ARABIC LANGUAGE. In the 7th and 8th centuries, Arab conquests and the expansion of Islam spread the Arabic language into many countries outside Arabia, and in some form or other it is spoken (sometimes, along with other languages) in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Malta, north Africa, and in certain districts further south ; e.g., in the Sudan, Nigeria, the western Sahara, and Zanzibar. Arabic was formerly spoken in Spain, which produced important contributions to Arabic litera ture, in the Balearic islands and Sicily (up to the end of the period of Arab domination), in the island of Pantelleria, between Sicily and Tunis (up to the 18th century) and in Madagascar.
Even in Arabia itself the Arabic language exhibits dialectic dif ferences, and such variations are still more marked in countries more remote from the land of its origin. But the written language has almost invariably conformed to that type which has been con veniently denominated as classical Arabic, characterized by an ex traordinary richness of vocabulary and the logical, systematic character of its grammatical structure.
The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters. (For pronunciation, see W. H. T. Gairdner, The Phonetics of Arabic, 1925.) To these may be added ' (hamza), the glottal stop. (For a discussion of the divergent theories on hamza, see C. Landberg, Glossaire Datinois, p.
sqq.,
Roots.—Most Arabic words (except those of foreign origin) can be traced back to a triliteral root ; some words are considered to be derived from roots of two consonants only (v. Th. Noldeke, Neue Beitrdge zur semitischen Sprachwissenscha f t, pp. 109-178, 191o). By combining these consonants with certain other letters, the original idea associated with the root can be modified in such a manner that the three letters of the root (provided that one or more of them is neither hamza, waw nor ya) can in most cases be clearly recognized; e.g., from the root KTB "write," we have KaTaBna "we wrote," naKTuBu "we will write," KaTiBu't "writ ing, a writer," KiTaBu" "a book," maKTaBu'L "a place of writing, a school," rnuKTiBu" "a teacher of writing," taKdTaBd "they two corresponded with one another," astaKTiBu "I will ask (him) to write," wa.KtaTaBa "and he got his name written down (in the register)," KuTTeiB" "scribes," muKaTaBatu?t "correspond ence," etc.
The Arabic verb has only two tenses: Perfect and Imperfect.
The Perfect tense of the Indicative of the Active of the simple verb, formed from the root QTL (meaning "kill"), is as follows: If the vowel following the second radical in the Perfect is i, that of the Imperfect is generally a; if this vowel in the Perfect is u, that of the Imperfect is invariably u.
The Arabic verb has in the Active five moods, viz., the Indica tive (both Perfect and Imperfect), the Subjunctive and Apoco pated (Imperfect only), the Imperative (having a special form.) and the Energetic (both Apocopated and Imperative).
The Perfect and Imperfect Passive differ from the correspond ing tenses of the Active in that the first radical of the Perfect is always followed by u and the second radical by i; while in the Imperfect the prefixes take u and the second radical a. The Pas sive has the same moods as the Active, with the exception of the Imperative and the Energetic of the Imperative, the Apocopated being used instead.
The meaning of the simple verb may be modified in various ways by the addition of one or more letters to the root, and thus 14 derived conjugations may be formed. The commonest of these and of the changes of meaning they imply are as follows:—II, by doubling the medial consonant of the root the meaning is intensi fied (e.g., KaSaRa "he broke," KaSSaRa "he smashed") ; or an intransitive verb becomes transitive (e.g., FaRiHa "he was glad," FaRRaHa "he gladdened") ; or a transitive verb becomes doubly transitive (e.g., HaMaLa "he carried," HaMMaLa "he made to carry"). III adds a after the first radical, with the idea of rec iprocity or effort (e.g., KaTaBa "he wrote," KetTaBa "he cor responded with," GliaLaBa "he overcame," GhaLaBa "he tried to overcome"). IV prefixes hamza, with a causative meaning (e.g., JaLaSa "he sat," 'alLaSa "he made to sit"). V (ta+II, e.g., taKaSSaRa "it is smashed") and VI (tad-III, e.g., taKdTaBd "they are in correspondence with one another") and VII (n+-I, e.g., wa nKaSaRa "and it is broken") and VIII (ta inserted between the first and second radicals, e.g., FaRaQa "he divided," wa FtaRaQa "and it went asunder") commonly express a state or condition. IX doubles the third radical and is used chiefly of colours and defects (e.g., wa SFaRRa "and it is yellow"). X (st + I, e.g., GhaFaRa "he pardoned," wa sta—Fara "and he asked for pardon") has a variety of meanings—asking for, re flexive, denominative, etc. Conjugations XI to XV are com paratively rare.
These forms of the simple verb undergo modifications if the second and third radicals are identical, or one of the radicals is hamza or W or Y.
There are two articles: (I) definite t "the" (origi nally a demonstrative pronoun, "this, that") ; at the beginning of a sentence al, and always so written, except after the preposition li "for," and (2) indefinite n "a, an," affixed to the end of a noun, etc. ; e.g., li 1 nnaliki "for the king" ; li malikin "for a king." Nouns.—There are two declensions of nouns in the singular: (I) triptote, u (nom.), i (gen.), a (acc.) ; (2) diptote, u (nom.), a (gen. and acc.) ; the latter never takes the indefinite article and conforms to (I) when determined by the definite article or by a following genitive. There are terminations for the dual and plural. But the idea of plurality is more often expressed by means of singular collective nouns, among which are the so-called "broken plurals," of which there are 29 varieties, each associated with some one or more forms of the singular noun.
There are two genders only, masc. and fem. (For the theories on the origin of gender, v. A. J. Wensinck, Some aspects of gender in the Semitic languages; 1927.) Numerals.—The cardinal numbers (with the exception of the first two, which are adjectives) are all substantives and are fol lowed, from 3 to 1o, by the genitive of the broken plural (where possible) and take the fem. form when the objects numbered are masc., and vice versa:—from I I to 99, by the acc. sing.; I oo and I,000 by the gen. sing.
It is not possible here to give an account of the dia lectical peculiarities of the different local varieties of Arabic, but details may be found in regard to the more important of these in the grammars enumerated below :—Egypt : W. H. T. Gairdner, Egyptian colloquial Arabic (1926) ; J. S. Willmore, The spoken Arabic of Egypt (1905) ; D. C. Phillott and A. Powell, Manual of Egyptian Arabic (1926) ; Syria and Palestine: G. R. Driver, A grammar of the colloquial Arabic of Syria and Palestine (1925); H. H. Spoer and E. N. Haddad, Manual of Palestinian Arabic (1909) ; Mesopotamia: J. Van Ess, The Spoken Arabic of Meso potamia (1917) ; A Socin, Der arabische Dialekt von Mosul and Mardin (1904) ; Algeria: A. G. P. Martin, Methode deductive d'arabe nord-africain (1919) ; Morocco: M. Gaudefroy-Demom bynes et L. Mercier, Manuel d'arabe marocain (1913) ; Nigeria: G. L. Lethem, Colloquial Arabic, Sliuwa dialect of Burnu, Nigeria, and of the region of Lake Chad (19 20) ; Tunis: J. Clermont, L'arahe parle tunisien (1909) ; Sudan: A. Worsley, Sudanese Grammar (1925) ; S. Hillelson, Sudan Arabic, an English-Arabic vocabulary (1925) ; Malta: H. Stumme; Maltesische Studien
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-W. Wright, Grammar of the Arabic Language Bibliography.-W. Wright, Grammar of the Arabic Language (1896) ; H. Reckendorf, Die syntaktischen Verhaltnisse des Arabischen (i898) ; J. B. Belot, Cours pratique de langue arabe (1902) ; Socin Brockelmann, Arabische Grammatik (1909). (T. W. A.)
