Chapter 3: The Noun

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A. Gender

All words are gendered, and the gender is expressed with painstaking accuracy in plurals, verb conjugations, adjectives, etc. There is no general way of recognizing a word’s gender, save practice. If the word ends with an –e, it is feminine, but words that don’t end this way can be feminine too. This –e sound is what’s left of the Arabic "short t" (ta' marboota) that is added to words to make them feminine, much like –ess in English. In proper Arabic it is pronounced –at or –a. You have probably heard the names Jameel and Jameela; the second has become feminine by addition of the "short t".

Your best bet to know a word’s gender is to look it up. I have put together a lexicon of words with their gender and plural. Please refer to it, and if you don't find the word you are looking for ask me directly – I'll answer you and add the word to the compilation.

B. Plural

I'm afraid there is no simple rule for putting nouns into the plural. Depending on the word's structure, gender and meaning, different rules apply. Again, looking it up is probably the best way for someone who isn't very familiar with the language, so the lexicon will be useful to you for that as well.

I will say a word about one of the ways in which plural is obtained. Nouns belong to one of two categories: conscious (humans and some animals) and unconscious (everything else). "Unconscious" words, no matter their gender in the singular, become feminine in the plural. This allows us to easily create plurals for unfamiliar words, as the feminine plural is obtained by adding –ét to a word. Foreign words that are imported ususally adopt this rule by default. Thus the plural of CD (pronounced "see-dee" in Lebanese as in English) is CD-ét.

This rule is unfortunately far from general, as can be gathered from the following singular/plural pairs:

Kalb / kléb (dog)
Ktéb / kotob (book)
Samke / samak (fish)
Jaww / ajwé' (air, atmosphere; its plural connotes an ambiance, vibes)
Fikra / afkár (idea)
Yóm / 'iyyém (day)
La7za / la7azát (minute)
Sene / sneen (year)
Nateeje / natáyej (result)
Jawhar / jawéher (jewel)
Wásta / wasáyet (connection)
Manshaf / manéshef (towels)

There are indeed patterns, you might have noticed them above. Fikra and jaww for instance follow one pattern; nateeje and jawhar are grouped together in another. It's just that at this time I wouldn't know how to give you a rational way of knowing what pattern to follow and how. We know out of habit, without thinking about it, although for little-used words we sometimes hesitate ourselves!

Chapter 4: The Article