Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify conventions of greeting, courtesy and address, and to use them appropriately when you speak. The museum offers two: how a greeting is given on meeting and on parting, and how a person is honoured by a kunya. The phrases you practise, regional variants, everyday formality and body language, your class brings. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.2 identify sociolinguistic conventions associated with a variety of social situations in diverse communities where the target language is spoken, and use them appropriately in spoken interactions in the target language […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
When do you greet, and how do you address someone?
Notice the occasions for the greeting in the record: on meeting and on parting. Then compare how you would address an older person, a friend and a stranger, and what changes between them.
Go deeper
Many people in the records are known by a kunya. The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence says that a kunya is a name that begins with ab, father, or umm, mother, such as Abu Abd Allah or Umm al-Khayr 2. It is a name besides the given name and the laqab, used with them or alone to honour its bearer 2. A laqab is a byname that praises or blames, while the kunya is what begins with ab or umm 2 3. The encyclopaedia adds that among the Arabs kunyas were so common that they sometimes overcame the proper names 2.
How do we know?
This is the definition of one jurists' encyclopaedia, and it adds that al-Jurjani counts ibn and bint as well 2. The record does not say how kunyas are used in speech today, so listen for them in the dialogues your class hears.
Think about it
The encyclopaedia says a kunya is used with the given name or alone to honour its bearer 2. Think of a way of addressing someone in your own language that shows respect: why does it show respect, and would a stranger understand it?
Into the museum
- Kunya: the definition, the related words laqab and ism, and what the jurists say about a kunya for a child.
- Greeting with peace: the meaning of taslim in the language and in the jurists' usage.
Try this
Read the records on the greeting of peace and on the kunya. Write a short role-play in which two people meet, honour each other by a name that begins with Abu or Umm, and take leave.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Greeting with peace (salam) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Greeting on meeting and on parting. Abd al-Rahman Mansour makes giving the greeting of peace the first of 'the keys to hearts' in his programme Ahalina. He says the greeting belongs to arriving and to leaving alike, and that the first is no more due than the last. Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy counts greeting on meeting among a Muslim's rights over his brother. When do you greet, and when do you take leave, in the language you study?
In your own words: what does Kunya (teknonym, fiqh rulings) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Honouring someone by a kunya. The Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh says that a kunya is a name that begins with ab, father, or umm, mother, such as Abu Abd Allah or Umm al-Khayr. It says it is a name besides the given name and the laqab, used with them or alone to honour its bearer, and that it belongs to notable people. Among the Arabs kunyas were so well known that they sometimes overcame the proper names. How would you address someone you wish to honour?
I can now