Talk:Arabic

The German nouns are wrong; they have a capital and they have a gender — This unsigned comment was added by GerardM (talk • contribs) at 16:00, 26 May 2004.

"Arabic" as a noun can't refer to the culture or the alphabet just like German (as a noun) can't mean "culture of Germany/Germans" or "German alphabet". I removed the two definitions along with the translations.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Restored, see comments at Talk:Chinese about why the English usage of Chinese and Arabic are not like German. Robert Ullmann 14:44, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

How does this explain the inclusion of the definition of "Arabic" as "Arab(ic) culture"? In what context would "Arabic" as a noun mean the culture specifically?

Peter ^Isotalo 15:59, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

For example, "I don’t like this part of town. Too Arabic for my taste!" —Stephen 16:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Isn't the use of "too" a dead giveaway for an adjective? Compare it with "it's too Inuktitut for my taste" or even "it's too tango for my taste". Sure, nouns can occasionally be used more or less as adjectives, but the usage is somewhat marginal and would mean that pretty much every single language name could be defined as as "XXX culture".

Peter ^Isotalo 17:20, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Unless I miss my guess, Arabic is dispreferred (but certainly not entirely unused) as an adjective for things unrelated to the language. Paul Brian's Common Errors, for example, states, "Arabic is not generally used as an adjective except when referring to the language or in a few traditional phrases". Other usage guides are not as absolute, but the distinction is fairly widespread (see, for example this discussion of English usage). Should a usage note be added to the sense? Cnilep (talk) 02:25, 12 April 2014 (UTC)Reply