Classical Arabic

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Arabic
Spoken in: Historically in the Middle East, now used as a liturgical language of Islam
Total speakers: —
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  West Semitic
   Central Semitic
    Arabic
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ar
ISO 639-2: ara
ISO 639-3: ara 
Verses from the Qur'an in Classical Arabic, written in the cursive Arabic script.
Verses from the Qur'an in Classical Arabic, written in the cursive Arabic script.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Classical Arabic, also known as Qur'anic (or Koranic) Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times (7th to 9th centuries). It is based largely on the Medieval language of Hijazi tribes of Qurayš (which contrasted somewhat with the speech of Najdi and adjoining tribal areas). Modern Standard Arabic is a modern version used in writing and in formal speaking, for example, prepared speeches and radio broadcasts. While the lexis and stylistics of Modern Standard Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, the morphology and syntax have remained basically unchanged. The vernacular dialects, however, have changed more dramatically.[1]

Because the Qur'an is written in classical Arabic, the language is considered by most Muslims to be a sacred language and a divine language [Qur'an 16:113] [Qur'an 20:103]. It is the only language in which orthodox Muslims recite their prayers, regardless of what language they use in everyday life.

Classical Arabic is often believed to be the parent language of all the spoken varieties of Arabic, but recent scholarship, such as Clive Holes (2004), questions this view, showing that other dialects were extant in the 7th century and may be the origin of current spoken varieties.

Contents

[edit] History

Arabic was originally spoken in the central and northern regions of the Arabian Peninsula. With the spread of Islam, Arabic become a prominent language of scholarship and religious devotion as the language of the Qur'an (at times even spreading faster than the religion).[2] Its relation to modern dialects is somewhat analogous to the relationship of Latin and the Romance Languages or Middle Chinese and the modern Chinese languages.

[edit] Morphology

Classical Arabic is one of the Semitic languages, and therefore has many similarities in conjugation and pronunciation to Hebrew, Akkadian, Aramaic, and Amharic. Its use of vowels to modify a base group of consonants resembles similar constructions in Biblical Hebrew.

For example:

  • kataba, he wrote
  • yaktubu, he writes
  • kitāb, book
  • kutub, books (plural)
  • maktaba, library
  • miktāb, writing machine

These words all have some relationship with writing, and all of them contain the three consonants KTB. This group of consonants k-t-b is called a "root." Grammarians assume that this root carries a basic meaning of writing, which encompasses all objects or actions involving writing, and so, therefore, all the above words are regarded as modified forms of this root, and are "obtained" or "derived" in some way from it.

[edit] Grammar

Main article: Arabic grammar

[edit] Phonology

There are three short vowels and three long vowels in Arabic, being A, I, and U in two different lengths each. The following table illustrates this:

Vowels Short Long
High /i/ /u/ /iː/ /uː/
Low /a/ /aː/

Like Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic had 28 consonant phonemes:

Classical Arabic consonant phonemes[3]
  Bilabial Inter-
dental		 Dental Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn-
geal		 Glottal
 plain  emphatic
Nasal m   n            
Plosive voiceless     t tˤ   k q   ʔ
voiced b   d   ɟ2        
Fricative voiceless f θ s1 sˤ ç   χ ħ h
voiced   ð z ðˤ     ʁ ʕ  
Lateral     l3 ɬˤ        
Trill     r            
Approximant         j w      
  1. Non-emphatic /s/ may have actually been [ʃ],[4] shifting forward in the mouth before or simultaneously with the fronting of the palatals (see below).
  2. As it derives from proto-semitic *g, /ɟ/ may have been a palatalized velar: /gʲ/
  3. /l/ is emphatic ([lˁ]) only in /ʔalˁːɑːh/, the name of God, i.e. Allah,[5] except after i or ī when it is unemphatic: bismi l-lāh /bismillaːh/ ('in the name of God').

The consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" /tˤ, ɬˤ, sˤ, ðˤ/ were either velarised [tˠ, ɬˠ, sˠ, ðˠ] or pharyngealised [tˤ, ɬˤ, sˤ, ðˤ].[6] In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter, for example, /sˁ/ is written ‹S›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it, for example, ‹ṣ›.

There are a number of phonetic changes between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. These include:[7]

  • The palatals /ɟ/ /ç/ (<ج> <ش‎>) became postalveolar: /dʒ/ /ʃ/
  • The uvular fricatives /χ/ /ʁ/ (<خ> <غ>) became velar or post-velar: /x/ /ɣ/
  • /ɬˤ/ (<ض‎>) became /dˤ/ (Certain Tajweed traditions actually preserve the original value of this sound synchronically.)

See Arabic alphabet for further details of the IPA representations of contemporary Arabic sounds.

[edit] Special symbols

A variety of special symbols exist in the classical Arabic of the Qur'an that are usually absent in most written forms of Arabic. Many of these serve as aids for readers attempting to accurately pronounce the classical Arabic found in the Qur'an. They may also indicate prayers (Sujud), miracles (Ayah), or the ends of chapters (Rub El Hizb).

Qur'anic annotation signs
Code Glyph Name
06D6 ۖ SMALL HIGH LIGATURE SAD WITH LAM WITH ALEF MAKSURA
06D7 ۗ SMALL HIGH LIGATURE QAF WITH LAM WITH ALEF MAKSURA
06D8 ۘ SMALL HIGH MEEM INITIAL FORM
06D9 ۙ SMALL HIGH LAM ALEF
06DA ۚ SMALL HIGH JEEM
06DB ۛ SMALL HIGH THREE DOTS
06DC ۜ SMALL HIGH SEEN
06DD ۝ END OF AYAH
06DE ۞ START OF RUB EL HIZB
06DF ۟ SMALL HIGH ROUNDED ZERO
06E0 ۠ SMALL HIGH UPRIGHT RECTANGULAR ZERO
06E1 ۡ SMALL HIGH DOTLESS HEAD OF KHAH = Arabic jazm • used in some Qur'ans to mark absence of a vowel
06E2 ۢ SMALL HIGH MEEM ISOLATED FORM
06E3 ۣ SMALL LOW SEEN
06E4 ۤ SMALL HIGH MADDA
06E5 ۥ SMALL WAW
06E6 ۦ SMALL YEH
06E7 ۧ ARABIC SMALL HIGH YEH
06E8 ۨ SMALL HIGH NOON
06E9 ۩ PLACE OF SAJDAH
06EA ۪ EMPTY CENTRE LOW STOP
06EB ۫ EMPTY CENTRE HIGH STOP
06EC ۬ ROUNDED HIGH STOP WITH FILLED CENTRE
06ED ۭ SMALL LOW MEEM
From: Unicode Standard - Arabic

[edit] References

  1. ^ Watson (2002:8)
  2. ^ Watson (2002:8)
  3. ^ Watson (2002:13)
  4. ^ Watson (2002:15)
  5. ^ Watson (2002:16)
  6. ^ Watson (2002:2)
  7. ^ Watson (2002:15-17)

[edit] Bibliography

  • Holes, Clive (2004) Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties Georgetown University Press. ISBN 1-58901-022-1
  • Versteegh, Kees (2001) The Arabic Language Edinburgh University Press ISBN 0-7486-1436-2 (Ch.5 available in link below)
  • Watson, Janet (2002), written at New York, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, Oxford University Press

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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