Three Arabic Verbs for “to Announce”

إِعْلان

root: ع-ل-ن / noun / plural: إعْلانات / definition: announcement, declaration

There’s a lot on my mind as we approach the end of Ramadan, and I’m faced with some decisions that I didn’t expect to have to make. Decisions that will impact the course of my studies—and life in general—for at least the next year.

I can’t seem to escape the back-and-forths of the mind that I’m a spectator to, and now that I’ve said that, I can’t get the intro of that Enrique Iglesias song I was obsessed with in my childhood out of my head. If you know, you know.

Enrique knows.

Anyway, mental ping pong sessions aside, I thought I’d share a sweet mini selection of synonyms that I found useful for essay-writing as an Arabic BA and MA student.

Here are three Arabic verbs that all mean “to announce” or “declare”—a concept that you’re likely going to have to express in some form in many of your essays:

أَعلَنَ / يُعلِنُ

root: ع-ل-ن

form IV

example:

أَعلَنَت السُّلُطاتُ حالةَ الطَّوارِئ

the authorities declared a state of emergency

We had an almost-identical phrase in Wehr Wednesdays #85, where أعلن was followed by the preposition عن. We’ll sometimes see the verb followed by عن, and sometimes not.

أَعرَبَ / يُعرِبُ

root: ع-ر-ب

form IV

example:

أَعرَبوا عَن نِيَّتِهِم إِعادة بِناءِ المَسجِد

they announced their intention to rebuild the mosque

Like with the previous verb, أعرب can be followed by عن—but it doesn’t have to be. Both the form II (عَرَّبَ / يُعَرِّبُ) and IV verbs from this root can mean “to declare” or “express”. The form II verb is always followed by عن, though.

(Need a bit of help with the verb forms? Check this out.)

We looked at both verb forms from this root in Arabic Observations: Same Root Letters, Different Sequence, in relation to the very similar root, ع-ب-ر.

صَرَّحَ / يُصَرِّحُ

root: ص-ر-ح

form II

example:

صَرَّحَ بِأَنَّهُم عَلى قابِ قَوْسَينِ مِنَ إيجادِ حَلّ

he announced that they are very close to finding a solution

This example is taken directly from Wehr Wednesdays #116, where we explored the phrase على قاب قوسين.

We’ll find the form II verb صرّح followed by either بِـ (plus a regular or verbal noun, to announce something) or أَنَّ/بِأَنَّ (with a regular noun or attached pronoun suffix, to announce that…).

If you’re looking for more synonyms and phrases to elevate your writing in Arabic, check out Miscellaneous Advanced Phrases for Arabic Essays and both the small but useful phrases and synonyms series. Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d want to see to help improve your writing skills!

(Side note: I might be planning to create a resource where you can access all this vocabulary and more in one place…)

(Side note #2: on the topic of resources, I’ll be sharing more free and interesting Arabic resources on my Buy Me a Coffee page in the coming weeks!)

!إلى اللقاء