Arabic Adeni Reader.

• Author: Qafisheh, Hamdi A.

Arabic Adeni Textbook (AAT) is designed to serve primarily as a language text for learners who have had "some background" in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and who will be engaged in acquiring a conversational tool in Adeni Arabic. We are not told what is meant by "some background", but it is my understanding that it entails an elementary background in MSA. AAT is also of interest to Arabists and dialectologists.

AAT, in addition to the contents, a preface by the author, and an introduction by the editor, Alan S. Kaye, etc., consists of thirty lessons, including five review lessons (one after every five lessons). Each lesson consists of a dialogue, model sentences related to the dialogue, grammatical and cultural notes, vocabulary, drills, and situations. Although the drills are labeled as substitution drills (with an average of seven to eight times in each), they are, in fact, simple substitution, variable substitution and even transformation drills. The drills are followed by three very useful situations in each lesson, but the situations, which are dialogues, are in English and the great majority of the substitution drills are also in English rather than in Arabic transcription which is preferable. The six review lessons are well placed in the book and are an excellent teaching tool.

AAT contains a few typographical errors, which I would be happy to pass on to the author for a future printing of AAT.

Inconsistencies are: shall-yshull 'to carry' but shul. Also radd 'to answer', but all the other doubled verbs in the book end with a single consonant, e.g., daq, laf, fak, etc. There are synonyms in AAT, e.g., babur and sayyara 'car', maktab and hafIs 'office', ash and sakan 'to live', jaw and taqs 'weather', mutarjim and turjuman 'translator', etc. Students would like to know the differences, if any, between, e.g., babur and sayyara, on the one hand, and which is more commonly used, on the other.

Inaccuracies are, e.g.: lyaman sh shamali, not lyaman sh shamaliyya, for 'North Yemen', alid alkabir, not id alkabir, for 'Greater Bairam' (not the Greater Bairam), alid azzaghir, not id azzaghir, for 'Lesser Bairam' (not the Lesser Bairam). If "Muslim countries" means Arab countries whose constitutions state that Islam is their religion, then most of those countries follow the Gregorian, not the Higra calendar. Yemenis buy qat by the bunch, not by the branch. id al ummal probably is better translated as May Day, which is celebrated in most Arab...