# History/Origin of Arabic dialects



## Josh_

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Some people believe this has always been the case, while others (including most Muslims) believe the two languages were one, and that spoken Arabic developed later.


I actually believe it is a little of both -- there has always been Arabic dialects (languages are by their very nature dynamic and change over time), but I also believe that the modern dialects more than likely are derivative of Quranic Arabic which evolved as a standard form of the languages from the dialects with the help of Islam and the Arab love of poetry.  

The Arabian Peninsula is a large, desolate area.  In ancient (pre-Islamic) times Arabia was composed of many disparate tribes, which often had little contact with each other except during times of warfare.  So it only seems natural that there would be different dialects spoken among the different tribes.  I highly doubt there was one common form of Arabic spoken among all of the people throughout Arabia.  But poetry was very popular, and language was very important, in these times and from these dialects there evolved a common language among the poets (which seems plausible considering (if memory serves) poets often traveled to other villages for poetry conventions, as it were, in order to showcase their poetry). Concerning this topic Alan S. Kaye, an Arabist, says "al-arabiyya alfusha originated from the ancient poetic languages of Arabs in pre-Islamic Arabia [...] The linguistic situation in ancient Arabia was such that every tribe had its own dialect, but there evolved a common koine used by the _rawis_ (the ancient poets), which helped the preservation of the language and assisted in its conservatism.  The Holy Quran, written in this dialect (of course it was first oral) but with linguistic features of Muhammad's speech (the Meccan dialect), eventually became the model _the_ model for the classical language."

The next question is did the modern dialects evolve from this "koine" or from the ancient dialects?  I believe that the former proposition is the most plausible one; the modern dialects are descendant from Quranic Arabic and the ancient dialects are thus lost to history.  I believe this, because of where Arabic is spoken today. If we consider that Arabic was a language mainly spoken in the Arabian Peninsula and was not a native language spoken in the lands conquered during the great Muslim expansion during the first century of the nascent religion, then we can reasonably surmise that the form of Arabic adopted by these regions was that of the Quran and from there the dialects evolved.


----------



## Abu Rashid

I think you've hit the nail on the head Josh, btw if you're mastering the Egyptian dialect, I think we should begin calling you Gosh.

Arabic was carried to the conquered lands of the middle east by the government and by Islamic preachers, and they were both known for their conservatism when it came to language of the Qur'an. Poor Fus7a was almost considered a crime under the first two Caliphates (Rashidah and Umawiyah).

However I think also some traits of the dialects of those tribes who migrated to a certain area also effected the dialects that were spawned there. For instance I once read that some of the main tribes who settled Egypt actually used the "G" instead of the "J" in their tribal dialect, hence the reason Egyptians today mostly use the "G" sound.

I think also it is obvious that once the unity of the Arabic speaking Islamic lands fell apart so too did the ability of any central authority to maintain the Arabic language, and it was in the period of decline (post 1258) that the Arabic language began to diverge into the dialects of today, culminating in the attempts of the Young Turks to displace Arabic with Turkish as the official language of state in the dying days of the Ottoman Caliphate, something which was touched on in the other thread.


----------



## Qcumber

Josh_ said:


> If we consider that Arabic was a language mainly spoken in the Arabian Peninsula and was not a native language spoken in the lands conquered during the great Muslim expansion during the first century of the nascent religion, then we can reasonably surmise that the form of Arabic adopted by these regions was that of the Quran and from there the dialects evolved.


Yet, if you take Latin for comparison, both written Latin and spoken Latin were brought by the Romans in the lands they conquered.
When your country is occupied, you don't learn the invaders' language by listening to their clerics reading scriptures. You do by having all sorts of intercourse with them. My opinion is that lay Arabs, traders in particular, were instrumental in the spread of Arabic, and that preachers never had a great influence on the common language used in everyday life.


----------



## WadiH

Josh_ said:


> The next question is did the modern dialects evolve from this "koine" or from the ancient dialects? I believe that the former proposition is the most plausible one; the modern dialects are descendant from Quranic Arabic and the ancient dialects are thus lost to history. I believe this, because of where Arabic is spoken today. If we consider that Arabic was a language mainly spoken in the Arabian Peninsula and was not a native language spoken in the lands conquered during the great Muslim expansion during the first century of the nascent religion, then we can reasonably surmise that the form of Arabic adopted by these regions was that of the Quran and from there the dialects evolved.



How about the dialects of the Arabian Peninsula?  Where did they evolve from?


----------



## Josh_

Do you mean the pre-Islamic Arabic dialects?  If so, they probably evolved from some ancient form of Arabic --  proto-Arabic, which in turn probably originated from some proto-Semitic language as did Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, et al.


----------



## Qcumber

I think a good test to see what sort of Arabic was spread is to consider the Arabic loan words in Spanish. 

The great majority of them concern produce, products, techniques, sciences, institutions, government, chess, etc. If Spaniards borrowed them, it was because they were used by the Arabs of Spain (711-1492 CE) in everyday speech be it on farms, on the market place, in colleges, in book stores, or in palaces. 

Besides several of these terms were themselves borrowed from other languages and reveal the long-distance trade routes they travelled. 

For instance, the term sukkar 
*سكر*
"Span. azúcar > Eng. sugar" in qaSab-as-sukkar 
*قصب السكر*
"sugar cane" was already integrated in the Arabic language in the 9th century CE, and most probably earlier, as evidenced by its use in the famous report on China and India: aHbaar aS Siin wa l-hind 
*احبارالصين والهند*
dated 851CE/237HE (§14 in the 1948 Sauvaget edition)

In brief, borrowings reflect what sort of language conquerors use.

A similar phenomenon is taking place at the present moment with the numerous words that are currently being borrowed or calqued by all the languages of the world.


----------



## Abu Rashid

> I think a good test to see what sort of Arabic was spread is to consider the Arabic loan words in Spanish



Modern day Spanish is not really a good example, because it was actually originally the language of northern Spain only. The language of most of the Iberian peninsula was probably Germanic, as the inhabitants prior to the Moorish arrival were Gothic. Modern day Spanish was spread south during the reconquista (early 1500's) and the inhabitants were forced to abandon Arabic around this time.

Probably a better example would've been Malta, which was reconquered in 1091 and probably had little or no influence from Arabic since that time. The Maltese language is very far from Fus7a, and is very close to the Egyptian and North African dialects.


----------



## Outsider

Abu Rashid said:


> Modern day Spanish is not really a good example, because it was actually originally the language of northern Spain only. The language of most of the Iberian peninsula was probably Germanic, as the inhabitants prior to the Moorish arrival were Gothic.


LOL. You're quite wrong. You must brush up on your Iberian history, Abu. 

Gothic was always a minority language in Iberia, and it died out quickly, even before the Moorish arrival.



Abu Rashid said:


> Modern day Spanish was spread south during the reconquista (early 1500's) and the inhabitants were forced to abandon Arabic around this time.


Not so. Most of the southerners spoke Mozarabic, another _Romance_ dialect. It was not difficult for them to switch to the northern dialects.


----------



## konungursvia

Abu Rashid said:


> I think also it is obvious that once the unity of the Arabic speaking Islamic lands fell apart so too did the ability of any central authority to maintain the Arabic language....


I think you're right about most of your post, but I have two caveats about this sentence. In practice, because of the differentiation processes we always observe, people assume linguistic unity in the past; actually there was no past unity across different regions, just a different equilibrium between local differentiating factors and universal homogenizing factors such as holy texts and new technologies, or new books. Secondly, no central authority has ever been able to maintain a language, though many have tried... all they ever manage to do (like the Académie Française) is exert _some_ centralizing pressure. So I think the sentence quoted is fairly apocryphal, not really very accurate at all.


----------



## Abu Rashid

konungursvia,

Well you may be right to some extent, in that no central authority can ever maintain full control over a language, due to the fact it's something being used by people in their own personal interactions with one another. You can't force someone to have good grammar in their everyday speech, true.

But I think the obvious fact is that Fus7a has been so well preserved for so long, and this is largely due to the political protection provided to it.


----------



## WadiH

Josh_ said:


> Do you mean the pre-Islamic Arabic dialects? If so, they probably evolved from some ancient form of Arabic -- proto-Arabic, which in turn probably originated from some proto-Semitic language as did Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, et al.


 
No, though that's also an interesting question.  My question was about the modern Peninsular dialects; do you think they evolved from the Quran (as you believe the non-Arabian dialects to have done) or from the pre-Islamic dialects?


----------



## Josh_

Actually, I thought about that while writing my initial post.  Not being an expert, I would say it's both, although I believe the dialects there today were/are more influenced by the Arabic of the Quran than the extant dialects, partly due to the fact that Muhammad was able to unify Arabia through his new religion and as a result the Arabic of his new religion became so ubiquitous and all encompassing and eventually the standard language.  But obviously the already extant dialects didn't just disappear and there are probably still vestiges of those in the modern dialects of Arabia.


----------



## WadiH

Well, outside the Peninsula, there was a foreign language present that most people had to unlearn and then substitute with Arabic, so I can see the possibility that the Arabic that they learned was based on the Quran. In Arabia, however, people already spoke Arabic; why would they have to shed their native dialects and substitute Quranic Arabic for them, especially given the region's geographic isolation and political neglect?


----------



## Josh_

This isn't something that happened overnight.  And it wasn't a conscious effort either.  Nobody would have to systematically learn or unlearn anything.  Because of the overwhelming presence of Islam the language therein affected the dialects of the time.  I don't think the Peninsular dialects have evolved independently of Islam and the language of the Quran.  They are probably descendant of the pre-Islamic dialects of the region, but Islam and the language of the Quran has no doubt had a quite an impact on it. I'm not saying that the Peninsular dialects are solely descendant from the language of the Quran, but that it is probably a mixture of both with the language of the Quran having had a huge impact.  These are just some of my semi-educated opinions.   I very well could be wrong.


----------



## Bruss04

I'd like to know if there are any good sources online on the linguistic histories of various Arabic dialects in particular the North African Maghreb dialects. Wikipedia just doesn't cut it


----------



## elroy

There doesn't seem to be much out there, but I did find a few articles that may be of interest:

http://www.neu.uni-bayreuth.de/de/U...ctHistoryAndHistoricalLinguisticMythology.pdf
Pre-diaspora Arabic: Dialects, statistics and historical reconstruction (downloadable for free) 
http://www.innerbrat.org/andyf/articles/diglossia/hist_arab.htm


----------



## Hemza

Bruss04 said:


> I'd like to know if there are any good sources online on the linguistic histories of various Arabic dialects in particular the North African Maghreb dialects. Wikipedia just doesn't cut it



I advise you to avoid Wikipedia articles about Maghrebi Arabic dialects, they're full of inaccuracies and mistakes and they take more a political twist than a linguistic one.


----------



## djara

1/ The spread of Arabic being intimately related to the spread of Islam, why isn't Arabic spoken in all muslim countries? Why should the central authority that is supposed to have imposed Quranic Arabic in Arabic-speaking countries why should it have failed in muslim countries that do not speak Arabic?
2/ The grammar of dialects is clearly not Quranic or standard. Nor is it exclusively based on the grammar of local languages. Common non-Quranic/standard grammatical features exist and are probably traceable to Arabian dialects.
3/In terms of vocabulary, how to explain the co-existence in Arabian dialects and in some non-Arabian dialects of the same words/usages you don't find in the Quran or in classical sources and dictionaries. (an example: 7out used for fish in the Maghreb, in some places in Arabia and in the Sudan while the standard Arabic meaning is whale)?

My feeling is that the influx of relatively large numbers of lay Arabs or Arabized tradesmen, farmers, etc. was instrumental in providing Arabized populations with the Arabic they speak. Hence, the dialects are more likely based on day-to-day language than on the language of the clerics and the governors.
Exceptions exist of course. The dialects spoken in large cities/regional centres of learning with relatively large student and cleric populations (like Kairouan and Tunis) are more likely influenced by standard Arabic than rural dialects.


----------



## Hemza

djara said:


> 1/ The spread of Arabic being intimately related to the spread of Islam, why isn't Arabic spoken in all muslim countries? Why should the central authority that is supposed to have imposed Quranic Arabic in Arabic-speaking countries why should it have failed in muslim countries that do not speak Arabic?
> 2/ The grammar of dialects is clearly not Quranic or standard. Nor is it exclusively based on the grammar of local languages. Common non-Quranic/standard grammatical features exist and are probably traceable to Arabian dialects.
> 3/In terms of vocabulary, how to explain the co-existence in Arabian dialects and in some non-Arabian dialects of the same words/usages you don't find in the Quran or in classical sources and dictionaries. (an example: 7out used for fish in the Maghreb, in some places in Arabia and in the Sudan while the standard Arabic meaning is whale)?



This is exactly my thoughts about this question. If migrants from Arabia who went to arabise areas, were talking what we call now "standard Arabic", we should all say "اريد" for example while you find sooo much ways to say "I want"

نبغي ,نشتي,نحوّس, نحبّ, نبّي, عاوز, أبغى, أبي, أشتي, أريد, ودّي, بدّي

and probably some more I don't know. Also, in some places, you find a similar word/feature while these places are faaaar away from each other.

@djara : As for حوت, If I'm not wrong, the other word for whale is نون. May be, حوت has been/is used because Arabs didn't make the difference between the whale (which is a mammal) and fishes? May be, any kind of creature living in the sea which has a "fish look" was considered to be a fish? Then, with time, the distinction has been made and the word حوت became only available for whale in standard Arabic but not in daily speech?

In my opinion, the differences we find between the dialects are due to the different tribes which immigrated to the different areas+all kind of shifts which occured with time. There must be of course other factors.
For example, some words are found accross the Maghreb but are unknown to most of the Egyptians I know (who talk an urban dialect). I might use a word used in Morocco (which is far from Libya) and be understood by the Libyan because he/she uses too but an Egyptian would not be able to understand (حوت is a good example for this)

I remember when I read a lexicon of Benghazi dialect (Eastern Libya) except a few differences, I had the impression to read a lexicon of the strongest rural/bedouin Moroccan/Mauritanian dialect.

More generally, I also think that we find many shared features between urban dialects and many features shared by rural/bedouin dialects, in spite of the geographical boundaries and distance. For example, in my city in Morocco (Fès), we use some words/have some feaures also used in Algiers, Tlemcen,Tunis and Kairouan (and may be more) but not used in the rural area around Fès nor in most of Moroccan areas.

Broadly the same thing occurs between Egyptian and some Yemeni/Omani dialects: why the ج is pronounced as a "g" in these areas (to a more or less degree) but not in Hijazi dialects? I guess it's again of matter tribes, migration, influences and shifts. The same goes in the Maghreb: let's take "I'm seated". As a Moroccan, I say "ana gaales" while most Algerians would say "ana jaales" (English j) and Tunisians, "ana jaales" (French j) (or "zaales?") and Mauritanians, "jaales" (French j).

I would like to know if the same phenomenon occurs in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. Are the urban dialects closer with each other, thus ignoring more or less the geographical/political factor? Same question about rural/bedouin dialects.

Ps: I apologise if I'm not accurate but if I had to be, it would have been endless


----------



## She'lock Holmes

Arabic never was a unified single language, these theories about the period-relationship of dialects to fusHa completely ignore how classical Arabic grammar books directly say that Arabic is composed of dialects. Even holy Quran is composed of different dialects which is most noticeable in Al-haaqqa Surah at the end of sentences.


----------



## Hemza

I come back on this topic because I see way too much irrelevant (to me) comparisons between Arabic dialects and standard Arabic on a hand and Latin languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and other latin non official languages) on the other hand. I think a good comparison would be within one of these languages. I can only talk about French since it's what I know the best. Although it occured in different timelines, I think it is more relevant for instance to compare the history of Arabic dialects (non Peninsular ones) with Canadian French compared to their "birthland counterparts" (ancient French dialects and ancient Arabian dialects). Both Canadian French dialects and non Peninsular Arabic dialects followed their speakers and settled with them in the land where they immigrated to. Or let's take Spanish (although for me it's like walking in a dark corridor), the non Peninsular Spanish is a descendant of the Spanish spoken by immigrants to these lands. Both, Canadian French and non Peninsular Spanish do not descent from the unified standardised version of their respective languages which became the official languages (Castillan Spanish/Parisian French) -although if Castillan was the one which has been introduced in the foreign lands, that would invalidate my point about Spanish- but they rather descent from what was spoken by the people who came that's to say their regional variety. The same goes for Arabic dialects.

One other argument to dismiss the idea that non peninsular Arabic dialects descent from Standard Arabic: if it was the case, how one can explain the big gap (from a lexical angle) between two -more or less- close areas: the Nile countries and their Western neighbours (Chad being an exception)? (that's the best example I could talk about since I don't notice such gap in Asia). Even if small differences exist within Maghrebi countries, one can easily notice the commonalities between the dialects there and even notice that the differences being rather non Hilali _vs_ Hilali dialects rather than being between countries. But if you go Eastwards, you arrive to the Nile banks and there it is waaay different (roughly of course). Again, I think it is a matter of tribe and where it migrated and settled and brought its dialect.
That being said, I do take into account the own evolution of each dialect (whatever the language) being separated geographically and having followed different paths but that doesn't invalidate my statements above.

Sources for my statements: my modest abilities in my own dialects and my acquaintance with many Arabs, especially other Maghrebis, Egyptians, Palestinians and some Saudis which all allowed me to come with such ideas.

Ps: sorry for my rather weak English


----------

