The “Plural of Milk” A Question That Stirs Controversy in Egypt
A large number of social media users in Egypt are discussing a question that reportedly came out of a secondary school Arabic language exam about “collecting the word milk-حليب“.
Local Masrawy website reported statements attributed to an official source in the Ministry of Education, on the existence of a question combining the word “milk” with an Arabic test. He confirmed that “students were not required to find the plural of word milk, and it was not even present in the exam.”
The source explained that this question was among the questions of the pilot test or the guiding models for secondary school students.
The Egyptian press has reported that Mr. Abdullah Al-Khawli, former Director General of the Qur’an Radio Network, said that the word “حليب” has not a plural because it has not a plural word. Mr. Rabih Abdulwahab, professor of Arabic philosophy, said that the plural of the word ”حليب” could be “أحلبة“, taking as an example all the words of ”رغيف أرغفة”, or Hulbane, noting that the dictionaries considered did not mention a word count.
