Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:14:39.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Arabic of the Islamic conquests: notes on phonology and morphology based on the Greek transcriptions from the first Islamic century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2017

Ahmad Al-Jallad
Ahmad Al-Jallad*
Affiliation:
Leiden University1
*
a.m.al-jallad@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper attempts to reconstruct aspects of the phonology and morphology of the Arabic of the Islamic conquests on the basis of Greek transcriptions in papyri of the first Islamic century. The discussion includes phonemic and allophonic variation in consonants and vowels, and nominal morphology. The essay concludes with a discussion on possible Aramaic and South Arabian influences in the material, followed by a short appendix with remarks on select Arabic terms from the pre-Islamic papyri.

Keywords

Old ArabicSemitic linguisticsGreek transcriptionsIslamic conquestsArabic grammar
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , October 2017 , pp. 419 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I first thank my colleague Marijn van Putten who read carefully a draft of this paper, correcting errors in the sigla in addition to his usual insightful comments. I also owe thanks to the enthusiasm of the scholarly community on Academia.edu for participating in a session surrounding this paper and discussing with me many of its points. I would especially like to thank Dr David Kiltz, Dr Julien Dufour, Dr Harald Samuel, Dr Maarten Kossmann and Dr Emily J. Cotrell for their helpful corrections and suggestions. All errors are my own.

References

Al-Ghul, Omar. 2006. “Preliminary notes on the Arabic material in the Petra Papyri”, Topoi 14, 139–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad. 2017. “Graeco-Arabica I: The Southern Levant”, in Al-Jallad, Ahmad (ed.), Arabic in Context, 99–186. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad. 2014a. “Aṣ-ṣādu llatī ka-s-sīn – evidence for an affricated Ṣād in Sibawayh?”, Folia Orientalia 51: 51–7.Google Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad. 2014b. “On the genetic background of the Rbbl Bn Hfʿm grave inscription at Qaryat Al-Fāw”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77/3, 445–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad. 2015a. An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. (SSLL 80.) Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad. 2015b. “On the voiceless reflex of *ṣ́ and *ṯ̣ in Pre-Hilalian Maghrebian Arabic”, Journal of Arabic Linguistics, 62: 88–95.Google Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad, Daniel, Robert and al-Ghul, Omar. 2013. “The Arabic toponyms and Oikonyms in 17”, in Koenen, Ludwig, Kaimio, Maarit and Daniel, Robert (eds), The Petra Papyri II, 23–48. Amman : ACOR.Google Scholar
Al-Jallad, Ahmad and Manaser, Ali. 2015. “New epigraphica from Jordan I: a pre-Islamic Arabic inscription in Greek letters and a Greek inscription from north-eastern Jordan”, Arabian Epigraphic Notes 1, 51–70.Google Scholar
Beeston, A.F.L., Smith, G.R. and Jonstone, T.M.. 2012 (online edition). “Ḥaḍramawt”, in Encylopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by Bearman, P., Bianguis, Th., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., Heinrichs, W.P.. Consulted online 10 August 2016 http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1405.Google Scholar
Bell, Harold Idris. 1911. The Aphrodito Papyri: with an Appendix of Coptic Papyri (Greek Papyri in the British Museum. 4.) London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Bellamy, James. 1990. “Arabic verses from the 1st/2nd century: the inscription of ʿEn ʿAvdat”, Journal of Semitic Studies 35/1, 73–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blau, Joshua. 1972. “On the problem of the synthetic character of Classical Arabic as against Judaeo-Arabic (Middle Arabic)”, Jewish Quarterly Review N.S. 63, 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blau, Joshua. 2006. “Problems of noun inflection in Arabic: reflections on the diptote declension”, in Fassberg, S.E. and Hurvitz, A. (eds), Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives, 27–32. Winona Lake, IN: Magnes Press; Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Cantineau, Jean. 1978. Le Nabatéen. Réimpression de l’éd. de Paris 1930/1932. Osnabrück: Zeller.Google Scholar
de Jong, Rudolf. 2011. “Gahawa-syndrome”, in Edzard, Lutz and de Jong, Rudolf (eds), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Online. Leiden: Brill Online.Google Scholar
Diem, Werner. 1973. “Die Nabatäischen Inschriften und die Frage der Kasusflexion im Altarabischen”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 123, 227–37.Google Scholar
Grohmann, Adolf. 1924. Protokolle. Vol. 2: Einleitung und Texte: mit einer Schrifttafel und vier Abbildungen im Texte; Vol. 3: Tafeln. (Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Archiducis Austriae. Series III, 1/2–3.) Vienna.Google Scholar
Harding, G. Lankester. 1971. An Index and Concordance of Pre-Islamic Arabian Names and Inscriptions. (Near and Middle East 8.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Simon. 1984. Studies in the Grammar of Early Arabic: Based upon Papyri Datable to before 300 A.H./912 A.D. (London Oriental Series 37.) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hoyland, Robert G. 1997. Seeing Islam as Others Saw it: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Princeton: Darwin Press.Google Scholar
Isserlin, Benedikt. 1969. “The Nessana Papyri. The Greek transcriptions of Arabic”, The Annual of Leeds University 7, 17–31.Google Scholar
Jeffery, Arthur. 1938. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Baroda: Oriental Institute.Google Scholar
de Jong, Rudolf. 2011. “Gahawa-syndrome”, in Edzard, Lutz and de Jong, Rudolf (eds), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Online. Leiden: Brill Online.Google Scholar
Kaplony, Andreas. 2015. “On the orthography and pronunciation of Arabic names and terms in the Greek Petra, Nessana, Qurra, and Senouthios letters”, Mediterranean Language Review 22, 1–81.Google Scholar
Kogan, Leonid. 2011. “Proto-Semitic phonetics and phonology”, in Weninger, Stephan, Khan, Geoffrey, Streck, Michael and Watson, Janet (eds), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 54–151. (Handbücher Zur Sprach- Und Kommunikationswissenschaft 36.) Boston and Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kossmann, Maarten. 2013. The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraemer, C. J. Jr. 1958. Non-Literary Papyri. (Excavations at Nessana, Auja Hafir, Palestine. 3.) Princeton.Google Scholar
Lane, Edward W. 1863–1893. An Arabic-English Lexicon. 8 Volumes, London: Willams and Norgate.Google Scholar
Mavroudi, Maria. 2008. “Arabic words in Greek letters: the violet fragment and more”, in Proceedings of the First Interntional Symposium on Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic Throughout History, Louvain-La-Neuve 11–14 May 2004, 321–54. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Ohlig, Karl-Heinz. 2007. Der Frühe Islam: Eine Historisch-Kritische Rekonstruktion Anhand Zeitgenössischer Quellen. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler.Google Scholar
Retsö, Jan. 2003. The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Robin, Christian. 2004. “Himyar et Israël”, Comptes Rendus Des Séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 148/2, 831–908. doi:10.3406/crai.2004.22750.Google Scholar
van Putten, Marijn and Benkato, Adam. 2017. “The Arabic strata in Awjila Berber”, in Al-Jallad, A. (ed.), Arabic in Context. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Violet, Bruno. 1901. “Ein zweisprachiges Psalmfragment aus Damascus”, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 4, 384–403; 425–41; 475–88.Google Scholar
Woidich, Manfred, and Zack, Lisbeth. 2009. “The G/ǧ question in Egyptian Arabic revisited”, in al-Wer, Enam and de Jong, Rudolf (eds), Arabic Dialectology: In Honour of Clive Holes on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, 41–60. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wuthnow, Heinz. 1930. Die semitischen Menschennamen in griechischen Inschriften und Papyri des vorderen Orient. (Studien zur Epigraphik und Papyruskunde 1.4.) Leipzig: Dieterich.Google Scholar