Re: questions about Arabic

<<I think you're confusing alif and hamza. IIRC, alif is simply the
vertical-stroke glyph (considered a consonant), which doesn't really stand
for anything in itself except for a place marker, and hamza is the diacritic
written with alif when you wish to indicate a glottal stop.  So /ibn/ (son)
is written with alif (+ /i/ sign) baa nun, beause it doesn't have a glottal
stop, whereas /?ab/ (father) is writter alif + hamza (+ /a/ sign) baa, with
the hamza representing the glottal stop. Both of these cases use alif, but
only /?ab/ uses hamza.>>

No, you've got it all wrong. Hamza is a glottal stop. However, it can't just
appear by itself (except in some orthographies, and that's non-initial). /?Ibn/
is written with a hamza UNDERNEATH the alif, and then with a kesra underneath
that. If what you're seeing as /?Ibn/ doesn't have a hamza underneath alif,
then you're probably reading a non-carefully voweled text, or just unvoweled.
Alif is just a bearer of hamza, just like yaa and waw can be. However, that's
only when alif is being used that way. It also stands for the vowel /ae/.

-Jenesis (formerly David)

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