Talk:List of Christian terms in Arabic

Latest comment: 6 years ago by AnonMoos in topic يَسُوعَ

Bible edit

The Arabic word for the Bible has not been listed. Marxolang 12:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Usually الكتاب المقدس , but that's just an ordinary phrase meaning "The holy book", rather than a special name. Muslims would probably more often call it Tawrat (Old Testament) and Injeel (New Testament). AnonMoos 15:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Reply
Thanks AnonMoos! The Bible is also called Alkitab in Indonesian (without Kudus, though). Do you mind if your info be added to the list? I could've just copy and paste, but since it is originally from you.. Marxolang 17:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Reply
I think this should definitely be added. It may only be a general term, but if it's the one used to refer to the Bible, it's certainly relevant to the topic.--C.Logan 16:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Allah edit

To Freestylefrappe: I don't conceive of this as a page of exclusively Christian words -- and you were the one who added Allah to the list in the first place... User:AnonMoos 21:26, 26 August 2005

Right...so...why did u re-add Allah? My removal was not an attack on you; I was explaining my edit for other users. If you look at the List of Islamic terms in Arabic you will see that it is (or was) there. This page is exclusively Christian. freestylefrappe 22:55, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
The word Allah comes from proto-Canaanite name of the god El. From El all the Semitic names of God came: Eloh (Aramaic), Elohim (Hebrew), Allah (Arabic). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.32.24.230 (talk) 23:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC).Reply

My 2 cents on this....Allah is the literal translation of the word God (which is a Christian word) into Arabic. It is the same trnaslation as Dios is in Spanish. Arabs, Jews, and Christians believe in the same God. Wikipedianinthehouse 22:57, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Christians pray to Allah. I think that it is important that such a list stresses the point that Allah is not an exclusively Muslim word. I think this word should be on both the Christian and Islamic lists. What, exactly, is the point of having a strict rule that says that no vocabulary that might be used outside of the Christian Arab context should be allowed here? Surely, if a word has a high degree of relevence to Arab Christians it should be here. --Gareth Hughes 12:49, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Roman Catholics on Malta, who speak a language derived from Arabic, call God "Alla".
In the old Turkish Bible, God is translated as "Allah" .
Enough reasons, I suppose ... Benne 19:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
Actually the exact same conclusion has been reached on Talk:List of Islamic terms in Arabic. freestylefrappe 19:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
I'd rather remove Santa Claus from the list. What's so Christian about Père Noël?
No. Santa Claus is a Christian myth and is an important part of Christian culture (arguablly Christmas is pagan, but Christians still use it). freestylefrappe 00:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)Reply
This thread has long since died, but I still think it's important to note that Saint Nicholas is not quite "a myth". We've just exaggerated the elements of his story over time, and therefore have created a caricature. Additionally, Christmas is emphatically not pagan, though the date it is placed upon (to which it was moved, apparently, to usurp a pagan feast, by drawing the attendance of the large Christian population). There are certainly pagan traditions present in "small-t" traditions (read: cultural customs), but it is important to note that these elements have been "Christianized". In the Orthodox Church, at least, it is not believed that pagan practices are inherently bad, and those which are acceptable to Christianity are incorporates as harmless cultural elements (for example, the burial huts of the Alaskan natives, which were pagan ritual constructs which are still in use, though now topped with a cross by those who have converted).--C.Logan 16:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)Reply


Not including Allah on the grounds the it is also used by Muslim would be like not including Massih (Messiah) because it is also used by Muslims! On the contrary, this page is exactly the place to dispel the prevalent Western misconception that "the Muslim god Allah" is some exoctic Arabian idol rather than the same whom, Muslims believe, has originally inspired the Bible. Al-Lah litteral means "the God" and is the standart Arabic word for the 'supreme being', whatever your conception of it or your religion is. It can be used by people of any religion, and actually was the word used by Jews, Christians and Pagans alike since long before Islam.

One can look at the pages on "Allah" or "God in Islam" to be sure. -- 23:40, 7 January 2009 82.247.85.103

2019 edit

Im Coptic Orthodox we say Allah it means al illah the God literally Non monotheistic arabs call one of their gods just illah thats the word for god monostheists say the God so Allah --14:25, 1 May 2019? 2a01:598:8881:65f4:1:1:f169:498

ˤĪdu l-Mawta edit

I was never able to find the exact correct spelling of this in Arabic script; maybe somebody else would step in? AnonMoos 02:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

RE: ˤĪdu l-Mawta edit

"عيد الموتى"

If you add vowels to it, it will be: عِيدُ الموْتَى

Hope that helps. --Lord Anubis 15:48, 21 October 2006

Thanks, added it to page... AnonMoos 02:32, 22 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Copt edit

Also, Qibti (قبطي) should actually be pronounced as " Qubti " . It depends on the arabic region and on the accent, but I believe in pure arabic, it should be " Qubti", as such: قُبْطيّ

--Lord Anubis 15:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I don't know that we try to define "pure Arabic" on English Wikipedia. I think that mostly the Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is used as an arbiter (unless there's some good reason not to rely on it in a specific case). It lists both forms, but Qibti is listed first... AnonMoos 02:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Baba Nuwayl edit

Does anybody think that it's worth noting that the word "nuwayl" might be theoretically understood to mean "little gift" in classical Arabic (though I have no idea whether or not it's ever actually been used in that meaning)? AnonMoos 02:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

RE: Baba Nuwayl edit

I don't think Nuwayl can mean "Little Gift". --Lord Anubis 16:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Good Friday edit

in addition to الجمعة الحزينة, another term for "Good Friday" is: جمعة الآلام (The Friday of Pain, literally).

This also depends on what arabic region you are in.

--Lord Anubis 15:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Brūtistāntī (بروتستانتي) edit

Altho, in arabic, there's no letter "P", but it is often pronounced in words such as بروتستانتي , or باريس (Paris). People who pronounced باريس as "Barees" instead of "Parees", are often considered uncivilised ! Sometimes, the kurdish letter: پ is used in: پاريس which is pronounced as "P". --Lord Anubis 16:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

It is right to say that in Arabic there is no letter "P" but it is wrong to say that in Arabic there is no phonetic "P". For the word "Ibtisaam" the "B" is pronounced "P" as "Iptisaam" and the word "Ibtihaal" the "B" is pronounced "P" as "Iptihaal." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salimgkhalaf (talkcontribs) 13:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC).Reply

Similarly, there's no letter that sounds like "Ch" , although in arabic slang; in Iraq, and around the Gulf Area; lots of words, such as : Kan ( كان) are pronounced as Chan. If words that natively have the Ch letter in them, such as Chelsea, are to be arabised, people tend to write them as تشيلسي (TShelsea), or, (especially in Iraq), the kurdish letter: چ is used, which is pronounced as "Ch", so that it becomes چلسي (Chelsea) . --Lord Anubis 16:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand on what basis is this writer saying there is no sound for "Ch" in Arabic?! There is no character that says CH but there is the sound as in "Tsharrafna (we are honored) to meet you." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salimgkhalaf (talkcontribs) 13:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC).Reply

Arabic has not been spoken in its pure form for over 700 years now. It is inevitable for people to change their accents and have regional dialects affected by the foreign colonising empires (Turkey (Ottoman Empire), French (Lebanon, Egypt, and West Arabia), British (Middle East and Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt..). --Lord Anubis 16:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

The Arabic wikipedia article is بروتستانتية , but the first word of the article is الپروتستانتية , so there seems to be some inconsistency there! A year ago, I noticed that that article was listed under پ in an Arabic wikipedia category page listing, but now it seems to be listed under ب .
I'm not sure that the letter پ (most prominently used in Persian) is really used all that often in ordinary non-technical Arabic publications, and I've heard a lot of Arabic-speakers in news interviews who have problems pronouncing "p" when they try to speak English, so I would guess that it's still a slightly foreign-sounding pronunciation in Arabic... AnonMoos 14:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
As an Arab myself, I consider anyone who uses "B" instead of "P" especially in words like "Path", "Pillow", "Pub" , I consider them as having a poor level of English. I think most of my english teachers would agree with me on that one. Simply because Arabs are capable of pronouncing the letter "P", it is not as foreign as you might think , words like "Space (bar)" or "Pizza" are pronounced with a P where I come from. Some dishes are called with a letter "P", for example "Paqowta", which is an aramaic word for "Crushed Wheat", are still used in my city of Mosul or in Baghdad where I grew up . Even if we take countries like Lebanon, and Egypt, things like the word "Prestige" are pronounced with a /p/ . But as you have probably noticed, no natively arabic word contains the letter پ. most of them are arabised words from foreign countries. and one such arabised term is "Protestantism".
Having said that, there's no letter "p" in the arabic language, and so, any country that uses arabic as an official language will not include the letter پ (persian, kurdish..etc..) in their official texts. And this is why ,I think, it was first listed with a پ , and now with a ب .
As for the inconsistancies, I agree with you totally, and I believe the best thing to do is to take the standard arabic form, which is basically a ب (B) , but make sure that the original foreign term is included next to it, as such:
البروتستانتية Protestantism
Another point, the pronounciation of vowels varies a lot. Whilst most people who are not familiar with the word بروتستاني would pronounce it as : Bru-tis-tan-tee , we (as christians) often pronounce it as Pro-طis-طan-طee. ط being that special t-like sound. My great grandfather was a librarian and translator for the Protestant Missionaries in Iraq, and this is how he used to pronounce it (I heard).
But lets go with standard arabic, ب not پ ,, and next to it the word in english for those who wish to distinguish between the B and the P. -16:10, 23 October 2006 Lord Anubis

Lord have mercy! edit

Hello. I wanted to add "lord have mercy" to this list, since one hears it constantly in the Eastern churches. I'm pretty sure it's transliterated as Ya rab irham, but I can't write Arabic to save my life, so I was hoping someone could help me out! :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.120.38 (talk) 02:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Maybe يا ربي ارحم ? AnonMoos (talk) 05:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Rum edit

As far as I can tell, ar-Rum mainly means "Romans, Byzantines" (historically also probably Greeks or the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm), and it's رومي (plural أروام) which means "Greek Orthodox"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

I didn't add it, I just cleaned it up, but that's also my understanding. I have difficulty adding Arabic script on this computer so I figured someone else would catch and fix it. Why don't you just fix it, Rūm just means "region historically covered by Byzantium, esp. Anatolia". ناهد𒀭(dAnāhita) 𒅴 18:23, 16 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

The Basmalah edit

The "alternate spelling" is not actually an alternate spelling. "باسم الآب والابن والروح القدس" spells "bāsm al-Āb..." which is incorrect, it's a weird hybridisation of basmalah and the phrase "bāsm al-Āb...". -- 03:49, 1 September 2008 User:Ogress

Sorry I didn't see the above comment before (the fact that it wasn't signed didn't help). In any case bāsm is nonsense, because 1) long vowels don't appear before consonant clusters in Classical Arabic, and 2) normally, the initial alif of words like ism would be retained after the preposition b- (in fact, even the alif of the definite article is retained after b-). Omitting the alif is actually a special Qur'anic orthographic contraction. Depending on whether Arab Christians are kind of associating themselves with Muslim linguistic usages or distancing themselves from Muslim linguistic usages, they could spell باسم الآب or بسم الاب -- and both spellings are used, from what I was able to tell from searching with Google... AnonMoos (talk) 09:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Christian Basmallah edit

I once saw a photo of a Palestinian Christian religious building with a Basmallah reading "Bismillah ir-Rauf ir-Raheem" (with the usual Islamic "Rahman" changed for "Rauf"). Does anybody have info about this being a form of Christian Basmallah used perhaps only in Palestine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.247.85.103 (talk) 23:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Nasara? edit

Is "Nasara" used only by Muslims? Does it come from the name of Nazareth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.247.85.103 (talk) 23:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

نصارى is the plural of Nasrani... AnonMoos (talk) 08:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

يَسُوعَ edit

The transliteration for يَسُوعَ , 'Yasū' ',is either wrong or misleading. I know a Christian Arab, and discussed the term while reading the transliteration, and she says it's pronounced more like "yah-soo-ah" and not "yah-soo". I typed the Arabic text in Google Translate, and Google transliteratied it "yasue"

If it is transliteratied correctly, I suggest that Wikipedia change their method of transliterating Arabic. -TheSpaceFace Let's Chat 18:05, 24 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

According to the usual Classical Arabic rules, the basic word would be pronounced as IPA [jasuːʕ] (where [ʕ] is a pharyngeal consonant). Of course, this could be followed by a short final i'rab vowel, depending on phonological/grammatical/stylistic context. I don't think that non-classical Arabic dialects have a place on this article, unless there's some clear connection to prevailing Christian usage... AnonMoos (talk) 17:52, 30 May 2017 (UTC)Reply