| Classical Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Quranic Arabic | |
| العربية الفصحى al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | /alʕaraˈbijjalˈfusˤħaː/ |
| Native to | Early Islamic Caliphates |
| Region | Muslim World |
| Ethnicity | Arabs |
| Era |
|
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Early form | |
| Arabic abjad | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Classical Arabic orQuranic Arabic (Arabic:العربية الفصحى,romanized: al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā,lit. 'the most eloquent Arabic') is the standardized literary form ofArabic used from the 7th century and throughout theMiddle Ages, most notably inUmayyad andAbbasid literary texts such as poetry, elevated prose and oratory, and is also theliturgical language ofIslam, "Quranic" referring to theQuran. Classical Arabic is, furthermore, theregister of the Arabic language on whichModern Standard Arabic is based.
Several written grammars of Classical Arabic were published with the exegesis of Arabic grammar being at times based on the existing texts and the works of previous texts, in addition to various early sources considered to be of most venerated genesis of Arabic.[1] The primary focus of such works was to facilitate different linguistic aspects.
Modern Standard Arabic is its direct descendant used today throughout theArab world in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some radio and television broadcasts and non-entertainment content.[2] Thelexis andstylistics of Modern Standard Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic uses a subset of the syntactic structures available in Classical Arabic, but themorphology andsyntax have remained basically unchanged.[3] In the Arab world little distinction is made between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and both are normally calledal-fuṣḥā (الفصحى) in Arabic, meaning 'the most eloquent'.
Classical Arabic is considered aconservative language among Semitic languages, it preserved the completeProto-Semitic three grammatical cases anddeclension (ʾIʿrab), and it was used in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic since it preserves as contrastive 28 out of the evident 29 consonantal phonemes.[4]
The earliest forms of Arabic are known asOld Arabic and survive in inscriptions inAncient North Arabian scripts as well as fragments of pre-Islamic poetry preserved in the classical literature. It is hypothesized that by the late 6th century AD a relatively uniform intertribal "poetickoiné", asynthetic language distinct from the spoken vernaculars, had developed with conservative as well as innovative features, including the case endings known asʾiʿrab.[6] It is uncertain to what degree the spoken vernaculars corresponded to the literary style, however, as many surviving inscriptions in the region seem to indicate simplification or absence of the inflectional morphology of Classical Arabic. It is often said that theBedouin dialects ofNajd were probably the most conservative (or at least resembled the elevated intertribal idiom morphologically and lexically more than the other contemporary vernaculars), a view possibly supported by the romanticization of the ‘purity’ of the language of the desert-dwellers (as opposed to the "corrupted" dialects of the city-dwellers) expressed in many medieval Arabic works, especially those on grammar, though some argue that all the spoken vernaculars probably deviated greatly from the supraregional literary norm to different degrees, while others, such asJoshua Blau, believe that "the differences between the classical and spoken language were not too far-reaching".[7]
TheArabic script is generally believed to have evolved fromlocalcursive varieties of theAramaic script, which have been adopted to write Arabic, though some, such asJean Starcky, have postulated that it instead derives direct from theSyriac script since, unlike Aramaic, the scripts of Arabic and Syriac are both cursive. Indigenous speculations concerning thehistory of the script sometimes ascribe the origins of the script, and oftentimes the language itself also, to one of the ancient major figures in Islam, such asAdam orIshmael, though others mention that it was introduced to Arabia from afar.[6] In the 7th century AD the distinctive features ofOld Hijazi, such as loss of final short vowels, loss ofhamza, lenition of final /-at/ to /-ah/ and lack ofnunation, influenced the consonantal text (orrasm) of theQur'an (and also many of its readings also) and the later normalized orthography of Classical Arabic as a standard literary register in the 8th century.[8]
By the 2nd centuryAH (9th century AD) the language had been standardized by Arabic grammarians and knowledge of Classical Arabic became a prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, since it was thelingua franca across theMiddle East,North Africa, and theHorn of Africa, and thus the region eventually developed into a widespread state ofdiglossia. Consequently the classical language, as well as theArabic script, became the subject of much mythicization and was eventually associated with religious, ethnic, and racial conflicts, such as the rise of many groups traditionally categorized under the broad label ofal-Shu'ibiyya (roughly meaning "those of the nations", as opposed to Arab tribes), who, despite the remarkable differences in their views, generally rejected the stressed and often dogmatized belief that the Arabs, as well as their language, were far superior to all other races and ethnicities,[note 1] and so the term later came to be applied pejoratively to such groups by their rivals.[note 2] Moreover, many Arabic grammarians strove to attribute as many words as possible to a "pure Arabic origin", especially those in the Qur'an. Thus, exegetes, theologians, and grammarians who entertained the idea of the presence of "impurities" (for example, naturalized loanwords) in the Qur'an were severely criticized and their proposed etymologies denounced in most cases.[note 3] Nonetheless, the belief in the racial and ethnic supremacy of the Arabs and the belief in thelinguistic supremacy of Arabic did not seem to be necessary entailments of each other.[note 4]
Poems and sayings attributed to Arabic-speaking personages who lived before the standardization of the Classical idiom, which are preserved mainly in far later manuscripts, contain traces of elements in morphology and syntax that began to be regarded as chiefly poetic or characteristically regional or dialectal. Despite this, these, along with the Qur'an, were perceived as the principal foundation upon which grammatical inquiry, theorizing, and reasoning were to be based. They also formed the literary ideal to be followed, quoted, and imitated in solemn texts and speeches. Lexically, Classical Arabic may retain one or more of the dialectal forms of a given word as variants of the standardized forms, albeit often with much less currency and use.[6]
Various Arabic dialects freelyborrowed words from Classical Arabic, a situation similar to theRomance languages, wherein scores of words were borrowed directly fromClassical Latin. Arabic-speakers usually spoke Classical Arabic as asecond language (if they spoke the colloquial dialects as their first language) or as athird language (if they spoke another language as their first language and a regional variety of colloquial Arabic as their second language). Nonetheless, the pronunciation of Classical Arabic was likely influenced by thevernaculars to different degrees (much likeModern Standard Arabic). The differences in pronunciation and vocabulary in the regional Arabic varieties were in turn variously influenced by the native languages spoken in the conquered regions, such asCoptic in Egypt;Berber andPunic in the Maghreb;Himyaritic,Modern South Arabian, andOld South Arabian in Yemen; andAramaic in the Levant.[9]
Like Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic had 28 consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Dental | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emphatic | |||||||||
| Nasal | mم | nن | ||||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | tت | tˁ1ط | kك | q2ق | ʔء | ||||
| voiced | bب | dد | ɮˁ5 ~dˤض | ɟ3 ~dʒ4ج | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | fف | θث | sس | sˁص | ʃش | χخ | ħح | hه | |
| voiced | ðذ | zز | ðˁظ | ʁغ | ʕع | |||||
| Trill /Tap | r7ر | |||||||||
| Approximant | lل | (lˁ)6ل | jي | wو | ||||||
Notes:
^4 Possible due to descriptions ofšiddah (plosive) letters by the early grammarians fitting affricates[13]
| Short | Long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| Close | i | u | iː | uː |
| Mid | (eː)[16] | |||
| Open | a | aː | ||
The A1 inscription dated to the 3rd or 4th century AD in theGreek alphabet in a dialect showing affinities to that of the Safaitic inscriptions shows that short final high vowels had been lost in at least some dialects ofOld Arabic at that time, obliterating the distinction between nominative and genitive case in the singular, leaving the accusative the only marked case:[17]
| Translation | Original Greek transcription | Arabic approximate transcription |
|---|---|---|
| ʾAws son of ʿūḏ (?) | Αυσος Ουδου | أوس عوذ |
| son of Bannāʾ son of Kazim | Βαναου Χαζιμ | بناء كازم |
| the ʾidāmite came | μου αλΙδαμι αθα | الإدامي أتو |
| because of scarcity; he came | οα μισειαζ αθαοευ̣ | من شحاص أتو |
| to Bannāʾ in this region | α Βαναα αδαυρα | بناء الدور |
| and they pastured on fresh herbage | αουα ειραυ βακλα | ويرعو بقل |
| during Kānūn | βιΧανου | بكانون |
| Triptote | Diptote | Dual | Masculine plural | Feminine plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ∅..الـ (ʾal-)...-∅ | -∅ | الـ)..ـَان) (ʾal-)...-ān | الـ)..ـُون) (ʾal-)...-ūn | الـ)..ـَات) (ʾal-)...-āt |
| Accusative | الـ..ـَا (ʾal-)...-a | الـ)..ـَيْن) (ʾal-)...-ayn | الـ)..ـِين) (ʾal-)...-īn | ||
| Genitive | ∅..(الـ) (ʾal-)...-∅ |
Classical Arabic however, shows a far more archaic system, essentially identical with that ofProto-Arabic:
| Triptote | Diptote | Dual | Masculine plural | Feminine plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ـٌ -un | الـ..ـُ ʾal-...-u | ـُ -u | الـ)..ـَانِ) (ʾal-)...-āni | الـ)..ـُونَ) (ʾal-)...-ūna | ـَاتٌ -ātun | الـ..ـَاتُ ʾal-...-ātu |
| Accusative | ـًا، ـً -an | الـ..ـَ ʾal-...-a | ـَ -a | الـ)..ـَيْنِ) (ʾal-)...-ayni | الـ)..ـِينَ) (ʾal-)...-īna | ـَاتٍ -ātin | الـ..ـَاتِ ʾal-...-āti |
| Genitive | ـٍ -in | الـ..ـِ ʾal-...-i | |||||
The definite article spread areally among the Central Semitic languages and it would seem that Proto-Arabic lacked any overt marking of definiteness. Besides dialects with no definite article, the Safaitic inscriptions exhibit about four different article forms, ordered by frequency:h-,ʾ-,ʾl-, andhn-. The Old Arabic of the Nabataean inscriptions exhibits almost exclusively the formʾl-. Unlike the Classical Arabic article, the Old Arabicʾl almost never exhibits the assimilation of the coda to the coronals; the same situation is attested in the Graeco-Arabica, but in A1 the coda assimilates to the followingd, αδαυρα *ʾad-dawraالدورة 'the region'.
In Classical Arabic, the definite article takes the formal-, with the coda of the article exhibiting assimilation to the following dental and denti-alveolar consonants. Note the inclusion of palatal/ɕ/, which alone among the palatal consonants exhibits assimilation, indicating that assimilation ceased to be productive before that consonant shifted from Old Arabic/ɬ/:
| Dental | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emphatic | plain | emphatic | |
| nn –ن | ||||
| tt –ت | tˤṭ –ط | |||
| dd –د | ||||
| θṯ –ث | ss –س | sˤṣ –ص | ||
| ðḏ –ذ | ðˤẓ –ظ | zz –ز | ||
| ɕ (< *ɬ)ʃ –ش | ɮˤḍ –ض | |||
| ll –ل | ||||
| rr –ر | ||||
Proto-Central Semitic, Proto-Arabic, various forms of Old Arabic, and some modern Najdi dialects to this day have alternation in the performative vowel of the prefix conjugation, depending on the stem vowel of the verb. Early forms of Classical Arabic allowed this alternation, but later forms of Classical Arabic levelled the /a/ allomorph:
| Pre-Classical (taltalah) | Classical | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 sg. | ʾi-rkabu | ʾa-qtulu | ʾa-...-u |
| 2 m.sg. | ti-rkabu | ta-qtulu | ta-...-u |
| 3 m.sg. | ya-rkabu (< *yi-) | ya-qtulu | ya-...-u |
| 1 pl. | ni-rkabu | na-qtulu | na-...-u |
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