The Arabic Form they Don’t Teach

[@amathos1130]

As a native arabic, I find it weird thinking of what you said as racist or abilist. Sure they sound like that from an outsider foreign prespective. But for us, they don't carry that meaning as intensively.

[@matthewfanous8468]

I think he did a pretty good job of explaining that in the video. It doesn’t inherently mean anything, it’s just that it can have bad connotations.

[@gasun1274]

The point is non-native speakers see it as racist and ableist.

[@nadaahmed6236]

frr "to blacken" doesnt target black people. its simply cuz black (and dark colours in general) is always related to bad/sad stuff just like in funerals and white is worn in weddings. everyone uses colours that way

[@Untoldanimations]

@@matthewfanous8468eh no he definitely said in the video what contradicts the native Arabic speaker. I trust the Arabic speaker

[@RanmaruRei]

​@@Untoldanimations it doesn't contradict. Those word forms are problematic because they could be misunderstood by learners. It's hard to explain those things in a class, giving people cultural context, etc.

[@rattman96]

Bro in English if you have problem they say "in a dark place". Or evil magic is called "black magic". It's not racist, it's globally accepted concept that darkness connotes negativity.

[@somebody700]

Yeah that link he spoke of has nothing to do with race. Not one Arab actually links it to races. This is just a modern Western concept that stems from obsession with races and colors

[@queerlang6611]

I hate to tell you but black magic is thoroughly steeped in a racist history

[@dan4515]

@@queerlang6611 how i am not aware of that

[@player17wastaken]

@@queerlang6611citation needed

[@kaktustustus1244]

In croatian we have the verb "ocrniti" (=to blacken, "crn" = black) which means to talk negatively about someone/to criticize with malicious intent. Also rarely in an informal setting we may use the adjective black to say something is bad/unfortunate. For example sb might use "crni dani" (black days) to express that recent days have been bad

[@hamadbakheet815]

That’s an interesting outlook , but for me as a native Arabic speaker , we don’t view these forms as sinister as some people suggest, i think this view stems from the western/ mainly American obsession with race and colorism Usually the dark colors has negative correlation in our culture because of it’s association with the darkness of night and the different dangers that comes with it not the skin tones of people .

[@humanteneleven]

I do agree that this is probably largely a western thing, as this is about what they don’t typically teach English speakers learning Arabic. However it’s my understanding that in Arab academia these forms are frowned upon, though not in wider society.

[@qaze000]

i figured it was something like this yeah

[@aztheking6280]

the west is generally more sensitive to even the implication of racism or ableism

[@a76101]

Exactly. That's why the Qur'an mentions the blackening of faces, but that doesn't mean the actual blackening of them. Arabs have many skin colours, and one of the actions Arabs did before Islam was the burrying of baby girls. ﴿وَإِذا بُشِّرَ أَحَدُهُم بِما ضَرَبَ لِلرَّحمنِ مَثَلًا ظَلَّ وَجهُهُ مُسوَدًّا وَهُوَ كَظيمٌ﴾ [الزخرف: ١٧] English Translation: (17) And when one of them is given good tidings of that which he attributes to the Most Merciful in comparison [i.e., a daughter], his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief. Muswadd مسود here literally means blackened, but in the English translation it's not translated literally.

[@sultanalali3313]

its not from the night actually, it comes from the day of judgement, if your face is white, that means that you do good deeds, if your face is black you did bad deeds.

[@owencmyk]

Darker colors being associated with negativity is universal throughout many cultures (even for people who have traditionally darker skin tones). Typically it's because black is often associated with darkness and the night, which is by extension associated with danger. Whereas white is often associated with the sun. Similar things apply to red and green, we just don't view those as a problem because there are no races associated with them. Also, I may be misunderstanding something, but doesn't this view of the phrases in relation to race seem rather white-centric given Arabs typically have a more tan/brown skin tone? I feel like it would probably seem a lot less race related to those who didn't grow up in a predominantly black and white society like the west

[@jordanbloomfield]

I like your point about the red/green being associated with bad and good things respectively, similar to white/black, I’ve never heard it put that way. The origin of night=dark=danger does make sense, but it makes me wonder how it would feel to grow up in a world that treated my skin colour as the bad one. In places with majority darker skin tones I imagine it’s not really a problem, so I can see why this whole argument can be seen as western- or US-centric

[@anyone3259]

> to race seem rather white-centric given Arabs typically have a more tan/brown skin tone A lot of arabs have white skin like this youtuber and they are usually glorified while the people with darker skin tones get bullied

[@derdlerimdashayazilasidoyul]

oh i just commented alike thing giving examples from my own language. i agree with you

[@hyumiliatedbs3355]

​@@anyone3259Depends though, at some point there was a time where the Arabs actually beat the living hell out of any racist as if they committed adultery

[@anyone3259]

@@hyumiliatedbs3355 maybe it is a country thing but I grew up as a brown kid in arab country and 90% of my classmates called me slurs

[@somebody700]

I'm a native Arabic speaker and studied it for years. There never was controversy about this form in any shape or form. And there's not one Arab thank links the phrases you mentioned to racism. Dark and bright colors in culture aren't related to skin color. It would make no sense for them to be given how diverse the Arab world is in terms of colors. This is an American thing to be so obsessed with racism that whenever the colors white and black are used people scream murder. In 2020, chess channels were getting demonetized and having videos struck down because of this obsession. We have no such obsession in the Arab world. Yes we have racism, but it's not really color based, it's mainly nationalistic based racism.

[@seeqret]

I totally believe when people mention black and white American will always triggered as racist

[@-haclong2366]

00:55 This is also true for Dutch and Chinese languages. Not too different from phrases like "black money", "black market", "black jobs", Etc.

[@Moses_VII]

Those three economic terms are labelled black because they are dark, which means the government cannot see them. It's not about evil or crime.

[@Ardun_]

form 9 is not just used in these connotations tho, and as a native speaker I've never heard the word احْوَلَّ، we usually just say أحْوَلُ and اعْوّجَّ means to be twisted, which can be meant as disfigured human or just, twisted thing. النخلة المعْوّجَّة is a very famous story that uses form 9 as the title, meaning the twisted tree. and white is also used negatively, like in the Quran "فَابْيَضَّتْ عيناه" which means he was blinded what about ارْتّدَّ? or انْقّضَّ? or اسْتّلَّ?

[@yudeok413]

Dumping your own cultural baggage on a language you are learning because you are unable to make a difference between your own prejudice/trauma and a neutral form. By the way, usefulness is relative, but you are going to encounter this form everywhere from cooking recipes to medical and scientific texts. So if it's not effective to spend time on it, that's fine, but the reasoning made here stems from Americans hyperfixating on race and interpreting everything through skin color be it relevant or not, is messed up.

[@Moses_VII]

Man isn't even a student of Arabic, but a native speaker, him being Lebanese. He is so disconnected from his native Arab culture that he sounds like an Arab, but thinks like an American.

[@motazal-thaher9056]

Great work, you are impressive and well-presented. It's not necessary that ابيض (white) always be used for describing good things. The expression, ابيضّت عينه, means he became blind. Keep going, man, brilliant videos 👏👏

[@UpperCumberlandGamers]

Ok but does form 9 come into usage when you want to describe a plastic changing color after UV exposure?

[@jkorok6357]

It does yes. It even comes if you want to describe a bent metal pipe. But what he said is more cultural thing than a language thing.

[@whatsup12]

Actually, yes. Plus, Did you know that Arabic had atleast 6 different words to describe the colour black? No, the first word isn't gray, it's really just black, but it goes from light black to casually-absorbing-100%-of-the-light-black.

[@somebody700]

Yes there are words for every color transformation there is. Arabic is a derivation based language so it's easy to follow a format instead of remembering words. All you need to know is the formula, then you apply it to every color

[@IbnuAbiMalik]

@@whatsup12 what are those, I'm curious. Only words I can think of now are أسود and أسمر.

[@whatsup12]

@@IbnuAbiMalik Here they are, from lightest to darkest: أسود - أسحم - فاحم - حالك - سحلوك - خدارَى وغربيب.

[@sa-k]

Not in anyway racist, Even us Arabs use it like you said for blacken someone’s face means “feel shame or embarrassed” and whiten someone’s face is for “to feel proud” or something like that, But in no way shape or form people use it as racist. To add more, in Arabic we mostly originally use “Adlam ادلم" for very black skin, or “Ahmar احمر" for more of a red skin, and even still used a lot now is the term “Asmar اسمر", Black for skin is rarely used, it is used but rarely and for certain cases, like if you put basic general color spectrum you say: “white to black”, or for general comparison or general preference like: “white over black”.

[@derdlerimdashayazilasidoyul]

same phrases exist in azeri turkic too. but i highly doubt that it is a race-involved thing, black just is used in negative contexts all the time, as we use the word dark in english i guess. the phrases: üzümü qara eləmə - lit. don't make my face black - don't disappoint em üzümü ağ elə - lit. make my face white - make me proud or səni görüm günün qara olsun! - may i see you, your day become black (just swearing someone to experience bad things) üzüağ - lit. whiteface - happy and proud üzüqara - lit. blackface - wretched günüqara - one whose day's black - also somth. like wretched qanım qaraldı - my blood turned black - i got upset qanıqara - blackblooded - upset, sad qara bayram - black holiday - funeral and so on əə

[@royspielberg6738]

funny enough, the Hebrew expression "להלבין פנים" (Lehalbin Panim, lit. to whiten (one's) face) has the meaning of humiliating someone.

[@sarahnajid2880]

Interesting!

[@sn3o0os]

بيّض الله وجهك.

[@heromys9463]

Would like to see a video about form 11 to 19.

[@ElderSteak5]

As a native Arabic, I find it weird that people get taught “forms” of the Arabic language. I’m 14 years old, I’ve been learning Arabic all my life, and the first time I heard about forms was in another one of your videos I watched before.

[@ahmedfathelrahman5712]

Ahmar,Red faced, that's the original arabic term describing white people, for black people it was adam(earth like colour) or asmar(tanned). Aside from western influence, a native arabian would absolutely not relate "to whiten someone's face" as racially motivated.

[@gunngg908]

now i want to know what the other forms are

[@azurecerulean1279]

"Some people view using form nine as problematic" I've never heard something so american before

[@cmyk8964]

This reminds me of a Tom Scott video. He says that English-language schools will teach you about prefixes and suffixes, but they won’t teach you about infixes, because the only time English uses them is in vulgar speech, like “abso-f**king-lutely”.

[@-haclong2366]

Every language has A LOT of cultural baggage and historical stuff and usually people just completely gloss over them when either learning or teaching a language.

[@theramrunner13]

Meanwhile in Maltese, form 4 just fell out use completely (save some few phrases that "fossilised" them) 😂

[@sarahnajid2880]

But form nine can be used with different root verbs, not necessarily linked to color. It implys transformation

[@hyumiliatedbs3355]

Why no one criticize about blackmail and whitelist then?

[@unknownuser9267]

19 forms. I thought there was only 15. Can you pls make a video about those I read about the forms from 11 to 15 but never heard any from 16 and I also cannot find any resources online

[@HandyMan125]

some people just get offended way too easily

[@Yu-Gi-Oh36508]

ikr

[@MSK.ofAlexandria]

some people WANT to get offended

[@Maurice-Navel]

One of the worst things you can do to someone in Hebrew is to make their face go white; it's seen as a sign of extreme embarrassment.

[@iyousefi6120]

0:58 it also mean that he got scared depends on the context And the white color is for good things and the black color for bad things that's right but it doesn't mean anything racist in fact I knew that may be racist just when I start follow the western media

[@Pspspsss]

No ابيض وجهه aint been used in some similar context "to get scared" We say اصفر وجهه means it became yellow to say so But yes exactly i mean why dont they make Chinese ppl racist for the ying and yang thing

[@iyousefi6120]

@@Pspspsss IAM an Arabic native. 😂😂😂😂 Even ازرق وجهه which is the same but the color is blue It does also mean to get scared

[@storieswithfarouk6739]

But doesn't the wazn (basically meaning one of the typically non ending Arabic verb forms) إفعلَّ also make other useful verbs in Arabic and should he teachwd with other azan of verbs, I mean I was taught how to find the masdar(root) of this verb in the root lesson, and it was taught just like any other one with it's own rule. And if you're a non arabic speaking and don't understand what's going on, it's that all words in arabic have a root word, and each verb form out of the 19 has it's own rule, not one, but more than one rule depending on whether there are vowels and where they are placed to finger the root word, and when I learnt root words I was taught the rules for form 9 just like all other.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

I mean, yeah, lighter colors are always more positive, not because race or anything, but because being left in the dark is inherently dangerous for us humans, so we physically (And as such, metaphoricaly) always try to go out of the darkness, and into the light I kinda hate when people (and mostly people who are NOT PART OF THE LANGUAGE'S COMMUNITY) claim things about languages being "bad". This is annoying to be as a Spanish speakers, since I've meet English speakers claiming that Spanish (being a language with two genders, like Arabic) is a "sexist" language And no dude, Spanish is not sexist, you are just being sexist in Spanish, don't blame the language, blame yourself

[@Moses_VII]

Blackening and whitening the face is from the Quran, not about racism, but about the face getting sooty or getting shiny.

[@ME-nu8hb]

I think people that use it don't even think it racist (frankly it's quite generic) plus i think they don't even say people that have darker skin is automatically bad The one that say it's racist were the one that are racist

[@conlangknow8787]

Theres always something crazy about a language… for example the word for black person in russian 😅

[@Difluoroacetamide]

Черный человек? Or am i missing something here

[@conlangknow8787]

@@Difluoroacetamide негр is the literal word for black person… in the Russian language it has no derogatory connotations to it but I wouldn’t be going around saying that in English speaking communities as the word etymologically connected to it, is extremely racist (the n-word)

[@bisoahmad9067]

this is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever seen

[@1213r]

In Hebrew, we have an opposite expression. מלבין פני חבריו ברבים Lit. Make his friend face turn white in public The expression means that he insulted his friend

[@savannahs5439]

taking bright and dark colors to describe positive and negative feelings isn't racist. we feel good and safe in the light and fearful in the dark. who relates that to skin color has a problem

[@fernit0505]

I'm probably wrong, but in a culture so historically worried about hygiene, wouldn't it be possible that the fact that "to blacken someone's face" means to ashame and "to whiten one's face" has more to do with that than with racism?

[@12312ab]

At least it's better than english

[@DemiLot]

Turkish is still better than arabic

[@SomeOne-px4up]

@@DemiLotbetter how ? they're languages and no language is better than the other, lets stop thinking in such tribalistic nationalist ways

[@nziom]

Better how?​@@DemiLot

[@mohaemn0498]

😂😂​@@DemiLot

[@potato_nugget]

Is the phrase "black market" racist to you?

[@matt92hun]

Is any of that relevant if you're not American?

[@Teld]

This is an issue with modern western people, not the language. The word مسودة is used in the Quran to describe faces, figuratively. It's not racist. We can't shoehorn people's modern understanding back into history or other languages. The same thing with the 'abelist' thing, it's purely a western thing.

[@noureddinealjazairi6063]

اشتد became harder or more difficult, التف turned around or twisted ، ارتد deflected ، انقض jumped on or preyed upon

[@farojj]

The thing is when you try to learn a thing from another culture don't put your own cultural standers to judge

[@zidanidane]

i dont understand the إحوَلَّ thing...

[@fatimahsaleem1028]

I think that most of the times it depends on the context I can say احولّ If somebody has crossed eyes Or if somebody did I big mistake for example we can say انت احول؟ As a sarcastic way هذا ما افهمه من لغتي العربية😅

[@haniallelli9196]

What are these forms?? Native arab asking 🌚

[@rakibabduljalil]

فعل يفعل افتعل انفقل أفعل Thiese things

[@sirblackrose5293]

I don’t understand how this form is considered ‘rare’. I’m a native, and I use it very often, and so do all the arabs I have heard Examples from my Iraqi dialect: -باع وجهه شلون احمر! (Look how his face has reddened! (From embarrassment, very commonly said in my school) -ها، شبيك، احوليت؟ (what, what’s wrong with you, have you become cock-eyed?) And some of the examples mentioned in this video (like اعوج) are even more common in our spoken day-to-day speech

[@mimzim7141]

This white and black, dark and light language bias exists in almost all languages. The original reason must be day vs night not peoples skin color. Most languages also hqve a left vs right bias.

[@randomtangle4629]

As long as the etymology isn’t explicitly racist, I wouldn’t expect words relating the colors of faces to emotions to be racist. In English, if someone is feeling gloomy, you’d say their “expression darkened”. In Japanese, the adjective面白い (omoshiroi) means “funny; interesting” but is literally “face whitening”. I’m sure there’s plenty of examples all over the world. Not to minimize the evolution of language and its use in racism and oppression (what is a slur but language weaponized?) but racism and colorism are relatively modern creations. I think it’s safe to assume that colors developed in most languages before racism developed in the world. And with the development of color there comes symbolic meaning. Darkness is associated with night, which is often associated with more dangerous or negative things, as opposed to daytime, which is light. They could also be from the actual appearance of faces. Your face might appear darker in shadow, as how I expect the English “face darkened”, expression might have originated, from hanging your head in grief, while if your expression “lights up” you might be blushing (vibrant coloration) or look up, towards where light comes from. Maybe this comment is too long, or maybe I’m completely wrong in this, if so please enlighten me.

[@bossyt6980]

إسود وجهه و إبيض وجهه is not racist

[@omaimaf9963]

The black=bad thing comes from light and darkness, day and night ect. Not saying that it can‘t be used in a racist way but when one sais „his face blackened“ it just means got dark (in shame, anger..) not like literal black face. As a native arabic speaker I‘ve never associated this form with racism, and still won’t but I appreciate the outside prospective.

[@pacocafe]

Those are some weird ass comments

[@IbnuAbiMalik]

Almost everything in this vid is wrong. This form is used as well as those phrases and words you used with no problem and they are NOT frowned upon or anything. You feel this just because you guys in the west are over sensitive about this because of your past (and present if you think about it lol). As others pointed out in this comment section, black is universally negative and that's not a problem except if you're over sensitive. Others also pointed out that no one has a problem with words like black magic.

[@avapilsen]

He said it has no abelist/racist connotations.

[@Engihere-yt]

i feel like we should stop judging LANGUAGES

[@omarjassar4650]

Dude you need to go to the college you graduated from and ask for your money back

[@iymuslim]

Please stop, to say someone’s face blackened or whitened is not racist whatsoever. Allah says in the Quran in many places “that day faces will darken/blacken”; as a way of indicating the evilness and darkness of what is coming - this is something accepted universally by every culture (the concept of dark and light).

[@dalubwikaan161]

Yes, remove the racist grammar ✊

[@MCAbdo]

Not at all! These expressions don't carry a racist meaning at all.. A black person can have his face 'whitened' and a white person can have his face 'blackened'. IT'S NOT ABOUT RACE. It comes from light being seen as good and dark being seen as bad.. Again, nothing to do with SKIN COLOR OR RACE. think about it twice, would you consider this symbol racist? => ☯? Doesn't white here resemble good and black evil? Does it come from skin color, or from light & darkness?

[@samspencer1085]

There is 999 likes right now, should I hit it to 1k, or stay at 999?

[@moluther2826]

What a load of absolute baloney.

[@Honest_Question]

Americans need to stop making everything about race.

[@jesusbeliever9876]

Dang, how many people around the world actually are native to form 9? God bless you ✝️ 🙏 ❤️

[@fleetyfoote5483]

These linguistic meanings/associations (as you have described them) are both racist and ableist, but it isn't too say that it's unique to Arabic. Many words in the English language similarly use disability/race to metaphorically refer to bad/good things happening eg. "A fair person" can either mean a light-skinned person, or a just person; "a black heart" or "dark soul" use dark shades to metaphorise badness while being the same words used to describe people with darker skin. Likewise "a crippled economy" uses an offensive word for a disabled person to describe the state of the economy as "bad". Most people don't recognise these terms in English as racist and ableist, and may not normally associate the meanings to actual people when they hear these terms in these contexts. This doesn't mean that they are not actually racist/ableist, but that people aren't aware/do not want to acknowledge that they are in fact racist/ableist, because their use implies that it's ok to associate those value judgements with those terms, reinforcing devaluation of disabled people / racial groups.

[@Day-wm7nn]

Stop being so pedantic with simple words, wow. What do they feed you over there? Nobody associates words with people, maybe some people with room temperature IQ do it, but nobody cares really. You make a mountain out of a molehill. I remember when I started learning English, I would hear the ''N-Word'' in lots of rap songs and I associated this word with words like ''homie'' and stuff. When I found out that it's actually a negative word (which honestly doesnt make sense to me, because I have seen lots of black people using it), I was like ''oh okay''. It's not that I associated this bad word with black people. People with a bit of intelligence can make out the difference between words and people.

[@avapilsen]

They're not actually abelist/racist. You're only perceiving them as such.

[@cubing7276]

white=good and black=bad is a universal thing that human languages have bruh

[@suksuk5191]

Im a native arabic speaker and i came to the realization behind these colorist sayins not long ago. the language is neutral, the phrasing is problematic.

[@12312ab]

At least it's better than english