Classical Arabic (CA), 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 on the Medieval dialects of
Arab tribes.
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the
direct descendent used today throughout the
Arab World in writing and in formal speaking, for
example, prepared speeches, some radio broadcasts, and
non-entertaining content. While the
lexis and
stylistics of Modern Standard
Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, the
morphology and
syntax have remained basically unchanged (though MSA
uses a subset of the syntactic structures available in CA). The
vernacular dialects, however,
have changed more dramatically. Both CA and MSA are normally called
( ) in Arabic, meaning 'the clearly spoken one' or the 'language
of eloquence'.
Because the
Qur'an is written in Classical
Arabic, the language is considered by most Muslims to be
sacred. It is the only language in which
most Muslims recite their prayers, regardless of what language they
use in everyday life.
History
Classical
Arabic has its origins in the central and northern parts of the
Arabian Peninsula, and is distinct
from Old South Arabian languages
that were spoken in the southern parts of the peninsula, modern day
Yemen
. Classical Arabic is the only surviving
descendant of the
Old North
Arabian languages.
The oldest inscription so far discovered in
Classical Arabic goes back to 328 CE and is known as the
inscription, written in the Nabataean
alphabet and named after the place where it was found in
southern Syria
in April
1901.
With the spread of Islam, Classical Arabic became a prominent
language of scholarship and religious devotion as the language of
the Qur'an (at times even spreading faster than the religion). 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.
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)
- maktabah,
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.
Grammar
Grammar in Arabic ( , meaning "rules"), underwent development in
the late 700s. The earliest known Arabic grammarian is
. The efforts of three proceeding generations of
grammarians culminated in the book of the
Persian scholar
. Recent efforts aim to annotate the entire
Arabic Grammar of the Quran,
using traditional syntax:
Phonology
Classical Arabic had three pairs of long and short vowels: , , and
. The following table illustrates this:
Like Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic had 28 consonant
phonemes:
- Non-emphatic may have actually been , shifting forward in the
mouth before or simultaneously with the fronting of the palatals
(see below).
- As it derives from proto-semitic
*g, may have been a palatalized velar:
- is emphatic ( ) only in , the name of God, i.e. Allah, except after i or ī when it
is unemphatic: bismi l-lāh ('in the name of God').
The consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" were either
velarised or
pharyngealised . In some transcription
systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter, for example,
is written ‹S›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot
below it, for example, .
There are a number of phonetic changes between Classical Arabic and
modern Arabic dialects. These include:
- The palatals (<ج> <ش>) became postalveolar:</ش></ج>
- The uvular fricatives (<خ> <غ>) became velar or
post-velar:</غ></خ>
- (<ض>) became (Certain Tajweed traditions actually
preserve the original value of this sound
synchronically.)</ض>
See
Arabic alphabet for further
details of the
IPA
representations of contemporary Arabic sounds.
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 prostrations (
Sujud), surahs
(
Ayah), or the ends of chapters (
Rub al Hizb).
Qur'anic annotation signs
| Code |
Glyph |
Name |
| 06D6 |
ۖ |
SMALL HIGH LIGATURE SAD WITH LAM WITH ALIF
MAKSURA |
| 06D7 |
ۗ |
SMALL HIGH LIGATURE QAF WITH LAM WITH ALIF
MAKSURA |
| 06D8 |
ۘ |
SMALL HIGH MEEM INITIAL FORM |
| 06D9 |
ۙ |
SMALL HIGH LAM ALIF |
| 06DA |
ۚ |
SMALL HIGH JEEM |
| 06DB |
ۛ |
SMALL HIGH THREE DOTS |
| 06DC |
ۜ |
SMALL HIGH SEEN |
| 06DD |
|
END OF AYAH |
| 06DE |
۞ |
START OF RUB AL 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 YAA |
| 06E7 |
ۧ |
ARABIC SMALL HIGH YAA |
| 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 |
Notes
- "Arabic Language," Microsoft Encarta Online
Encyclopedia 2009. "Classical Arabic, which has many archaic words,
is the sacred language of Islam...". Archived
2009-10-31.
- Goodchild, Philip. Difference in Philosophy of
Religion, 2003. Page 153.
- Sayce, Archibald Henry. Introduction to the Science of
Language, 1880. Page 28.
See also
References
- 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)
External links
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