Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya wrote: Hi Meor,
> and maybe sometimes 649, by some users. What I understood from my > research is, traditionally, the final yeh does not come with the dots. > It was used mainly by non arabic speaker. Later one, it was somehow > adopted by arabic speaker somehow. FYI, this may be true historically, but in my opinion it is not especially relevant. Today final yeh (with yeh semantics) is dotted virtually everywhere in the Arab world. Egypt is the major exception, but even in Egypt use of dotted final yeh is commmon (see the official newspaper of Egypt at http://www.ahram.org.eg/Index.asp?CurFN=fron1.htm&DID=8715). If you got the impression that dotted final yeh is some kind of foreignism that intruded into Arabic, I think you've been mislead. Dotted final yeh is perfectly ordinary and understood by all literate Arabs. The evidence is very easy to find; just look at books published in various places in the Arab world. Or take a look at online newspapers. The reason for this is easy to see. The dots provide the essential information needed to establish identity, since the undotted forms are not graphically related (compare medial and iso form of any yeh). They are just like the other dots used in Arabic: they make it easier to read texts. I would bet that 99% of Arabic teachers in the Arab world would say final yeh is properly dotted (unless it means alif). -gregg
_______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
