What’s Mine is Yours: Possessive Pronouns in Arabic
Gary Greer 6/13/2023
Arabic Grammar
Learning Arabic words & expressions
Modern Standard Arabic
In Arabic it’s known as /ضَمِيْر مُتَّصِل / dhameer muttaSil, and it is used to show who owns what. Of course, we’re talking about possessive pronouns as suffixes and in Arabic, they are /ee/, /ka/, /ki/, /hu/, /haa/, /kumaa/, /humaa/, /kum/, /kunna/, /hum/, /hunna/, /naa/. Possessive pronouns also happen to be the subject of today’s blog. So, without further ado, let’s look into this very key part of the Arabic language.
Possessive Pronouns in Arabic
As you might expect, possessive pronouns are a little bit different than they are in your native tongue. To start with, in Arabic, possessive pronouns must agree with the possessed noun and not the one who possesses.
What’s more, possessive pronouns in Arabic do not stand alone as they do in the English language, for instance. Rather, they are what we call “attached pronouns”, which appear as suffixes attached to a noun, verb, or particle. Today we will focus on the possessive pronoun attached to the noun.
The table below shows a complete list of possessive pronoun suffixes in Arabic, their transliterations and their meanings in English.
Let’s Get Together
Below are some examples of Arabic possessive pronouns attached to nouns:
A Few Things to Know
If the preceding letter has a kasrah, then the pronoun has a kasrah. (Kasrah is a diagonal stroke written below the consonant which comes before it when you pronounce it. It stands for a short vowel “i” like the "i" in English "pit").
When you attach possessive pronoun suffixes to nouns, it indicates who owns the nouns. Likewise, it also makes the nouns definite. For instance, “his pen” in Arabic is a grouping of قَلَم and the suffix هُ. When we join them together them we get قَلَمُهُ / qalamuhu (his pen).
As we mentioned before, nouns with possessive suffixes are considered definite. As a result, adjectives that describe those nouns take the definite article ال because of adjective agreement. Take a look at the phrase قِطَتُنا الجَّميلَة / qiTatunaa iljjameelah (“our beautiful cat”) for example.
These are just a few things you should know about possessive pronouns in Arabic. In the end, however, possessive pronouns in Arabic are pretty easy to learn. Moreover, once you learn these rules, you will be able to use them with little worry.
Of course, there’s more to Arabic grammar than pronouns, and if you’d like to learn more, visit our website today. After all, learning Arabic has never been easier than it is today with the Kaleela Arabic learning app. Get yours today – only from kaleela.com.
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Watch the full video about Possessive Pronouns here
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