CLASSICAL ARABIC

'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). Modern Standard Arabic is a modern version used in writing and in formal speaking (for example, prepared speeches and radio broadcasts). It differs minimally in morphology but has significant differences in syntax and lexicon, reflecting the influence of the modern spoken dialects.
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.

Contents

History

Morphology

Phonology

Special symbols

Bibliography

See also

External links

History

Classical Arabic spread with the spread of Islam, becoming a language of scholarship and religious devotion as the language of the Qur'an. 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. 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:

★ 'k'a't'a'b'a, ''to write''

★ ya'k''t'u'b'u, ''he writes''

★ 'k'i't'ā'b', ''book''

★ 'k'u't'u'b', ''books (plural)''

★ ma'kt'a'b'a, ''library''

★ mi'k''t'ā'b', ''writing machine''

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
Low

Classical Arabic has 28 consonant phonemes:

'Classical Arabic consonant phonemes'

		Bilabial	Inter- dental	Dental		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
				plain	emphatic
Stop	voiceless
	voiced					¹
Fricative	voiceless
	voiced
Nasal
Lateral				²
Trill
Approximant

See Arabic alphabet for further explanation of the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart.
# In modern Arabic, is pronounced as by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as . However, the true classical pronunciation was most likely a voiced palatal plosive () or palatalized velar stop (.
# is pronounced only in , the name of God, i.e. Allah, when the word follows ''a'', ''ā'', ''u'' or ''ū'' (after ''i'' or ''ī'' it is unvelarised: ''bismi l-lāh'' ).
# is usually a phonetic approximant.
# In many varieties (if not most), are actually epiglottal (despite what is reported in many earlier works). However, in classical Arabic, they are pronounced as pharyngeals.
# The dorsal fricatives were uvular in classic times but have become more velar or post-velar in modern times.
# was pronounced as a voiced alveolar lateral fricative in Qur'anic Arabic, while it is in MSA
# may have been a non-sibilant palatal fricative () while non-emphatic was
The consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" are either velarised or pharyngealised . In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter e.g. is written ‹D›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹›.

Special symbols

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).

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

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)

See also

★ Arabic language

★ Literary Arabic

★ Arabic English Lexicon

External links

★ The Development of Classical Arabic

★ Classical Arabic Blog