# How has Arabic evolved to keep up with global trends?



## TryingToSwallowHansWehr

A lecturer has posed the question to me: _By which means, and assuming that the grammarians in question had no knowledge of European languages, how was fusha constructed - and how has it evolved since then - to allow it to keep up with global trends? How has it had to compromise itself, or change, to fit in with contemporary geopolitics and its exposure to different cultures and society?_

Any help, or suggested reading, would be most appreciated.


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## clevermizo

That deals with extralinguistic issues which I guess is beyond the scope of the forum.

But why does the grammatical structure of a language need to evolve to keep up with global trends? Standard Arabic invents new words or borrows terms when necessary, in an organic fashion, just like any other language, when a word does not exist. But this is _lexical_ issue, which hardly has to do with the core grammar of the language. 

So I'm not really sure if I understand what's posed. I should say it probably hasn't had to "compromise" itself much at all.

Furthermore, you cannot assume that Arabic grammarians throughout the ages had no knowledge of European languages, as I'm sure that's false. I mean, one of the greatest grammarians, Sibawayh, was Persian and thus Indo-European-speaking. But I don't see what this has to do with the development of fuS7a throughout the ages.

I'd tell your lecturer that I take issue with the question, or I'd pose it in reverse and see how well they fair with respect to say, English.


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## Anatoli

clevermizo said:


> ...Standard Arabic invents new words or borrows terms when necessary, in an organic fashion, just like any other language, when a word does not exist. But this is _lexical_ issue, which hardly has to do with the core grammar of the language. ...



Indeed. I wonder between choices of words like "blog"  مدونة إلكترونية (Arabic invention) or بلوغ or بلوج or  بلوق (borrowed terms). Is it true that many loanwords are considered dialectal and Arabic inventions are part of Fus-ha? Another example  police -  شرطة and بوليس?


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## clevermizo

Anatoli said:


> Indeed. I wonder between choices of words like "blog"  مدونة إلكترونية (Arabic invention) or بلوغ or بلوج or  بلوق (borrowed terms). Is it true that many loanwords are considered dialectal and Arabic inventions are part of Fus-ha? Another example  police -  شرطة and بوليس?



I don't think that a borrowed word is considered automatically dialectal. Spoken Arabic dialects, due to their lack of standardization, are simply more open to accepting words from other languages, so therefore there are more borrowed words in colloquial dialects than in standard Arabic. This is similar to what is considered acceptable in standard English and what makes its way into a lexicon such as the OED.

In order for a word to make its way into formal writing it has to... well, make its way into formal writing. Until a foreign word is officially used in enough written texts to be considered "acceptable" does it pass from being considered "dialectal" into being standard Arabic, I would imagine.

There is also I think in Arabic a hesitance to accepting large amounts of foreign words into the standard language (unlike say, Japanese or English which readily takes them in). So if a word sounds foreign it make also feel too colloquial to write, but of this I'm not sure.


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## Anatoli

I followed in the news, there was some conference of Arab countries dealing with modern technology and the Arabic language, the statement was to oppose the opinion that some believed Arabic wasn't suited for complicated technologies, which is true. _Any_ language is suitable for _any_ topic, only one needs to deal with the massive amount of new words required. The authorities or dictionaries are often far behind the trends, especially if the technical documentation, textbooks, etc. are not translated into a target language and users have to use the language of the original, that is English. It's rather easy to transliterate a foreign word into Arabic but if the topics using these terms are not often written in Arabic, then there will be a feeling that it's not a standard Arabic word.

So if بلوتوث is not used by Arabs as often as "bluetooth", then is it still correct to use it? I know what you mean by hesitance to accept large amounts of foreign words. This is not the best example because there are articles in Arabic about bluetooth using بلوتوث.


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## TryingToSwallowHansWehr

I admit the question is a little unclear. However, could we argue that Arabic grammar has been simplified in recent years (especially with the advent and promulgation of Media Arabic), in line with global trends? Perhaps verb forms have been streamlined and the more complicated structures are being used less frequently? And with the introduction of new words, such as blog and Bluetooth above, a simple Arabisation of the English word has taken place - not, I might add, the invention of a new Arabic word that would fit in with its own structures; for example, blog could have been incorporated into the root of ص-ح-ف or as a compound like مجلة الإكترونية?


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## Faylasoof

TryingToSwallowHansWehr said:


> I admit the question is a little unclear. However, could we argue that Arabic grammar has been simplified in recent years (especially with the advent and promulgation of Media Arabic), in line with global trends?


 Certainly one could argue that journalese Arabic (as goes for journalese English or journalese in any language) produces “simplification”, apart from engendering some very memorable calques! Though you still find “high Arabic” in newspapers too. 



> Perhaps verb forms have been streamlined and the more complicated structures are being used less frequently?


  Simplification of verb forms? Not sure what exactly you mean. As far as I can tell, MSA is using the same verbal forms as the classical language. The syntax has changed and meanings of some words have “evolved” / changed and new words introduced but basically it is the same language. 

We recently had a discussion on MSA versus the Classical (still chasing that thread) and it was noted that if anything MSA has become _more wordy_, unlike its ancestor which was notably more concise. So I don’t know if we can say that there has been a simplification.

Of course modern technical terms are posing a big challenge to MSA but then all living languages are facing the same problem as they try to come up with native equivalents of invariably English technical terms. One of my two mother tongues, Urdu, has the same problem. We either borrow English terms or resort to both the Arabic and Persian roots of our vocabulary and invent new terms. In fact, and interestingly enough, there appears to be more and more reliance on Arabic for this. MSA is doing the same; it either borrows (mostly from English) or comes up with neologisms, as we all know. But then _fus7a_ has been doing this for a long time, as you might expect.



> And with the introduction of new words, such as blog and Bluetooth above, a simple Arabisation of the English word has taken place - not, I might add, the invention of a new Arabic word that would fit in with its own structures; for example, blog could have been incorporated into the root of ص-ح-ف or as a compound like مجلة الإكترونية?


 Well, there appears to be a bona fide MSA term for _blog_! It is    مُدَوَّنَة , here & here. Not sure how often it gets used but apparently it does exist. As for _Bluetooth_, it is just بلوتوث  and _not_ السن الأزرق (!), here. 

Actually, both _blog_ and _Bluetooth _are a very good examples of what MSA is doing to cope with modern terminology. Some terms are borrowed and some invented. There are numerous examples like these.


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## TryingToSwallowHansWehr

Thank you. When I referred to the simplication of verb forms, I was asking whether more modern verbs, or verbs that have been recently added to the Arabic lexicon as a result of global innovations (say, _to text_), are being added to the all-encompassing, relatively simplified Form I and not to other forms that carry specific meaning (transitive/intransitive/reflexive, etc.)?

And, furthermore, could you tell me from which root does مدونة come?


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## clevermizo

TryingToSwallowHansWehr said:


> Thank you. When I referred to the simplication of verb forms, I was asking whether more modern verbs, or verbs that have been recently added to the Arabic lexicon as a result of global innovations (say, _to text_), are being added to the all-encompassing, relatively simplified Form I and not to other forms that carry specific meaning (transitive/intransitive/reflexive, etc.)?



Well, when words are transliterated rather than invented, they typically get added to form II (فعّل) or to one of the quadriliteral, or higher forms (فعلل), for example I believe دمقرط means to "democratize."

فعّل is the most productive conjugation I think, more so than فعل for which most verbs are basically frozen.

The trend of adding new verbs to فعّل is also common in colloquial dialects. It seems to be the most flexible.

And as an aside, I don't think there is a verb "to text/SMS" but you would probably just say بعث س م س or something similar ("send a text/SMS") even in colloquial (but a native speaker will have to comment).



> And, furthermore, could you tell me from which root does مدونة come?



ًWell, د و ن, and the verb دوّن means to "make a note of something," thus مدوّنة meaning "blog" is natural.


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## Ghabi

clevermizo said:


> ًWell, د و ن, and the verb دوّن means to "make a note of something," thus مدوّنة meaning "blog" is natural.


This root (in contrast to the homomorphous one that means "low") seems to be borrowed from Persian, which illustrates that Arabic has been borrowing words from other languages for ages, as any living language does, regardless of "global trends" or whatever.


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## Faylasoof

Ghabi said:


> This root (in contrast to the homomorphous one that means "low") seems to be borrowed from Persian, which illustrates that Arabic has been borrowing words from other languages for ages, as any living language does, regardless of "global trends" or whatever.


 Oh yes! It is from the Pahlavi word _dewaan_ = archived collected writings -> _fus7a_ root د-و-ن. 

Classically and in MSA both, دَوَّنَ = to gather (stray) poems into a collection; make a list; write down an account; to record (in a scroll); set down in writing. So it does make perfect sense to use it for _blog_. 




clevermizo said:


> Well, when words are transliterated rather than invented, they typically get added to form II (





clevermizo said:


> فعّل) or to one of the quadriliteral, or higher forms (فعلل), for example I believe دمقرط means to "democratize."


  Precisely so! It is listed here. Interestingly, it _appears_ to be a quinqueliteral verb (!), or is there a rule that the initial ت in the form II of a quadrilateral verb can become a د ?? Never heard of it but then one is always learning. We once had a discussion about quinqueliteral verbs and the conclusion then was that they may not exist. 

There are indeed a number of new verbs that are quadriliteral, e.g. _to oxidize_ = أَکسَدَ  ; _to hydrogenate_ = ھَدرَجَ; _to televise_ = تَلفَزَ. 

Many technical terms can take compounds or mixed simple and compounds in MSA: 

_Redox_ = تفاعلات أكسدة-اختزال etc. 

_To hydrolyze_ = حَلمَأ  / حَلّلَ بِالماء  (both a quadriliteral and a triliteral form II compound verb).

_Photosynthesis_ = التخليق / التمثيل الضوئي

_To photosynthesize_ = خلّق/ مثّل / رکّب بالضوء

Some more technical terms here; invented and / or transliterated or change of meaning of an ancient word :
_electron_ = الكُهرُب / الإلكتْرُون / الكُهَيْرَب; _proton_ = بروتون and _neutron_ = نیوترون .  While _atom_ = ذرّۃ - originally in _fus7a_ a very small ant! 

 ….and 



clevermizo said:


> Well And as an aside, I don't think there is a verb "to text/SMS" but you would probably just say





clevermizo said:


> بعث س م س or something similar ("send a text/SMS") even in colloquial (but a native speaker will have to comment).


 When I searched for texting, I _eventually_ had to go via the route below to get this:
Texting / Text messaging = SMS (short message service) =  خدمة الرسالة القصيرة 
[English very conveniently uses abbreviations or short nouns (like _texting_)]

But I guess it’ll not be used commonly!!


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## TryingToSwallowHansWehr

clevermizo said:


> فعّل is the most productive conjugation I think, more so than فعل for which most verbs are basically frozen.



Could you explain what you mean by Form II being the most productive conjugation? And in what way are verbs frozen in Form I?

Thank you to the others, also, for continuing this discussion and offering lots of useful insight.


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## clevermizo

TryingToSwallowHansWehr said:


> Could you explain what you mean by Form II being the most productive conjugation? And in what way are verbs frozen in Form I?



Well, it's the most productive because neologisms and borrowed words that become verbs get added to this category. A productive category means one that can be continually added to in a language. "Frozen" means you can't add new words to that category.

For example, in Spanish, verbs end in -_ar_, -_ir_ and -_er_. However, only -_ar_ is productive in modern times. This means that when new verbs are coined they always end in -_ar_. By contrast, -_ir_ and -_er_ verbs are stuck the way they are with no new words added.

In English, we are _very_ flexible and productive with new verbs and nouns. However, our "preposition" category is not something you can add things to, so it is "frozen."

In Arabic it seems new verbs do not get added to the category of فعل, or at least not often. So it's "frozen" and not productive. However, new verbs, at least in colloquial, are regularly added to the category of فعّل. Remember that just because all these verb forms (أوزان) exist in Arabic does not mean that you can cast any root into every form possible. For whatever reason فعّل has remained highly productive. There was a thread in the Arabic forum sometime ago that included some English imports into Egyptian Arabic - _fayyal_ (to file), _sayyav_ (to save, on a computer e.g.). You don't end up with verbs like _faal_ or _saav_. If the word in question has too many letters to be فعّل it gets added to فعلل or فعللل like _talfan_ (to telelphone), or even if fus7a like _talfaz_ (to televize) as mentioned above. These augmented forms are basically types of فعّل in a way because they have the same vowelization pattern:

_fa33ala, yufa33ilu
talfaza, yutalfizu_
_damqraTa, yudamqriTu**_

My guess is that the forms فعّل and فعلل &c. can better accomodate foreign words because there are simply more slots for letters to go in, and not all foreign languages can be easily reduced to three-letter root consonants.

**Not sure about this conjugation. This must be the way it is I imagine, but it violates the rule of joining more than one sukuun.


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## Arabus

I don't agree with the first post by clevermizo. MSA grammar shows numerous developments when compared to Classical Arabic, and most of these developments are simply "Europeanism." I can't give any examples here, but you can find many in any Arabic booklet dealing with "common mistakes" in MSA.


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## Arabus

And of course the initial post contradicts itself because we can't assume "having no knowledge in European languages" when we are talking about "global trends." You can't get exposed to "global trends" unless via European languages, especially in the 19th century when MSA developed.


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