Elif & I in Germany - Grammar, Pronouns, and Verbs Story

As a prerequisite to succeeding in mastering the alphabet story verbs, you will need to have a basic sense of what to expect in each of the 10 measures--both in terms of how they are written, and in terms of what they mean in general.  If you don't know the structure of how the measures are written, go back to the blog post on the Mediterranean Memory Palace of Measures.  As for having a sense of the meaning of each measure, we will come back to that more later, but for now, you should have these general expectations:

Measure I is for basic self-driven actions like eating, going, coming, doing, opening, studying etc.

Measure II is for Convincing someone, Given someone away in marriage, Teaching someone.
  This measure is about doing something to someone else that doesn't change or effect the doer in the action.    
   In Grammatic terms, this is called a "Causative Measure."

Measure III is for a male having sex with a woman, blaming or arguing with someone, protecting someone.
   This measure is about doing something WITH someone in an assertive relationship roll that effects the doer.

Measure IV is for when the doer of the action is considered totally powerless in regards to the circumstances.
   This is for believing in God, loving someone or something, and for informing (don't shot the messenger)

Measure V is on the receiving end of Measure II.  They are connected in Spelling and in Meaning.
   To be given away in marriage, to be tortured, to be buried alive, or to volunteer for example.

Measure VI is on the receiving end of Measure III.  They are connected in Spelling and in Meaning.
   Examples are a woman having sex with a man, exchanging gunfire, or receiving a honor or award.

Measure VII is called the passive of Measure I.  It's generally about internal collapse or change of some kind.
   Examples include an arm breaking, a government having a coup, suicide, or a sheet was folded.

Measure VIII is called the reciprocal of Measure I.  It's about a person or group (singular) effecting itself.
   Examples include overcoming, traversing, hiding or concealing yourself, etc.

Measure IX is for coloring this metaphorically or literally--both only for colors and nothing else.
   Examples:  The ground reddened with blood, or the sky reddened at sunset.

Measure X is for some kind of reaching out and trying for something or asking for something.
   Examples: Begging, Resuming or Starting something.

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Elif & I in Germany - Grammar, Pronouns, and Verbs Story

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In this lesson we will be learning 10 words:

     1-2) I & Germany
     3-10) Verbs starting with Elif for the Main 8 Measures (we will usually exclude the rarer measures 7 & 9).

     Also, we will be learning a little bit of history through the use of historically based fiction.  This story is based on immigration facts found in the following migration study about Moroccan immigration in Germany:
http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-moroccan-diaspora-2007.pdf

     From this study, we can learn that the Northern Berber Riffian tribes in the Rif mountains of Morocco that were under colonial Spanish rule rather than French rule tended to emigrate more to German Coal mines in the Ruhr Valley around Bochum, Germany rather than to France as most other Moroccans did both because they had mining experience in their own Moroccan mountains and because they had no natural linguistic affinity with France.  Now the story to illustrate verbs in different measures, first entirely in English with the key verbs capitalized and in bold:

Sitting down in the back of the inner courtyard behind a quiet little cafe, I noted the following statements in my interview with an old Moroccan immigrant who moved to Bochum, Germany in the 1960s for work as a young man:

I) I CAME to Germany from the Rif mountains of Northern Morocco looking for work in the coal mines of the Ruhr valley in 1969."

II) An Algerian friend of mined ASSURED me that the German mines were the best place for a Berber Riffian like myself who didn't speak French to immigrate to for work, but I'm not so sure anymore.

III) There's an elephant in the room so to speak every time I meet with this friend now to smoke hookah on our lunch break at the mine before returning to work.  You see, I'm 62 years old now, and I BLAME him for convincing me to come to Germany with him back in 1969 instead of going to France.  I would already be retired by now if I were living in France.

IV) I BELIEVE that only God knows best, but every time I take a trip across the boarder into France, I see the other Moroccans my age retired already and I believe (a different kind of verb meaning believe) more and more than they got a better deal in France than I did since I have to work in Germany until I'm 67 to retire.

V) I feel like I'M GOING TO BE LATE to my own funeral working in the coal mines all the way until I'm 67 before the Germans let me retire.

VI) But you never know.  It seems like the French president Sarkozy IS CONSPIRING with the Germans to raise the retirement age in France too these days.

VIII) To start with Sarkozy is only raising the general retirement age from 60 to 62, but I heard that in the xenophobic craze taking over France right now, Sarkozy might BE CONSPIRING all on his own and unlike the Germans and other to raise the retirement age to 70 just for the immigrant population in France in exchange for lowering the retirement age for the Native full-blooded French Nationals back down to 60.  France for the French they say!  I know, it's probably just a conspiracy theory, but sometimes I worry about that French xenophobia and racism.

X) Well, I better go now.  It was nice talking with you, but I AM GOING TO START working again in a little bit.  I have to go now.

Now let's replace those key verbs with Arabic to have our story in Arabish (English + Arabic):

I) أَتَيْتُto أَلْمَانِيَاfrom the Rif mountains of Northern Morocco looking for work in the coal mines of the Ruhr valley in 1969.

II) An Algerian friend of mined أَكَّدَme that the German mines were the best place for a Berber Riffian like myself who didn't speak French to immigrate to for work, but I'm not so sure anymore.

III) There's an elephant in the room so to speak every time I meet with this friend now to smoke hookah on our lunch break at the mine before returning to work.  

     You see, I'm 62 years old now, and I أُؤَاخِذُ him for convincing me to come to Germany with him back in 1969 instead of going to France.  I would already be retired by now if I were living in France.

IV) I أُوْمِنُthat only God knows best, but every time I take a trip across the boarder into France, I see the other Moroccans my age retired already and I believe (a different kind of verb meaning believe) more and more than they got a better deal in France than I did since I have to work in Germany until I'm 67 to retire.

V) I feel like سَأَتَخَّرُ to my own funeral working in the coal mines all the way until I'm 67 before the Germans let me retire.

VI) But you never know.  It seems like the French president Sarkozy يَتَآمَرُ with the Germans to raise the retirement age in France too these days.

VIII) To start with Sarkozy is only raising the general retirement age from 60 to 62, but I heard that it could get even worse.

     In the xenophobic craze taking over France right now, Sarkozy might يَأْتَمِرُ all on his own and unlike the Germans and other to raise the retirement age to 70 just for the immigrant population in France in exchange for lowering the retirement age for the Native full-blooded French Nationals back down to 60.  France for the French they say!  I know, it's probably just a conspiracy theory, but sometimes I worry about that French xenophobia and racism.

X) Well, I better go now.  It was nice talking with you, but I سَأَسْتَأْنِفُ working again in a little bit.  I have to go now.

Country) أَلْمَانِيَا

Pronoun I) أَنَا

Now for imaginative association work (assume FatHa as the default where no other vowel signal is encoded):

For Germany, as a whole country, we need to establish a icon.  The Berlin Wall is an easy obvious picture:

Remembering Word for Germany:  أَلْمَانِيَا
     Imagine that an elephant (Elif) is pushing through the Berlin wall to eat some palm fronds (Hamza) off of a tree on the greener Western side of the proverbial "fence," but a lamb (lam) runs up to him holding it's hoof to it's mouth (silent sukkun) telling him to be quite for his own protection.  But it's too late.  Mighty Mouse (miim) comes riding over at high speed a top another elephant (Elif) and sees what is going on, so he blows his whistle for the animal farm airforce.  Then a nutcracker (nuun) bird chewing a marsh mellow like gum (KasRa) flies over head carrying a yak (ye) which he drops smack onto the first elephant (Elif) as a punishment for breaking down the wall.


Syllable 1: Elif^Hamza+FatHa, Lamb, Sukun.  (Like saying the name of the English letter "L")
Syllable 2: Miim+FatHa+Elif.  (Like saying the "mo" in Monster)
   (Accent on this syllable. Nasal letters (M, N) act like Dark Letter with vowels--the "Aw" in "Olive" sound.)
Syllable 3: Nuun+KasRa.  (Like saying the English word "knee)
Syllable 4: Ye+FatHa, Elif.  (Like saying the "yu" in "yuck.")


Result: EL-MO*-KNEE-YU
     Personally, I think the extra "Elif" at the end of the word for Germany is excessive for the phonetics; However, you can usually expect foreign words not based on Arabic's tri-literal root system to use long vowels excessively even in non-accented syllables.  I hypothesize that the reason for this is to make the words easier for Arabic speakers to read when the diacritics are removed.  Normally you won't see the "FatHa" on the "Y" at the end, so how do you know it's a "Yu" sound like "yuck" and not a "Yea" sound like in "yeast?"  Arabic speakers know with foreign words because they throw in lots of extra long vowels to make it clear without the diacritics.

Pronoun I)  Elif-Hamza+FatHa, Nuun+FatHa, Elif
     I imagine this story still taking place at the Berlin wall, but time has past and the Elephant's old tormentor the Nutcracker Bird is now his entertainer making ice sculptures with an icepick for the grand "I" pronoun.

     When "I" go to Germany in the dead of winter I see an Elephant in a heated glass cage eating palm fronds while he watches a nutcracker bird outside with an icepick--(icon for "I")--chisel out an ice sculpture in his image (an Elephant's Image, i.e. Elif).  Then the Elephant in the cage says, "Yes indeed, it's all about me, myself, and I."   


Syllable 1: 'E
Syllable 2: Nae (accented)


     Here's another little Basic Association trick for remember "I" -- Remember the saying "I'm my own worst enemy"?  Enae sounds like the beginning of the word Enemy in English.  Imagine that old Nutcracker Bird saying that to himself as he struggles away out in the cold working on the elephant ice sculpture.  

Now we move on to some verb conjugations with the pronoun "I", but first two memory image conventions and then some back story:


To illustrate the present tense, I will make daytime stories, often with breakfast or lunch involved.
To illustrate the past tense, I will make nighttime stories, often with a late dinner or midnight snack.


Now for the back story upon which I will sketch an imaginative association in Germany for "I" prefixes:


Germany only has one glacier left which is melting away with Global warming.  See this article for more info:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000017.html
This glacier is down South of Munich near the German boarder with Austria.  Here's a picture of what the ski resort layout looks like:

Pronoun "I" conjugation as a present tense prefix: elif-hamza-fatHa-->VERB

     Now imagine that I'm starving for breakfast in Germany after the war, and I hack through this lone German Glacier on a mountain with an icepick and discover a preserved elephant with a mouth full of palm fronds perfectly preserved like the woolly mamamoths we read about.  I light a fire, roast the elephant's trunk, and hungrily devour the whole thing for breakfast.  


     By the way, "to eat" is another Measure I verb starting with Elif. so we might as well learn it too: 

I am eating (or I eat):  آكُلُ

     As a grammatical side note, it's important to know that when we add the first person elif+hamza prefix to a verb that already starts with elif, we can't put a shadda on the elif.  Instead, two Elifs and a Hamza get spun together into a kind of Elif with a long wavy line on top called a "hamzat-maD".  


     Now for the imaginative association:


     That normal light letter combination of K + L in the word "to eat" is easy to work with more directly since the sounds match English sounds.  Therefor, in this association, let's think of eating as "eating out of the glacial cooler" on the mountainside in this crazy dreamscape.  We know the verb has to be three root letters.  We know the first one must be "elif" because we are in Germany.  Therefor we can just take the next two consonants in "cooler", the "K" sound and the "L" sound and construct the word "AeKuLu."  The middle "oo" sound for the vowel is also conveniently in the word "cooler."  Finally, by convention, we must learn that all present tense verbs for the first person end in the "oo" sound as well.

Pronoun "I" conjugation as a past tense verb suffix: VERB-->Te-Damma

     So now we have to construct a night time or dinner story with a Toad and icepick and a chocolate kiss.  You've heard of princesses kissing frogs or toads and turning them into princes, right?  Fine, maybe they only use the word "frog" in the fair tails, but don't sweet it.  If we're talking about our green slimming fly-eating amphibian friends in Arabic learning stories we're only talking about Toads because we need them for the "t" sound.  We have Flamencos for the "F" sound.  So know it's a toad in the picture.  Now here we go.  We're dreaming our way into perhaps the most famous castle in the whole world:





The Neuschwanstein Castle is in Southern Germany East of Switzerland and North of Austria not far from the last German Glacier we just visited with our starving wanderer.  


     Now imagine that I'm a Toad who climbs out of the lake behind the Neuschwanstein Castle in the middle of the night thinking that I'm going to steal a "kiss" from the princess of the castle to become a prince.  However I'm confused, and I think it's a Chocolate Hersey's Kiss that I'm supposed to literally steal and eat rather than a metaphorical stealing of the heart of the princess who then grants me a kiss from her lips.  To get through the door of the castle, I the Toad take an icepick with me to pick any locks in my way.  After icepicking through many locks.  I finally get into the pantry in the castle's kitchen and steal a chocolate kiss and swallow it, thinking I'll become a prince.  "Oh, no!"  Nothing happens!  Wait, what's that noise?!?  It's the castle's French Chef!  "Ah! Ha!" He shouts as he drops the net around me.  "I caught a toad in the pantry."  "I'll boil him in a pot and give his fat fried legs to the princess for a midnight snack with the rest of the Hersey's Kisses he was trying to eat!"  "Oh no, I'm doomed!"  Those are my last thoughts as the chef throws me into me to my boiling watery death.


    Now you know Germany, I, and the affixes for I in Arabic.  Now you can learn our 8 verbs for the measures starting with elif.

I) I came: أَتَيْتُ

     This is an extremely tricky verb.  Whenever you have the long vowels in your tri-literal root, watch out!  They do weird things.  Now it looks like this is a Elif-Te-Ye root, right?  Wrong, sort of.  When you add suffixes to this root the last Radical becomes a "Ye" but normally in the infinitive it is an elif MaksuRa--that's the Elif that looks like a Ye with no dots on the bottom.  So in our story for this first crazy verb we're learning that end with either the "y" or "ay" sounds were going to seed our picture with clues to both endings.

     For "I came" we have to start by picturing the sounds "t" and "y" coming into Germany.  However, to be able to use this verb in the present tense, we also need to know that the middle vowel in the present is kasRa.  So, here's the association:

     Our 62 year old Moroccan tells us, "I came into Germany crossing the boarder for the first time driving a little white Toyota truck full of hay in  the back."  Why white?  Once upon a time, a long time ago, remember we established colors for the vowels?  White was for the color of the snow falling on the camel walking behind the guy on the skies outside of the igloo (see alphabet picture 31 for a refresher on that convention).  Let's look at a picture of a little white Toyota truck with hay in the back to get this to stick in our memories:

Do you think the picture looks a little weird?  That's because I was trying to force the truck to turn white in photo shop.  The point is, you want to remember, "I, the Moroccan, came to Germany in a white Toyota truck with Hay in the back."  Elif-+-Te(KasRa)-+-(Ye/or/Elif-MaksuRa)  

II) He assured: أَكَّدَ

   For the word "assured" in Arabic there is no Measure I verb, so we don't have to worry about vowels.  Every change is rule based, and if you don't have a rule to make the vowel something other than fatHa, assume it is fatHa.  The first "a" sound is like the "a" in apple because the second radical in Measure II is doubled closing the first syllable.  See alphabet picture series number 29 to review pronunciation rules for fatHa if this doesn't make sense to you yet.  The pronunciation of this word is "ack-ke-du" (ack like in sack, ke like in kept, and du like in duck)  Based on Moras Theory of Accent Placement, we know that the syllable with the most sounds will be the accented syllable--in this case that would be the first syllable.  (Count the hamza as a separate sound from the elif and you have 3 sounds in this syllable.)  Now on to imaginative memorization.  I really only need to remember the "k" + "d" in Germany to know this word.

     A kid is a young goat.  Since we are working with the light "d" sound we can make a one-word English icon connection without going back to our alphabet animal icons.  Let's imagine our Algerian friend assuring the Moroccan in our story that they'd be so prosperous in Germany they they'd be able to eat roasted kid every Friday to celebrate the beginning of each weekend.  Here's a picture to make that sick in a shocking way:

III) I blame: أُؤَاخِذُ

   Buckle up.  The rules at play here in this verb are rather involved, but we're going to blast through them en route to our memory game.  To begin with, the 3 Radicals in the root of this word are "elif+Kha(fatHa)+dhel", and in the Measure I infinitive form, it means "he took."  It seems therefor that blaming someone almost has a connotation of accusing someone of stealing something that wasn't theirs.  To get this all the way to a first person singular present tense Measure 3 conjugation however, we have a lot of rules to apply.  First, for all measure 3 verbs we have to double the middle radical and change the diacritic on the middle radical to kasRa.  I guess Hannibal roasted a lot of marsh mellows over the open fire crossing the alps to fatten his surviving elephants up after some of them started dying in the cold en route to sacking Rome.  Get it?  Add a marsh mellow (kasRa) after adding the elephant (elif) to the Measure III pattern.  Next, remember that everything in the first person is ending in Damma.  Now lastly, we have to ask, what is this crazy "elif-hamza-Damma-waw-hamza-fatHa" doing in front of our first predicable Measure III elif.  This is where is gets rather intense, rule-wise.  In all Measure III verbs beginning with elif-hamza, when we add the prefix "elif" for "I" in the present tense is morphs (changes form) into a "Damma-waw".  I guess we have to imagine our stranded guy on the mountain glacier in Germany getting caught up in a delusional fantasy in Measure III and imagining that his roasted elephant trunks is turning into a stream of melted chocolate kisses.  Got all that?  I warned you it was going to be a lot.  Now onto the fun part though--memorizing the root, a Black Hawk and a dhole in Germany.   

IV) I believe (in God): أُوْمِنُ

V) I'm going to be late (future): سَأَتَخَّرُ

VI) He is conspiring (with someone): يَتَآمَرُ

VIII) He is conspiring (alone) يَأْتَمِرُ

X) I am going to start (or resume): سَأَسْتَأْنِفُ

N