Lesson 57 – الدَّرْسُ السَّابِعُ وَالْخَمْسُونَ

The six nouns - الأَسْمَاءُ السِّتَّة

Introduction - مُقَدِّمَةٌ

  • This is lesson fifty seven of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • In this lesson we will learn the six Arabic nouns /In-Shā’-Allâh/ (God willing).  We will study their forms, and their declension cases and signs.
  • They are called the six nouns because they are six Arabic nouns that have a similar way of irregular declension (i.e. their declension does not fall under the normal rules of declension), the six nouns are below in the following table:

أَبْ

/ab/

أَخْ

/akh/

حَمْ

/ħam/

ذُو

/dhū/

فُو

/fū/

هَنْ

/han/

Arabic

Father

Brother

Father in law

Having, owner of

Mouth

Thing

English

  • We will also discuss the declension of the six nouns and we will see that their declension cases are, irregularly, not signed by the three main signs (/fatħah/, /đammah/ and /kasrah/) on their ends, but they are, instead, declinable with letters, i.e. long vowel endings (/wāw/, /alif/, and /yā’/), being in nominative, accusative or genitive cases respectively.
  • The following table shows us the difference between the regular declension with short vowels ending signs (/đammah/, /fatħah/,  or /kasrah/), and the irregular declension with long vowels signs (/alif/ – /wāw/ – /yā’/) related to the six nouns:

Irregular declension

Regular declension

Grammatical case

Example

Signs (long vowels)

Example

Signs  (short vowels)

English

Arabic

English

Arabic

This is our father

هَذَا أَبُونَا

/Hādhā abūnā/

 

الوَاو

و

/wāw/ (/ū/)

This is a boy

هَذا وَلَدٌ

/hādhā waladun/

الضَّمَّة

ـــُ

/đammah/

Nominative

I saw our father

رَأَيْتُ أَبَانا

/Ra’aytu abānā/

الأَلِف

ا

/alif/

(/ā/)

I saw the boy

رِأَيْتُ الوَلَدَ

الفَتْحَة

ـــَ

/fatħah/

Accusative

I travelled with our father

سَافَرْتُ مَعَ أَبِينَا

/sāfartu maξa abīnā/

الياءُ

ي

/yā’/

(/ī/)

I travelled with the director

سافَرْتُ مَعَ المُدِيرِ

الكَسْرَة

ـــِ

/kasrah/

Genitive

  • We will also learn the conditions under which the six nouns are declinable with long vowel signs (letters;/alif/, /wāw/, or /Yā’/), instead of short vowels (/fatħah/, /đammah/, or /kasrah/).