Broken Plurals in Arabic

0:01 Welcome to the language of Quran, easier than English, lesson 6, book 1. Alhamdulillah, we began our journey from lesson 1 by taking an overview of the four properties and we also identified that every ism in Arabic will either be rafa, nasab or jarr as far as its a'arab is concerned or a status or case, whichever word we want to use to translate it in English, but mainly the a'arab will either be rafa, nasab or jarr. And you should now be able to recognise the a'arab for

about 90% plus of the words that are going to come across, there are some special cases, we will look at that inshallah ta'ala in the next lesson. In lesson number 2, we looked at the 7 categories of definite, so we know that every ism should be either definite or indefinite, now inshallah you should be able to recognise any ism from its meaning as well as of course what it is, whether it is definite or indefinite.

0:53 In lesson number 3, we took an overview of the subject of gender and now you should be able to tell me whether an ism should be treated either as grammatically masculine or grammatically feminine, this should be familiar to you inshallah. In lesson number 4, I explained to you that there is no way of identifying a singular word, but you can easily identify all duals from two endings. As far as plurals are concerned, as long as the plural is sound masculine plural or sound feminine plural, again it has fixed endings.

1:30 So now we have got one point to discuss here which is the subject of plural where it does not follow the una, ina, atun, atin ending and therefore it is called a broken plural. So there is no way of recognising in Arabic the property of number if it is a singular or a broken plural, that is the time we have to consult the dictionary or ask somebody whether this word is singular or plural. So this is alhamdulillah a great overview, we know that a significant number of words we can easily identify all the four properties, there are some where we will not know whether it is singular or a broken plural.

2:10 So this is where we are so far, in this session inshallah, we are going to look at broken plurals, introduce the subject to you and show you some of the patterns. Of course broken plurals will come across in other lessons that will be forthcoming inshallah. This is the map I shared with you in 4.1, which you can see above inshallah, that shows us the endings, the suffixes that are fixed to duals and sound masculine plurals and sound feminine plurals.

2:39 And of course note that if there is any al, the atun will become atu and ati. Apart from that they should be very easy for you to recognise. So these are very easy to recognise, as I mentioned before broken plurals do not conform to these patterns.

2:54 So we need to look at broken plurals in some detail in this lesson. So broken plurals brothers and sisters are very common in Arabic and it is an area that does cause some confusion with students, especially on how broken plurals are treated in Arabic, grammatically speaking. So inshallah in this lesson, first part I am going to introduce you to the subject of broken plurals, show you some of the patterns, not all, some of the patterns and inshallah deal with how they are treated grammatically in the language.

3:24 Again, as I appealed to you before, keep on making dua, ask Allah azza wajal to open the door of mercy for us, open the door of knowledge for us. Keep on making the dua which is written above for you. Just as a reminder, Oh my Lord, increase me in knowledge. Keep on asking Allah. Allah will open the door of knowledge for us all. What are plurals in English? Relatively very easy.

3:49 Normally we add an S to the end. So if you have a car, one car, but if you're a rich man and you've got three, four, five cars, it will be cars. One book, a book, lots of book, books. One cat, lots of cats, cats, house, houses. So in English, plural is two or more. Normally we simply add S at the end, but there are many plurals in English called irregular plurals where we don't really have the S ending or a fixed ending.

4:18 Mouse, for example, is mice. We have goose, which becomes geese, man, men, of course, and woman, women. And there are many more examples. I'm sure you already know. So if we consider the S type to be our standard, so in Arabic that would represent the standard sound, masculine plural, sound feminine, but everything else, any other pattern, any other way it ends in the plural, we will consider them to be a nonstandard. So these are your broken plurals in the Arabic equivalent, if I may say so.

4:50 So what are broken plurals in Arabic? This is the easiest definition. Simply any plural, how do you know it's a plural? Plural from the meaning. Any plural that does not have the oona, eena, aatun, aatin ending. That's it. So we call it broken plural, meaning it is not following the standard. Technically, the definition is that the singular pattern, whatever it was, is broken.

5:15 It does not remain the same when it goes into plural. There's some internal changes to the singular. That's the definition of broken plural that's given. The internal changes within the word that is singular and it does some suffixes, etc. to make it broken. So simply for us, we will say that anything that we see that doesn't have oona, eena, aatun, aatin ending, we will call it a broken plural.

5:39 Let's take a look at some examples here we have on the screen. I have qalamun, which means a pen. On the other hand, aqlamun, which is the plural of pen, i.e. two or more, three or more pens. Pens in Arabic, three or more. Two pen will be qalamani, which we already know. Kitabun, plural is kutubun. Abdun, plural is ibadun. And baytun, buyutun. And masjudun, masajidun.

6:11 Again, you can see here that the singular has changed. So for example, qalamun, I put an alif after the laam. Aqlamun, and of course there are some changes Hamza added at the beginning. So the singular shape has changed. Kitabun, the alif is gone. Kutubun, and the vowel signs have changed. Abdun, ibadun. Again, you can see vowel signs have changed. I've added an alif, etc.

6:36 So the singular has changed. Whereas the standard ones, all we did was we added a suffix. And that's what it means when it's called a broken plural. Broken plurals are very commonly used in the Arabic language. And there are cases where a noun or an ism can have the standard plural, as well as broken plural. So again, we need to take an overview of these, inshallah, in this lesson and move forward to more and more details about the broken plurals, especially its treatment grammatically in Arabic.

7:07 Before we go in to look at broken plurals and their scales, it's very important to understand what we mean by scales. Now the scholars of Arabic, to make the study of Arabic easy, have formulated a system where, as I mentioned to you before, that almost all verbs and most derived nouns, 99.99% of them, are derived from three root letters. And it is these three root letters that forms the pattern or a scale, if you want to call it that.

7:35 The first root letter is represented by the letter Fa. The second root letter is represented by Ain. And the third root letter represented by Lam. So first Fa, second Ain, and Lam. This is called the Fa kalima, Ain kalima, Lam kalima. For simplicity, we can refer to them as first, second, and third.

7:57 And you can also think of the scale similar to use, you would use X, Y, and Z in mathematics in an equation. Anything additional to the root is written by itself. And you can see here in this example, I have Fa'ilun, where the Ya is extra, it is not part of the root. Ya has been added to give added meaning. And this is the beauty of Arabic. Inshallah, we're going to look at this subject in detail in book two.

8:22 But I want to introduce it as it will make the study or understanding of broken plurals easier for us. So if you look at the examples I've given you on the screen, you can see in the first line I have Kabeerun, Sagheerun, Katheerun. And you can see they all follow the same rhyming sound.

8:42 Kabeerun, Sagheerun, Katheerun. And they're all following the Fa'ilun pattern. So you can see here, all have the Ya, and all of them take the same vowels as Fa'i and Lam, okay? Fa'in and Lam. So you can see how the scale works. Now, every time a word goes into a certain scale, it has a certain set of meanings. We're not going to go into that at this stage, inshallah.

9:07 This will be studied in detail later on. Second pattern I have, Af'alun. And again, you note the Hamza, the beginning is extra. The Alif after the Ayn is extra. So Ashabun, Aqlamun, A'malun. Again, you can see the broken plural on that scale. And these are just some examples. Okay, again you can see, I have added an Alif after the Fa, and of course the vowel changes, you can see. Alimun, Scholar.

9:37 Abidun, Worshipper. Nasirun, Helper. And the other example there, Maf'ulun pattern, you get Makhlukun, that which has been created. Ma'budun, the one who is worshipped. And Maftuhun, that which is opened. So again, you can see patterns, patterns, patterns, patterns.

9:53 And this is the way, inshallah, if you approach the learning of Arabic, then you'll be able to see words, even though you don't know the meaning, you'll be able to tell a lot of detail about that word, what type of word is it, how is it derived, what are its roots, and you can go to the root and get the meaning of the word. So we have now at the end, easy one for you, which is the Fa'ala, it's the verb pattern. So Nasara, Daraba, Fataha.

10:16 Again, these are verbs, and you can see they all follow exactly the same scale. So what is scale? Scale really is to represent the shape of the word, and the first root letter is represented by Fa, the second root letter is represented by Ain, and the third root letter represented by Lam. Three root letters, and everything else there is an addition, including the vowel signs that are applied.

10:39 So every word that follows that scale will follow that template, if you can think of it as a template. And as long as you've got the template in your head, you can form the words yourself, inshallah ta'ala, once you've learned how to do this. So this is what I mean by scale.

10:53 Before we look at the scale, of course we know that every ism has to be Rafanasa or Jar. So what happens with broken plurals? Any broken plural that ends with Tanween, and is what we will call in Arabic, follows the 85%. We'll learn that inshallah in the next lesson. It is Munsarif, i.e. changes into three different endings. So Qalamun, Qalaman, Qalamin is singular. It follows the Hamidun, Hamidan, Hamidin pattern.

11:19 But even though the broken plural is a broken plural, it will follow exactly the same pattern. So Aqlamun, Aqlaman, Aqlamin. It is a common misconception to believe that Tanween is a sign of indefinite, or that Tanween is a sign of singular. It is not the case. As you can see here, a broken plural takes Tanween, and of course it has three different endings in the three different era. So let's look at two scales here we have on the screen.

11:46 Af'alun, Af'alun pattern. Qalamun, Aqlamun. So you can see here, it's following that scale, which we have here. Then we have Rabbun, Arbabun. Sahibun, Companion, Ashabun. And we have Amalun, A'malun. I hope this is easy for you, and you can see that it's following the Af'alun pattern. Then we have another pattern here, Fu'ulun. Kitabun, Kutubun. Jadeedun, Jududun. Rasulun, Rusulun. Madinatun, Mudunun.

12:22 You can see here very simply, that all the words, and there are many others, I'm just giving you as an example. These are two scales of broken plurals. There are many. By the way, I'm going to give you some scales, but note that broken plurals form many, many different scales. Some scholars have counted 47, possibly more than that. But there are too many scales for us to memorise.

12:41 This is only for you, for illustration purposes. These are the broken plurals that take the Tanween ending. Let's look at a few more, Inshallah. We have here, Fi'alun. So we have, Abdun, Ibadun. Kabirun, Kibarun. Jamalun, Jimalun. Rajulun, Rijalun. I hope you can see that very easily, Inshallah. The next pattern we have, Fu'ulun. So we have, Baytun, Buyutun. Shahrun, Shuhurun. Aynun, Uyunun. And, Darsun, Durusun. Lessons, okay? So again, you can see, these are also following certain patterns.

13:24 And we have many others, I'm going to show you a few more, Inshallah. And we have, Af'ulun, Nafsun. Naf-self. And the plural is, Anfusun. We have, Rijlun, Arjulun. Leg. Rijlun, Arjulun. And we have, Fu'alun pattern. Let's take a couple from there. Katibun, which means a writer. And the plural, Kuttabun. And we have reciter, Qari'un, the one who recites. And, Qurra'un. So you can see here, patterns after patterns after patterns. So, there are patterns also of the broken, which don't end with Tanween.

14:02 We'll look at them in the next lesson, Inshallah. But for now, just for you to note, that not all broken plurals will end with Tanween. Some will, significant number will, but not all. So we have here, Mayyitun. Mayyitun, deceased, dead. And, Mautaa, which is the plural. Mareedun, Mardaa. Aalimun, scholar. Ulamaa'u. Again, you can see here, they don't end with Tanween. So, broken plurals have many, many different scales. That's the first point to note.

14:34 So we're not going to learn the scales. Second point is, that there is no rule in Arabic, to say that this singular will go into this pattern, or this scale of broken plural. There is no rule. You cannot predict from the singular, to the broken plural. So there's no way of knowing. Of course, as I said before, you look up the dictionary, or you ask somebody that you're studying with.

14:56 And of course, for us, it's relatively easy. We can simply look up the meaning of the word in the Quran, to know a translation of the meaning of the Quran I meant, to know whether it is singular or plural in that case. And there are many word-for-word translations available freely, also on the internet.

15:12 So, Inshallah, that's relatively easy. All we need to know is, is this word broken? If this word is plural, and it hasn't got those endings I mentioned earlier, then it is broken plural. That's all we need to know. In most cases, we don't even need to work backwards to the singular, because it will not be possible to do so. So relatively easy for us. We just need to have an overview of the broken plural.

15:33 So the conjugation of broken plurals, which follow the Muslim pattern. We will see some example here. Baitun, Baitan, Baitin. For the dual, Baitani, Baitaini, Baitaini. Very easy from the Muslim pattern. But the plural will not be Muslimuna. What will it be? Buyutun, Buyutan, Buyutin. So it's exactly the same as the singular. Because it ends that way, and it expresses the Arab exactly the same as the 85% words we've been talking about so far.

16:12 We have another example. Rasoolun, Rasoolan, Rasoolin. The dual will be, you should be able to predict by now, Rasoolani, Rasoolaini, Rasoolaini. And the plural of it is, Rusoolun, Rusoolan, Rusoolin. So all the words I gave you earlier that end with Tanween, they will follow the plural pattern that you've seen here from the example. So again, please note, Alhamdulillah, the job is not as complex as we fear.

16:43 Our job is to recognise the four properties. We should be able to do that. The only thing we need to know is whether that word is a plural or not. The language of Quran, the Arabic, is very rich in vocabulary. And it is not surprising to find on many, many occasions, some singular words having more than one plural. I've given you some examples only, but there are many others with more than one plural.

17:07 Take a look at the first one, Kafirun. It has a sound plural also. Kafiroona, Kafireena, Kafireena. And of course, we can form the others as well. But the broken plural, it has two. Kuffarun and Kafaratun. For Alimun, we have the standard plural. But we also have Ulama'u. And then for brother, Akhun, we have Ikhwanun and Ikhwatun. Two different broken plurals. Ummun, Ummahatun, Ummatun. Two plurals. Two different plurals. Nabiyun, Nabiyuna, Ambia'u. Imra'atun, Nisa'un, Niswatun.

17:55 So these will all be treated as broken plurals. Two different ones for the same word. That's the way the language is. Then we have Bahrun, Biharun, and Abhurun. Plurals. So you can see, Alhamdulillah, multiple plurals for a single word. So you can see that and you'll come across it. Just make a note of them as you go through your studies. So take the example of the word Kafir, and the rest should be easy. Kafirun, Kafiran, Kafireen. Should be no difficulty, Inshallah. Kafirun, Kafirani for the dual.

18:29 Kafiraini, Kafiraini. No problem. For the sound masculine plural, it will be Kafiruna first. Kafireena, Kafireena. No problem. Kuffarun, because it's got the Tanween, it will go exactly the same way. Kuffaran, and Kuffarin. Very easy, Inshallah. And of course, the feminine version you're already familiar with.

18:51 So you can see how many words now, simply from that three root letter we've got. So again, this one follows the Muslim pattern, as well as having an additional broken plural. So you can see that there is no feminine version of it, only the masculine version.

19:07 So you can see that, Alhamdulillah, as we go through lesson by lesson, we will develop our knowledge of vocabulary and understanding. Now the question is, how are broken plurals treated in nominal sentences, and everywhere else in the language for that matter? I want you to pay attention to the three sentences I've got on the screen. By now, Inshallah, you should be able to recognise most of it, and I've highlighted the four properties for you in the boxes, so that you will save me time repeating everything again and again.

19:35 And you should be familiar with these signs. So we'll have in the first sentence, Al-Baytu, Kabirun. The house is big. Al-Baytani, Kabirani. The two houses are big. But the last one I got, Al-Bayutu. Al-Bayutu, houses. Now, here, look at this predicate. I'm saying, Kabiratun. Kabiratun is singular feminine. I hope you can see. But here, I'm treating it as if it is plural. So it should be singular feminine. But it's matching there. Why? Let me go through the examples in detail.

20:18 The house is big. The two houses are big. The houses are big. In Arabic, there is a rule, broken plurals, particularly of non-aqil. If you remember the non-aqil I mentioned, non-angel, jinn, or human, words that don't relate to them, are treated as if they are singular feminine. Not only feminine, but singular feminine. And it is this reason why, in order to match the predicate, I had to make it singular feminine, not plural. So please make a note of that. Al-Bayutu, Kabiratun.

20:51 Now, take example, Inshallah Ta'ala, from this note. Broken plurals are treated grammatically as if they are singular feminine, in most cases. What I'd like you to do is pause the video, and complete translation of the following three sentences. Now, you should know PEN already, so I'm not going to give you the vocabulary. You should know that already. And NEW, you should know. So I want to say, The pen is new. Meaning, this pen, the pen is new. The two pens are new.

21:22 So I've got two pens, they're both new. So the sentence is, The two pens are new. And then I want you to say, The pens, as in three or four, three or more, are new. Okay, the word for new, you should already know. So please complete the three sentences. Remember the point above, Broken plurals, and plurals of non-aqil, are treated grammatically as if they are singular feminine. I hope you've done the exercise. Inshallah, let's quickly go through the answers. The first one, The pen is new.

21:59 But the next one, The two pens are new. And of course, the last one, Singular feminine. This is the one that trips most of us. But just the way, just accept it as it is. You will treat the, grammatically speaking only, You will treat the broken plural, especially of those which are non-aqil, as singular feminine. And then inshallah ta'ala, this is the rule that you need to remember.

22:34 Singular feminine. So if the, where I mentioned matching, it will be matching as if it is singular feminine, but you will translate in English as plural. Please note that. You will translate in English as plural. Take a few seconds to look at what is above. And you will see I have three different structures, grammatical structures, meaningful, incomplete.

22:54 There are descriptive phrases. I hope you can tell from the fact that I have got here the four properties marked. So how you can see the matching of the four properties, in number one and number two. So I have, I hope you can see. This is a big house. Two big houses. No problems. But here look at the descriptive phrase here. Big. Big houses. But in English, I will translate as plural. Is singular feminine.

23:35 It needs to be. Why? Because the broken plural here is being treated as if it is singular feminine. Please remember this Inshallah. And you will not get confused. So broken plurals and the plurals of non-aqil. Non-aqil, I mentioned it in the number lesson as well. You will see it again and again, especially when you go to see verbs. It applies all throughout the language. Can be in most cases treated as singular feminine.

24:01 There are occasions when it is not. But this is a very, very important point for you to note. Which is significantly different from what we've been learning so far. Time for another exercise. The vocabulary you need, you should already be familiar with. But I have given you the plural of books, which is the beginning. And the last one you can see, the beautiful cars. And again, that is plural of cars. So you translate the beautiful new car.

24:27 New, you should already know. One word you may not remember. It's called beneficial. So beneficial, something benefits, something useful in Arabic is called مُفِيدٌ Okay, it's in the rougher form مُفِيدٌ There's a yaa there, just think it's not clear for you to see. So مِمْ, فَاِيَ, and دَالْ So please use, pause the video and translate the following text from English to Arabic. Alhamdulillah, I hope you've done the exercise and you can see now what is going on with the first one.

25:06 قَلَمٌ جَدِيدٌ Should be very easy for you. A new pen. The two new pens will be القَلَمَانِ الْجَدِيدَانِ Remember the four properties need to match. The description is going to copy the four properties of the noun being described. And the noun being described comes first. Definite has to be definite. Dual has to be dual. Masculine, masculine, etc. And also the Arab, رَفَى, رَفَى No questions asked. But two, sorry, new beneficial books. Books. So there's no ال there.

25:39 So كُتُبٌ And we have مُفِيدَةٌ Has to be singular feminine. مُفِيدَةٌ جَدِيدَةٌ And of course, cars السَّيَّارَاتُ Is of course cars plural, but it is non-aqil. Neither a jinn or human. So it will be الْجَمِيلَةُ الْجَدِيدَةُ So the beautiful new cars are السَّيَّارَاتُ Cars. And then everything else is singular feminine. The description is coming forward. I hope this is easy for you, Inshallah. If you please do write these down. That rule, even though it sounds strange, you will become familiar with it.

26:22 And you will not get surprised or shocked when you see it occurring many many times. And as I said, we will see many occurrences of it. And it's not always clear cut. Sometimes it's treated in both different ways. So it's something for us to be aware of. And something for us to note. Few more points about plurals in Arabic. There are certain things called collective nouns. We have them in English also. For example, when I say army. Army is treated singular. An army is marching.

26:47 An army is marching. I don't say an army. Sorry, armies are marching. So you can have more than one army. And it will become plural. But army itself is made of lots of soldiers. It's a collective plural. Same thing here we have in Arabic. Hajarun is rocks. Collective plural. But in order to make it singular, the system that's used for most cases is just put a tamar buta at the end. Hajaratun. Single rock. Shajarun. Shajaratun. Baqarun. Baqaratun. So baqarun means cows.

27:21 Baqaratun, one specific cow. So this is another system in Arabic that you need to be familiar with. Collective nouns also can be treated as they are or as a plural. Or they can be treated as singular. Just beware that it can be done because of the meaning and the structures as well. But just another point that sometimes causes confusion with students.

27:50 These some of the stuff I'm sharing which is quite advanced but we really need to know that to make forward and we don't really need to know all the reasonings and everything behind it at this stage. Just accept the fact that plurals can sometimes be treated as singular when it comes to collective and of course broken plurals are singular feminine. Collective nouns similar to broken plurals can be treated as singular not singular feminine meaning matching the gender or as they are. So for example we have The people are righteous. Again it's a simple sentence. Righteous people.

28:30 Just make a note of those points inshallah. Again this lesson is just to give you an overview how plurals are treated grammatically in the language. I just selected a few descriptive phrases from the Quran to demonstrate what happens with broken plurals and the differences with the way they can be treated. Just an overview for you inshallah there are many more examples. The first one and the Quranic references are given for you to check up yourself inshallah. So the first one is ismun is singular asma'un is plural.

29:02 So we have al asma'u the names and then al husna is singular feminine. Please go back to lesson number 3 you'll see alif maqsura ending is a sign of feminine. So we have again a descriptive phrase the beautiful names I will translate in English but the sifa the description here now is of course singular and feminine. I hope you can inshallah see that already from the example. Then we have suhufin and then we have mukarramatin okay suhufin mukarramatin and we have honoured scrolls. Suhuf is of course plural, broken plural. It is in jar so mukarramatin is also jar but please note mukarramatin is singular feminine. ayyaman ma'doodatan again ma'doodatan is singular feminine. Ayyaman is a plural of the word yaumun which is singular one day ayyaman is days.

30:06 Then the last example the opposite of that is also sometimes you'll find in the Quran ayyaman ma'doodatin that is now treated as feminine and is plural. So again these things happens in the Quran. There are reasons which are called eloquence which we will study inshallah in very advanced levels but for now just acknowledge in the back of your mind often times you will see broken plurals in particularly plurals of non aqil treated as if it is singular feminine and of course example where it hasn't been

and also we can see collective nouns being treated as singular as well as plural as in when the case may be. That's the overview you need and inshallah the rest should be relatively easy for us. Alhamdulillah we reached the end of lesson number 6. It really is just information in this lesson but very valuable information. Now we have an overview of the broken plurals which are very commonly used in Arabic.

31:04 We also have an overview of how the broken plurals and other plurals are treated in the language grammatically speaking. Please note this grammatical treatment also is when it comes to verbs as well. So it's an important point to note and we'll come across it many many times. I hope and pray that you are benefiting from these lessons. Please make your own notes. Please do the exercises I ask you to do them and please please continue to study. Don't give up inshallah. Keep on making dua. Asking Allah azawajal to open the door of his mercy to open knowledge for us and to forgive us and to inshallah reward us for every single second that we use in our study of the Arabic language to understand the Quran.

31:48 Oh my lord increase me in knowledge. May Allah bless you brothers and sisters for watching the video. I hope and pray you have found it beneficial. Please kindly like, share, subscribe and share it with others so other people can benefit from these lessons. Kindly remember us in your duas. Until the next lesson I shall see you inshallah Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu