Arabic Observations: تِلكَ and تِلكُما and تِلكُم

Artwork by Devrim Erbil, which was displayed at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan

التَّوْطين

root: و-ط-ن / form II verbal noun / definition: to grant citizenship

Ten-thousand-and-something days after my birth, Cyprus has finally acknowledged my existence. I can’t blame them for not granting me citizenship earlier though, as—well, how could they have known me? I was born in a London borough and have, since then, spent a cumulative total of 192 hours in my “homeland”—little enough to invite quotation marks around that term.

But, glad tidings to me: I now have a piece of paper corroborating my Cypriot-ness. My looming late-20s identity crisis can breathe a sigh of relief. (On this front, at least.)

I’ll refrain from browsing suitable frames to display the evidence of my newly-acknowledged existence because, today, I need to fill in some gaps I left open with last week’s post.

(If you haven’t read last week’s post, now’s a good time!)

There, we looked at how ذلك can appear in different forms, such as ذلكِ and ذلكُم. (We can also find instances of ذلكُما, used when addressing two people, and ذلكُنَّ, when addressing a group of women.)

But, you may ask, what about تِلكَ?

تلك is the feminine form of ذلك—they’re both demonstratives meaning “that”, but تلك is used when referring to something that is grammatically feminine.

And yes: تلك also appears in different forms, modified with pronoun suffixes. So تلكَ can be تِلكِ or تِلكُم etc.

Let’s see some examples, again from the Qur’an:

فَدَلَّىٰهُمَا بِغُرُورٍ ۚ فَلَمَّا ذَاقَا ٱلشَّجَرَةَ بَدَتْ لَهُمَا سَوْءَٰتُهُمَا وَطَفِقَا يَخْصِفَانِ عَلَيْهِمَا مِن وَرَقِ ٱلْجَنَّةِ ۖ وَنَادَىٰهُمَا رَبُّهُمَآ أَلَمْ أَنْهَكُمَا عَن تِلْكُمَا ٱلشَّجَرَةِ وَأَقُل لَّكُمَآ إِنَّ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنَ لَكُمَا عَدُوٌّۭ مُّبِينٌ

So he made them fall, through deception. And when they tasted of the tree, their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten together over themselves from the leaves of Paradise. And their Lord called to them, “Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you that Satan is to you a clear enemy?” (Qur’an 7:22)

In this example, تلك is referring to the feminine noun الشَجَرة (tree), and the dual pronoun suffix (كُما) addresses Adam and Eve (peace be upon them)—which gives us تِلكُما.

وَنَزَعْنَا مَا فِى صُدُورِهِم مِّنْ غِلٍّ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهِمُ ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ ۖ وَقَالُوا۟ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِى هَدَىٰنَا لِهَـٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِىَ لَوْلَآ أَنْ هَدَىٰنَا ٱللَّهُ ۖ لَقَدْ جَآءَتْ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِٱلْحَقِّ ۖ وَنُودُوٓا۟ أَن تِلْكُمُ ٱلْجَنَّةُ أُورِثْتُمُوهَا بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

We will remove whatever amount of malice they had in their hearts. Rivers will flow beneath them, and they will say, “All praise is to Allah who has guided us to this. We would not have been able to find the way, had Allah not guided us. Surely, the messengers of our Lord came with the truth.” Then they will receive a call, “Here is the Paradise which you have been made to inherit because of the deeds you have been doing.” (Qur’an 7:43)

Here, تلك refers to the feminine noun الجنّة (paradise), and the plural suffix (كُم) addresses a group of people—giving us تِلكُم.

Make sense?

In this post and the last, I’ve given examples from the Qur’an (it is Ramadan after all!). But have you come across any examples in other sources? Let us know in the comments below.

!إلى اللقاء