i hope this gets me a job
My name is Matthew and I would love to teach Arabic for your organization (munazzama). I would hope that you will excuse the ungracious use of parentheses in this introduction e-mail as they serve two important functions. The first is to reflect the very method (nizaam) of my teaching, which although may initially strike a student as tangential or extraneous, full of allusions to Islamic culture and as perplexing as a treatise in verse (manzuma), is actually planned with its own methodicalness (intizam). The second function of these parentheses is to give you a taste of the fabulous quirkiness and consistently thrilling nature of....Arabic Morphological Derivation! I know I know, the term itself is sexy enough, but let's see it in action.
Like an arabesque (have you seen the Moroccan courtyard at the new Islamic art wing at the MET?), Arabic grammar builds on simple shapes and an almost mathematical arrangement (tanzim) to create a huge range of words each with their own precision and subtle shades of meaning. Imagine a triangle with a letter at each point (there are beautiful illustrations of this in Craig Thompson's new graphic novel, "Habibi").
N
Z M
This triangle will be the first shape in a pattern whose meaning centers around the concept of order or system. By sticking vowels and some specific consonants (like T, M, and N) in and around this triangle we can do everything from say I classified: "nazzamtu", to describing someone as methodical: "muntazim" to flattering a potential employer by using one word to describe him as a promotor, sponsor, and versifier : "oh Mr. M, you really are quite the Naazim". In the preceding paragraphs you can see the use of the letters n-z-m in 5 different ways.
Like an arabesque (have you seen the Moroccan courtyard at the new Islamic art wing at the MET?), Arabic grammar builds on simple shapes and an almost mathematical arrangement (tanzim) to create a huge range of words each with their own precision and subtle shades of meaning. Imagine a triangle with a letter at each point (there are beautiful illustrations of this in Craig Thompson's new graphic novel, "Habibi").
N
Z M
This triangle will be the first shape in a pattern whose meaning centers around the concept of order or system. By sticking vowels and some specific consonants (like T, M, and N) in and around this triangle we can do everything from say I classified: "nazzamtu", to describing someone as methodical: "muntazim" to flattering a potential employer by using one word to describe him as a promotor, sponsor, and versifier : "oh Mr. M, you really are quite the Naazim". In the preceding paragraphs you can see the use of the letters n-z-m in 5 different ways.
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