ARABIC LANGUAGE (ar'a-bik).
That important family of languages of which the Arabic is the cultivated and most widely extended branch has long wanted an appropriate common name. Under a sense of the impropriety of the term Oriental languages, Eichhorn was the first, as he says himself (Aug.l Bibl. Biblioth. vi: 772) to introduce the name Semitic languages, which was soon generally adopted, and which is the most usual one at the present day. Neverthe less, Stange ( in his Theolog. Symmikta) justly objected to this name as violating the statements of the very Mosaic account (Gen. x) on which the propriety of its use professed to be based. For, according to that genealogical table, some nations, which in all probability did not speak a language belonging to this family, are descended from Shem, and others, which did speak such a language, are derived from Ham. Thus 'Elam and Asshur are deduced from Shem (verse 22), and the descendants of Cush in Arabia and Ethi opia. as well as all the Canaanites, from Ham (verse 7, sq.).\ (1) In modern times, however, the very appropriate designation Syro-Arabian languages has been proposed by Dr. Prichard, in his Physical History of Man. This term has the advantage of forming an exact counterpart to the name by which the only other great family of languages with which we are likely to bring the Syro-Arabian into relations of contrast or accord ance, is now universally known—the Indo-Ger manic. Like it, by taking up only the two extreme members of a whole sisterhood according to their geographical position when in their native seats, it embraces all the intermediate branches under a common band, and, like it, it constitutes a name which is not only at once intelligible, but one which in itself conveys a notion of that affinity between the sister dialects, which it is one of the objects of comparative philology to demonstrate and to apply.
Springing from the same root as the Hebrew, and possessing such traces of affinity to so late a period as the time of Solomon, this Syro Arabian dialect was further enabled, by several circumstances in the social state of the nation, to retain its native resemblance of type until the date of the earliest extant written documents. These circumstances were, the almost insular position of the country, which prevented conquest or com merce from debasing the language of its inhabit ants; the fact that so large a portion of the na tion adhered to a mode of life in which every impression was, as it were, stereotyped, and knew no variation for ages ; and the fact that the people had, and according to Burckhardt still have, a great and just pride in the purity of their language.
(2) Preserved from Foreign Influence. These causes preserved the language from foreign influences at a time when, as the Koran and a national literature had not yet given it its full stature, such influences would have been most able to destroy its integrity. During this
interval, nevertheless, the language received a peculiarly ample development in a certain direc tion. The limited incidents of a desert life still allowed valor, love, generosity, and satire to oc cupy the keen sensibilities of the chivalrous Bedouin. These feelings found their vent in ready verse and eloquent prose ; and thus, when Islam first called the Arabs into the more varied activity and more perilous collision with foreign nations, which resulted from the union of their tribes under a common interest to hold the same faith and to propagate it by the sword, the lan guage had already received all the development which it could derive from the pre-eminently creative and refining impulses of poetry and eloquence.
However great may be the amount of resem blance between Arabic and Hebrew which a due estimate of all the theoretical grounds for the affinity, and for the diversity, between them would entitle its to assume, it is certain that a comparison of the actual state of both in their purest form evinces a degree of proximity which exceeds expectation. Two-thirds of the Hebrew roots, according to the assertion of Aurivillius, ill his Dissertationes. p. It. Ed. J. D. Michaelis, may be found in Arabic under the same letters, and either in the same or a very kindred sense.
(3) Fertility. The Arabs glory in the fer tility of their language, which, certainly, is one of the most ancient in the world : and is re markable for its copiousness and the multitude of words which express the same thing. We read in Pococke's Notes on Abulpharagius. that Ibn Chalawaisch composed a hook on the names of the lion. which amounted to five hundred ; and those of the serpent to two hundred. Honey is said to have eighty names ; and a sword one thousand. The greater part of these. names, how ever, are poetical epithets just as we say the Almighty for God. So in Arabic, the lion is the strong, the terrible, etc. Some specimens of their poetry are thought by Schultens to be of the age of Solomon. The present Arabic char acters are modern. The ancient writing of Arabia was without vowels, like the Hebrew; and so is also the modern Arabic, except in the Koran and other specimens of exact chirography.
ARAD (a'radi, Illeb. ar-awaP, perhaps flight), the name of a city and two men.
1. Arad. called also :\rada, Arath, Adraa, or Adra, a city south of the tribe of Judah and the land of Canaan, in Arabia PHI-tea. The Israelites having advanced towards Canaan, the king of Arad opposed their passage, defeated them, and took a booty from them. But they devoted his country as accursed, and destroyed all its cities. when they became masters of the land of Canaan (Num. xxi 2. A king who fought with the Israelites near Mount flor and was defeated (Num. xxi ; xx tali :33. 40). B. C. 1452.
3. One of the sons of Beriali. the lienjamite, a principal inhabitant of Aijalon (t Chron. viii :15),P C. about 1.100.