Articles and the sun and moon letters in Egyptian Arabic

• Articles
• Sun and moon letters

Articles

Definite articles

A definite article — "the," in English — specifies something in particular, usually something that has already been mentioned, as opposed to something general (the book, as opposed to any book). In Arabic, there is a definite article (الـ -il, "the") that is invariable; it is used for singular and plural, masculine and feminine nouns.

Note: While English doesn't use articles to refer to generic nouns or general concepts, Arabic uses the definite article in these instances.

Indefinite articles

An indefinite article refers to non-specific/non-particular nouns. English has two definite article, "a" and "an." Arabic has no indefinite article. So while we would say "He is an engineer" or "She is a teacher" in English, in Arabic we would say:

Note: Arabic does not use a present-tense form of "to be."

Sun and moon letters

Sun letters

If a word begins with one of the "sun letters" (الحروف الشمسية), and is definite, the "l" of the definite article is assimilated into the following consonant. So instead of pronouncing الشمس as "il-šams," you say "iš-šams."

In Egyptian Arabic, there are two more letters that may or may not be assimilated:

Moon letters

With "moon letters" (الحروف القمرية), however, the definite article is not assimilated into the following letter.