KHUTAB III - 30. THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND ITS UNIQUENESS

30. THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND ITS UNIQUENESS

          Arabic language belongs to the Semitic languages. Philologists divided the Semitic languages into East Semitic and West Semitic.

1.        East Semitic (known as Akkadian) was the language used in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea.

2.        West Semitic is divided into

(a) North (Northwest) Semitic, the ancient languages of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine of which

(i)  Canaanite dialects (of Hebrew, Phoenician and Ugaritic) belonged

(ii Aramaic including Syriac (also called eastern Aramaic), Nabataean,            Palmyrene, Judean Aramaic and Christian Aramaic dialect of Palestine which was the mother-tongue of Prophet Jesus (‘Isa, a.s.); Neo-Aramic is used in few communities in Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia.

(b) South (Southwest) Semitic, including ancient dialects of South Arabia (such as Sabaean) and modern South Arabic.

The Semitic languages spoken today are Modern Hebrew and Arabic.

The last revelation sent to mankind from Allah the Almighty was the Qur’ān in Arabic. (See Q. 12:2, 13:37, 16:103, 20:113,  26:195, 39:28, 41:3, 42:7, 43:3,  and 46:12). It was in classical Arabic which emerged in Central Arabia in the 6^th century CE, out of many dialects spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula. It has become now the literary language of Islam. Classical Arabic is almost as old as Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon (c. 500-1050 CE) the root of which was from the dialects of invading settlers (Jutes, Saxons, Angles, and later, then Danish). People do not understand, even the language used by Chaucer, the Middle English (ca. 1050-1550 CE), which was influenced by Norman French after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the ecclesiastical Latin (Latin used by priests in the church), let alone the Old English. Yet, as the Qur’ān and the h.adīth of the Prophet are in classical Arabic, if ever the Prophet or any of his companions came to us we would still be able to understand them. There are now 21 Arab countries which are members of the Arab League formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, including Mauritania and Somalia, as they use Arabic and hold Arabic culture. Malta in the Mediterranean was ruled by the Arabs for almost 2 centuries (from 870 till 1090) and its people speak Arabic dialect, a mixture of Egyptian and Lebanese slangs and Italian language, but not included in the Arab League, may be because the Maltese use Latin scripts instead of Arabic and adopt Western culture. The majority of the population is Christian, only a few people are Muslims, mostly the Arabs from North Africa; and their second language is English. One example was the writing on a wall of a building Klein tejjib u helu. Gesu Kristu Huwa l'Iben Alla (“Everythning is alright and fine. Jesus Christ is the Son of God”). It was written Alla (without letter h), whereas in Arabic script there is letter h in the word Allah.

  Languages, like individuals, tribes and nations, have their own peculiarity and characteristics, but there must be something special with Arabic. Allah did not tell us why, but He said,

إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآَنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ. (يوسف : ٢)

 Verily, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur'an in

order that you  may understand.  (Q. 12:2).

 In another verse,

إِنَّا جَعَلْنَاهُ قُرْآَنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ (الزخرف : ٣)  

 Verily, We have made it a Qur'an in Arabic so that

 you may be able to understand. (Q. 43:3).

As the people of ancient Arabia spoke Arabic, the revelation was in Arabic, not in any other language, so that they may understand the content of the revelation. There must be something unique in this language. Among the characteristics of Arabic are as follows:

1.    Unlike many languages using Latin scripts, Arabic is written from left to right.

2.    It has no capital letters to identify the proper nouns. When Allah says in the Qur’ān,

 إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ . (الشورى : ٥١)

 Verily He (Allah) is Most High, Most Wise.  (Q. 42:51)

 it never means "He is Ali, Hakim", but if you do not cite this verse, but pointing at a person called ‘Alī, for example, then you can say  إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ meaning, "Verily, he is Ali." Therefore, the verse never means that Allah incarnates as ‘Alī, or considers ‘Alī having divinity, God forbid.         Allah says in the Qur’ān ,

 إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ الْإِسْلَامُ (آل عمران : ١٩)

 Truly, the religion with Allah is Islam (Q. 3:19),

and

وَمَنْ يَبْتَغِ غَيْرَ الْإِسْلَامِ دِينًا فَلَنْ يُقْبَلَ مِنْهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآَخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ  (آل عمران ٣:٨٥)

 And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted

 of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers. (Q. 3:85)

      Here the word Islam is a proper name, should be written in capital I, shall not be translated as “surrendering oneself to Allah,” as it includes non-Muslims who claim to surrender themselves to Allah, such as the Christians and the Jews. Islam here with capital I, the name of the religion followed by Muslims. All Qur’ānic commentators hold such opinion, translating الإسْلام as the religion of Islam. The Prophet himself explained the verse, as narrated by Abū Hurayrah, as follows:

By Him (Allah) in Whose Hand Muhammad's soul is, there is none from

 amongst the Jews and the Christians (of these present nation) who hears

 about me and then dies without believing in the Message with which I have

 been sent (i.e. Islamic Monotheism), but he will be from the dwellers of the

 (Hell) Fire. (Reported by Muslim in his S.ah.īh., h.adīth  no. 240).

          Long time ago in mid 80s, a friend, a former Libyan jet fighter pilot who emigrated to Canada told me this story: “A young officer was handed a piece of paper containing an expression of thank and appreciation to a teacher. The note read  نَشْكُرُ الأُسْتَاذَ عَلَى حُسْنِ سُلُوْكِهِ  meaning ‘We thank the teacher for his good behaviour’. The young officer, because of the absence of capital letter in Arabic, mistakenly read نَشْكُرُ الأُسْتَاذَ عَلِِي حَسَن َسّلوَكه meaning ‘We thank Mr. ‘Alī H.asan Sallūkah.’”

3.        Classical Arabic scripts have no dots for its consonants, so that we cannot make distinctions between the letters ت, ب , ث and ن or between the letters ر and ز , or between the letters ج, ح and خ , or between the letters س  and ش , or between the letters ص  and ض , or between the letters ط and ظ , or between the letters د  and  ذ . What is left is only what we call "the consonantal skeleton", like a tree in winter with no leaves remaining except its trunk. There was a story that a caliph sent a letter to his general summoning one of his soldiers. As the name of the summoned soldier had no consonantal dot, the general became confused, and sent several soldiers fixed to that name. Let us say, for example: H.usnī, H.asabī, Khashabī all were written the same, i.e., .

4.    Classical Arabic (even modern Arabic) scripts are without vowel sign. Therefore we cannot make a distinction between رجل (rajul) meaning "a man" from رجل (rijl) meaning "a leg" except in the sentence. It happened in a small town in Indonesia in the early fifties a teacher conducting a study circle in a mosque read a book to his students. When he came to the word ثمن   he read it thumun meaning "one-eighth" and he became confused. A student suggested that it might be thaman meaning "price" and the teacher was very happy that one of his students had solved the problem.

5.    Unlike the Western languages, the Arabic has dual besides singular and plural. So, if you have two cars, you still do not have many cars, you need to have at least three cars to have many cars in Arabic.

6.    The plural in Arabic is mostly broken one. In English, it is simply by putting letter s, like books, letters etc. In Arabic, it is like ox-oxen, woman-women, foot-feet. It is like having two names for everything, its name in singular and its name in plural. For the new words which did not exist before, such as bank the Arabs invented its plural, bunūk in the pattern of  بُيُوْت  (buyūt) for the plural of بَيْت   (bayt, a house), whereas in Morocco, it is abnāk in the pattern of  أبْيَات  (abyāt), the plural of بَيْت   (bayt, a line of poetry).

7.    A slight change of vowel in Arabic changes the meaning, such as:

مَطَر  (mat.ar) is "rain", مَطَار   (mat.ār) is "airport" 

 هَذاَ قَاتِلٌ أَخِي (hādhā qātilun akhī), meaning "This is a killer, my brother,"

 هَذَا قَاتِلُ أَخِي (hādhā qātilu akhī), meaning "This is the killer of my brother"

 رَجُلً ُلُعْنَة ، ُسبَّة ،  ُخدْعَة (rajulun lu‘nah, subbah, khud‘ah), means "a man who is cursed, is insulted, cheated (by people)"

رَجُلً ُلعَنة ، ُسَببَة, ُخدَعَة (rajulun lu‘anah, subabah, khuda‘ah), "a man who curses, insults, cheats (people)"

We have the pattern in the Qur’an وَيْلٌ لِكُلِّ هُمَزَةٍ لُمَزَةٍ (الهمزة ١٠٤:١)  waylun likulli humazatin lumazah) "Woe to every slanderer and backbiter." (Q. 104:1)

A Bedouin was asked by a caliph, مَنْ خَتَنَك؟ (man khatanak) meaning "Who circumcised you?" When the Bedouin mentioned the name of a very old person, the caliph's assistant told him to correct the question and ask مَنْ خَتَنُك؟  (man khatanuk) meaning "Who is your son-in-law?"

8.    The meaning of a word could be specified by changing one of its consonants, such as: غَلَط  (ghalat.) is any mistake in general, whereas غَلَت  (ghalat) is mistake in counting. If you say that the moon is closer to us than China, because you can see the moon, but not China, this is    غَلَطْ (ghalat.), with letter ط . The Indonesian language misspells this word and says ralat meaning the correction of mistake, which is in Arabic إِصْلَاحُ اْلغَلَط or تَصْحِيْحُ اْلغَلَط. If you say two plus three equals six, this is غَلَت (ghalat) with letter ت. In order to distinguish between the two words, we pronounce letter ط more strongly and clearly. Another word, قَبْض (qabd.) means holding with the palm and fingers, whereas قَبْص (qabs.) means holding with the tips of the fingers.

9.    It uses different levels of emphasis, such as, the a person who does not know that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, we say مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُوْلُ الله. To the doubter we emphasize by saying إنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُوْلُ الله with the additional  إِنَّ (verily). If he is still in doubt, we emphasize more by saying   إنَّ مُحَمَّدًا لَرَسُوْلُ الله with the additional لَ. For the final emphasis we swear by Allah, saying   واللهِ (wallāh), orبِالله  (billāh), or تَالله (tallāh).  Unfortunately, nowadays some people swear by Allah without being asked to make you believe them.

10. Some Arabic words are rich with synonyms, sometimes to indicate the slight difference in meaning of something, such as lions (claimed to have hundreds of names, among which are: الأسََد and اللَّيْث), snakes (claimed to have hundreds of names, among which are: الحَيَّة , الثُّعْبَان, الأفْعَى , الحَنَش ), honey (claimed to have about eighty names), rain (from light, moderate, and heavy rain), and sleep (from light to heavy sleepiness to light and sound sleep). Love is one of important words in classical Arabic. It has ten words depending on its level, from (1)العَلَق (al-‘alaq, attachment), (2) المَيْل  (al-mayl, inclination), (3)المَوَدَّة  (al-mawaddah, likeness, love), (4) الحُبّ  (al-h.ubb, love), (5) الصَّبَابَة (al-s.abābah, ardent love), (6) الهَوَى (al-hawá, passion, desire, craving), (7) العِشْق (al-‘ishq, passionate love), (8) التَّتَيُّم (al-tatayyum, being enslaved or infatuated by love); a person who is enslaved by love is called  مُتَيََّّم and cannot control his passion any longer, when a young man said to a girl أَمُوْتُ فِيْك  (“I am ready to die for your sake”); hopefully, when he marries her it would not end with divorce, as one of three marriages in the West ends with divorce. A tour guide at Troy, after telling the Greek legend of the Trojan War that lasted for ten years, asked the tourists: “Are you ready to wage war for ten years for the sake of a girl like Helen of Troy?” One of the tourists said, "[Even] for twenty years." Since it was not a serious question, I said, “I would also say the same answer.” The guide said: “I have asked the same question before at a previous tour, and one of the wives of the tourists took it seriously and said, ‘Stop this silly question!’” This is an example of uncontrollable love. (9) الُخُلَّة (al-khullah), now translated as “friendship” whereas it is close to madness; the word تَخَلَّلَ (takhallala) also means “to permeate”, and the word خَلِيْلَة  (khalīlah) means “a sweetheart”, and (10) الجُنُوْن (madness), an example is the story of Qays called مَجْنُوْنُ لَيْلَى who was madly in love of Layla who married another person. Qays went to the desert to find her. When he was asked why he searched for her in the desert, he said that this was the only place wheاre he did not search for her.  

For the word sitting down the word قَعَد - قُعُوْدً is used to indicate standing before sitting down, and   جَلَسَ –  جُلُوْسًا to indicate lying down  before sitting down. In the Qur’ān, it is used قَعَد - قُعُوْدًا and its derivatives, such as in Q. 9:90, 3:168, 7:16, 6:68, 17:22, 29, 4:140, 7:68, 72:9, 9:5,46, 83, 85:6, 3:191, 4:103, 10:12, 4:95, 5:24, 4:95,  9:46, 86. The Qur’an mentions only one of the derivates of جَلَسَ – جُلُوْسًا   namely, مَجَالِس (assemblies) in تَفَسَّحُوْا فِي ْالمَجَالِس “make a room in the assemblies” Q. 58:11. At present, the two words are almost identical.

So far, I have mentioned ten of the unique features of Arabic. There are many more, among which is its being called لغة الأضداد (“the language of opposite meanings”) which shall be dealt with in due course. (ANUMA 15 September, 2006).

المراجع:

            إبن الأنباري, محد بن قاسم . كتاب الأضداد. الكويت: دار التراث العربي, ١٩٦٠

            أبن قتيبة, أبو محمد عبدالله. أدب الكاتب. ليدن: إ.ج. بريل, ١٩٠٠

            الثعالبي, أبو منصور عبد الملك .  فقه اللغة و أسرار العربية. مصر: المطبعة الأدبية, ١٣١٨ هـ