A stand-alone qaaf is what Alhashimi calls a "cup-like shape," beginning with a small circle on the right side with two dots over it. Furthermore, the striking letters, with their flourishes, curves, circles and dots, change form depending on where they are in the word. Some of the sounds the letters make don't have equivalents in English, and they can be difficult for native English speakers to enunciate. It's the sixth week of this 10-week evening class in beginning Arabic, and the students are still working their way through the 28-letter Arabic alphabet. A lot of Westerners pronounce it like "gutter," which, Alhashimi emphasizes, is really not nice. Unfortunately, neither she nor the rest of the class is quite sure how to pronounce Qatar. Qaaf is used in the word Quran, after all, and in Qatar, which is where student Lydia Kepich, a special education teacher, will be going to work in a few months. "This is an important letter," Alhashimi says. He's illustrating the sound made by the letter qaaf, and his class at the International Language Institute in Northwest Washington is earnestly clucking along with him. Arabic teacher Mustafa Alhashimi paces in front of his five adult students, clucking like a turkey.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |