Sunday, October 24, 2010

The 1st Person Plural Pronoun We and Verb Affixes

You need to know the animal icons for the alphabet described in earlier posts to understanding these whole word and affix images.  In addition to our basic letter symbolism, you must also know that a croissant is being used to symbolize the crescent moon we linked fatHa to earlier; a chocolate kiss candy reminds us the round the lips into a Damma; and finally, a white marshmallow with a little lemon pasted pumpkin-like smile is kasRa.

The 1st Person Singular Pronoun I and Verb Affixes

The order of the Animal Characters (Consonants) and snacks (fronds/hamza, croissant/fatHa, chocolate kisses/Damma, and pumkin-styled marshmellows/kasRa) give you the spelling of each pronoun in the odd numbered pictures.  In the even numbered pictures, the baby animal image gives you affixes (prefixes and sometimes suffixes) for the IMPERFECT (present) tense, while the adult animal images give you the suffix for the PERFECT (past) tense.  The 26 countries of Latin America (including the biggest islands) will serve as the background sequencing for the images.  If you are viewing these images and don't understand something, post a questions and I will answer it.

Mediterranean
Memory Palace
of Measures
Everything
between
X. Turkey
istaCCaCa
Welcome to Istanbul, the 1st sound of measure X.
Istanbul
and
Israel
starts
IX. Syria
iCCaCaCa
At the northern end of the Arabic speaking world, double your last letter for good measure.
with a
closed
VIII. Lebanon
iCtaCaCa
Lebanon is the 2nd most popular TV producer.
letter
“i”
elif-
casra
VII. Israel
inCaCaCa
Israel, having been non-existent for thousands of years, has had a NEW beginning. Is it New Israel?
VI. Palestine
taCaaCaCa
The Phoenicians established their largest settlement in the ancient city of Carthage.  Imagine then that they sent ships to TAKE Palestine back for the Philistines when they periodically lost power.
I. Casablanca, Morocco
CaCaCa

Off the coast of West Africa we shall start with all of our words in Measure I because they start and end with a Consonant-FataHa pair. Notice how the word Casablanca starts and ends with a simple “Ca” as well.  However, we’re missing the middle “Ca.”  Why?  Because that’s the tricky part of Measure one, the middle vowel varies from word to word.  
II. Algers, Algeria
CaCCaCa

In the middle of the Maghreb, we have the capitol city of Algers, which sounds like a redundancy of the country’s name. Following that theme of redundancy in the middle, notice how the matter for this measure has a shadda over the middle consonant making it redundant as well.  Finally, note Algeria’s redundant mineral wealth: they are rich in both oil and gas.
III. Tunisia
CaaCaCa

Remember how Hannibal of Carthage raised up an army of elephants in Tunisia and marched over the Alps to sack Rome? Doesn’t elephant sound a lot like elif?  Noting that, we can remember that in early Tunisian history, like in the early part of this measure (the first syllable), we need to add an elif (elephant).
IV. Tripoli, Lybia
‘aCCaCa

The capitol of Lybia gives us two hints to remember the spelling of this measure--and we connect this to the tree we used to remember that elif with a hamza was the 1st letter in the alphabet. The first syllable in Tri-po-li sounds like Tree, so we begin this measure with elif ma hamza.  Then notice that the first consonant “Trips” over the first vowel to hit the 2nd C.
V. Egypt
taCaCCaCa

For a time, the Shia Fatimids ruled Egypt, but then it was taken over again by Sunni Islam like the rest of North Africa. Algeria is the largest and most populated country west of Egypt, so think of them symbolically taking back Egypt from Persian to be reunited with North Africa.

* Underlined C’s in the measure formulas represent the doubling of a root consonant.


The Chart above starts by mapping the letter patterns of the measures, but it does not get at the meaning of the measures. For that I'd like to tell a story with ten historical icons that we can link to these 10 countries listed above. First let's establish the links to the icons, and then we'll get to the story. One, Morocco, is represented by Sultan Mohammad V wearing a turban with a round gold coin on front (a circle is the number 5 in Arabic). So imagine a king-like person wearing a white turban with a round gold royal seal or coin like attachment on the front. Two, Algeria, is a Cave Man with two big clubs, one in each hand. Why? Because Algeria has lots of caves with evidence of early Berber Cave People from 20,000 year ago. Three, Tunisia, is Hannibal, carrying a big straight ivory elephant tusk as a spear. Why, because he invaded Rome from Tunisia with elephants. Four, Libya, is Barbarossa, the famous pirate Red Beard, who defeated Spanish occupiers and reclaimed Tripoli in Libya as a base for North African Berber pirates. I imagine him with a red beard of course, and a patch over his eye. Five, Egypt, is King Tut wearing that long thin Pharaoh's hat. Six is Goliath, holding a massive shield take he futilely tried to protect himself with from David in an ancient battle over Palestine. Seven is little David with his iconic sling representing Israel. Eight is Peter evangelizing Lebanon as the early headquarters for Christianity. I imagine him with a net on the coast there since he was a fisherman. Steven was stoned at Damascus Gate leading to Damascus, Syria, so he and the bloody rocks on top of him will serve as icons for measure number nine which is used for little more than describing things being reddened with blood anyway. Paul of Taurus (in Turkey), with his tents (since he was a tent maker) will be our icon for measure ten. Now on to the meaning!


1. Sultan Mohammad left Morocco


2. and headed his army of Berber Cave Men across Algeria to Tunisia,


3. and Hannibal's army meet him,


4. (the army) which Barbarossa had sent [it] to Carthage.


5. Sultan Mohammed's army advanced on Hannibal's army in Egyptian chariots,


6. and exchanged fire with it over philistine shields,


7. Then the Tunisia army broke under the slingshots of the Sultan's army.


8. and the Sultan occupied every city caught in his net from Tunis to Beirut and killed every man who had fallen as a prisoner into his hand,


9. and the stones on the ground reddened with blood even to the edge of Damascus. Then the Sultan crept forward to Acre,


10. and resumed the war there. But he was not able to conquer (literally, the opening of) the city, and finally he withdrew from Palestine and returned to Egypt a failure.

Senda's PDF Carts of the Verbs in Measure 1 & 2 of the Napoleon Story

SendaNapoleonMeasureVerbCharts1and2.pdf - 


https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4RUnBzzzHsmZDQ5MDg1ZWUtMGMxMS00MTM5LWI4YjItZjZjMGQ5YzYxZDFh&hl=en


OR THESE PIC FILES BELOW!











10 sentence model story illustrating the 10 Arabic measures

Arabic conjugates verbs based on causality.  Actions in Arabic are not seen through the viewpoint of individuals making independent choices, rather, actions are viewed as complex movements driving by various forces of causality that may or may not include the subject of the verb.  We will explore this in depth over time.  For now, let us start with an outstanding illustration of the nature of the 10 measures played out in a model text from the book Modern Arabic.  Explanations from this grammar reference are also included.





OUTLINE for upcoming posts

I. Introduce measures with Illustrate Text from Modern Arabic about Napoleon's march through North Africa.


II.  Mediterranean Memory Palace with 10 countries West to East on the South and Eastern Shoreline as mental pegs for the consonant patterns of the 10 basic measures.

III.  Senda's full conjugations for the exemplary verbs used in the Illustrative Text.

IV. A 26 part Latin American Memory Palace for memorizing the 13 pronouns and 13 corresponding verb affixes.

V.  An exploration of the Verbal Noun and the concept of time in Arabic through the 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes.

VI. An exploration of Al-Farabi's concept of Causality in a sample text and a discussion of Wharf's Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis.

VII.  An exploration of Al-Farabi's concept of the human mind, what drives it, and how that world-view might help in understanding the measures.

VIII.  An exploration of Al-Farabi's description of what the names of God should be and a discussion of how that relates to common proper names in Arabic and ideals for behavior in Arab culture.

IX. The 99 divine names set to the capital cities and major landscape features of the 50 United States.

X.  Common Proverbs in Arabic for each letter of the Arabic alphabet set to memory scenes in each country looping around the non-Mediterranean coastline of Africa.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

31st Letter: the Smiling Vowel, kasRa

The vowels have literal meanings related to the position of the mouth in making the sound.  This one means smile or crack.


k@sRa = raised jaw, cracked slightly, tongue forward; lengthened when followed by the letter "ye".



ii (as in skiing) = ...ﹳِي or...ﹳِيﹳْ 
i (as in ski) =
 ...ِ۸ (open/light syllable)
I
 (as in Igloo) = ...ﹳِﹳْ or...ِ٤

Imagine smiling and skiing down the powdery hill in the picture while the camel following you is complaining that he is getting covered in white snow.

30th Letter: the Embracing (kissing) Vowel, Damma

The symbolism is explained below.  Pay special attention to the colors as they will be used for the vowels later.


Damma = raised jaw, rounded lips, tongue back; lengthened when followed by the letter "w@w".




uu (as in blue ooze) = ...ﹳُوor...ﹳُوﹳْ

u (as in blue bird blues) = ...ﹳُ (all open syllables)

U (as in cook and book) = ...ﹳُﹳْ

29th Letter -- The Open Vowel, fatHa

The vowel fatHa, and the other vowels, have no Sun or Moon features like the consonants.  These last 3 pictures are not like the other pictures for the consonants.  These three pictures color code the changes in the pronunciation of the vowels that take place in relationship to different consonant pairings.




f@tha = jaw opened, tongue pulled back; lengthened by the letter "elif" shown below as "l". 



e (as in cheddar) = ...َ۸ (open/light syllable)


ae (as in acorn) = ...lَ۸ (open/light syllable)@ (as in apple) ... ۸َ۸ (closed/light syllable)

@@ (as in apple)
 = ...۸lَ۸ (closed/light syllable)


a (as in red onion) = ﷽َ     ...(any final open syllable)


A (as in olive) =  ...َ٤(Dark anywhere in syllable)


A (as in jaw olive) =   ...lَ٤(Ditto, but lengthened)