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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Arabic definite articles: il,el,al
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Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 05:50:03 GMT
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In article <4l8fb2$1bd@titan.ci.ua.pt>, P.MONIZ <etpmoniz@ci.ua.pt> wrote:
>Dear Friends:
>
>Why are there so many variants of Arabic definite articles ?

Because there are so many varieties of spoken Arabic.

>Where does 'al' come from, if arabs say 'il' instead ?

Classical Arabic (although it survives in some dialects).

>Which should be more correct: 'il' or 'el' ?

It depends.  In what context?  Placename spellings, for example, used 
to better reflect colloquial pronunciation (e.g. Er Rif, El Obeid), but 
nowadays many authorities prefer transcriptions based on Classical Arabic
(e.g. Al-Rif, Al-Ubayyid).
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
