The Arabic Language

Further reading
A classic work on the development of Classical Arabic is Fück (1950); in a series 
of thirteen essays he discusses more or less chronologically the development of 
Classical Arabic style and lexicon, not by closely reasoned argumentation, but 
with the help of selected items from the sources. Fück strongly believed in the 
survival of the declensional endings in Bedouin speech for centuries after the 
Islamic conquests (cf. above, Chapter 4). For more recent opinions about this 
controversy, see Fleisch (1964), Zwettler (1978), Versteegh (1984: 10–13) and 
Owens (2006).

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The Development of Classical Arabic 
83
On literacy in the 
Jāhiliyya 
see Macdonald (2010) and Stein (2010). The develop
-
ment of Arabic orthography is dealt with by Abbott (1939, 1972); a study on the 
development of the diacritic dots can be found in Revell (1975); a short survey 
of the traditional Arabic accounts of the invention of the orthographic system 
is in Semaan (1968). The classic handbook for Arabic palaeography is Grohmann 
(1967, 1971); the most recent one is Déroche (2005); for a shorter account, see 
Sijpesteijn (2008); a glossary of all terms related to manuscripts and script was 
compiled by Gacek (2001, 2008), who also produced an alphabetical vademecum 
with a large amount of specimens of writing (2009). The use of Greek and Arabic 
in the Nessana archive is studied by Stroumsa (2008); on the transition from Greek 
to Arabic in the papyri see Sijpesteijn (2007). A synthetic account of the develop
-
ment of orthography is by Endreß (1982). On the earliest examples of Qurʾānic 
writing, see Grohmann (1958); on the earliest manuscripts of the 
Qurʾān
,
 
see Robin 
(2006); the development of Ḥijāzī scripts for the 
Qurʾān
is dealt with by Déroche 
(2010); on the development of chancellery writing, see Abbott (1941). The later 
history of the Arabic script has not been treated here; for further references, see 
Schimmel (1982). On the use of Arabic script for other languages see Chapter 17, 
pp. 314f.
The history of the development of Arabic orthography is closely related to the 
textual history of the 
Qurʾān
, for which Nöldeke and Schwally (1961) remains the 
standard handbook. On the shift from recitation to book, see Nagel (1983) and 
Schoeler (1992); on the reception of the Qurʾānic codex by the grammarians, see 
Beck (1946); on the variant readings see Nasser (2012).
Both grammar writing and lexicography played a crucial role in the standardi
-
sation of the Arabic language; for further literature about the two disciplines, see 
below, Chapter 7. The role of ʾAbū l-ʾAswad is discussed by Talmon (1985).
Schall (1982) gives a general introduction to the study of the history of the 
Arabic lexicon. For the question of foreign words in the 
Qurʾān
, see Fraenkel (1886) 
and Jeffery (1938). Syriac/Aramaic words in the 
Qurʾān 
are a central issue in Luxen
-
berg’s (2000) theory of Aramaic as the 
lingua franca
of Mecca; for an appraisal, 
see Rippin (2008). For the commentators’ attitude towards foreign words, see 
Versteegh (1993a: 88–91). The examples from Muqātil’s 
Tafsīr
are taken from 
Versteegh (1990). The controversy about foreign words in the 
Qurʾān
and in Arabic 
is dealt with by Kopf (1956). The foreign vocabulary in Ibn Hišām’s 
Sīra
is listed by 
Hebbo (1970), who discusses more than 200 loanwords, of which more than 50 per 
cent derive from Aramaic/Syriac, while approximately 40 per cent derive from 
Persian and 10 per cent from Greek. On Persian borrowings in Arabic, see Asbaghi 
(1988). Bielawski (1956) compares the various methods used to expand the lexicon 
in the old and the modern period (cf. also below, Chapter 12) and provides many 
examples of loanwords. The examples of translations of logical terms are taken 
from Zimmermann (1972); an older, but still valuable, source for Arabic philo-
sophical terminology is Afnan (1964). A dictionary of the Arabic equivalents that 

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84
The Arabic Language
were used for Greek words by the translators is being compiled by Endreß and 
Gutas (1992–); the language of the translation literature is dealt with by Vagelpohl 
(2009); for the activities of the 
Bayt al-Ḥikma
,
 
see Gutas (1998).
On the language of 
rajaz
poetry and the special lexicon used by these poets, see 
Ullmann (1966), from which the examples quoted above were taken. For the devel
-
opment of a prose style in Arabic literature, see the programmatic article by Leder 
and Kilpatrick (1992), and the surveys in 
CHAL
by Latham (1983) and Serjeant 
(1983); for the special genre of sermons or speeches (
ḫuṭba
), see Qutbuddin (2008); 
for the development of the epistolary genre, see Gully (2008); for the role of Ibn 
al-Muqaffaʿ in the development of prose style, see Latham (1990). The develop-
ment of Islamic writing and the dichotomy between oral and written in early 
Islam is the subject of a series of publications by Schoeler (1985, 1989a, 1989b, 
1992, 1996). Information about the development of a library system in Islam is 
in Eche (1967). The activities of az-Zuhrī and Ibn ʾIsḥāq are dealt with by Motzki 
(1991) and Schoeler (1996). For history writing and the development from 
ʾaḫbār
to 
annalistic writing, see Rosenthal (1968). The issue of the authenticity of historical 
documents used by historians is discussed at length by Noth (1973). The debate 
about form (
lafḏ̣
) or meaning (
maʿnā
) is analysed by Heinrichs (1969: 69–82). For 
the language of writers such as ʾUsāma ibn Munqiḏ and Ibn ʾAbī ʾUṣaybiʿa, see 
below, Chapter 9, pp. 157–60.
The implications of ʿAbd al-Malik’s decree are discussed by Sprengling (1939). 
On the linguistic arguments of the Šuʿūbiyya movement, see Richter-Bernburg 
(1974). The relationship between Arabic and Turkic in Mamluk Egypt is analysed 
by Haarmann (1988); on the influence of Arabic in Turkish, see below, Chapter 17, 
pp. 324–6. On the emergence of New Persian as a literary language, see Lazard 
(1975) and Zadeh (2012); on Arabic influence in Persian, see below, Chapter 17, 
pp. 321–4.

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