Lower Intermediate - At the Customs

Maybe this is a picky question, but I'm confused about the word "Customs" having a singular and a plural in Arabic. In English, the word is always plural when used alone. The adjective can be singular when describing a "custom house." (an older term) Can someone help me understand the difference between the two in Arabic? Thanks.

أخبار
is plural, and it means news.

In English, there is no singular for news. But in Arabic, there is a singular, and it is
خبر

English and Arabic can NOT be identical in ALL aspects!

@ dcundy

"Jumruck" is "customs duty", while "jamaarik" is "customs duties" or "customs" (= a place where bags and suitcases are checked).

@dcundy



"Customs" in English is a strange word in that (as you know) while it is always spelled with an "s" exactly the same word is used for both the singular and the plural when referring to the duty or the government branch:



http://www.thefreedictionary.com/customs



My thinking is that it is the English word is highly irregular. I would find it extremely surprising if Arabic had correlated one-to-one with this irregularity. :)

@ chazyouwin

I agree, Charles. “Customs” is a very odd word. Its grammatical peculiarities have been explained very clearly in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, which takes account of differences between British and American usage (e.g. the use of a singular verb with “customs” in American English).

There is an exact parallel between “customs duty” and ﺠﻤﺮﻚ in so far as both words have distinct singular and plural forms, but there is no exact parallel between ﺠﻤﺮﻚ and “customs” because “customs” is always plural in form although it is sometimes singular in meaning.

Arabic plurals are notoriously difficult because they are often “broken” (ﺗﻜﺴﻴﺮ), and pluralization in English often poses problems because many nouns can only be used in the singular although they have synonyms which have both singular and plural forms.

A good example is provided by the Arabic noun ﺮﻴﻒ (riif), which Ehab recently mentioned in a ﺗﻌﻟﻴﻖ (PLC). When this word is used in the singular it can be rendered as “country”, countryside” or “rural area”. The plural of ﺮﻴﻒ is unfortunately irregular (ﺃﺮﻴﺎﻒ), and it is often mistranslated by native speakers of Arabic who are unfamiliar with English usage. We can’t say “*countrysides” because “countryside” has no plural although its synonym (“landscape”) has both singular and plural forms. The best equivalent of ﺃﺮﻴﺎﻒ is often “rural areas”.

Similar problems are posed by ﻈﻟﻤﺔ (dhulma), which means “darkness”. In the Qu’ran (e.g. 2:257) this word is sometimes used in the plural (ﻈﻟﻤﺎﺖ), and incompetent translators have rendered ﻈﻟﻤﺎﺖ as “darknesses”. This is completely wrong since “darkness” has no plural form. There is a word reference forum where someone has translated ﻈﻟﻤﺎﺖ as “zones of darkness”. This is quite good, but I think “realms of darkness” or “dark places” would sound much better in an English translation of the Qu’ran.

A belated "thank you" to the commenters.

Sorry Desmond if I have understood incorrectly, but are you advocating there is no plural for darkness?

@MoGreen88, Desmond has been absent from here for over a year now... Hope he is ok :-/