8.2 The new type of Arabic
Our main sources for the reconstruction of the historical process of emergence
of a colloquial type of Arabic are the modern dialects. Terminologically, there
is some confusion about the name for the new type of Arabic. The name ‘New
Arabic’ (or ‘Neo-Arabic’) will be used here for the colloquial type of Arabic that
became current in the early stages of the conquests and that developed into
the Arabic dialects as we know them today. In this terminology, the new type
of Arabic is contrasted with Old Arabic, that is, the Arabic that was used in the
Jāhiliyya
. As we have seen in Chapter 4, there is no consensus about the linguistic
situation in the pre-Islamic period, so that the term ‘Old Arabic’ is used both
for the
ʿArabiyya
as the uniform language of the Bedouin tribes, the
Qurʾān
and
pre-Islamic poetry, and alternatively, for the poetico-Qurʾānic koine that was
used as a literary language transcending the dialects of the Bedouin tribes. In
either case, Old Arabic represents the type of Arabic that in its codified form by
the grammarians became the literary and cultural language of the Arabo-Islamic
empire and is known as Classical Arabic. After the period of the conquests, Old
and New Arabic coexisted in a sociolinguistic relationship that is usually called
‘diglossia’ (see below, Chapter 13).
As we shall see below (pp. 139f.), the opposition of Old/New Arabic is strongly
opposed by Owens (2006), who does not believe that the history of the Arabic
language was punctuated by a break in transmission between an alleged Old and
New type: both types coexisted in the pre-Islamic period and in fact, ‘New’ Arabic
may even go back to an older stage in the development of the Semitic languages
than ‘Old’ Arabic, which he believes represents in some ways an innovation.
Notwithstanding these objections, we shall continue to use the two terms here,
but on the understanding that the diachronic relationship between the two is
controversial and not accepted by all scholars.
Whatever our views on the linguistic situation in the pre-Islamic period, we
still need an explanation for the emergence of the new type of Arabic. Even if
some of the traits of this new type of Arabic were already found in the pre-Islamic
dialects – such as the subject–verb agreement or the undeclined dual in the
Ḥijāz (cf. above, Chapter 4, pp. 51f.), or the possible disappearance of the declen-
sional endings in the peripheral dialects in North Arabia (cf. above, pp. 53f.) –
The Emergence of New Arabic
133
no one maintains that all features of the modern dialects can be traced back to
the pre-Islamic period. Any theory about the emergence of the dialects must
therefore account for the changes that took place after the conquests and that
demarcate the new type of Arabic from the old type. At the same time, such a
theory must not only explain the common features of the dialects as against the
Classical standard, but also provide an explanation for the numerous differences
among the dialects. In the pre-Islamic period, Arabs from all over the peninsula
could communicate with each other with relative ease. Nowadays, Moroccans
and Iraqis, each speaking their own dialect, would find it extremely difficult to
understand each other, and it is fair to say that the linguistic distance between
the dialects is as large as that between the Germanic languages and the Romance
languages, including Romanian, if not larger.
Before we go into the theories that have been advanced for the present-day
situation of Arabic, we shall first survey the common features that characterise
the dialects vis-à-vis the Classical language. No single dialect exhibits all of these
features, but they may be regarded as a common denominator of the structure
of dialects in the Arab world. Generally speaking, these features are much more
frequent in the sedentary dialects, for which Syrian Arabic has been used here in
most examples, whereas the Bedouin dialects tend to be more conservative (cf.
below, Chapter 10).
In the following list of features, the structure of the dialects will be compared
with that of Classical Arabic. This might create the impression that the dialects
were directly derived from Classical Arabic input. In view of the controversies
surrounding the relationship between the two types, such a presupposition
should be avoided. If we follow Owens, most traits were already there and it could
not be said that the ‘New’ type derives from the ‘Old’ type. Even from the opposite
point of view – that the ‘New’ type did not emerge until after the conquests in
a process of second-language acquisition (see below Chapter 16, pp. 299f.) – the
input for the new speakers of Arabic was certainly not the elevated form of Arabic
used in poetry and the
Qurʾān
,
nor even the everyday language of the Bedouin, but
a simplified version of the language, which they used to address foreigners. For
the sake of convenience, in comparing the two types we shall sometimes resort
to formulations that might suggest a diachronic relationship (for instance, when
we use the signs < or > in comparisons).
In the phonological system of the dialects, a number of differences may be
noted:
•
The glottal stop, which was present in Eastern Arabic and in the
Qurʾān
,
but
absent in Western Arabic (cf. above, pp. 45f., 49), is not found in any
dialect (e.g., Classical Arabic
raʾs
‘head’, Syrian Arabic
rās
; Classical Arabic
miʾa
‘hundred’, Syrian Arabic
mīye
), except where it is the reflex of another
phoneme, such as Egyptian /ʾ/ for Classical Arabic /q/.
134
The Arabic Language
•
In the sedentary dialects, the interdental fricatives correspond to dental
stops (e.g., Classical Arabic
ṯalāṯa
‘three’, Syrian Arabic
tlāte
; Classical Arabic
ḏanab
‘tail’, Syrian Arabic
danab
); most Bedouin dialects have interdentals.
• The two Classical Arabic phonemes /ḍ/ and /ḏ̣/ have merged into /ḍ/ in
the sedentary dialects, and /ḏ̣/ in the Bedouin dialects (e.g., Classical
ḏ̣
uhr
‘noon’, Syrian Arabic
ḍǝhr
).
• Final short vowels have been dropped in the dialects; final long vowels have
become short (e.g.,
kataba
/
katabū
‘he wrote/they wrote’, Syrian Arabic
katab
/
katabu
).
•
Stress in the Arabic dialects has become more expiratory, as shown by the
frequent reduction of short vowels in open syllables (e.g., Classical Arabic
kaṯīr
‘many’ >
kiṯīr
> Syrian Arabic
ktīr
; Classical Arabic
kātiba
‘writing [feminine]’
> Syrian Arabic
kātbe
); in the dialects of North Africa, only stressed short
vowels have been retained.
• The opposition of the two short vowels /i/ and /u/ has been reduced in
many of the sedentary dialects; often they merge into one phoneme, usually
transcribed with /ǝ/, e.g., in Syrian Arabic
ʾǝṣṣa
‘story’ (Classical Arabic
qiṣṣa
),
and
mǝrr
‘bitter’ (Classical Arabic
murr
)
.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |