Re: Calling people...

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Christian Perrier <bubulle at debian dot org> wrote:
> > Thanks a lot Nadim!
> > Elzubeir, I would rather prefer you try it first and make sure it works 
> 
> I have noticed that most of you use "Elzubeir" for "Mohammed Elzubeir"
> while they use other's people first name (like for Nadim Shaikli above).

Since Mohammed is a very common name (and I do mean very), I tend to say
Elzubeir or M.Elzubeir not to get him confused with the other Mohammed's
on the list and elsewhere.  If Mr. Elzubeir had a rather uncommon first
name I would have gladly always used it :-)  I think this is similar
everywhere; if you are in korea and are surrounded by 10 "kim"s, you'd
try to use a different identifier for each, right ?  Same here.

BTW: I do this with other Mohammed first-named people - M.Yousif and
     M.Sameer, etc.

> What is the common use among arabic-speaking people, or in
> arabic-speaking countries, in such matters?

What's common is not to even use their names :-)  You call a person as
'father of ...ahmad...' (ie. Abu Ahmad) out of respect for him and his
family.  The same applies to women when addressed ('mother of ...').
I've often thought it was easier to do this since you had one name to
remember at all times with regard to a family :-)  The name used for
those 'father/mother of' is usually the eldest son's name (although
girl's names isn't uncommon).

I'm sure there are historical reasons and and and, but that's I'm
aware of.

> I have a similar question about the use of 2nd person when speaking to
> someone�¿½: English always uses "you" which hides a "problem" several
> other languages have:
> 
> -in French, when one is familiar with someone else, we use 2nd person
> singular�¿½: "comment was-tu?" for "how do you do?"....and with
> "unknown" or "respected" people, we use the plural form "comment
> allez-vous?".
> 
> German has the same things�¿½: "Wie geht es dir?"/"Wie geht es Ihnen".
> 
> Same for Spanish, Italian and so on.
> 
> In free software development, we most of the time use "tu" and german
> people use "du" and so on.
> 
> As you probably know, the English 2nd singular is used only in very
> special situations (mostly in religion when addressing God and when
> God talks to men�¿½: "Thou shall not kill").
> 
> How is all this handled in Arabic?

I don't know about the business world and how its handled, but I'm guessing
that in most cases its 'Mister FIRSTNAME' or 'Dr. FIRSTNAME' (lastnames
are rarely used from what I know).  In arabic you can use 'you' in many 
different ways too, so you can instead of simply saying "you", say "your
highness" or "your SOMETHING" as a means to note them instead of directly
saying "you" as a means to elevate their status if that makes sense.

I'm sure you'll get alot more eloquent replies on this from others, but
thought I'd chime in.

Salam.

 - Nadim


		
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