Arabic language and the great reading
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Peace be upon you Ayman,
FANTASTIC Article!!
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salams br ayman,
i saw you posted an article, so i knew it had to be good. that was a great article bro. lots of hard work put into it. I do have some questions for you though.
Given that Arabic at the time of the great reading was an informal common people language with many slang words, it is not surprising that the first scholars to codify the language were not Arabs but were Persians. No scholar who is a native speaker would codify what they consider to be informal "street talk".
Here you seem to be ignoring the depth and power of the Arabic language. It is unknown to what extent the pre-Islamic Arabs codified the language, since writing was not widely practiced nor do a large number of items exist until today... but the Persians did not CREATE the language that exists today as Arabic, nor did they have anything to do with the Arabic of the Quran. This is a language with a thousand words to describe a sword! The richness of depth and almost algebraic grammatic construction, cannot be deemed "street talk."
Furthermore, slang and informal talk is looked down upon not just for the hell of it, but because of its INACCURACY or its AMBIGUITY. This is inconsistent with the description of arabic as "mubeen."
I certainly am no expert in jahiliyya poetry, nor do I have any evidence of the supposed poetry competitions that were annually held... but what I DO have in front of me is what must be the result of a TREMENDOUS amount of linguistic work... now either the language decended from the heavens, or it was created by none other than great linguists and poets. And if the history IS true that poets and linguists came together yearly to "battle," that would explain why despite their different dialects they might have had a standard format for their poetry. (This part of my reply is pure conjecture obviously, just food for thought.) Basically, I think you had a lot of good points but you seem a bit biased in your conclusions, not allowing alternative explanations.
Also, about Makkah and the Kaaba. You didn't provide any idea of when they would have been built? Clearly if it was "unIslamic" and shirk, the Prophet would not have allowed it and neither would the sahaba... so when was it constructed and where's the record of that?? Clearly there is no suggestion whatsoever, either by historical record or archeological that Makkah is a NEW city, so why do you jump to that conclusion so readily? And what were Ptolemy/Diodorus etc etc referring to.. if "Macoraba" is not makkah, then what? Dearth of record can be explained by MANY things other than lack of existence.
wassalam
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Salam All,
I would like to touch base on certain areas of discussion.
1-Sister Nadia, related to the obelisks in Petra, they are different from the obelisks that you find in Egypt and other places and therefore have served a different function. The obelsiks of Petra are usually thicker with a flat top and usually carved from the rock. The best known are two obelisks that face each other on top of one of the mountains in Petra, near the great place of Sacrifice.
2- I thought that is was interesting that the document that was found in Damascus had the Psalms in Greek and Arabic, yet the Aramaic was absent. This is interesting since Damascus would be a city where one would expect the people to speak Aramaic at some point in it's past history. This find suggests that there were Arabic speaking people in or around Damascus.
3- The notion of a holy language that was used for liturgy is interesting but I have a feeling that Aramaic was not considered a holy language, at least in the early AD centuries. The languages that had holy significance were Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Aramaic was the language that Jesus spoke, yet the bible that is in Aramaic now, is actually a translation from Greek. When the Byzantines adopted Christainity, they made the offical religion Orthodxy and the langauge of the liturgy was in GREEK rather than in Aramiac. The christian communities that used Aramiac as the langauge of liturgy were the Eastern churches that spoke that language in their daily lives and that were considered Heretic churches due to the fact that they looked as Jesus as a ONE nature Monophysites and those are the Syrian Orthodox Church of today. The others are the Duophysites who believed that Jesus had two natures, divine and human. Those are the ones that are the Assyrians of Iraq and Iran. The idea is that the holy language from the third century AD, and onwards in what is now Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine was GREEK.
4- Petra being absent of dwellings. This is an interesting and highly debatable issue. Now, there is more evidence of finds of houses in Petra. This is proven by the Ceramic shreds that dot the place and point to some domestic use of ceramics, and lately the finds of home. It is thought that people built, rather than sculpted their homes, which later disappeared. This is part of the explanation of why there are not many dwellings in the city.
5- Archaeology is a field that is very dear to my heart. However, one very important observation that I see is that Archeaolgists rarely say THS IS THE PROOF. They mainly say This is My Theory. This is because it is not an exact science and has lots of holes in it. One example is the Abraha inscription, and the absence of the elephants in it. One explanation is that there were no elephants. One can point to other theories as well, that may explain the absence of the elephants. To limit oneself to one theory, can be short sighted.
6- I did enjoy reading about all those issues and I do think that Ayman worked hard on this and that sharing this info is both enjoyable, thought provoking and enriching.Hussein
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Peace Hussein,
1-Sister Nadia, related to the obelisks in Petra, they are different from the obelisks that you find in Egypt and other places and therefore have served a different function. The obelsiks of Petra are usually thicker with a flat top and usually carved from the rock. The best known are two obelisks that face each other on top of one of the mountains in Petra, near the great place of Sacrifice.
So they are not thin/needle like but more stout or like the menirs in asterix and obelisk? Or like stonehenge? They too had something to do with mapping stars and the equinoxes...Or maybe some culture somewhere probably thought them decorative without taking into account the real purpose...
The languages that had holy significance were Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Aramaic was the language that Jesus spoke, yet the bible that is in Aramaic now, is actually a translation from Greek. When the Byzantines adopted Christainity, they made the offical religion Orthodxy and the langauge of the liturgy was in GREEK rather than in Aramiac.
Thats a good point...
It is thought that people built, rather than sculpted their homes, which later disappeared. This is part of the explanation of why there are not many dwellings in the city.
I agree that could be a reason also what was touched on in the discovery documentary regarding the city.
Archeaolgists rarely say THS IS THE PROOF. They mainly say This is My Theory.
Absolutely...a theory based on evidence present as of yet.
Thank you for the information on greek/aramaic...i have to look into this further..
Best Regards,
Nadia -
Peace brother Ayman, all...
I have corresponded with the author of the paper M.C.A. Macdonald and am posting the parts of the relevant reply here, I sent him the link to the article in question and asked him if there were any examples of religious inscriptions/manuscripts in old arabic amongst some other questions.
No, as far as I know, there has not been any more research on the Psalm fragment. However, two of the pre-islamic inscriptions in the Arabic script ? those at Zebed (in northern Syria) and Harran (in the Leja) are on the lintels of churches and contain the names of those who helped to found the churches.
It also rather depends in what sense this author is using the term "Old Arabic". If he includes the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions (Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic), then they are full of prayers to a wide variety of pagan deities. If, on the other hand, he limits the term (as I do) to those pre-Islamic dialects which used ?l-, rather than h-, for the definite article, then JSLih 276, which contains a prayer to the Lihyanite god Dhu-Ghabit, is an example of an Old Arabic inscription with religious content. In my "Reflections", I rather conservatively called this text "Dadabo-Arabic", rather than "pure Old arabic", because, apart from the ?l-, the rest of the text was indistinguishable from a Dadanitic inscription (HE 1), but it is perfectly possible that its author was writing in Old Arabic and that the lack of signs for medial vowels in the writing system obscures any distinctions between this and Dadanitic.
The Arabic part of the ?En ?Avdat inscription (Reflections p. 50) is in praise of the deified Nabataean king Obodas, and so would count as a pure Old Arabic text with religious content, while JSNab 17 (admitted Aramaeo-Arabic), contains an invocation to the "Lord of the worlds", and the Safaeo-Arabic text CIS V 2446 (Reflections p. 51) also contains invocations to a list of deities.
Would be interested in your thoughts...
Best Regards,
Nadia -
Peace brother Shuaib,
It is good to hear from you.
Here you seem to be ignoring the depth and power of the Arabic language. It is unknown to what extent the pre-Islamic Arabs codified the language, since writing was not widely practiced nor do a large number of items exist until today...
All languages have strengths and weaknesses like the numans who mad them. Arabic is no different. The two statements that I underlined reflect the contradiction that is in the traditional view. Languages that are not used for formal writing but for just everyday speaking are not codified. Hence, no one codifies the Egyptian Arabic spoken street dialect. Hence, you will find that Shaaban Abd Al-Rehim' songs do not conform to any code. This would have been the same situation with Arabic over 1400 years ago.
but the Persians did not CREATE the language that exists today as Arabic, nor did they have anything to do with the Arabic of the Quran.
They formalized an informal language. Hence, their formalized language differs somewhat from the language of the great reading.
Hence, there are expressions in the great reading that don't sound grammatical. Some well-known examples include 569 where "Sabi'una" should be "Sabi'ina" according to the rules of so-called Classical Arabic. "Moqimin" should be "moqimun" in 4162. In 2177 "sabirin" should be "sabirun". According to Classical Arabic grammar rules, "yakun" in 359 is in the wrong tense. There are many more. You don't see those sorts of "errors" in Hadith or poetry, which conform the the Persian rules.
Is the great reading wrong or is what is called Classical Arabic not reflecting the real language of the great reading?
This is a language with a thousand words to describe a sword! The richness of depth and almost algebraic grammatic construction, cannot be deemed "street talk."
Actually, the variety of words to describe one thing is more of a feature of informal fluid languages. Hence, money, cash, dough, change, bread, ... and probably hundeds of terms are used to describe monetary instruments on the street.
Furthermore, slang and informal talk is looked down upon not just for the hell of it, but because of its INACCURACY or its AMBIGUITY. This is inconsistent with the description of arabic as "mubeen."
ALL human communication languages have inconsistencies. If a language is too rigid, like Classical Arabic, then it turns into a language of the few. How many people do you know speak Classical Arabic at home? My guess is none. So as a language, Classical Arabic is wholly inadequate for human communication.
That is the amazing thing about the great reading. It shows that The God can take an inconsistent human language and use it in a clarifying way.
I certainly am no expert in jahiliyya poetry, nor do I have any evidence of the supposed poetry competitions that were annually held... but what I DO have in front of me is what must be the result of a TREMENDOUS amount of linguistic work...
Work that mostly took place during the Abassid era.
now either the language decended from the heavens, or it was created by none other than great linguists and poets. And if the history IS true that poets and linguists came together yearly to "battle," that would explain why despite their different dialects they might have had a standard format for their poetry. (This part of my reply is pure conjecture obviously, just food for thought.)
Yes, there is zero evidence of that.
Basically, I think you had a lot of good points but you seem a bit biased in your conclusions, not allowing alternative explanations.
I am just starting the discussion. If someone has a better alternative explanation, especially for 16103 then I am all for it.
Also, about Makkah and the Kaaba. You didn't provide any idea of when they would have been built?
They were built before the great reading but Makka was named something else and Kaaba was named Dhu-Alshaara. They were not named Makkah and Kaaba as they are today.
Clearly if it was "unIslamic" and shirk, the Prophet would not have allowed it and neither would the sahaba...
No one, including the prophet can go inside people's hearts and stop "shirk". Idolizing Jesus is equally shirk and yet the prophet didn't stop it as evident from the continuity of Christians in Arab land. Why should other shirk be any different?
As for the "sahaba", they are refered to as a collective in the great reading when they are told not to think that the prophet was crazy (see 3436). Thus, the "sahaba" are not exactly the "saints" that they are made out to be.
so when was it constructed and where's the record of that??
The Kaaba was last constructed in 1996. Archeological evidence shows that black stones have been idolized for 29,000 years.
The practice of idolizing stones, especially black stones, predates Arab paganism. Black stones have been regarded as sacred in China, India, Indonesia and Tibet for at least 2500 years. The black stone continues to be sacred to Tibetan monks and lamas, who call it "the Stone of Shambala". Hindu mythology speaks of the black stone as a magical gem formed from the moon's rays.
Attributing talismanic energy to black stones is a very ancient pagan custom. For example, a Cro-Magnon site dated at 29,000 years of age contained a black stone amulet. A black stone known as "The Phrygian Stone" was adored for over five centuries in the Roman period. Many of the American Indian tribes have conducted pilgrimages to adore black stones and carried small black stones in their medicine pouches. The ancient Semites revered black stones. They are said to have chosen a black stone to represent a triple-aspected mother goddess to whom they made human sacrifices.
Clearly there is no suggestion whatsoever, either by historical record or archeological that Makkah is a NEW city, so why do you jump to that conclusion so readily? And what were Ptolemy/Diodorus etc etc referring to.. if "Macoraba" is not makkah, then what? Dearth of record can be explained by MANY things other than lack of existence.
I didn't say that it was new. All I said is that it was renamed to Makkah to match the common noun in 4824.
Peace and all best wishes,
Ayman
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Peace brother Hussein,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
4- Petra being absent of dwellings. This is an interesting and highly debatable issue. Now, there is more evidence of finds of houses in Petra. This is proven by the Ceramic shreds that dot the place and point to some domestic use of ceramics, and lately the finds of home. It is thought that people built, rather than sculpted their homes, which later disappeared. This is part of the explanation of why there are not many dwellings in the city.
The problem is that they found ceramics and utensils but no foundations of average houses. The best theory available suggests that people lived in tents in the city. This would indicate seasonal events such as pilgrimages.
5- Archaeology is a field that is very dear to my heart. However, one very important observation that I see is that Archeaolgists rarely say THS IS THE PROOF. They mainly say This is My Theory. This is because it is not an exact science and has lots of holes in it. One example is the Abraha inscription, and the absence of the elephants in it. One explanation is that there were no elephants. One can point to other theories as well, that may explain the absence of the elephants. To limit oneself to one theory, can be short sighted.
But we only hear about elephants from hearsay stories that came to us a few hundred years after the fact. Any archeological evidence, even with holes in it is at least some evidence. Hersay is ZERO evidence.
Peace and all best wishes,
Ayman
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Peace sister Nadia,
I am still trying to find time to finish reading Dr. Macdonald's article. Things have been very busy and I will have less time on the forum the next few months because of travel.
Let me briefly comment on the following
No, as far as I know, there has not been any more research on the Psalm fragment. However, two of the pre-islamic inscriptions in the Arabic script ? those at Zebed (in northern Syria) and Harran (in the Leja) are on the lintels of churches and contain the names of those who helped to found the churches.
This may confirm that the parisheners were Arab. However, "names" are not "religious texts". What would contradict my theory is a fragment of the Bible or an equivalent religious text in Arabic.
It also rather depends in what sense this author is using the term "Old Arabic". If he includes the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions (Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic), then they are full of prayers to a wide variety of pagan deities. If, on the other hand, he limits the term (as I do) to those pre-Islamic dialects which used ?l-, rather than h-, for the definite article, then JSLih 276, which contains a prayer to the Lihyanite god Dhu-Ghabit, is an example of an Old Arabic inscription with religious content. In my "Reflections", I rather conservatively called this text "Dadabo-Arabic", rather than "pure Old arabic", because, apart from the ?l-, the rest of the text was indistinguishable from a Dadanitic inscription (HE 1), but it is perfectly possible that its author was writing in Old Arabic and that the lack of signs for medial vowels in the writing system obscures any distinctions between this and Dadanitic.
Again, prayers by common people is not "formal religious texts". As far as I know, there are no formal Arabic inscriptions on pagan temple walls in northern arabia.
The Arabic part of the ?En ?Avdat inscription (Reflections p. 50) is in praise of the deified Nabataean king Obodas, and so would count as a pure Old Arabic text with religious content, while JSNab 17 (admitted Aramaeo-Arabic), contains an invocation to the "Lord of the worlds", and the Safaeo-Arabic text CIS V 2446 (Reflections p. 51) also contains invocations to a list of deities.
The Arabic part was the explanation of the people of why they loved their king. Hence, the language changed from Nabataean to Arabic. This actually confirms that Arabic was a common people language and not a formal one like Nabataean.
Peace and all best wishes,
Ayman
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Peace,
http//www.pbs.org/speak/
http//www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/change/
Interesting series on the changes in languages with lots of references.
Most language change actually starts subtly and unconsciously among the lower classes and spreads. Extremes in social strata, for example, the highest and the lowest classes, tend to be marginal to this process. Instead, the middle-class groups, who have the strongest loyalty to the local community while being connected to other groups, are the most sensitive to language innovation.
The other side of language innovation is resistance
On the other side of language innovation lies resistance. Even when certain changes seem natural and reasonable, they are resisted by socially dominant classes who want to avoid being affiliated with subordinate groups that have already adopted these changes. The regularization of irregular past forms such as knowed and growed or the regularization of such as hisself and theirselves, which have made some inroads among vernacular speakers of English, tend to be resolutely resisted by the middle classes despite their linguistic reasonableness. Higher-status groups may often suppress natural changes taking place in lower-status groups to maintain their social distinction through language. The acceptance and rejection of language changes are constrained by the social interpretation of those changes and the relationships that exist among social groups.http//www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/decline/
Linguists, of course, have been arguing for a long time that the rules of traditional grammar have no scientific or logical justification, and that the only reason grammarians consider certain usages "correct" is that they happen to have been adopted by the privileged classes in the past. As the linguists Anthony Kroch and Cathy Small put it in a recent article, "prescriptivism is simply the ideology by which the guardians of the standard language impose their linguistic norms on people who have perfectly serviceable norms of their own." We will see that this view is not entirely justified. Nonetheless, the linguists have won over a large part of the educational establishment, so that "correct English" has come to mean no more than "standard English," the English spoken by the educated middle class. A few radicals have gone on to argue that traditional grammar, as an instrument of racism and class oppression, has no place in the school curriculum. But more often educators counsel an enlightened hypocrisy standard English should be taught because there are still benighted employers who take stock in such things. This position is put concisely by Jim Quinn, whose American Tongue and Cheek is a lively and informative popularization of the linguists' views.
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Assalamu alaikum br Ayman,
thanks for replying. i wish you safe travels.
Languages that are not used for formal writing but for just everyday speaking are not codified. Hence, no one codifies the Egyptian Arabic spoken street dialect. Hence, you will find that Shaaban Abd Al-Rehim' songs do not conform to any code. This would have been the same situation with Arabic over 1400 years ago.
Well, that is one theory. What we actually KNOW is that there is no extant copy of pre-Islamic Arabic grammar codification. This could be because a) it was too primitive a language to codify b) it was considered too unworthy language to codify or c) it was codified in ORAL form or d) it was codified in written form but lost.
A, obviously is not true considering the depth and power that we see in the Arabic language. As far as B, again, a language does not just serendipitously become one of the most highly structured and organized langauges in the world with an immense vocabulary. It has to be planned.
Hence, there are expressions in the great reading that don't sound grammatical.
Like some brothers pointed out, "grammar" is an artificial idea or science. It comes AFTER the fact of language, not before. And since the fact in this case is a human creation, those facts don't always add up to solid LAWS as we know them... that is why there are so called exceptions to the rule and variations. As far as those verses you pointed out, there are, as you probably know, responses for them based on this very idea.
Actually, the variety of words to describe one thing is more of a feature of informal fluid languages. Hence, money, cash, dough, change, bread, ... and probably hundeds of terms are used to describe monetary instruments on the street.
Well, you probably know that I meant something different. In Arabic, each word used to describe an object has a different and UNIQUE shade of meaning. No 2 roots are identical in meaning. This is not a feature of an informal language, where the depth of meaning is often very shallow. In Arabic, each word can be analyzed in a way that few other languages can. WHY would someone need that much linguistic power for an informal language?
That is why I keep saying, that all of this strength that we see in the Arabic language, MUST have been meant for something.
What you are saying is basically that the prehistoric Arabs built a supercomputer and used it to prop up their feet... and several years later realized what a powerful and unparalleled tool they had created. That just doesn't make any sense.
If a language is too rigid, like Classical Arabic, then it turns into a language of the few. How many people do you know speak Classical Arabic at home? My guess is none. So as a language, Classical Arabic is wholly inadequate for human communication.
Can Ebonics be considered the next evolution of the English language? I think your reasoning here is flawed. There can be MANY reasons for the fall of classical Arabic as a living language... by its very definition it USED to be a living language and for a time was wholly ADEQUATE for human communication. But luckily, it's only half-dead since essentially all WRITTEN Arabic communication is classical... why the duality? Beats me. I write and speak English in the same way, and I dont know why there is so much of a duality for Arabs. But I do know that there is one group of people who SPEAK classical Arabic.. and that's folks like me who have learned it and can't speak the colloquial dialect.
The rest of your comments about black stones is interesting. I suppose it is highly possible that that is a pagan ritual introduced into Islam.. and I certainly don't see what point there is to stoning a pillar... but as far as I know, symbolic actions are not outlawed in Islam and if Muslims as a nation decide that they want to perform certain symbolic actions, then so be it. Of course, the problem is when the symbols become an end in themselves.
wassalam
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Because as far as we know we have always lived in a multilingual society the social implications that certain languages have had has been varied. The higher class among a certain language group will sometimes borrow heavily from the expressions of another group that they are in contact with and admire, changing the language. In other cases the poor come into contact with other language groups and communication between the two facilitates the exchange of foreign expressions, changing the language.
Despite all of the reasons for why a language can change most languages begin as informal. If it is the only language you know and you speak it with your family and your friends the language is informal. A language only becomes formal when it is ONLY used in public addresses or important occassions. That it is when it is viewed as dignified. But even in that case if the language is viewed as dignified, but is the only language that the speaker knows it is both informal and formal, because it is used for both informal and formal purposes.
The dichotomy between formal and informal language only comes about when a language develops different styles of speech, or different ways of communicating the same idea, and one is used among people you are trying to impress and the other used among people you aren't trying to impress. The terms formal language and informal language have nothing to do with the language's ability to communicate ideas, it just has to do with what 'purpose' that langauge is used for. A formal language is used for formal occasions, an informal language is used for informal purposes. But when only one language and one style of language is recognized then that one language serves both formal and informal purposes.
Statements that claim an informal langauge's inability to communicate are usually just judgement calls based on social prejudices, having more to do with the speakers of the language or the occasions in which the language is used instead of the ability of the language to communicate ideas.
I also want to believe that Classical Arabic was an everyday language of Muhammad (God bless him) and his people and I think more evidence points to this then to the opposite camp. There are people that claim that the Classical Arabic of the Koran, the poems and the Hadeeth were developed through the poetry battles of the pre-Islamic days, etc. etc. However, the use of bedouin sources to help codify this language speaks to the fact that it was an everday language (with dialectical differences), and there is no reason to think that the peoms, the Hadeeth and the Koran were not written in the everyday language of the Arabs of that day.
The Koran does belong to a language group that had dialectical differences and the Koran infact shows evidence of some of those differences like 'aatii and haati' and more. It is most likely that the Hejazi dialect of Arabic was a middle ground of understanding between the nothern dialects and the southern dialects of Arabic.
Speaking on dialects of Arabic in this forum I have seen such terms as 'Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic' and Old Arabic mentioned. I have also seen such terms as 'Dadabo-Arabic 'pure Old Arabic' and Arameo-Arabic.' As well I have seen such differences noted as 'ha' used for the definite article (Hebrew phenomenon) in some of these dialects and other grammar distinctions.
However, no one seems to know that there was language mixing in the northern Arabic tribes going on. The very mention of Arameo-Arabic should send warning signals going off for those who know about creoles. Creoles are the full-grown children of pidgeons. A pidgeon is the original result when two or more languages start mixing. After that when that mixing has settled in and created consistent, recognized and extensive patterns for communication it become a creole, which is a full-fledged language.
Sometimes some creoles are mistakenly called pidgeons because of their origins (and the derogatory or sometimes diminutive shade that the word 'pidgeon' carries). In the northern areas it is natural that Arabic hybrids(creoles) that have their origins with different versions of Aramaic, Hebrew and other local languages would have popped up. Whether they should be considered forms of Arabic or not is another issue. I cannot speak about the status of these languages however as I do not know about that. But take for instance people in other parts of the world like NIgeria or Haiti. In a multi-lingual situation the linguistic situation gets quite complicated. Every linguist knows that Haitian creole is not a form a french. Even though it uses french words (as well as African words) as the base of communication it has African and Native American grammar in addition to the French grammar that it carries. The French cannot understand it. Grammar is the basis of language. Haitians depending on where they are and their social status may learn French, Creole and Spanish. Their creole in addition to that may have more spanish words or more french words depending on where the speaker comes from. But no-one would try to say that they are speaking French or Spanish. The grammar and alot of words are completely distinct.
That is the case of these old northern "Arabics" that are being found. They obviously are mixtures between Aramaic dialects and Hebrew dialects and are to be found in areas where these people mixed. To call them Arabic dialects is erroneous. What is the basis on which these languages are said to be forms of Arabic? Naturally a mixture between Aramaic and Arabic would share alot of similarly looking and sounding words with Arabic. And writing conventions would be different between early, pre-Islamic, Aramaic scripts and later Arabic scripts.
Futhermore do the terms Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic refer to scripts or dialects? How does one distinguish a pre-Islamic Arabic script when from what i know there were only different versions of the Aramaic scripts existent at that time? Pre-Islamic Arabs used different versions of these scripts. The Arabic script, besides the southern Arabic one, only took its full form during the Islamic era.
Let it be known also that Semitic linguists have heavy agendas when they study Cl. Arabic and its relative languages. They often try to view Classical Arabic through Hebrew or Aramaic lenses. THrough their credentials and thier ideas they can have an effect on the Muslim world through trying to change the meanings of the Koran. They have often confused Arabic and Aramaic and they often try to confuse Arabic with Hebrew or Aramaic meanings of congnate words or forms. All I have to say is as these inscriptions are unearthed everyone should be wary of how they go about classifying things.
The differences between southern Classical Arabic and Classical Arabic is very minimal. Tamweems instead of tanweens is not that big of a deal, and Southern Classical Arabic uses the definte article 'Al.' However, the differences that these "Old Arabics" have seem not to be dialectical differences. They seem to be innate grammatical differences, that should give way to the recognition of creoles between Aramaic, Classical Arabic and Hebrew, instead of calling these so called "old-Arabics" different Northern dialects of Arabic.
I'm sure the Ghassanids and Lakhmids spoke real Arabic but it was probably a language that they learned to keep up with their more southern brothers who had maintained their language.
Now speaking on codification
The "errors" to be found in the Koran are not errors at all. They are only considered incorrect by people who are only familiar with Modern Arabic grammar (which is a reduction of Classical Arabic). When we say that the grammarians codified Arabic they did not invent its rules, they deduced them by examining usage and then wrote those rules down. The fact that Persians (who were immersed in a multilingual culture encompassing Arabic, Persian and mixtures of the two and who came from a very science-oriented culture) were prominent in this role was only natural.
Furthermore, all languages, even "street talk(s)," have rules. You just can't say anything in "street talk" you still have to make sense of what your saying, whether that be Egyptian colloquial or Spanish colloquials. Making sense of what we say requires grammar rules which every language has. Whether that grammar has been written down in a book or not, every speaker of that particular street talk knows the grammar of his street talk. When he violates the rules he is corrected, what he means is guessed or what he said just goes misunderstood. If he constantly violates the grammar of his street talk he is just looked at as a fool.
The organization and structure of Classical Arabic could have come about through a number of happenings. It didn't have to be planned by those people. I do believe that God used the Classical Arabic language for its specific strengths and other features(which don't have to necesarily be strengths, just unique to Classical Arabic). And God obviously let it evolve into the language that it is for specific reasons. But I would rather not say that it is superior to any other language. I would rather say that it has features specific to itself that other languages don't have, and God wished to use those features to guide our understanding of the message that he wants us to read, study, understand and implement.
Shuaib is right that just because a language dies out that does not mean that it is wholly inadequate for communication, because these languages were once alive and were completely adequate for communication. Their dying out has more to do with situations where many language groups meet in the same place. The expansion of the Arab empire facilatated that. It was already going on among the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids on the boarders of Persian and Roman & Greek (Aramaic/Hebrew speaking) territories.
The reason why we use terms like 'money', cash, 'dough' etc for money has to do with metaphor and exaggeration more than anything. Metaphors and poetry are the sign of living languages. 'Bread,' 'dough,' cheese for money are popular metaphors, nothing more.
Formal talk uses these type of metaphors as well. We might call a puzzle, a maze, a labyrinth. A turn, a bend and there are many more examples of this in the formal language.
Overall, I want to put forth a message of caution. When I speak about pre-Islamic time I am speaking about the time directly before Muhammad's birth and during his pre-koranic life. I would never venture to go more than 200 years before Muhammad was born and speak on that language. There is not alot of evidence about this time. I especially would not venture into the language of those areas bordering the Roman and Persian empires, the linguist frontiers, and try to apply that to the linguistic situation of the Arabs of Muhammad's day.
I really don't know why Ayman has interjected all of these archeological findings and linguistic opinions about languages and peoples that significantly pre-date Muhammad's era. And I really don't know what he is trying to prove by saying that there is no religious text written in Classical Arabic prior to the time of Muhammad. If I can ask you Ayman, what do these theories have to do with anything?
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace Anwar, all,
Let me answer your question first and then go on to comment on the remaining points.
I really don't know why Ayman has interjected all of these archeological findings and linguistic opinions about languages and peoples that significantly pre-date Muhammad's era. And I really don't know what he is trying to prove by saying that there is no religious text written in Classical Arabic prior to the time of Muhammad. If I can ask you Ayman, what do these theories have to do with anything?
What started me on this study is 16103. The archeological evidence simply confirms what I already knew from 16103.
Because as far as we know we have always lived in a multilingual society the social implications that certain languages have had has been varied. The higher class among a certain language group will sometimes borrow heavily from the expressions of another group that they are in contact with and admire, changing the language. In other cases the poor come into contact with other language groups and communication between the two facilitates the exchange of foreign expressions, changing the language.
Despite all of the reasons for why a language can change most languages begin as informal. If it is the only language you know and you speak it with your family and your friends the language is informal. A language only becomes formal when it is ONLY used in public addresses or important occassions. That it is when it is viewed as dignified. But even in that case if the language is viewed as dignified, but is the only language that the speaker knows it is both informal and formal, because it is used for both informal and formal purposes.
I agree and all the evidence points to the purpose of Arabic prior to the great reading as not being formal (specifically not formal religious). This is confirmed in 16103.
The dichotomy between formal and informal language only comes about when a language develops different styles of speech, or different ways of communicating the same idea, and one is used among people you are trying to impress and the other used among people you aren't trying to impress. The terms formal language and informal language have nothing to do with the language's ability to communicate ideas, it just has to do with what 'purpose' that langauge is used for. A formal language is used for formal occasions, an informal language is used for informal purposes. But when only one language and one style of language is recognized then that one language serves both formal and informal purposes.
The advent of the great reading is the major event that changed Arabic from an informal to a formal language. Because, as you said, the purpose changed. Now suddenly people (especially non-Arabs) saw Arabic as some kind of a "sacred" language worthy of formal codification.
Statements that claim an informal langauge's inability to communicate are usually just judgement calls based on social prejudices, having more to do with the speakers of the language or the occasions in which the language is used instead of the ability of the language to communicate ideas.
I agree. Thank you for answering brother Shuaib's objection.
I also want to believe that Classical Arabic was an everyday language of Muhammad (God bless him) and his people and I think more evidence points to this then to the opposite camp. There are people that claim that the Classical Arabic of the Koran, the poems and the Hadeeth were developed through the poetry battles of the pre-Islamic days, etc. etc. However, the use of bedouin sources to help codify this language speaks to the fact that it was an everday language (with dialectical differences), and there is no reason to think that the peoms, the Hadeeth and the Koran were not written in the everyday language of the Arabs of that day.
That is where there is contradiction. The Arabic of the great reading was an informal language spoken everyday by average common people. On the other hand, the picture we get from so-called Jahiliya poetry and Hadiths is that it is a formal language used in royal courts and by religious authorities. Therefore Hadiths and Jahiliya poetry must be post-quranic inventions.
The Koran does belong to a language group that had dialectical differences and the Koran infact shows evidence of some of those differences like 'aatii and haati' and more. It is most likely that the Hejazi dialect of Arabic was a middle ground of understanding between the nothern dialects and the southern dialects of Arabic.
There is no evidence of a "Hejazi" dialect. There is either Northern Arabic dialects or Southern Arabic dialects. The "Hejaz" was inhabited by Southern Arab tribes and hence spoke Southern Arabic dialects such as Sabaic.
Speaking on dialects of Arabic in this forum I have seen such terms as 'Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic' and Old Arabic mentioned. I have also seen such terms as 'Dadabo-Arabic 'pure Old Arabic' and Arameo-Arabic.' As well I have seen such differences noted as 'ha' used for the definite article (Hebrew phenomenon) in some of these dialects and other grammar distinctions.
Safaitic is the closest to Arabic. As for Thamudic, it is in turn divided into a multitude of dialects some of which are totally unrelated but were grouped there anyway.
Arameo-Arabic is not a language but it is a situation where the script is Aramaic but the language is in Arabic. This is like the Englisho-Arabic phrase below
"Bism Allah AlRahman AlRahim"
However, no one seems to know that there was language mixing in the northern Arabic tribes going on. The very mention of Arameo-Arabic should send warning signals going off for those who know about creoles. Creoles are the full-grown children of pidgeons. A pidgeon is the original result when two or more languages start mixing. After that when that mixing has settled in and created consistent, recognized and extensive patterns for communication it become a creole, which is a full-fledged language.
Script and language are two different things. The mixing of the script has nothing to do with "creoles".
Futhermore do the terms Safaitic, Hismaic, Dadanitic and Thamudic refer to scripts or dialects? How does one distinguish a pre-Islamic Arabic script when from what i know there were only different versions of the Aramaic scripts existent at that time? Pre-Islamic Arabs used different versions of these scripts. The Arabic script, besides the southern Arabic one, only took its full form during the Islamic era.
Exactly, that is why we find Arabic in different scripts. This is not a characteristic of a formal language. You never find Greek (the formal language of the church at the time) in an Arabic script, for instance. But you do find the converse.
Let it be known also that Semitic linguists have heavy agendas when they study Cl. Arabic and its relative languages. They often try to view Classical Arabic through Hebrew or Aramaic lenses. THrough their credentials and thier ideas they can have an effect on the Muslim world through trying to change the meanings of the Koran. They have often confused Arabic and Aramaic and they often try to confuse Arabic with Hebrew or Aramaic meanings of congnate words or forms. All I have to say is as these inscriptions are unearthed everyone should be wary of how they go about classifying things.
I agree.
The differences between southern Classical Arabic and Classical Arabic is very minimal. Tamweems instead of tanweens is not that big of a deal, and Southern Classical Arabic uses the definte article 'Al.' However, the differences that these "Old Arabics" have seem not to be dialectical differences. They seem to be innate grammatical differences, that should give way to the recognition of creoles between Aramaic, Classical Arabic and Hebrew, instead of calling these so called "old-Arabics" different Northern dialects of Arabic.
I disagree. The differences between Southern Arabic dialects and what you call Classical Arabic is substantial. Some linguists even classify Southern Arabic dialects as totally different languages. I disagree with them too.
The definite article in Sabaic is post posed as "nan" while in Arabic it is pre-posed as "al". This difference may have been missed by you because many Arab researchers transcribe terms used in the great reading in Sabaic text in psuedo-Arabic out of piety. For example, they transcribe "rahmanan" as "al-rahman".
The definite article is the most obvious difference. Interestingly, they seem to share a lot in terms of vocabulary.
Now speaking on codification
The "errors" to be found in the Koran are not errors at all. They are only considered incorrect by people who are only familiar with Modern Arabic grammar (which is a reduction of Classical Arabic). When we say that the grammarians codified Arabic they did not invent its rules, they deduced them by examining usage and then wrote those rules down. The fact that Persians (who were immersed in a multilingual culture encompassing Arabic, Persian and mixtures of the two and who came from a very science-oriented culture) were prominent in this role was only natural.
No those "errors" in the great reading are errors according to the rules of Classical Arabic. You NEVER find such errors as the ones I referenced in post-quranic Classical Arabic texts such as Jahiliaya poetry.
Furthermore, all languages, even "street talk(s)," have rules. You just can't say anything in "street talk" you still have to make sense of what your saying, whether that be Egyptian colloquial or Spanish colloquials. Making sense of what we say requires grammar rules which every language has. Whether that grammar has been written down in a book or not, every speaker of that particular street talk knows the grammar of his street talk. When he violates the rules he is corrected, what he means is guessed or what he said just goes misunderstood. If he constantly violates the grammar of his street talk he is just looked at as a fool.
I agree. However, the rules of informal "street talk" are less rigid. It is the artificial rigidity of Classical Arabic imposed in order to turn an infromal language into a formal one that has turned it into a dead language.
The organization and structure of Classical Arabic could have come about through a number of happenings. It didn't have to be planned by those people. I do believe that God used the Classical Arabic language for its specific strengths and other features(which don't have to necesarily be strengths, just unique to Classical Arabic). And God obviously let it evolve into the language that it is for specific reasons. But I would rather not say that it is superior to any other language. I would rather say that it has features specific to itself that other languages don't have, and God wished to use those features to guide our understanding of the message that he wants us to read, study, understand and implement.
Classical Arabic is a formalized language. The Arabic of the great reading is an informal language. They are not the same.
Shuaib is right that just because a language dies out that does not mean that it is wholly inadequate for communication, because these languages were once alive and were completely adequate for communication. Their dying out has more to do with situations where many language groups meet in the same place. The expansion of the Arab empire facilatated that. It was already going on among the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids on the boarders of Persian and Roman & Greek (Aramaic/Hebrew speaking) territories.
If it was adequate, this means that it ceased to be adequate for communication. The "dying" began after the artificial formalization of Arabic.
The reason why we use terms like 'money', cash, 'dough' etc for money has to do with metaphor and exaggeration more than anything. Metaphors and poetry are the sign of living languages. 'Bread,' 'dough,' cheese for money are popular metaphors, nothing more.
Formal talk uses these type of metaphors as well. We might call a puzzle, a maze, a labyrinth. A turn, a bend and there are many more examples of this in the formal language.
The variety of vocabulary and the extensive use of metaphors is more prevalant in fluid, non-rigid, informal languages.
Peace and all best wishes,
Ayman
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salams guys
br progod, i think some of your post is missing? i'd love to hear the full version if i could, it's very interesting.
just wanted to point out real quick that I did not say that an informal language is UNABLE to communicate. What I said was "slang" and "street talk" can lead to a great deal of ambiguity in the sentences, the sentence structure, etc.. a lot of times the "rules of speech" can change rapidly, one set of lingo being outdated and replaced within short order... vocabulary also changes very rapidly, etc.
As much as we'd like to think grammar exists simply to make life difficult and "rigid," it's true purpose is to fascilitate communication by standardization of forms so that meanings will not be ambiguous or easily twisted, and will be preserved for a longer period.
As far as what language the Quran is in... I think it's obviously "formal" in the sense that there is nothing slang or slap-stick about it. No laziness in structure, no shortcut in meaning... it's too precise and too perfect to be considered "informal."
I wonder if our definitions of formal and informal are the same? I think br Progod takes it to mean a holy sanctified language used for ceremonial purposes... and of course I agree that Arabic was not like that in pre-Islamic times, hence "informal"... but I think br Ayman is saying something totally different, that Arabic was just slang and street talk. A supercomputer used for propping up your feet if you will.
wassalam
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I disagree with one point of yours (but I agree with your approach to the issue.) Conversly, I agree with ayman's classification but disagree with is approach.
Grammar are the rules of communication. Every language has it. Grammar is not a tool to preserve a language, it is the rules of expression that the language follows so that its speakers can understand each other.
Informal language is language that is used in informal situations (among your family, friends etc. when you are not trying to impress anyone)
Formal langue is language that you use in public speeches, with your teacher, older people, the priest, at a job etc, to impress people.
Not all langauges have separate styles of langauge for informal and formal situations but most do.
The grammar (rules of expression) of formal talk is intentionally frozen. It resists change on all fronts because its form of expression is uniquely recognized as dignified.
The grammar of informal talk is unintentionally frozen, only if there are no foreign linguistic influences in a societies informal situations.
As far as what language the Quran is in... I think it's obviously "formal" in the sense that there is nothing slang or slap-stick about it. No laziness in structure, no shortcut in meaning... it's too precise and too perfect to be considered "informal."
There is nothing lazy, slang or slap stick about informal language. That is just a general judgement call. Informal talk follow rules as well, rules that are native to the language as a whole, formal and informal. It is just that formal talk imitates a particular style of expression, usually the style of parents.
Formal talk is nothing but the glorification of a particular era's informal talk with its slang(jargon) and common forms of expression ( whether poetic, choppy, plain, embellished, etc.). It's like taking the way people talked in the 30's and making it the standard for English. New terms that follow the same rules but differ from the terms of the 30's are called slang and slap-stick, but in fact these terms follow the same rules of metaphor or hyperbole that words from the 30's did.
That is the danger in trying to give formal talk more merit then informal talk. It's just not true. One is in no way better than the other. The formal just imitates a certain style that achieved high status somehow.
I also believe that the language of Muhammad that the Koran was in was just as much as street vernacular as the street vernaculars in use today. Spanish used to be a street vernacular of Latin, French and Italian as well.
Now look at them. They had the same rules and structure then as they do now. Somebody just analyzed those rules and put them into a book. When those languages attained high status (through the expansion empires and the acquisition of wealth by its speakers) the books were written for a particular eras jargon and expressions and the standard was set and enforced.An isolated langauge has a certain amount of fluidity based on its rules of expression. We see in the Koran how wassaa can be used for awsaa and nazzala for anzala, mihrab for mihraab, wa for fa etc. etc. That is the fluidity of the language, which natives understand intuitively from constantly hearing and using the language. Whether people on the street conversed in it (street talk) or it was only the language of poets and kings(formal talk), without rules of expression (grammar) we can't understand what we say to each other. The use of metaphors in our street talk is well based in literature, like poetry which we mix into our daily speech. So using bread, dough, cream or cheese for money doesn't consitute NON-English expression and it can even make its way into formal expression depending on the circumstances. The only reason it is looked at as slap-stick, slang or unacceptable is because it doesn't conform to a certain era's form of speech that might not have been so easy with using poetical language. Sometimes it just has to do with who is saying (if black people say it its slang, if rich white people say it its formal english).
I don't agree to the implication that informal talk is slap stick and doesn't follow exact rules, when it does. I also resent the implication that formal talk is somehow more precise than informal talk. Those are just baseless judgement calls.
Whether the Koran was in formal talk or informal talk it still followed specific rules of expression (grammar) so that its audience could understand what it was saying.
Godbless,
AnwarHope that was clear.
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Great assessments from all, however, does this mean that the rules of grammar are infallible? Or, does God teach through the reading how He uses the language and therefore correct any contrary rules of grammar?
God would not teach through the Koran how HE uses the Classical Arabic language. He would demonstrate how the Classical Arabs used their language. If God sent us a book in English he would not violate the rules of English expression, because that would make the book incomprehendible and cause confusion, maybe even make us think that God doesn't know how to use our language.
The fact that the Koran was revealed in Classical Arabic using the Classical Arabs rules of Classical Arabic expression is a fact. Whether the grammarians got the rules of Classical Arabic expression right can be up for debate. But that has to be proven by finding a mistake in the grammarians' work. The Koran will never be able to clarify for us mistake that they may have made because we have to go through their knowledge in order to understand an inkling of what the Koran is saying. We find the mistakes where the grammarians contradict themselves.
So far people have claimed that the grammarians made mistakes based on the following
- The meaning of the words they record have multiple and distinct meanings.
That is not the basis of any mistake because a language CAN have multiple and distinct meanings for one word or root.
People also have tried to say that because an Islamic meaning doesn't fit that the grammarians made a mistake. But that is wrong. The translator made a mistake by forcing an Islamic meaning onto an Arabic word. Like Zakat for instance. Zakaat doesn't mean 'poor-rate' in Classical Arabic. That is a later, islamic invention, and the dictionary might include that Islam meaning, among other meanings, but it is up to us to be able to see that the meaning is clearly post-koranic and use other meanings found in the dictionary that are not post-koranic in origin and make sense in the context.
Godbles,
Anwar -
salam anwar,
good points... i think i am pretty much along the same line of thought that you are.
Grammar are the rules of communication. Every language has it. Grammar is not a tool to preserve a language, it is the rules of expression that the language follows so that its speakers can understand each other.
I agree, but a secondary benefit to having systematized/standardized grammar is the preservation of meaning. That is, I believe, at least partially why we can read the words of the Quran despite 1400 years having passed, whereas English even 400 years old is hard to comprehend and has very different vocabulary.
I think the whole discussion of formal informal is getting a bit confusing. We have to also remember that even a single language, e.g. English, has formal and informal forms, slang and streettalk as well. The merit of the formal form, however, is that it is more clear and erudite throughout time. At the other extreme, the slang form may not even be comprehensible outside of its time or outside of its context. If one of us were to hear a "slang" English conversation from 100 years ago, it would be quite difficult to fully understand it... or slang from different locales, such as England, Australia, etc. Informal expression may be affected by this problem to some degree, and formal should be affected least by this since it is following most closely to standardized grammatical forms and vocabulary.
Of course, Arabic, like other languages, had to start from somewhere... but by the time the Quran was revealed, it must have achieved a state wherein a high level of timeless and "spaceless" expression could be made.
There is nothing lazy, slang or slap stick about informal language.
Well I was referring to br. Ayman's comment that Arabic was at the time of the Quran, slang and street talk.
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Peace,
God would not teach through the Koran how HE uses the Classical Arabic language.
A poor choice of words which did not clarify my point.
He would demonstrate how the Classical Arabs used their language. If God sent us a book in English he would not violate the rules of English expression, because that would make the book incomprehendible and cause confusion, maybe even make us think that God doesn't know how to use our language.
My point exactly. The codification is frozen within the reading and mistakes of grammarians who are fallible can be perceived. HE teaches and preserves and arranges the guidance. The use of language is always subjective and the intention of the communicator is sometimes perceived differently by the listener and is diversified even with the so-called correct grammar. The God?s usage will provide us with the details and subtleties to understand the message. The formula is given within the reading irrespective of codifications in books outside the reading.
Islamic meaning--therein lays the problem. These religious meanings are forced onto words. The God has not enjoined religion. Religion is purely a man-made concept and these meanings will never fit.