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Re: Loanverbs from Semitic



--- In westasianconlangs@yahoogroups.com, "Isaac Penzev" <isaacp@...>
wrote:

> I would rather expect a verbal noun (of qa:to:l type) or a participle
> (qo:te:l). At least those are the forms borrowed from Arabic to Farsi
> (masdars and participles). Farsi has lots of Arabic loans that seem
to fit
> perfectly into the language system.
> 
> Isaac

Thanks for the input!  I heard from Dr. Kees Versteegh, and indeed
Farsi, Urdu, Turkish and the other Persian and Turkic languages use a
do construction combined with the masdar or a participle.

As for Nubi Arabic Creole and Juba Arabic, I had originally thought
they used the 1st person imperfect (an idea I based on the Nubi verb
akulu) but in fact, Dr. Versteegh says they took the Arabic verb from
the imperative.

In my research I also learned about a language spoken in Madagascar
called Kalamo (apparently a mixed language based on Malagasy and
Arabic); the forms of the Arabic verbs used in Kalamo appeared to me
to be the unmarked form of the Arabic verb, but Dr. Versteegh says it
is the imperative.  There's an article called "Arabic in Madagascar"
that discusses this and other aspects of Kalamo in greater detail and
I would *love* to read it, but unfortunately I no longer have access
to JSTOR. >_<

As for Swahili, I found an example of four verbs taken from Arabic
but, alas, I haven't yet decided what forms they are derived from;
they are (it's been years since I've deciphered an Arabic verb table):

amini - believe, trust
haribu - destroy
sahau - forget
dhani - think

Cheers,
Eamon