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Classical Arabic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 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 |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ar | |
| ISO 639-2: | ara | |
| ISO 639-3: | ara | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Classical Arabic, also known as Koranic (or Qur'anic) Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in the Qur'an as well as in numerous 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]
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 at the time and may be the origin of current spoken varieties.
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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.
Classical Arabic is one of the Semitic languages, and therefore has many similarities in conjugation and pronunciation to Hebrew, Akkadian, Aramaic, and Amharic. It possesses similar conjugation to biblical Hebrew in its use of vowels to modify a base group of consonants. For example, k-t-b means write, so out of this cluster, we get:
- kataba, to write
- yaktubu, he writes
- kitāb, book
- kutub, books (plural)
- maktaba, library
- miktāb, writing machine
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:
| 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 | ||||||||
- 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).
- As it derives from proto-semitic *g, /ɟ/ may have been a palatalized velar: /gʲ/
- /l/ is emphatic ([lˁ]) only in /ʔalˁːɑːh/, the name of God, i.e. Allah,[5] when the word follows a, ā, u or ū (after i or ī it is unvelarised: bismi l-lāh /bɪsmɪlːæːh/).
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 e.g. /sˁ/ is written ‹S›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹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/
See Arabic alphabet for further details of the IPA representations of contemporary Arabic sounds.
A variety of special symbols exist in the classical Arabic of the Qur'an that are otherwise absent in most written forms of Arabic. Many of these serve as aides 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).
| 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 | |||||
- ^ Watson (2002:8)
- ^ Watson (2002:8)
- ^ Watson (2002:13)
- ^ Watson (2002:15)
- ^ Watson (2002:16)
- ^ Watson (2002:2)
- ^ Watson (2002:15-17)
- 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
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|---|---|
| Pre-Muslim conquests | Ancient North Arabian† (Safaitic†, Lihyanitic†, Thamudic†, Hasaitic†) · Classical Arabic |
| Modern Standard Variety | Literary Arabic |
| Maghrebi Arabic | Moroccan Arabic · Algerian Arabic · Tunisian Arabic · Andalusian Arabic† · Libyan Arabic · Jebli Arabic · Jijel Arabic · Saharan Arabic · Hassānīya · Maltese language · Siculo-Arabic† |
| Levantine Arabic | Lebanese Arabic · Syrian Arabic · North Syrian Arabic · Palestinian Arabic · Cypriot Maronite Arabic |
| Arabian Arabic | Gulf Arabic · Bahrani Arabic · Najdi Arabic · Hejazi Arabic · Shargi Arabic · Yemeni Arabic (Hadhrami Arabic) |
| Iraqi Arabic | Baghdad Arabic |
| Egyptian Arabic | Cairene Arabic · Sa'idi Arabic |
| Sudanese Arabic | Sudanese Arabic · Nigerian Arabic . Chadian Arabic |
| Peripheries | Khuzestani Arabic · Shirvani Arabic† · Central Asian Arabic |
| Judeo-Arabic | Judeo-Moroccan · Judeo-Yemenite · Baghdad Arabic (Jewish) |
| Creoles | Nubi language · Babalia Creole Arabic · Juba Arabic |