The Nature of Arabic and the Quran
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Peace,
And many of you know I am a firm advocate of understanding Arabic as a whole. It is not just one language, but one which started out as Classical Arabic (found in Hadeeths, other early Islamic writings, the Quran and the inherited early Islamic poems, it is also found on some inscriptions here and there in the Middle East). That Arabic then though mixing with Aramaic dialects, Turkish, Coptic, Berber and the like (mainly by local populations who had to learn Arabic as a second language and many of whom adopted Arabic customs and the Arab ethnicity) the Arabic dialects spoken today on the streets and in every Arabic country were formed. Also a Modern Standard Version was formed as a bridge between the difficulties in understand that can be encountered between dialects of different countries as well as to continue a clear and historical writing traditions based on Classical Arabic. So Classical Arabic was modified (many grammatical patters and usages, such as the exitive and other particles such as la innamaa, and other words that had fell out of literary usage since the time of the Hadeeths, our prophet and before, to simplify Classical Arabic. MSA is used on radio broadcasts, tv news, documentaries, newspapers and all other forms of formal literature (creating a situation where native Arabs use actually two separate languages (albeit related to each other) and often times a middle langauge more MSA but with some dialect interpsersed or with a dialectical accent. These accents are still called Arabic only because they are derived from the original Arabic, now called Classical Arabic. MSA is techically however still Arabic (despite ethnical reasons) because it is only a reduced version of CA so everything it uses is techncially still apart of CLassical Arabic (besides dropping of case endings)
All in all since many of the issues people have here is that they do not know how to separate Arabic in its different forms nor its textual development and the different forms and versions of Arabic text. So to start this education process I want to recommend this page
http//www.islamworld.net/UUQ/3.txt
I haven't read it all but it is about time that I start brushing up on my uloomul-quraan in order to correct and educate people the best i can.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Here's another one. The only comments I have to make are to this comment
None of the Romance languages have preserved the case ending system, nor the mostly free word order that existed in Latin. To my knowledge folks don't argue about whether or not there was diglossia in Latin during the time of Caesar, or do they?
This is a correct observation and the only reason people do this with Old Arabic is to undermine the Quran in someway, and Arabs not well educated in the different levels of the language easily fall into this trap, as well as those who listen to them.
For instance in every dialect I know the indirect object 'li' is now an enclitic which is attached to the verb, since it affects stress and intervenes betweeen the negating 'sh' morpheme. To illustrate, "he wrote to me" is "katabli" with the accent on "tab". "He didn't write to me" is "makatabliish", with the accent on the "liish" part of the form
This is not syntehnic but is based on pronunciation rules and elision. The iraqis don't use sh in this way and use it to mean what. What the author doesn't realize is that sh in Iraqui is a shortening of aysh which is a shortening of ayyu shay'in. and in egyptions it is a shortening of shay'an you will often find in the Quran a phrase like maa kataba lee shay'an which is he didn't write a thing to me, maa yanfa&u shay'an. The dialect pronunciation of shay'un is shee which easily gets cut into sh (if we examine the negating concepts in the languges found in the Areas that use this (like coptic or even the language of some of those imported into Egypt, this might make even more sense).
Lastly the author has no clue of where mish/mush comes form. The Iraquis use moo. Mish comes from maa 'shay'an (not in anyway). For instance you can say in CA heya maa shay'an ummee (she is not my mother in anyway), this can easily get corrupted into heya mashee ummii and then heya mash ummi, and mash. This a in mash in dialect can easily turn into mish or mush. Dialects often use any short vowel the speaker feels comfortable with or feels like saying. Whatever is the most popular is the one that wins. The iraqi muu comes from maa huwa (it is not) similar to shinuw (what) ((Ay)shi + naw' Which type).
The fact that sh is used differently from Iraqui to Egyptian but ends up being the same sound derived from the corruption of shay'un is very interesting. For intance Egypt Maat-oolsh You are not speaking (iraqi maat-gool) compared to Iraqui shit-gool (Egypt Maat-ool? or t-ool eh?), what are you saying. Here the Egyptian is more corrupted (i.e. evolved) and the Iraqui more conservative, sh has turned into a negative based off of a CA expressional usage of shay'an and turned into sh to distinguish it from shee, whereas if you said Maa t-gool shee in Iraqui it would be 'you aren't saying anything'. I think the evolutionary path and why however is quite clear.Before I post the link I want to right a little chart of evolution
SH (What; Iraqi) comes from Aysh (still used in Levant), which come from ay shee which comes from ayyu-shay'un (which thing).
SH (negator, Egytian) come from expression usage of maa/laa + shay'an (meaning in no way, or not at all) and is a shortening of shay'an usuallyu pronounced as shee. It always needs maa, and the remant of maa is the mi or mu in mish or mush.
Moo (Not; Iraqi) comes from maa huwa condense like maa shee is condensed to mush.http//www-personal.umich.edu/~andyf/hist_arab.html#Linguistic%20Situation%20in%20Pre-Islamic%20Middle%20East
Godbless,
Anwar -
I don't know if what I wrote was clear or not so I'm going to write it again.
Here's another one. The only comments I have to make are to this comment
None of the Romance languages have preserved the case ending system, nor the mostly free word order that existed in Latin. To my knowledge folks don't argue about whether or not there was diglossia in Latin during the time of Caesar, or do they?
This is a correct observation and the only reason people do this with Old Arabic is to undermine the Quran in someway, and Arabs not well educated in the different levels of the language easily fall into this trap, as well as those who listen to them.
For instance in every dialect I know the indirect object 'li' is now an enclitic which is attached to the verb, since it affects stress and intervenes betweeen the negating 'sh' morpheme. To illustrate, "he wrote to me" is "katabli" with the accent on "tab". "He didn't write to me" is "makatabliish", with the accent on the "liish" part of the form
This is not syntehnic but is based on pronunciation rules and elision. The iraqis don't use 'sh' in this way and use it to mean 'what' (for example What do you want? Shi + treed). What the author doesn't realize is that 'sh' in Iraqi is a shortening of 'aysh' which is a shortening of 'ayyu shay'in.' (i.e Which thing?) and in Egyptian it is a shortening of 'shay'an.' You will often find in the Quran a phrase like maa kataba lee shay'an he didn't write a thing to me, maa yanfa&u shay'an. The dialect pronunciation of shay'un is shee which easily gets cut into sh (if we examine the negating concepts in the languages found in the Areas that use this (like Coptic or even the languages of some of those imported into Egypt (Armeniens, Turks, Nubians etc), this might make even more sense).
Lastly the author has no clue of where mish/mush comes form. The Iraqis don't use this, they use moo. Mish comes from maa 'shay'an (not in anyway). For instance you can say in CA heya maa shay'an ummee (she is not my mother in anyway), this can easily get corrupted into heya mashee ummii and then heya mash ummi. This mash in dialect can easily turn into mish or mush (even in CA you will find hijj or hajj (this is in the Quran)) and in the dialects many of the short vowels are interchangeable in speech. Dialects often use any short vowel the speaker feels comfortable with or feels like saying. Whatever is the most popular is the one that wins. The iraqi muu/moo comes from maa huwa (it is not) similar to shinuw (what) from ((Ay)shi + naw' literally Which type?).
The fact that 'sh' is used differently from Iraqi to Egyptian the fact that it ends up being the same sound derived from the corruption of shay'un is very interesting. For intance Egypt Maat-oolsh You are not speaking (iraqi maat-gool) compared to Iraqui shit-gool (Egypt Maat-ool? or t-ool eh?) i.e. what are you saying? Here the Egyptian is more corrupted (i.e. evolved) and the Iraqi more conservative. In Egyptian the 'sh' has turned into a negative based off of a CA expressional usage of shay'an and also condensed into 'sh' to distinguish it from shee, whereas if you said Maa t-gool shee in Iraqui it would be 'you aren't saying anything.' I think the evolutionary path and why however is quite clear.
Before I post the link I want to right a little chart of explain the differences and where they come from
SH (What; Iraqi) comes from Aysh (still used in Levant). Aysh comes from ay shee which comes from ayyu-shay'un (which thing).
SH (negator, Egytian) comes from the idiomatic/expressional usage of maa/laa + shay'an (meaning in no way, or not at all) and is a shortening of shay'an usually pronounced as shee in dialect Arabics (compare to yad being pronounced as eed. For instance in my hand (biyadi in CA and the Modern reduced CA being MSA) is beedee in all dialects). This usage of shee always needs maa. Whereas the remnant of maa in mish or mush has been condensed to mi or mu. Th condensation happens alot in Iraqi when you negative it is not a clear maa but a ma connected to teh following word. For instance I will not go is mara-ha-rooh, or or he is not doing is may-sawwee. As you can see it turns into more of a short prefix instead of a clear maa.
Moo (Not; Iraqi) comes from maa huwa condensed into muu/moo like maa shee is condensed to mush and mish.
http//www-personal.umich.edu/~andyf/hist_arab.html#Linguistic%20Situation%20in%20Pre-Islamic%20Middle%20East
Godbless,
AnwarI hop that is clearer.
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Peace,
Some more info on the nature of Arabic and it's evolution away from the Classical version over time. I agree with the above website however, and do not consider dialects Arabic, despite the fact that the dialects have alot in common with real Arabic (Classical Arabic) and continue to pull from it, since its reduced version (MSA) is used in the educational sphere.
Check out http//books.google.com/books?id=2tghviSsrF8C&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=evolution+of+Arabic+dialects&source=web&ots=T8Nqgveucb&sig=PQKTDm0SqNKsLiDGKRMKz4LC6ZU&hl=es#PRA1-PA103,M1
pg. 103
""lisaniyya wa-fasadat bima 'ulqiya 'ilayhaa . . . wa-hasiya 'ahl al-'ulum minhum 'an tafsuda tilka l-malaka ra'san wa yatula l'ahd bihaa fa-yangaliqa l-Qur'an wa-l-Hadith 'ala l-mafhum fa-stanbatu min magari kalamihim qawanin li-tilka l-malaka muttaridatan . . . yaqisuna 'alayhaa sa'ir 'anwaa' al-kalaam, Muqaddima, ed. Beirut, n.d., p. 546
This quotation shows clearly that in the mind of teh Arabs the changes in the langauge and the emergence fo the colloquial varieties were linked with the polyglot composition of the Islamic empire and the introduction of Arabic as the new lingua fraca. "
I haven't read this book from cover to cover, but I will be ordering it soon. I like its approach from what I have read in the previews that they give of it.
I hope I am offering beneficial evidences for those of you who are confused about Arabic and what it really is. Believe me, the Islamic
literature is only telling you half-truths about Arabic.Godbless,
Anwar