited November 28, 2012 by smk

[Rich L]

  On 11/28/2012 at 3:07 PM, smk said:

Lessons 9, 10 and 11 are added. These show the different forms of letters depending on where they fall in the word. There's also an exemplar that summarizes the joined shapes for all the letters.

 

S.

 

ETA: I changed the camera angle for these videos - please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

 

Great lessons! May I suggest a different camera angle so that the student isn't looking at right angles to the sheet. Since you are right-handed and the writing is right to left, I suggest an over-the-left-shoulder angle as shown in the attached picture (closer up, of course). This is just a hand held snapshot I did with my left hand wrapped around my left neck Using a pencil (a what!), too.

 

Cheers,

Rich

[smk]

  On 11/28/2012 at 5:12 PM, Rich L said:

May I suggest a different camera angle so that the student isn't looking at right angles to the sheet. Since you are right-handed and the writing is right to left, I suggest an over-the-left-shoulder angle as shown in the attached picture (closer up, of course).

 

Thanks for the feedback Rich. I will try to get the over shoulder angle - I'm somewhat limited in the placement of the tripod around my desk but I think I can manage that angle.

 

Salman

[Rich L]

I just happened to find this - back when my Arabic penmanship was better .... At the risk of dragging this thread into the gutter I post this verbiage. It's not obscene - it's just an insult to someone who has a big nose. I have one and I'm not offended. It's Kuwaiti jargon and back when I was a teenager this kind of thing was fun and it helped me to write and speak some of the language. It is interesting through the use of simile that some folks tie their displeasure of someone else. I'm rusty in the specific translation but the message is clear and Salman could probably testify to that. It says a man's nose is like on an elephant and then disassociates the guy's nose from his body (because it's so big) and addresses them independently. Only in Arabic. I'll just have to practice this gem with a nicer calligraphic script. I half remember another one that says something about a guy looking like a dog... I can't help but chuckle.

 

There's a bit of shorthand again with the esses ("seen") and some leading letters (taa' and yaa'). Also the double dot is lazy.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

ps: Salman will let me know if I'm going too far off his track. This just brings back old, good memories.