The Arabic Language
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). Combinations of words that serve as set expressions are usually modelled on a foreign example. The Arabic expression for ‘satellite’, for instance, qamar ṣināʿī (literally ‘artificial moon’) is probably a translation from French (or Russian?). Even when the Arabic expression does not have a direct foreign equivalent, the English or French term shines through, for instance, in the term for ‘heading’, laʿiba l-kura bi-r-raʾs (literally ‘to play the ball with the head’), in football termi - nology. Loan translation also accounts for a large number of idiomatic expres - sions and metaphors, especially in the language of the media. In the course of time, such translations become part of the Arabic phraseology and are no longer regarded as foreign. The most frequently quoted example of a loan expression is laʿiba dawran ‘to play a role’. Another example of loan translations is a variation in the use of prepositions under the influence of foreign idioms, for example, iltaqā / iltaqā maʿa ‘to meet/to meet with’, and the development of syntactic calques, such as mā ʾiḏā to translate English ‘whether’, for example, saʾala mā ʾiḏā ‘to ask whether’. The most highly-regarded device for the expansion of the lexicon in Arabic, albeit not necessarily the most successful one, was the semantic extension of an existing word by giving it a modern meaning. Attempts to revive old Bedouin vocabulary in the search for new words were seldom successful, probably precisely because they had fallen into disuse and were therefore unfamiliar to the average speaker. One example of a term that did succeed is that of the word for ‘train’, qiṭār , originally meaning ‘caravan’. But the associated word hādiya ‘lead-camel’ was never accepted for ‘locomotive’ (which became qāṭira instead). Revived words owed their success mostly to the efforts of one author, for instance, jarīda ‘newspaper’ (originally ‘strip of palm-leaf used for writing’) and majalla ‘journal’ The Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic 231 (originally ‘codex, book’), introduced by aš-Šidyāq and al-Yāzijī, respectively. Many of the proposals of the academies, however, never gained general accep - tance because they were regarded as too artificial, for instance, jammāz ‘swift- footed [ass]’ for ‘tram’ (remained trām ), or ʾirzīz ‘sound of thunder’ for ‘telephone’ (remained tilifūn , although hātif , a Classical Arabic word meaning ‘unseen man whose voice is heard’, is becoming increasingly frequent). In spite of the extreme productiveness of the nominal and verbal patterns of the Arabic language, the lexicon-builders kept looking for additional means of lexical expansion. In most Western languages, the use of Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes provides a powerful means of expanding the scientific lexicon, which is absent in Arabic derivational morphology. At an early stage, combinations with the negations lā- and ġayr- were used to coin equivalents to Greek terms with the privative prefix a- . In modern times, these served as a model for the intro - duction of prefixes into the Arabic lexicon, at first only with the negations, for example, lā- ( lā-nihāʾī ‘infinite’, lā-ʾadriyya ‘agnosticism’), ġayr- ( ġayr-šarʿī ‘illegiti - mate’, ġayr-mašrūʿ ‘illegal’). Later, several prepositions were used in this function, for example, šibh- ( šibh-jazīra ‘peninsula’, šibh-rasmī ‘semi-official’), qab- ( qab-tārīḫ ‘prehistory’). Morphologically, these words behave as compounds: from lā-nihāʾī we may derive, for instance, the substantive al-lā-nihāʾiyya ‘the infinity’, in which the article precedes the entire combination. In Classical Arabic, there was a limited possibility of deriving new roots from combinations of words (called naḥt ), usually delocutive verbs from nominal expressions, for example, basmala ‘to say “in the name of God” ( bi-smi llāhi )’, or ḥamdala ‘to say “praise be to God!” ( al-ḥamdu lillāhi )’, or adjectives from compound names, for example, ḥanafī ‘belonging to ʾAbū Ḥanīfa’, or ʿabqasī ‘belonging to ʿAbd al-Qays’. In modern times, initiatives to use this method of coining new words in the creation of scientific vocabulary became so popular that in 1953 the Academy of Cairo felt compelled to issue a ruling. According to the academy, the method of naḥt was admissible only in scientific language, and the resulting terms had to be transparent. Words like faḥmāʾiyyāt ‘carbohydrates’ (< faḥm ‘carbon’ + māʾ ‘water’) and ḥalmaʾa ‘to hydrolyse’ (< ḥallala ‘to dissolve’ + māʾ ‘water’) satisfied these conditions. Likewise, combinations with kahra- ‘electro-’, for example, kahra- maġnaṭīsī or even kahraṭīsī ‘electro-magnetic’, kahra-riʾawī ‘electro-pneumatic’, kahra-kīmiyāʾī ‘electro-chemical’, and with šibh- ‘pseudo-’ found favour with the academy. Generally speaking, however, the attitude of the academy vis-à-vis compounds was conservative, and most proposals were deemed to be contrary to ‘the spirit of the Arabic language’. Words like ʾarbarijl ‘quadruped’ (< ʾarbaʿ ‘four’ + rijl ‘foot’), qaṭjara ‘laryngotomy’ (< qaṭʿ ‘cutting’ + ḥanjara ‘throat’), or sarmana ‘somnambu - lism’ (< sayr ‘going’ + manām ‘sleep’) met with disapproval. Even more extreme proposals, such as mutamāṯir ‘polymer’ (< mutamāṯil ‘homogeneous’ + mutakāṯir ‘multiple’) or musjanāḥiyyāt ‘orthoptera’ (< mustaqīm ‘straight’ + janāḥ ‘wing’) 232 The Arabic Language were rejected outright because of their lack of transparency. On the other hand, adjectival compounds have become relatively common, for example, šarq-ʾawsaṭī ‘Middle Eastern’ (< aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ ‘the Middle East’), raʾsmālī ‘capitalist’ (< raʾs māl ‘capital’), barmāʾī ‘amphibian’ (< barr ‘(main)land’ + māʾ ‘water’), ʾumamī ‘UN-’ (< al-ʾumam al-muttaḥida ), mā fawqa l-banafsajī ‘ultra-violet’ ( < fawqa ‘above’ + banafsaj ‘violet’), taḥta l-ʾaḥmar ‘infra-red’ (< taḥta ‘under’ + ʾaḥmar ‘red’). Usually, within one semantic domain all methods to coin new words are used simultaneously, even though there is a tendency to go through certain stages. A few examples from modern vocabulary may illustrate the coexistence of different methods in the creation of a set of terms. In football terminology, all foreign terms have been replaced by Arabic words: calque by extension ḍarba ‘kick’ Yüklə 2,37 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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