Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant and ...
such as Literary Arabic, is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics (''
ḥarakāt
The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , ').
The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where sh ...
'') to a
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
or
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
.
This is used to indicate the word ends in an
alveolar nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
without the addition of the letter '' nūn''. The noun phrase is fully declinable and syntactically unmarked for
definiteness
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
, identifiable in speech.
Literary Arabic
When writing Literary Arabic in full diacritics, there are three nunation diacritics, which indicate the suffixes ' ( IPA: /-un/) (
nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
), ' /-in/ (
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
), and ' /an/ (
accusative
The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
). The
orthographical
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
rules for nunation with the sign is by an additional ' (, diacritic above alif; or , diacritic before alif; see below), above ('' '' ) or above ('' '' ).
In most dialects of
spoken Arabic
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variat ...
, nunation only exists in words and phrases borrowed from the literary language, especially those that are declined in the accusative (that is, with ). It is still used in some Bedouin dialects in its genitive form , such as in
Najdi Arabic
Najdi Arabic ( ar, اللهجة النجدية) is the group of Arabic varieties originating from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia. The group includes the majority of bedouin tribes historically residing in deserts surrounding Najd, and as a result ...
.
Since Arabic has no
indefinite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
, nouns that are nunated (except for proper nouns) are indefinite, and so the absence of the definite article triggers nunation in all nouns and substantives except diptotes (that is, derivations with only two cases in the indefinite state, -u in the nominative and -a in the accusative and genitive). A given name, if it is not a diptote, is also nunated when declined, as in (' "I bear witness that
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...
is the messenger of Allah."), in which the word ', a given name derived from the passive participle of حَمَّدَ ("to praise"), is nunated to to signal that it is in the accusative case, as it is the grammatical subject of a sentence introduced by ("that").
A note that it is a common practice, both electronically and in handwriting, to write the on the , rather than on the previous letter:
Xiao'erjing
Xiao'erjing is a Perso-Arabic script adopted for writing of
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...
such as
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
Zhongyuan
Zhongyuan (), the Central Plain(s), also known as Zhongtu (, lit. 'central land') and Zhongzhou (, lit. 'central region'), commonly refers to the part of the North China Plain surrounding the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River, centere ...
Dungan language
Dungan ( or ) is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is wr ...
. This writing system is unique (compared to other Arabic-based writing systems) in that all vowels, long and short, are explicitly marked at all times with Arabic diacritics. In this script, the three nunations are used extensively to represent the alveolar (front) nasal sounds ''("-n")'', and also sometimes to represent velar (back) nasal sounds ''("-ng")''.
Akkadian language
Nunation may also refer to the ' ending of
duals
''Duals'' is a compilation album by the Irish rock band U2. It was released in April 2011 to u2.com subscribers.
Track listing
:* "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Amazing Grace" are studio mix of U2's performance at the Rose Bowl, Pa ...
Arabic diacritics
The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , ').
The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...
*
Mimation Mimation refers to the suffixed ' (the letter mem in many Semitic abjads) which occurs in some Semitic languages.
This occurs in Akkadian on singular nouns.''