مِقْرَعَة
root: ق-ر-ع / noun / plural: مَقارِع / definition: door knocker
In the photo above is the newspaper page, dated 1991, that was used to wrap up the ornate brass door knocker I bought from an artisan workshop on my last day in Agadir. The newspaper page is now folded up and nestled between some empty notebooks I bought in Istanbul (I’m waiting for something revolutionary to fill them with…) and a stack of Arabic dictionaries and reference books.
The door knocker itself currently has no use, by the way. But it’ll look absolutely beautiful on the door of my Mediterranean dream house I’ve designed and constructed in my mind. The cherry on the cake… without the cake, for now.
Anyway, that’s irrelevant as my point is about the newspaper page which—when I glanced at it again yesterday—made me think to write this Arabic headline analysis.
This week, we’ll be analysing the vocabulary and grammar in the following headline from an article on Project Syndicate (a great resource for Arabic students that I wrote about in one of my very first blog posts):
ـ 20 كانون الأول / ديسمبر 2022
الدفاع عن المدافعين عن التنوع البيئي من السكان الأصليين
So let’s begin by going word-by-word through the headline, before we look at a possible translation:
الدفاع
components: الـ + دِفاع
root: د-ف-ع
form III verbal noun
دِفاع = “to defend” or “defending”
الـ = the definite prefix
دفاع is one of the verbal nouns for the form III verb دافَعَ / يُدافِعُ (“to defend”), with the other verbal noun being مُدافَعة
both دفاع and مدافعة follow regular form III verbal noun patterns, فِعال and مُفاعَلة respectively, although the latter pattern is more common
anyway, verbal nouns (مصادر) are often translated using the infinitive form (to…) or gerundial form (-ing)—seeing as this is a headline, the gerund works better: “defending”
الدفاع is the subject here, so it is مرفوع
and seeing as it’s definite, it takes a damma: الدفاعُ
عن
preposition
this preposition follows the form III verb دافع / يدافع and its verbal nouns and introduces what is being defended
so الدفاع عن = “defending (something)”
المدافعين
components: الـ + مُدافِعينَ
root: د-ف-ع
form III active participle, sound masculine plural noun
مُدافِع = “defender”
this active participle (اسم فاعل) comes from the form III verb mentioned above
the اسم فاعل indicates the “doer” of the verb, i.e. the one defending is a defender
when plural, this word takes the sound masculine plural ending: ـونَ when مرفوع, and ـينَ when منصوب or مجرور
here (مدافعين) we have the latter ending, as this word is مجرور seeing as it directly follows a preposition (حرف جرّ)
عن
again, the preposition عن follows the verb دافع / يدافع and its derivatives to introduce what is being defended
in English, we’d have to translate this as “of” in this context, as that’s the word we use to introduce the object of the noun “defenders”
so far, we have الدفاع عن المدافعين عن, “defending the defenders of”
التنوع
components: الـ + تَنَوُّع
root: ن-و-ع
form V verbal noun
تَنَوُّع = “diversity”
this is the verbal noun (مصدر) of the form V verb تَنَوَّعَ / يَتَنَوَّعُ, meaning “to be diverse, varied”
note that this comes from same root as the word نَوع (“type”)
الـ = the definite prefix
here, التنوّع is مجرور due to the preposition preceding it, so it ends with a kasra: التنوّعِ
البيئي
components: الـ + بيئي
root: ب-و-ء
nisba adjective
بيئة = “environment”, so its nisba (i.e. attributive) adjective, بيئيّ = “environmental”
الـ = the definite prefix
the adjective بيئي is describing the noun التنوّع in a noun-adjective phrase and therefore has to agree with it in four ways: number, case, gender, and definiteness
so the adjective here must be singular, مجرور, masculine, and definite: البيئيِّ
in English, for التنوّع البيئي, we’d translate it not as “environmental diversity” but as “biodiversity”
من
preposition
مِن = “from”, “from among”, or “of”, depending on the context
the phrase that this preposition is introducing is actually referring back to the noun المدافعين (“the defenders”) to give more information about it
thus, من is best translated here as “from among”
السكان
components: الـ + سُكّان
root: س-ك-ن
plural noun
ساكِن = “resident” or “inhabitant”, and it’s the active participle derived from the form I verb سَكَنَ / يَسكُنُ (“to live, reside”)
سُكّان = its plural, “residents” or “inhabitants”
الـ = the definite prefix
السكّان is مجرور seeing as it directly follows a preposition, so we have: السكّانِ
الأصليين
components: الـ + أَصْليّينَ
root: ء-ص-ل
sound masculine plural nisba adjective
أَصل = “origin”
its nisba adjective, أَصليّ = “original” or “native”
and أَصليّينَ is the sound masculine plural of this word, and is acting as an adjective in this context, describing the noun السكّان
أَصليين has the ـين ending because it’s مجرور, matching the noun’s case
because of its agreement with the noun, it’s also plural, masculine, and definite
السكان الأصليين, literally means “native inhabitants”
So here’s the literal translation of the headline that we’ve arrived at:
الدفاع عن المدافعين عن التنوع البيئي من السكان الأصليين
Defending the Defenders of Biodiversity from among Native Inhabitants
Doesn’t sound too headline-y at the moment, does it?
Seeing as this article was originally written in English, let’s see the original title:
Defending the Indigenous Defenders of Biodiversity
Much more snappy!
Notice how the Arabic translation uses the phrase “المدافعين… من السكان الأصليين” to express the meaning of “Indigenous Defenders”.
If you had to translate the original English title into Arabic, how would you do so? Let us know!
!إلى اللقاء
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