© Kees Versteegh, 2014
First edition published by Edinburgh University Press in 1997
Second edition 2014
Edinburgh
University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road
12(2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset
in Gentium Plus by
Koinonia, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 4528 2 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4527 5 (paperback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4529 9 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9460 0 (epub)
The right of Kees Versteegh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related
Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.
Contents
Preface to First Edition
vii
Preface to Second Edition
ix
List of Figures and Maps
xii
List of Tables
xiii
Note on Transcription and Glossing
xiv
1. The Study of Arabic in the West
1
2. Arabic as a Semitic Language
10
3
. The Earliest Stages of Arabic
26
4. Arabic in the Pre-Islamic Period
42
5. The Development
of Classical Arabic
60
6. The Structure of Arabic
85
7. The Arabic Linguistic Tradition
107
8.
The Emergence of New Arabic
126
9. Middle Arabic
152
10. The Study of the Arabic Dialects
172
11.
The Dialects of Arabic
192
12. The Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic
221
13. Diglossia
241
14. Bilingualism
259
15. Arabic as a Minority Language
276
16. Arabic Pidgins and Creoles
299
17
.
Arabic as a World Language
313
Bibliography
333
List of Abbreviations
378
Index
382
