Classical Arabic

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Verses from the Qur'an in Classical Arabic, written in the cursive Arabic script.

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 the same period. 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.

1 History
2 Morphology
3 Phonology
4 Bibliography
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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:

kataba, to write
yaktubu, he writes
kitāb, book
kutub, some books
maktaba, library
miktāb, writing machine

[edit] 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	i /i/	u /u/	ī /iː/	ū /uː/
Low	a /a/		ā /aː/

Classical Arabic has 28 consonant phonemes:

**Classical Arabic consonant phonemes**
		Bilabial	Inter- dental	Dental		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
		Bilabial	Inter- dental	plain	emphatic	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
Stop	voiceless			t	tˁ			k	q		ʔ
Stop	voiced	b		d	dˁ	dʒ¹
Fricative	voiceless	f	θ	s	sˁ	ʃ		x		ħ	h
Fricative	voiced		ð	z	ðˁ			ɣ		ʕ
Nasal		m		n
Lateral				l ²
Trill				r
Approximant		w					j

See Arabic alphabet for further explanation of the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart.

In modern Arabic, /dʒ/ is pronounced as [ɡ] 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 [ʒ]. However, the true classical pronunciation was most likely a voiced palatal plosive ([ɟ]) or palatalized velar stop ([gʲ].
/l/ is pronounced [lˁ] only in /ʔalˁːɑːh/, 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 /bɪsmɪlːæːh/).
/ʕ/ is usually a phonetic approximant.
In many varieties (if not most), /ħ, ʕ/ are actually epiglottal [ʜ, ʢ] (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.
/ʃ/ may have been a non-sibilant palatal fricative ([ç]) while non-emphatic /s/ was /ʃ/

The consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" /tˁ, dˁ, sˁ, ðˁ/ are either velarised [tˠ, dˠ, sˠ, ðˠ] or pharyngealised [tˁ, dˁ, sˁ, ðˁ]. In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter e.g. /dˁ/ is written ‹D›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹ḍ›.