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This study aimed to investigate the level of implementation of Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) in Balo-i West District as perceived by the Asatidz. This study utilized descriptive correlation. The study investigated the relationship between the variables presented. This was conducted at Baloi West District, Division of Lanao del Norte II and 38 Arabic teachers were utilized as participants. The study made use of standardized questionnaires. The data were treated using frequency and percentage distribution, mean and standard deviation, and Pearson Correlation. The study revealed that most of the respondents were 40-49 years of age, female, married, high school graduates in English education, undergraduate level in the Arabic education, passed the qualifying examination for Arabic teachers, and contractual employees. They were teachers for 11-15 years and attended five or more seminars. They displayed high competencies in skills, attitude, and knowledge. They were highly challenged in delayed honorarium. Findings revealed that instructional materials were the most provided and accessible among teachers. The teachers' level of teaching competencies was not significantly associated with their personal profile (except for civil status) and thus, the null hypothesis of no significant relationship between the respondents' profile and level of teaching competencies was not rejected. Results showed that the respondent's level of teaching competencies was not significantly associated with the effectiveness of ALIVE implementation. An output was designed based form the findings of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the Everyday Memory Questionnaire- Revised (EMQ-R-A) in a sample of Lebanese adults. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in August 2023. A diverse sample of 483 Lebanese adults aged 18 to 60 years from all Lebanese governorates was recruited. Participants completed an Arabic-language questionnaire comprising three sections: socio-demographic characteristics, health-related inquiries, the EMQ-R-A and the Arabic version of the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). Results: The study's findings indicated that the EMQ-R-A displayed strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.925). Convergent validity was supported by a significant correlation with PRMQ. Test-retest results demonstrated strong reliability with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.925. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a three-factor model including retrieval related factors, attentional tracking related factors, and other factors. The factors labeled "Retrieval" and "Attentional Tracking" elucidate aspects of memory retrieval system efficacy and attention-related challenges. Higher EMQ-R-A scores were found to be associated with the female gender, lower attention, physical inactivity, lower educational levels, and higher number of comorbid disorders. Conclusion: The EMQ-R-A exhibits good validity and reliability. The identified factors associated with memory decline underscore the importance of addressing lifestyle factors, such as promoting physical activity, better educational attainment, and addressing comorbid health conditions, to potentially mitigate memory challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-sectional study seeks to compare levels of emotional resonance in Arabic and English and identify the effects of sociobiographical factors, the history of English language learning and the current use of English on the development of emotional resonance of English among 141 bi- and multilingual Arab pupils and students in Saudi Arabia. Arabic was found to have a significantly stronger emotional resonance than English. Higher scores on emotional resonance in English were found among female participants, participants who had attended English-speaking primary (but not secondary schools), and participants who were using English intensely and frequently at the time of the data collection. We argue that all these factors contribute directly and indirectly to higher proficiency and increased embodiment of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to explore the implementation of Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE), specifically, it sought answers to the question: How do the participants view their experiences in the implementation of Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) program? The study employed a qualitative multiple case research design. The participants of this study were the ALIVE learners of DepEd Palimbang District I, Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat. Purposive sampling was used in determining the participants of the study. The study had four formulated themes which were the best practices, benefits, opportunities, and similarities and differences in the implementation of ALIVE program. The following topics were developed by the best practices theme: creating a positive atmosphere, adopting moral principles, learning the Arabic language and alphabet, and using knowledge. The following emerging themes emerged from the benefits: educating about Islam, learning useful skills, and applying what was learned. The following themes have emerged as a result of the opportunities: socializing, self-development, and upgrading education. However, in order to assess its effectiveness in promoting Islamic principles and Arabic language competency, this study is crucial. This study provided insightful information about the program's effectiveness, room for improvement, and wider relevance in fostering religious education and cultural awareness in schools and society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes Sufi supplications in the poetic works of Shaykh Abū Bakr ʿAtīq b. Khiḍr b. Abī Bakr b. Mūsā al-Kashināwī (1909–1974), known in Hausa as Shehi Abubakar Atiƙu Sanka. It examines the literary and aesthetic aspects of Atiƙu’s supplicatory odes, as well as their social and political functions. Atiƙu, a significant Tijani scholar in Kano, Nigeria, was a prominent voice in the Fayḍa Tijāniyya movement, which greatly enhanced Islamic scholarship and literacy across West Africa. The Fayḍa literature includes various genres, particularly classical Arabic odes (usually monorhyme), with the Sufi supplicatory ode (qaṣīdat al-tawassul) being a notable sub-genre. Despite their devotional nature, these odes are often overlooked by Western scholars for their literary and historical value. This article shows that Atiƙu’s odes possess a unique aesthetic grounded in reiteration and intertextuality, which contributes to their coherence and unity. Moreover, these supplicatory odes play crucial social roles and serve as valuable sources of social history. The study relies on Atiƙu’s original manuscripts, which contain paratextual elements and annotations about political and religious contexts, providing a basis for a socio-literary analysis of this Islamic poetry sub-genre in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a supervised strategy designed to enhance spoken word recognition within the constraints of a resource-limited multilingual dataset, specifically focusing on the Arabic language. Notably, existing methodologies often neglect the critical influence of morphology and phonology on the comprehension of spoken language. The Multilingual Spoken Words Corpus comprises audio files in the OPUS format. Our approach strategically employs the pre-trained Arabic Large xlsr-Wav2Vec2-53 transformer model to extract text transcripts, unfolding in two distinct forms: Buckwalter transliterations and Arabic scripts. For Buckwalter transliterations form of text transcripts, we adopt the CMU pronouncing dictionary for phonetic representation. Specifically, a specialized Arabic-based grapheme-2-phoneme model is utilized to convert Buckwalter transliterations into phonemes. Subsequently, these phonemes are transformed into vectors through the application of FastText's character n-gram-based subword embeddings. Shifting focus to the Arabic script form, a stemming process is applied, followed by further conversion into unigrams. Once again, FastText word embeddings are harnessed to represent these unigrams as vectors. To maintain uniformity, vectors are concatenated and padded across both scenarios. For classification, a three-layered dense model, augmented by batch normalization, processes the accumulated vectors, ultimately generating probabilistic scores. The final outcomes are obtained by averaging results from both forms. Comparative evaluation against the state-of-the-art (SOTA) approach substantiates the accuracy of this methodology. Crucially, our method demonstrates promising results, indicating its potential to significantly advance spoken word recognition in complex multilingual contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates the diffusion of English into the linguistic ecologies of Tunisia, an Expanding Outer Circle society in North Africa. It analyzes the language practices of Tunisian business operators in five commercial localities in metropolitan Tunis. The paper focuses, in particular, on the uses of English and its interaction with Tunisia's dominant languages, the ways the resources of English are locally understood and deployed and the intersection of the emerging "language regime" (Kroskrity, 2000) with the official linguistic landscapes policies and the wider sociohistorical, political, and economic conditions of the country. Methodology and data: Detailed discourse-ethnographic analysis of 363 linguistic landscape signs collected from 5 commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Findings and conclusions: The findings indicated the emergence of a bottom-up English-led public signage communicating a global corporate ideology circumventing the official language policies mandating the use and visibility of Modern Standard Arabic in public signage. However, this English-led public posting is intertwined in complex ways with Tunisia's dominant languages, resulting in translanguaging, linguistic puns, the commodification of vernacular forms of communication as well as (supra)national and aesthetic identity markers. Originality: Tunisia, a traditionally constructed Francophone country moving toward English, is very little explored in the major Global English(es) paradigms. The paper focuses on the possible ideological, economic, and cultural changes engendered by English and connects these changes to the global socioeconomic, political, and cultural transformations undergone by the country over the last decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aims to explore the degree of Arabic language teachers to employ teaching methods that enhance linguistic intelligence in the basic stage of education in Aqaba Governorate as an example. To achieve this objective, a descriptive-analytical approach was used, and a questionnaire was employed as the primary tool for data collection from a sample of (74) Arabic language teachers in Ma'an Governorate. The study found several results, with one of the most significant findings that the degree of employing teaching methods that enhance linguistic intelligence by Arabic language teachers in elementary education in Aqaba Governorate is perceived to be high by the teachers themselves. The results also indicated no statistically significant differences attributed to gender, academic qualification, or years of experience in the degree of employing teaching methods that enhance linguistic intelligence in Arabic language education. Based on the findings, the study recommends encouraging teachers to diversify the educational strategies used in the classroom, including brainstorming strategies, cooperative learning, and interactive teaching to enhance students’ linguistic intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study delves into the experiences of three Saudi mothers living in the United States, exploring their evolving understanding of their children's language needs and the obstacles they face as learners of Arabic heritage language (AHL). The study is rooted in the notion of language as a form of capital and Bonny Norton's metaphor of investment in language learning. It examines how AHL serves as a multifaceted form of social, cultural, and academic capital for their children's present and future lives in both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Through individual, semi-structured interviews, the study unveils the experiences, motivations, and challenges faced by the mothers in maintaining their children's AHL. The findings illustrate three distinct stages in the children's language learning journey, initially emphasizing English as the predominant language with capital in the U.S. followed by a crucial shift toward recognizing the significance of AHL preservation. Ultimately, this study sheds light on the nuanced role of AHL as an essential asset and its interconnectedness as a dynamic cultural and academic resource. The implications extend to social inclusion and identity formation, enriching our understanding of the intricate interplay between language, culture, and identity development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The line of demarcation drawn between active and passive verbs resides in the direction of the action. The passive voice in standard Arabic can be used when the agent of the sentence is not expressed. The active Arabic sentences are passivized by skipping the agent of the sentence, but without changing the word order. The paper investigates the misuse and abuse of passive voice in Jordanian newspapers. Four cases of Arabic Passive violation spotted in Jordanian written media are analyzed. Three major official newspapers issued in Jordan are chosen for this purpose: Alqhad, Addustoor, and Alrai. It also focuses on violating the Arabic passive rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been proven through past research that students' mastery of Arabic language grammar remains at a low level. This condition is attributed to the less efficient teaching methods practised by Arabic teachers due to their use of traditional teaching methods. Therefore, this study aims to review the teaching methods of Arabic language grammar practised by Arabic teachers upon the effectiveness of the teaching methods in facilitating the students’ improvement in Arabic language grammar. A qualitative design was employed by focusing on case studies in various places. Through a purposive sampling, the respondents of this study comprised Arabic language teachers from National Religious High Schools (SMKA), Government Aided Religious Schools (SABK), and State Religious Secondary Schools (SMAN) in Perlis and Kedah, Malaysia. Subsequently, it was found that the majority of Arabic language teachers still practised teacher-oriented teaching methods compared to student-oriented teaching methods such as lectures, memorisation, repetition (at-tikrar), and translation. The teachers determined the effectiveness of their teaching methods in assisting the students in mastering the Arabic language grammar based on the students’ results of assignments, answers, or responses. Based on several language tests conducted by the teacher, the aforementioned results should be satisfactory. Notably, this study would be a reference for academics and educators’ development and diversification of teaching methods that are more interesting and suitable for the students’ improvement in their mastery of Arabic language grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to examine the development of derivational morphological structures in the productive language of Kuwaiti Arabic (KA)-speaking children. Participants were 512 typically developing Kuwaiti children aged 3;0 years to 7;11 years (243 boys and 269 girls). Five age groups at 1-year intervals were tested; each group was divided into four sub-groups at 3-month intervals. The children were examined using a tool designed to assess structures specific to the KA dialect, and they were assessed by trained research assistants at their nurseries and public schools. There were clear developmental trajectories in the derivational morphological structures studied in KA-speaking children across the five age groups. Results showed that KA-speaking children have not reached mastery level in most of the structures examined in this study. Among the two types of derivations examined, nominal derivations emerged later than verb derivations. Error analysis showed that most errors were morphological, affecting mainly the root. The results of this study enhance our knowledge of early language development in Arabic by showing that nominal derivations develop later than verb derivations. The results are discussed in light of previous cross-linguistic studies, which also found a similar trajectory in terms of morphological development. Further, Arabic morphological theory, as well as implications for practice and the need for further research, is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution of linguistic skills to reading has been reported in different languages; however, this contribution varies according to the specific features of each language. Arabic is characterized by diglossia, i.e. the existence of two distinct varieties: Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA). This study examined the extent to which linguistic components (phonemic awareness, vocabulary, morphological and syntactic knowledge) and orthographic knowledge of kindergartners (N = 261) predict future reading skills, i.e. word reading accuracy, fluency, and reading comprehension in the first year of elementary school (first grade). In addition, the relevant contributions of SpA and StA to reading skills were tested. The results revealed that while phonemic awareness, syntactic and orthographic knowledge significantly predicted almost all reading skills, morphological knowledge and vocabulary predicted only reading comprehension. In addition, hierarchical regression showed that the general index of StA linguistic measures predicted all reading measures, after controlling for orthographic knowledge and SpA linguistic measures. The results are discussed in relation to the critical role of StA in reading acquisition despite the difficulties of Arabic-speaking kindergartners in processing language in StA compared to SpA. The study emphasizes the influence of oral and written linguistic skills on reading acquisition in Arabic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the diglossic nature of the Arabic language, Arabic-speaking children enter their first year of school with immaturity in literary language and word representations in their mental lexicon. This study examined the effects of interactive story reading in kindergarten on future reading skills and whether this effect can be generalized to reading skills of infrequent words. 102 Arabic-speaking kindergarten children were divided into two groups: 1) the intervention group was based on a first-grade textbook; 2) the control group was based on classic stories from the kindergarten library. The program was implemented for three months during the kindergarten year. The findings show that the intervention group's scores were higher than the control group in measures of represented/practiced and unfamiliar items. Additionally, the gain of the intervention group in reading unfamiliar items provide evidence for a generalization effect of t he intervention program. We conclude that the negative impact of diglossia on reading acquisition in Arabic can be reduced during kindergarten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwritten character recognition (HCR) remains a challenging pattern recognition problem despite decades of research, and lacks research on script independent recognition techniques. This is mainly because of similar character structures, different handwriting styles, diverse scripts, handcrafted feature extraction techniques, unavailability of data and code, and the development of script-specific deep learning techniques. To address these limitations, we have proposed a script independent deep learning network for HCR research, called HCR-Net, that sets a new research direction for the field. HCR-Net is based on a novel transfer learning approach for HCR, which partly utilizes feature extraction layers of a pre-trained network. Due to transfer learning and image augmentation, HCR-Net provides faster and computationally efficient training, better performance and generalizations, and can work with small datasets. HCR-Net is extensively evaluated on 40 publicly available datasets of Bangla, Punjabi, Hindi, English, Swedish, Urdu, Farsi, Tibetan, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, Nepali and Arabic languages, and established 26 new benchmark results while performed close to the best results in the rest cases. HCR-Net showed performance improvements up to 11% against the existing results and achieved a fast convergence rate showing up to 99% of final performance in the very first epoch. HCR-Net significantly outperformed the state-of-the-art transfer learning techniques and also reduced the number of trainable parameters by 34% as compared with the corresponding pre-trained network. To facilitate reproducibility and further advancements of HCR research, the complete code is publicly released at https://github.com/jmdvinodjmd/HCR-Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to write the Arabic alphabet is crucial for Arab children's cognitive development, enhancing their memory and retention skills. However, the lack of Arabic language educational applications may hamper the effectiveness of their learning experience. To bridge this gap, SamAbjd was developed, an interactive web application that leverages deep learning techniques, including air-writing recognition, to teach Arabic letters. SamAbjd was tailored to user needs through extensive surveys conducted with mothers and teachers, and a comprehensive literature review was performed to identify effective teaching methods and models. The development process involved gathering data from three publicly available datasets, culminating in a collection of 31,349 annotated images of handwritten Arabic letters. To enhance the dataset's quality, data preprocessing techniques were applied, such as image denoising, grayscale conversion, and data augmentation. Two models were experimented with using a convolution neural network (CNN) and Visual Geometry Group (VGG16) to evaluate their effectiveness in recognizing air-written Arabic characters. Among the CNN models tested, the standout performer was a seven-layer model without dropout, which achieved a high testing accuracy of 96.40%. This model also demonstrated impressive precision and F1-score, both around 96.44% and 96.43%, respectively, indicating successful fitting without overfitting. The web application, built using Flask and PyCharm, offers a robust and user-friendly interface. By incorporating deep learning techniques and user feedback, the web application meets educational needs effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) substantially contributes to poor functional outcomes, loss in productivity, and poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Despite the existence of various scales, there is a notable gap in existing HRQoL reviews with regard to the availability of Arabic validated scales. As a response to this gap, the aim of our scoping review is to identify validated scales, focusing on their psychometric validation procedures, to contribute valuable insights to the understanding of HRQoL among the Arabic-speaking people with PD. Methods: A scoping review was conducted at the end of December 2022, using the Medline and Embase databases. The focus of this review was on examining the psychometric properties and validation procedures of included scales. Articles were included in the full-text screening process if they focused on people with PD of any age, included a scale measuring HRQoL in Arabic, and were written in English, French, or Arabic. Results: After applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, 10 studies were selected to analyze HRQoL scales validated in people with PD. However, the PDQ-39 is the only HRQol PD specific scales validated in the Arabic language. Five studies validated in people with PD were identified in the context of instrument validation (3 generic, 1 specific validated in 2 studies). Conclusion: There are several HRQoL measurement scales for people with PD. However, only one specific HRQoL instrument has been validated in Arabic for people with PD. For the remaining instruments identified they were just used in people with PD without being validated in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authenticity of classical Arabic poetry has long been challenged by claims that some part of the pre-Islamic poetic heritage should not be attributed to this era. According to these assertions, some of this legacy was produced after the advent of Islam and ascribed, for different reasons, to pre-Islamic poets. As pre-Islamic poets were illiterate, medieval Arabic literature devotees relied on Bedouin oral transmission when writing down and collecting the poems about two centuries later. This process left the identity of the real poets who composed these poems and the period in which they worked unresolved. In this work, we seek to answer the questions of how and to what extent we can identify the period in which classical Arabic poetry was composed, where we exploit modern-day automatic text processing techniques for this aim. We consider a dataset of Arabic poetry collected from the diwans ('collections of poems') of thirteen Arabic poets that corresponds to two main eras: the pre-ʿAbbāsid era (covering the period between the 6th and the 8th centuries CE) and the ʿAbbāsid era (starting in the year 750 CE). Some poems in each diwan are considered 'original'; i.e., poems that are attributed to a certain poet with high confidence. The diwans also include, however, an additional section of poems that are attributed to a poet with reservations, meaning that these poems might have been composed by another poet and/or in another period. We trained a set of machine learning algorithms (classifiers) in order to explore the potential of machine learning techniques to automatically identify the period in which a poem had been written. In the training phase, we represent each poem using various types of features (characteristics) designed to capture lexical, topical, and stylistic aspects of this poetry. By training and assessing automatic models of period prediction using the 'original' poetry, we obtained highly encouraging results, measuring between 0.73–0.90 in terms of F1 for the various periods. Moreover, we observe that the stylistic features, which pertain to elements that characterize Arabic poetry, as well as the other feature types, are all indicative of the period in which the poem had been written. We applied the resulting prediction models to poems for which the authorship period is under dispute ('attributed') and got interesting results, suggesting that some of the poems may belong to different eras—an issue to be further examined by Arabic poetry researchers. The resulting prediction models may be applied to poems for which the authorship period is under dispute. We demonstrate this research direction, presenting some interesting anecdotal results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sexual and reproductive empowerment (SRE) is an important determinant of women's and girls' health yet measuring it is complex due to cultural and domain-specific variations. This study describes the process of adapting an SRE scale consisting of four domains (self-efficacy; future orientation; social support; and safety) and testing its psychometric properties among Arabic speaking adolescent girls in Lebanon. Methods: An SRE scale developed in a Western context was adapted in four steps: (1) reviewing the scale and selecting culturally appropriate domains for translation to standard Arabic; (2) conducting cognitive interviews with 30 11-17-year-old adolescent girls in Lebanon; (3) administering the scale to 339 refugee adolescent girls who participated in an early marriage intervention; and (4) conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the data to assess the scale's psychometric properties. Results: The original model for the 13-item, four-domain adapted scale demonstrated poor fit in CFA. After iteratively removing two items, scale properties were improved, albeit were not optimal. The validity and reliability results for the self-efficacy domain were acceptable. Cognitive interview data revealed that Arab adolescent girls understood self-efficacy in relational terms, recognizing that autonomous decision-making is not necessarily favored but is influenced by parents and family. Conclusions: This study presents an effort to customize an SRE scale for use in studies on the health of adolescent girls in an Arab cultural context. Findings from cognitive interviews highlight the importance of taking into consideration relationality in adolescent sexual and reproductive decision-making. The self-efficacy domain in the adapted scale demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties and is recommended for use in health studies to capture SRE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to determine the level of relationship between awareness beyond cognition of reading strategies, as measured by the Kouider Mokhtari & Carla A. Reichard. (2002) scale, and the practice of these strategies (comprehensive reading strategies, supportive reading strategies, and problem-solving strategies). Additionally, the study explored the relationship between these strategies and learning styles according to the )VARK( model by (Neil Fleming, 1992) (visual, auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic) among female students in the third and fourth years of the Islamic Studies and Arabic Language Department at Cairo College of Education for Girls. The following results were obtained from applying the study’s tools to the sample: 1. Reading Strategies Awareness Ranking: o Supportive Reading Strategies ranked first in the scale of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, followed by Problem-Solving Strategies, and then Comprehensive Reading Strategies. 2. There were no statistically significant differences between the average scores of third-year and fourth-year female students in the dimensions of Comprehensive Reading Strategies and Supportive Reading Strategies. 3. There were statistically significant differences between the average scores of third-year and fourth-year female students in the dimension of Problem-Solving Strategies, favoring third-year students. 4. Statistically significant differences were found between the average scores of third-year and fourth-year female students in the overall scale of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, favoring third-year students. 5. There were statistically significant differences between the female students in the study sample in the Visual Style (V), favoring fourth-year students. Additionally, significant differences were found in the Reading/Writing Style (R/W), favoring third-year students. 6. There were no statistically significant differences between the female students in the study sample in the Auditory Style (A) and the Kinesthetic Style (K), indicating that individuals in the sample had similar levels of practice in these two styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research addresses the connotative significance of the words of the Holy Quran and the role of this significance in clarifying the intended meaning of the Quranic verses in which these words appear. This is achieved by examining the lexical meaning of each term and its usages in the Arabic language, and then exploring what these words imply according to their contextual and situational settings. This approach aims to provide a clear vision and explicit connotation, ultimately revealing the general meaning intended in the wise text. The research includes, after the introduction, a prelude that discusses the concept of connotative significance in light of modern linguistic studies. The main focus of the research then centers on the primary axis of this study, relying on the selection of a group of words from the Holy Quran to serve as a model for study and analysis. The research concludes with a summary of the key findings reached by this study, accompanied by a number of recommendations that warrant mention [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, one of the most common problems faced by Twitter (also known as X) users, including individuals as well as organizations, is dealing with spam tweets. The problem continues to proliferate due to the increasing popularity and number of users of social media platforms. Due to this overwhelming interest, spammers can post texts, images, and videos containing suspicious links that can be used to spread viruses, rumors, negative marketing, and sarcasm, and potentially hack the user's information. Spam detection is among the hottest research areas in natural language processing (NLP) and cybersecurity. Several studies have been conducted in this regard, but they mainly focus on the English language. However, Arabic tweet spam detection still has a long way to go, especially emphasizing the diverse dialects other than modern standard Arabic (MSA), since, in the tweets, the standard dialect is seldom used. The situation demands an automated, robust, and efficient Arabic spam tweet detection approach. To address the issue, in this research, various machine learning and deep learning models have been investigated to detect spam tweets in Arabic, including Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes (NB) and Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM). In this regard, we have focused on the words as well as the meaning of the tweet text. Upon several experiments, the proposed models have produced promising results in contrast to the previous approaches for the same and diverse datasets. The results showed that the RF classifier achieved 96.78% and the LSTM classifier achieved 94.56%, followed by the SVM classifier that achieved 82% accuracy. Further, in terms of F1-score, there is an improvement of 21.38%, 19.16% and 5.2% using RF, LSTM and SVM classifiers compared to the schemes with same dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the developed and developing world, traditional children’s rhymes are under threat. The disappearance of these traditional rhymes could impact children’s phonological development (Di Liberto et al., 2023, Harper, 2011), awareness of their natural environment, and their appreciation (and later composition) of poetry by older speakers. While rhymes in literate societies are often documented and can thus can be retrieved, this is not the case for the Mahrah and other exclusively oral societies. In this paper, we examine traditional children’s rhymes in Mehri, an endangered Modern South Arabian language (MSAL), focusing on rhymes and riddles and the significance of their impending loss within al-Mahrah governorate in Yemen. We conclude by suggesting ways in which the Mehri community, in collaboration with native-speaker and non-native-speaker researchers, can revitalize this genre of poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of emotions has been studied from numerous perspectives in psychology, the history of emotions and religion. This study sheds light on the linguistic devices implemented to articulate emotions in the Qurʾān by taking the emotion verb xāfa ‘to fear’ or ‘to be afraid’ (and its derivatives) as a case study. In both modern and classical dictionaries of the Arabic language as well as in Quranic exegesis, the verb xāfa is often replaced by another verb that expresses fear such as xašiya ‘to be afraid’ or ‘to be in awe’. Here it is shown that the verb xāfa occurs in certain syntactic structures and has specific meanings that are not denoted by other verbs expressing fear in the Qurʾān. Specifically, when the verb xāfa is followed by a subordinate clause that starts with the particle ʾan, it can be rendered as ‘to fear’ or ‘to be afraid’ since the cause of this fear is a probable event. When the verb xāfa is followed by the preposition ʿalā it denotes ‘to fear for [the wellbeing of] someone (e.g., a family member)’ because of a situation in which they are likely to be found. When it is followed by the noun rabb ‘Lord’ or Allāh ‘God’, the verb refers to ‘fear of God’, where fear of His punishment motivates the people to worship Him. When the verbal noun xawf has no object and is used in conjunction with the verbal noun ʾamn (‘security’) it can be interpreted as ‘insecurity about something’. Because the verb xāfa is central to the religious concept of fear of God, it is used in the Qurʾān to express a general and collective attitude of fear or awe. However, xāfa is also used to express individual experiences of fright at specific times or places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the Bible in Arabic has become a topic of increasing interest among scholars of the intellectual history of the Islamic world, as well as Christianity in areas under Islamic rule. Nevertheless, most Arabic Bible manuscripts remain largely, or even totally, unstudied. While the textual and theological dimensions of these translations are attracting increasing scholarly attention, their linguistic analysis remains dominated by a traditionalist approach now completely outdated. This paper has two goals, one descriptive and one methodological. First, we aim to fully describe the Arabic Gospel manuscript Sinai Arabic MS 68, traditionally dated to the 14th century CE but which we date to the 16th century CE, perhaps in the aftermath of the fall of the Mamluk empire. Our description focuses on the linguistic nature of the manuscript, but includes discussions of its history and materiality as well. Second, we propose a methodological approach to studying the language of the text that takes seriously non-Classical components and contextualizes these features within what is known from other such nonClassical compositions, including especially Christian manuscripts. We conclude that the manuscript was produced by artisans and a scribe with significant courtly experience, and shows evidence of multiple normative linguistic registers, which argues strongly for the importance of broadening the framework within which scholars interpret such ‘Middle Arabic’ texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish dialects of Algerian Arabic remain terra incognita within Arabic dialectology. This paper addresses this lacuna and examines specific syntactic aspects within the critically endangered Jewish dialect of Wad-Souf. The study selectively focuses on the topics relevant to the ongoing discussions in the field of Arabic dialectology and the sub-field of Judaeo-Arabic. This research builds on my prior work concerning the phonology and morphology of Jewish Wad-Souf, emphasising linguistic traits that align with Bedouin dialects and showcasing historical connections to sedentary Jewish dialects. The article includes glossed text samples and analytical sections exploring noun, verb and pronoun syntax. While presenting tendencies rather than rigid rules, this research lays the groundwork for future studies on the Jewish dialect of WadSouf and on Algerian Judaeo-Arabic in general, forming a basis for a deeper understanding of its syntax and linguistic nuances. The data were obtained during three periods of fieldwork in Israel between March and December 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fann is a genre of oral poetry in the vernacular Arabic of the Alawi community in the Antioch/Hatay province of Turkey. Until recently, it has hardly been mentioned in academic literature. Poetic form and rhythm structure are largely fixed in this genre and it is almost always performed in a similar way; when it comes to the quality of the voice, including a more or less clear melodic shape, there is more left up to the performer. During performances, the rhythmical element dominates the essence of melodic aspects. A preliminary comparison with related genres in the region demonstrates that both the form and performance practice of fann resemble genres in neighbouring Arab countries. Comparison also finds that there is hardly any connection with any Turkish and Kurdish singer-poem tradition as practised in nearby regions. Only recent changes indicate influences from contemporary Turkish music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a first study of numeral reduplication in Jordanian Arabic, which uses a syntactic strategy of numeral reduplication not previously recognized in other languages. This involves the reduplication of a numeral implies reduplication of the Noun Phrase (NP) that follows it (Num NP Num NP). Semantically, and at first glance, numeral reduplication mandates distributives readings. We show that numeral reduplication is in fact a marker of pluractionality (event plurality), and the distributive readings are the consequence of separating plural events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will analyze the use of the noun nafs ‘soul’ with the firstperson possessive pronominal suffix, through the corpus of Andalusi texts gathered in Nafḥ al-ṭīb by the North-African author Shihāb al-Dīn al-Maqqarī (d. 1632). The aim is threefold: one, to identify patterns of the use of nafsī in the Nafḥ, their semantic performance, and diachronic evolution; two, to compare the use of the term in this corpus with its use in lists of collocates in the macro corpora KSUCCA and arTenTen of Classical and Modern Standard Arabic; and three, to show that linguistically systematizing self-expression is adequate for the identification of highly subjective texts in a corpus. Analysis will show that the notions of the ‘divided self’, sacrificing oneself, and yearning change towards a closer relationship between the subject and the self over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the largest microblogging websites in the world, Twitter generates a huge amount of information daily. The massive size of the generated data increases the difficulty for humans to follow and receive information relevant to their interests. Therefore, Twitter allows users to annotate and categorize their tweets using appropriate hashtags. However, finding an appropriate hashtag for a tweet is not always straightforward. Furthermore, many users violate the hashtag flow by posting irrelevant content to the hashtag topic. These problems increase the need for a hashtag recommendation and classification system. This topic has received considerable attention from researchers in some languages, such as English and Chinese. However, this problem has not yet been explored for the Arabic language owing to the lack of datasets. In this study, we bridge this gap by proposing WASM, an Arabic Twitter hashtag recommendation dataset consisting of more than 100,000 tweets annotated with 87 hashtags. The proposed dataset is subjected to several rounds of automatic and manual filtrations to ensure that it is suitable for tasks related to tweets and hashtags. Further, we propose three systems for hashtag recommendation and classification. Each of these systems approaches the task differently by considering it as classification, generation, and named entity recognition problems. The results obtained using these systems are promising and can be used to benchmark the WASM dataset. The data and code are available at https://github.com/Hamzah-Luqman/wasm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural machine translation (NMT) is a complex process that deals with many grammatical complexities. Today, transfer learning (TL) has emerged as a leading method in machine translation, enhancing accuracy with ample source data for limited target data. Yet, low-resource languages such as Arabic dialects lack substantial source data. This study aims to enable an NMT model, trained on a sparse Arabic dialect corpus, to translate a precise dialect with a limited corpus, addressing this gap. This paper introduces an incremental transfer learning approach tailored for translating low-resource language. The method utilizes various related language corpora, employing an incremental fine-tuning strategy to transfer linguistic features from a grand-parent model to a child model. In our case, Knowledge is transferred from a broad set of Arabic dialects to the Maghrebi dialects subset and then to specific low-resource dialects such as Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan, employing Transformer and attentional sequence-to-sequence models. The evaluation of the proposed strategy on Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan dialects demonstrates superior translation performance compared to traditional TL methods. Using the Transformer model, it shows improvements of 80%, 62%, and 58% for Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan dialects, respectively. Similarly, with the Attentional seq2seq model, there's an enhancement of 98% in BLEU score results for Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Multilingual large language models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance across a wide range of cross-lingual Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. The emergence of MLLMs made it possible to achieve knowledge transfer from high-resource to low-resource languages. Several MLLMs have been released for cross-lingual transfer tasks. However, no systematic evaluation comparing all models for Arabic cross-lingual Named-Entity Recognition (NER) is available. This paper presents a benchmark evaluation to empirically investigate the performance of the state-of-the-art multilingual large language models for Arabic cross-lingual NER. Furthermore, we investigated the performance of different MLLMs adaptation methods to better model the Arabic language. An error analysis of the different adaptation methods is presented. Our experimental results indicate that GigaBERT outperforms other models for Arabic cross-lingual NER, while language-adaptive pre-training (LAPT) proves to be the most effective adaptation method across all datasets. Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating language-specific knowledge to enhance the performance in distant language pairs like English and Arabic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Al-Adab / Al-ādāb is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study focuses on the principal stylistic characteristics of metrical formation and rhyme in the poetry collection of Taysīr Subūl Aḥzān Ṣaḥrāwiyyah ‘Desert Sorrows’. It explores the impact of traditional Arabic metrical forms on articulating the poet's real-life and psychological experiences. The research also delves into the importance of rhyme in fostering a unified emotional flow, maintaining the continuity of events, and culminating the poet's conceptual thoughts. The study concludes that Subūl's selection of classical Arabic meters (Buhur) and their metrical variations significantly contribute to the freedom and fluidity of his expression, enriching the rhythmic and semantic depth of his poetry. The varied application of softened rhyme schemes emerges as a prominent stylistic feature, encouraging readers to ponder over the implications and meanings of his poetic lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the online discussions surrounding the dubbing of Disney movies into two Arabic varieties: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA). The objective is to uncover the language ideologies and attitudes taken by Disney Facebook commenters and verbal-guise technique (VGT) participants online. Dubbing Disney movies into these two varieties has sparked numerous debates on social media, particularly on Facebook. The study employed stance-taking to analyze the metalinguistic comments made by Facebook users about the use of these two Arabic varieties in the context of Disney. A VGT experiment was conducted on Disney excerpts to complement the results. The findings provided valuable insights into how Arab social media users' stances are influenced by their ideologies and attitudes. Lastly, the VGT experiment provided another perspective on how Arabs evaluate MSA and ECA in the context of Disney movies and how they express their indirect language attitudes. The findings showed the differences in language attitudes between Maghreb, Mashreq, and Arab Peninsula countries. The language attitudes of Mashreq and Peninsula countries were closer to each other than to those of the Maghreb countries. Moreover, ECA competes with MSA in prestige and pleasantness. MSA is seen as the thread that connects the Arab World and is admired for its connection with the Arab heritage, religion, and education. However, it is less favored for its rigidity, unintelligibility, and unnaturalness as a spoken variety. Finally, ECA is favored for its simplicity, humor, closeness, familiarity, intimacy, naturalness, and entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supralocalization in Egypt is facilitated by factors like higher education, urbanization, and domestic migration. The most notable supralocal features in Egypt are those associated with Cairo Arabic, which holds a prominent status throughout the country. One of these distinctive features is the [ɡ] variant of (dʒ), known as "jīm" in Arabic. This study reports results from an investigation into the diffusion of [ɡ] within Minya Governorate, situated approximately 200 kilometers to the south of Cairo and extending for about 130 kilometers along the Nile River, where [dʒ] is the predominant variant. Data collection involved interviews with 62 participants, selected based on gender, age, education, and place of residence, along with a survey completed by 61 participants. The linguistic factors under examination included style and the sounds preceding and following the target variant of (dʒ). Results indicate substantial diffusion of [ɡ] in Minya, particularly among highly educated urbanites and rural migrants, especially in careful style. The study also discusses the implications of these results as related to identity projection among Minya Arabic speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the amount of written vernacular Arabic has increased dramatically. But encoding an unstandardized language in writing is not straightforward and mechanical; rather, it is a complex process that balances practical considerations with ideological stances such as autonomy from the standard language. This study examines how writers of Tunisian Arabic (or derja) are navigating this elaboration process. Using a quantitative analysis of a 279,000-word corpus of print literary works written in Tunisian Arabic (2014–2021) and a 5.8-million-word corpus of internet forum posts (2010–2021), this paper explores how Tunisians writing in derja make orthographic choices to collectively position themselves in relation to the larger Arab world. The study finds that forum writers who have advocated for an improved status for Tunisian Arabic use more phonemic spelling forms—more closely representing Tunisian pronunciation—while those who have advocated for Standard Arabic are more conservative in their spelling choices. The authors of Tunisian Arabic novels and translations—pulled between issues of elaboration and readability—are a bit more conservative than the pro-derja group. These results show how writers in unstandardized or not-yet-standardized languages like Tunisian Arabic use orthography to express national identity stances in relation to supranational languages and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines Makkan Arabic speakers' orthographic representation of standard and colloquial variants in their WhatsApp text messages. In particular, we examine the role that speaker gender, speaker age, gender composition of conversations, and topic of discussions play in Hadari Makkans' representation of standard and colloquial variants of the variables (th), (dh), and (Dh). Statistical analyses reveal that women favor colloquial variant stops [t] and [d], while men exhibit a preference for standard variants [θ] and [ð], particularly when conversing with other men. For (Dh), however, both women and men favor the standard variant [ðˤ]. Age also plays a role in the distribution of variants, with speakers favoring standard variants as they age. The use of fricatives [θ] and [ð] also increases when participants discuss formal topics, which suggests an implicit association between standard language and formality, despite the inherent informality of WhatsApp interactions. This study provides insights into how phonological variation is orthographically represented within a written genre designed to mimic spontaneous conversation and enriches the broader discourse on Arabic language variation and digital communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speech recognition is a critical task in spoken language applications. Globally known models such as DeepSpeech2 are effective for English speech recognition, however, they are not well-suited for languages like Arabic. This paper is interested in recognizing the Arabic language, especially Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). This paper proposed two models that utilize "Franco-Arabic" as an encoding mechanism and additional enhancements to recognize MSA. The first model uses Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) as input features, while the second employs six sequential Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) layers. Each model is then followed by a fully connected layer with a dropout layer which helped reduce overfitting. The Connectionist Temporal Classification (CTC) loss is used to calculate the prediction error and to maximize the correct transcription likelihood. Two experiments were conducted for each model. The first experiment involved 41 h of continuous speech over 15 epochs. Whereas, the second one utilized 69 h over 30 epochs. The experiments showed that the first model excels in speed while the second excels in accuracy, and both outperformed the well-known DeepSpeech2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text localization and recognition from natural scene images has gained a lot of attention recently due to its crucial role in various applications, such as autonomous driving and intelligent navigation. However, two significant gaps exist in this area: (1) prior research has primarily focused on recognizing English text, whereas Arabic text has been underrepresented, and (2) most prior research has adopted separate approaches for scene text localization and recognition, as opposed to one integrated framework. To address these gaps, we propose a novel bilingual end-to-end approach that localizes and recognizes both Arabic and English text within a single natural scene image. Specifically, our approach utilizes pre-trained CNN models (ResNet and EfficientNetV2) with kernel representation for localization text and RNN models (LSTM and BiLSTM) with an attention mechanism for text recognition. In addition, the AraElectra Arabic language model was incorporated to enhance Arabic text recognition. Experimental results on the EvArest, ICDAR2017, and ICDAR2019 datasets demonstrated that our model not only achieves superior performance in recognizing horizontally oriented text but also in recognizing multi-oriented and curved Arabic and English text in natural scene images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the phenomenon of “car embodiment”, where humans and machines are conceptualized as a hybrid creature in everyday language. Drawing on Langacker's (2008) theory of cognitive linguistics, the author analyzed natural examples of car embodiment metaphors posted online by Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) users. Findings of the current study revealed that actions and states (46%) were more frequently embodied than body parts (16%) in these metaphors. This suggests that the conceptual blending of humans and machines is primarily driven by shared functional and experiential features rather than physical similarities. This study contributes to the understanding of conceptual embodiment in the context of human-machine interaction and highlights the potential of online data for exploring linguistic creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the means to translate features of women’s language in Ibrahim Aslan’s novel Nile Sparrows from Arabic into English. Selected Arabic and English excerpts are placed in two questionnaires for native speakers of the two languages to decide whether the excerpts reflect features of women’s language. While responses to the Arabic questionnaire showed that the excerpts were brimful with features of women’s language, responses to the English questionnaire showed the neutrality of the translations. Eight selected examples were classified into three categories and analyzed using Reiss’ (2000) instruction criteria in light of Lakoff’s (1973) framework of the features of women’s language. The study found that reproducing the features of women’s language in another language may require sacrificing the lexical equivalence for stylistic equivalence based on how the translator settles the conflict between formal and functional equivalences. The study maintains that no one solution fits all when translating women’s language. Determinants of the translation decision depend on several factors, such as the nature of the target language, language level, ethnicity, geographic area, and topic [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a debate concerning the history of demonstratives. Are they primitive or grammaticalized elements in languages? Moreover, notwithstanding the relevance of demonstratives to NP, nominals are not regarded as a potential source of grammaticalized demonstratives. The present study, based on synchronic observations, argues that the proximal demonstratives ða 'this' and ʔulaaʔ 'these', which constitute the nucleus of the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic, are grammaticalized elements. It also offers a new grammaticalization pathway and a new source of demonstratives. Arabic proximal demonstratives evolve from possessive adjectives, which are themselves grammaticalized from nominals that mean 'oneself' and 'companion'. The motive underpinning this pathway is that the lexical sources and the grammaticalized elements share the property of being egocentric. Concerning medial and distal demonstratives, two further stages of grammaticalization occur: (1) the phonological derivation of two medial demonstratives from their corresponding proximal demonstratives and (2) the phonological derivation of two distal demonstratives from their corresponding medial demonstratives. The extended grammaticalization pathway is as follows: nominals that mean 'self' and 'companion' > possessive adjectives > proximal demonstratives > medial > distal. This pathway implies that the source of demonstratives may comprise more than one lexical word; however, they are meaningfully related, and their grammaticalization pathway towards forming the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic applies uniformly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]