The Arabic Language

ʿam-
, bi- 
raḥ(a)-
, 
laḥ(a)-
Egyptian Arabic (Cairo) 
bi-
ḥa-
Moroccan Arabic (Rabat) 
ka-
ġa-
Iraqi Arabic (Baghdad) 
da-
raḥ-
Yemeni Arabic (Ṣanʿāʾ) 
bi-
(1st person 
bayn-
) 
ʿa-
(1st person 
šā-
)
Table 8.2 Aspectual markers in Arabic dialects 
In Egyptian Arabic, for instance, we find 
bi-
for the continuous or habitual 
aspect, 
ḥa-
for the future, as in (10):
(10)
b-tišrab
‘you are drinking; you habitually drink’
 
ḥa-tišrab
‘you will drink’

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The Arabic Language
In this respect, too, all dialects have gone through the same development, but 
again they differ with regard to the form and the scope of the markers. Most 
dialects have a system of two markers: continuous/habitual and future. The 
exact distribution of semantic functions differs in the individual dialects. In 
Syrian Arabic, strict continuity is expressed by 
ʿam-
, while 
bi-
is used for intended 
actions in the future (volitional) and for habitual actions. In Iraqi Arabic, 
da-
is 
used for continuous/habitual actions, but the imperfect without marker is used 
for statements that are generally valid. In many cases, the exact etymology of 
the markers is unknown, but it seems to be the case that future markers often 
derive from verbs meaning ‘to go’ (e.g., Egyptian Arabic 
ḥa-
, Syrian Arabic 
raḥ-
; 
Tunisian Jewish Arabic 
maši-
; Maltese 
sejjer
), whereas continuous markers derive 
from the verb 
kāna
, or from participial forms meaning ‘sitting’, ‘doing’, ‘standing’ 
(Syrian Arabic 
ʿam
< 
ʿammāl 
‘doing [intensively]’; Anatolian Arabic 
qa-
, Maltese 
ʾaed
< 
qāʿid 
‘sitting’; Moroccan Arabic 
ka- 
< 
kāʾin 
‘being’ [?]; Uzbekistan Arabic 
wōqif 
‘standing’).
In both the analytic genitive and the system of aspectual markers, we find a 
similar pattern: a general trend that has occurred in all Arabic dialects, and an 
individual instantiation of this trend in each area. Any theory about the emergence 
of the new type of Arabic must take into account this development. The difference 
in realisation precludes an explanation in terms of later convergence, because 
typically dialect contact leads to the borrowing of another dialect’s markers, not 
to the borrowing of a structure, which is then filled independently.
Most theories about the emergence of the new dialects tend to look for the 
cause of the innovations in natural tendencies already existing latently in the 
pre-Islamic language. A different scenario connects the origin of the changes 
in the language with the acquisitional process during the conquests. Gener
-
ally speaking, scholars agree that at the beginning of the Islamic era simplified 
varieties of the language were current. During the first centuries of Islam, Arabic 
was learnt by the local population as a second language in a highly unstructured 
way, with no formal teaching and with minimal attention to correctness and 
maximal attention to communicational value. During the period of bilingualism, 
most speakers used Arabic as a second language, whereas only a minority spoke it 
as their mother tongue. In such a situation, redundant forms disappear, leading to 
a greater degree of regularity; preference is given to analytic constructions (as in 
the case of the genitive exponent), and various categories are conflated in order 
to increase learnability. Besides, the lexicon is partially restructured, as items of 
lesser transparency are replaced by items that are more transparent. In such a 
scenario, most of the ‘initiative’ in the changes is assigned to the inhabitants of 
the conquered territories (see Chapter 16). Yet the consensus seems to be that 
these disappeared without leaving any traces.
This issue hinges on the development of the standard language. If at first 
the acquisition process of Arabic led to a drastic restructuring of the language 

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The Emergence of New Arabic 
147
and to the emergence of simplified varieties, one must assume that at a later 
stage the influence of the Classical standard and, in particular, the language of 
the 
Qurʾān
reintroduced many of the features of Standard Arabic that are found 
in the modern dialects, such as the inflection of the verb and the existence of 
two verbal forms. In this scenario, the population of the urban centres of the 
Islamic empire originally communicated with the Arab conquerors in a simpli
-
fied variety of Arabic. In the linguistic melting-pot of the cities, such varieties 
became the mother tongue of children in mixed marriages between Arabs and 
indigenous women, or between speakers of different languages whose common 
second language was Arabic.
The dissemination of Classical Arabic as the prestige language of culture and 
religion introduced a model that affected the linguistic situation to such a degree 
that between colloquial speech and standard language a linguistic continuum 
arose that paralleled the present-day diglossia of the Arabophone world. In this 
continuum, the lower (basilectal) speech levels were stigmatised and ultimately 
abandoned by the speakers in favour of higher (acrolectal) features. In principle, 
the replacement of basilectal features by acrolectal features is not an uncommon 
phenomenon. There is no direct evidence for such a large-scale restructuring in 
historical times, but to some extent the process may be compared with contem
-
porary Classical interference, which leads to shifts in the language used by dialect 
speakers. For many literate speakers of Arabic, for instance, the use of the Classical 
genitive construction alongside the dialectal construction has become a normal