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.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

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 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 (MSA) is the direct descendent used in writing and in formal speaking, for example, prepared speeches, some radio broadcasts, and non-entertaining content.^[1] 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).^[2] The vernacular dialects, however, have changed more dramatically.^[3] Both CA and MSA are normally called al-Fuṣ-ḥā (الفصحى) in Arabic.

Because the Qur'an is written in Classical Arabic, the language is considered by most Muslims to be sacred.^[4] It is the only language in which Muslims recite their prayers, regardless of what language they use in everyday life.

History

Arabic was originally spoken in the central and northern regions of the Arabian Peninsula. With the spread of Islam, 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).^[5] 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)
• 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.

Grammar

Main article: Arabic grammar

Phonology

See also: Arabic phonology

Classical Arabic had three pairs of long and short vowels: /a/, /i/, and /u/. The following table illustrates this:

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

1. Non-emphatic /s/ may have actually been [ʃ],^[7] 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,^[8] 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].^[9] 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 Arabic dialects. These include:^[10]

• 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.

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).

References

Bibliography

• Bin-Muqbil, Musaed (2006), Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Arabic Emphatics and Gutturals, University of Wisconsin-Madison 
• 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), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press 

See also

• Arabic language
• Literary Arabic
• Arabic English Lexicon

External links

• The Development of Classical Arabic
• Classical Arabic Blog
• Arabic grammar online

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