The Ecology of Arabic: A History of Arabicization (original) (raw)
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Arabic Language: Historic and Sociolinguistic Characteristics
This study tries to highlight the historical development of Arabic throughout the centuries. It also presents some linguistic characteristics of Arabic with a slight comparison to Sana’ani Yemen Dialect. In addition, the study presents the diglossic situation of Arabic through discussing the social role played by both Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) and the different Arabic dialects in the Arab societies as well as the relationship between diglossia and education. Historically, the study shows that Arabic has been undergone different stages of development and progress over the centuries and the advent of Islam marks the real occurrence of Arabic as a standard language through the revelation of the Holy Quran which was revealed in Arabic. Such a remarkable turning point immensely contributed to transmitting Arabic from the unknown side of the history to be a world language. On the other hand, Arabic has unique linguistic characteristics which make it a distinctive language. Moreover, Arabic shares with other Semitic languages the root of pattern morphology which functions as a generator of Arabic words.
Review of "History and Development of the Arabic Language"
This review has been published in Romano-Arabica XVII (2017): Fictional beings in Middle East Cultures. Muhammad al-Sharkawi, History and Development of the Arabic Language, London and New York, Routledge, 2017, 274 p. ISBN 978-1-138-82152-1
English Literature and Language Review Arabic Language: Historic and Sociolinguistic Characteristics
2015
Arabic is one of the World's major languages with roughly 300 million speakers in twenty two Arab countries. In 1974, Arabic was attested as one of the sixth United Nation's official languages alongside Chinese, Russian, English, French and Spanish. As a Semitic language, Arabic possesses many unique linguistic characteristics such as writing from the right to the left, the dual number of the nouns which is not found in English, the two genders, feminine and masculine, beside the root, the most salient feature of Semitic languages. Extensively, Arabic philologists have studied the Arabic language in relation to the other Semitic languages in a bid to show the uniqueness of Arabic as compared to the other Semitic languages. Versteegh (1997) mentions that within the group of Semitic languages, Arabic and Hebrew have always been the most-studied languages. He shows that the reason is not only the familiarity of scholars of Semitic languages with the Arabic language and the relative wealth of data about its history, but also its apparent conservatism, in particular its retention of a declensional system (Versteegh, 1997). It stands to reason that language is a living entity that always undergoes the different circumstances of life: change, development, modernization, disappearance and sometimes death. However, Arabic could have retained its unique features throughout the centuries despite some slight changes which happened due to the Arab contacts with non-Arabs causing emergence of new varieties along with Classical Arabic. Turning to the position of Arabic, Arabic has a prestigious status not only in Arabic-speaking countries, but in all Muslim communities. Prestigious position as such goes back to the very early period of Islam where Arabic throughout that period remained the language of prestige that was used for all religious, cultural, administrative and scholarly purposes (Versteegh, 1997). Undoubtedly, Arabic has an abundance of colloquial forms across the Arab World. All such varieties are originally derived from Classical Arabic. Consequently, a wide range of similarities has been noted between Classical Arabic and these different varieties in all linguistic levels. 2. The History of Arabic Arabic has been regarded as a member of Semitic languages which include a number of languages in the Middle East and North Africa. It is originally generated from Afro-Asiatic languages which includes besides Arabic different languages such as Hebrew, Ethiopian and other languages. The first emergence of Arabic as a world language goes back to the seventh century CE. The century of Islam diffusion that followed the death of Prophet Mohammed brought both Islam as a religion and Arabic language to the attention of a world that had possessed only the vaguest notion of what went on in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula (Versteegh, 1997).
Zuhgrian Attarik, 2023
Through history we can see the development of an event whether it is something formal, universal, or individual. The development of language is a witness that language is always evolving from year to year. Language is a communication tool used by humans to interact with each other which on both sides knows or understands each other. In linguistics language is defined as an arbitrary sound system, which is used by members of a society to cooperate, interact, and identify (KBBI). Arabic is a language that exists in the arabian peninsula. This language is a language found in the holy book of Muslims, namely the Qur'an. The Arabic language itself has a very significant development. The Arabic language has a very complex development. Generally, people who lived in Arabia at the time of the Prophet shalallahu 'alaihi wa sallam were Arabic linguists they were people who would understand Arabic very well. The history of Arabic has made Arabic a language with a huge number of meanings.
The Social Events and the Development of Arabic Language in the Early Period of Islam
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This paper discussed the social phenomena that occurred during the birth of Islam and its influence on the revolution process in developing the Arabic language. The study was a qualitative research with a descriptive design relying on documents and literature of al-Mujtama'at al-Islamiyah as the primary reference source. This paper showed the social events that accompanied the birth of Islam had an impact and influence on the growth and development of the Arabic language. The social events during the early period of Islam were a great momentum for the revelation of the Qur'an, the entry of Islamic teachings into the Arab ignorant society. The establishment of social interaction relations between Arab and Islamic communities became a powerful event in forming the Arabic language. Thus, the early period of the birth of Islam was a time of transformation in standard Arabic. The events and social phenomena that occurred during the early period of Islam also had implications for ...
Urbanization and the Development of Arabic
This article suggests that the Arabicization of Iraq, Syria and Egypt in the seventh and eighth centuries was made possible by the urbanization of the region. I discuss three relevant points: the manner of conquests, the establishment of Arab urban centers, and the migration of Arabs and non-Arabs to these towns. The article suggests that establishing garrison towns, the concentration of Arabs in these towns, and the subsequent migration of local populations to these towns established the Arabic language as a majority language of prestige. The Arabs' need to communicate for practical reasons enticed them to use simplified registers known in similar modern contexts of language contact as foreigner talk registers. Imperial migration policies permitted Arabs to migrate to the garrison towns only if they belonged to the same tribes that took part in the initial conquest of the province, which permitted only a limited number of Arabic dialects to mix for a long time in the new urban centers. Eventually, the differences among the dialects were leveled and the structures regularized. A new urban koine emerged in every garrison town that was both different from the original dialects of Arabic in the peninsula and from each other. The article suggests that these linguistic processes of simplification and koineization shaped the input that was learnt by the local populations, and caused the differences between the old dialects of Arabic and the new urban dialects in the Arab world.
A history of the Arabic language and the origin of non-dominant varieties of Arabic
Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide: Pluricentric languages across continents, 2016
To comprehend how Arabic became a pluricentric language, we need to navigate through its rich history. In this paper, I focus on three stages in the development of Arabic: Classical Arabic, Middle Arabic and Modern Arabic. I explain how the fate of Arabic was permanently sealed in the Classical period with the emergence of Islam and the subsequent Islamic conquests. At the peak of the Islamic empire, the codification of Arabic preserved it as a dominant written language. However, the indigenous languages which Arabic had displaced in new regions gave way to non-dominant regional varieties. These varieties continued to diverge from the codified variety during the Middle period, giving rise to diglossia in Arabic. I conclude with a review of the modern period and the Arabic revival efforts which marked the creation of Modern Standard Arabic while the colonially influenced non-dominant varieties drifted further still.
The Miracle of Arabic Language: From Pre-Islamic To Islamization
Jurnal Ilmu Agama: Mengkaji Doktrin, Pemikiran, dan Fenomena Agama
Language contributes greatly to human civilization. Among the world's major languages spoken by mankind is Arabic. Arabic influences many aspects of life, such as Roman civilization in many fields, even music and poetry. Jahiliyyah Arabic only serves as a literary language. But when Islam came, Arabic underwent a very significant development, becoming the language of science. This is what is meant by the process of Islamization. This study aims to explain the influence of Islam on Arabic. Therefore, through this paper it can be concluded that even though there are several Arabic terms that are the same as those used during the Jahiliyyah and the advent of Islam, basically they have different meanings and emphasis. Islam came to have an influence in facilitating the pronunciation of Arabic terms which were previously complicated or even providing new Arabic vocabulary that was not known during the Jahiliyya period.