If you ask a question to a Saudi Arabian, an Egyptian, an Algerian and a Syrian that which thing makes you an Arab They will answer in just a second that speaking Arabic makes us an Arab. This language makes the Arab world and it binds the whole Arab world from Morocco to Kuwait. This language gives identity to the Arab society and makes them aware about the history of the Arab. Since the inception of Islam Arabic is the speaking language of the Islamic world. Islamic holy book the Quran was initially written in Arabic. There is a great religious significance of this language in the Islamic world. According to Muslims- if you want to understand properly the messages of Quran, you should read it in Arabic language. Thats why Arabic is not only the language of Arab world. (Seikaly, 2001)
Arabic language is not only official language of Saudi Arabia, but it is also considered as an official language in more than forty five countries and dialect of Arabic is being spoken by 200,000,000 people all around the world. Main part of this population lives in the Arabic countries, but a considerable number of Arabic Speakers live in some parts of Africa. Arabic is treated as a biggest member of the Semitic branch and it is some what same as Hebrew and Aramaic. Arabic is studied widely in the Islamic world. Since 6th century Arabic is being taught as a literary language and many words of other languages had been taken from Arabic such as English and Spanish. Some words like sugar, cotton and magazine had been derived from Arabic. In Arabic these words are pronounced like sukkar, qumkn, mazin. Some other words like alcohol, algebra and zenith came from Arabic language. (Shah, 2007)
There are many verities of Arabic language. In this paper we will discuss those varieties in brief. We will mainly focus on the Najdi (A variety of Arabic language). Najdi Arabic speakers oppose the theory of generative phonology. We will move step by step and in an arranged manner.
The First Word of Arabic
The first word of Arabic, which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, is iqra (means recite). According to literature the meaning of Quran is recitation. Muslims say that it was the command, which was given to the Muhammad by god, when the Prophet began to receive the revelation and this finally got converted into the Quran. The word Quran is based on the three letters, those are Q, R and A and the word iqra contains these 3 letter root. (Seikaly, 2001)
Forms of Arabic
Arabic language can be divided in the three forms- classical, modern standard, and colloquial. The Arabic, which has been used in the Quran, is considered as classical Arabic. The Arabic used in Quran is treated as the perfect Arabic and is a stander for written form of Arabic. The modern standard Arabic is derived from the Classical Arabic and is used in the formal communication such as in literature, in news, in offices and in print media. Colloquial Arabic is locally spoken Arabic language and it varies from nation to nation and area to area. Many varieties of the Colloquial Arabic have been found in the Arab World and Najdi is one of them. In religious and social functions the oral Arabic is used for writing also because the written and spoken forms of Arabic language are highly interconnected. Modern Standard Arabic is not used at such moments. It is used in television and radio news broadcasts. Modern Standard Arabic plays an important role to bind the whole Arab world because the Arabic speakers from Lebanon and Morocco cannot easily understand one-anothers Arabic language due to their local dialects. But they can talk in Modern Standard Arabic easily. Thats why Modern Standard Arabic is used in formal meetings and occasions. Many local and regional variations have taken place in spoken Arabic and written Arabic has also been changed since 7th century. Many foreign words are being used in Spoken Arabic such as computer, telephone, television, and radio. On the other hand lots of words have been borrowed from Arabic by the many Western languages like English, Spanish and Portuguese. In the earlier time, the Arab world was known for medicine mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy. Name of many stars are based on the Arabic language such as Betelgeuse, Rigel, Deneb, Altair, and Aldebaran. (Seikaly, 2001)
The Arabic script had been taken from Nabataean Aramaic script. Originally, Arabic language had been used since 4th century but there is no solid evidence for it. Generally 6th century is treated as the starting era for Arabic language. Initially Aramaic language was there in use, but there are fewer consonants in this language. Hence in the 7th century new Arabic letters had been created with the help of dots. Then vowels came into the picture. . (Omniglot writing systems languages of the world, 2010)
Classification of varieties
The Arabic script had been taken from Nabataean Aramaic script. Originally, Arabic language had been used since 4th century but there is no solid evidence for it. Generally 6th century is treated as the starting era for Arabic language. Initially Aramaic language was there in use, but there are fewer consonants in this language. Hence in the 7th century new Arabic letters had been created with the help of dots. Then vowels came into the picture. Nowadays Arabic is spoken in many different ways in different areas. (Omniglot writing systems languages of the world, 2010)
The various varieties of the Arabic language could be classified mainly into four classes.
Pre-Islamic
It can be further divided into three sections.
Himyaritic language
Southern Arabic (Qahtan)
Northern Arabic (Adnan)
Eastern Arabic ( It is the main source of Classical Arabic)
Western Arabic (Hijaz)
2. Western varieties
It can be classified into two categories.
Maghreb Arabic This Subclass can be separated into three sections Koines, Fully pre-Hilalian, and Bedouin. Each of these sections can also be partitioned.
KoinesFully pre-HilalianBedouinMoroccan Arabic
Algerian Arabic
Tunisian Arabic
Jebli Arabic
Jijel Arabic
Siculo-Arabic (extinct)
Maltese languageSaharan Arabic
Libyan Arabic
Hassaniya Arabic
Andalusi Arabic (extinct)
3. Eastern varieties
It could be further divided into four sections.
Arabian ArabicNile ArabicLevantine ArabicIraqi ArabicGulf Arabic
Najdi Arabic
Hijazi Arabic
Yemeni Arabic
Egyptian Arabic
Saidi Arabic
Sudanese Arabic
Baggara Arabic ( Shuwa Arabic ) North Syrian Arabic
Lebanese Arabic Syrian Arabic
Palestinian Arabic
Cypriot Maronite Arabic qeltu-varieties
gilit-varieties
Central Asian Arabic
Creoles
It can be divided in following three categories.
Nubi Creole Arabic
Babalia Creole Arabic
Sudanese Creole Arabic (Juba Arabic)
(Referred from Varieties of Arabic, EconomicExpert.com)
Now we will talk about the Najdi Arabic.
Najdi Arabic
It is a variety of the Arabic language and it is mainly spoken in the Riyadh and the areas near to it in the Saudi Arabia. There are mainly four groups of Najdi Arabic speaking people, which are found in the Saudi Arabia. They are Southern Najdi, Central Najdi, Northern Najdi, and Badawi Najdi. Southern Najdi is spoken in the city of Kharj and in the towns near to this city. Central Najdi is also known as Urban Najdi and it is mainly spoken in the city of Riyadh and in the farming communities near to this city. Zulfi, Qaseem and Jabal Shammar regions are known for Northern Najdi. Nomadic tribes of Najd use Badawi Najdi in their daily life. It is also spoken in the Iraq and Jordan. (Gordon, 2005)
In Saudi Arabia Najdi Arabic is spoken by approximately 8,000,000 people and in the world 9,977,000 people use this variety of Arabic language. In addition to Saudi Arabia, this language is used also in Canada, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and the United States. Approximately 900,000 speak this language in Iraq, 50,000 in Jordan and 500,000 in Syria. (Arabic, Najdi Spoken HYPERLINK httpwww.ethnologue.com httpwww.ethnologue.com)
The dialects which are used in the Njadi Arabic are some great features. They are unknown in other dialects and they also contain some characteristics of the Arabiyya. According to some Arab grammarians some ancient dialects of the peninsula reported are being used in Najdi Arabic. Thats why they are very important for the comparative and historical dialectology. A little bit part of this is known and published materials on it is also very insufficient. (Abboud, 2009)
We will see an example of a phonological process of Najdi Arabic in this paper. Najdi Arabic has been analysed on the basis of internal evidence.In the Najdi Arabic following contrasts have been noticed and on the basis of it a it is said that there would be no difficulty in front of any phonologist in the analysis this language on the basis of this small amount of facts. (Abdulaziz, 2010).
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
According to the process of affrication in a mirror image fashion k and gj are affricated to c and dz. Following rule is sufficient for our purpose.
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
There is no lack of evidence for support and this rule seems is very motivated. It is very natural that A velar being affricated in the neighborhood of front non-low vowels. for this affrication analysis Simplicity and Economy are available as a support. c and dz can be eliminated from the ventory of the language. These ( c and dz) could be generated with the help of a systematic phonological process via using k and g respectively. Till this point the analysis appears to be the most desired one. But when we think about the long lists of exceptions, a problem comes into picture. But we will talk about a small sample. Because of the two types of opacity this example becomes interesting. why opacity and why not opacity has been discussed in (a) and (b) respectively. (Abdulaziz, 2010).
a) 9irdz (s) 9rug (pi) vein
9ilc (s) 91uk (pi) chewing gum
b) gimar moon dzimar
gisi.T short dzisir
malik king malic
hrikih movement hricih
On the basis of such examples exceptions can be covered like cases of (a) and the (b) above. But it is not as simple as it seems.
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
In such type of cases someone should look for something else. The phenomenon is very interesting for the issue we have mentioned. A Najdi Arabic child got flunked in the exam because his mind was set for the grammar used in the Najdi Arabic and did the paper on the basis of those sets of rule. A speaker of a language tries to borrow some words from another language and some times he tries to create new words into their language. Same case is there with Najdi Arabic speakers. They have also borrowed or created some words. These words fulfill the affrication rule of Najdi Arabic. These words are the changed form of the Classical Arabic (CA) words. They are introduced into the language some time ago (in 19th century). (Abdulaziz, 2010).
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
Native speakers of Najdi Arabic do not give proper attention on the occurrences of some letters. Many of them do not think about k and g during the pronunciation of words related with these letters. They use c and dz respectively instead of these words. But they do not make mistake when forms are uttered. (Abdulaziz, 2010).
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
The effect of a psychologically real process can be seen in the speech of native speakers by the following process. i occurs to the exclusion of a in the Najdi Arabic. This rule can be represented by the verbal patterns of the types CVCVC and CVCVVC, (C is for Constants and V for vowels) corresponding to Classical Arabic CVCVC and CVCVVC, corresponding to Classical Arabic. (Abdulaziz, 2010).
(Referred from Abdulaziz, Affrication in Najdi Arabic.)
Characteristics of the Arabic Language
Like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Amharic, Arabic language is also a Semitic language. 28 letters are there in the Arabic language. It is written from right to left. Thats why spine is on the right-hand side in the Arabic books. Sound for some English letters, like P and V, is not present in the Arabic. Similarly many Arabic letters are not found in the Western languages. For example in Arabic throat has to be compressed for pronouncing ayn, but there is no equivalent for this in Western languages. A R of the French language is equivalent to ghayn and ch of German is equivalent to the kha sound of Arabic. Arabic uses a single letter for two letters of English or it can be said that for some letters of Arabic two letters of English are used for example th is used for tha sound in English, but in Arabic a single letter is used for this purpose. (Seikaly, 2001)
According to Seikaly there are 6 vowel sounds in Arabic language.
a long ee sound as in feet
a short i sound as in bit
a long aa sound as in man
a short a sound as in many
a long oo sound as in boot
a short u sound as in put
There are special letters for long vowels but small vowel sounds are presented by accent marks. These accent marks could be seen in the Arabic literature, but these accent marks are not used in daily writing. In addition to singular and plural, dual form is also found in the Arabic and it is used for two things. For example a single pen is known as qalam in Arabic, two pens as qalamayn and pens are known as aqlaam. Arabic language also uses feminine or masculine nouns like other languages. In Arabic letters are put together to form a word. There is no difference between letters on the basis of capital and small. All the letters are same, but form of the letters depends on the position (beginning, middle or end). Loops and dots are used to write the Arabic letters on the paper. (Seikaly, 2001)
Root and Pattern System of Arabic
Regularity is the main characteristic of this language, which makes it interesting and different as compare to other languages. All the words of Arabic are derived from the three-letter roots. These words are related to each other. Prefixes, suffixes and infixes are used with three-letter root to derive more words. In the Arabic dictionary you can not find a word on the basis of alphabetical order. First you have to determine three-letter root, then you should go alphabetically. On the basis of three-letter root J, L and S these words can be found. (Seikaly, 2001)
Arabic Word (three-letter root J, L and S)MeaningJaLaSato sit downJuLuuSthe act of sitting downJiLSamanner of sittingiJLiSsit downJaLSameeting or gatheringJaLeeScompanion participant in a social gathering (feminine is JaLeeSa)maJLiSsession or councilmuJaaLaSasocial exchange or communication
Arabic Calligraphy
The flowing style of the writing and shapes of Arabic letters gives a beauty to the Arabic language. Arabic calligraphy is used everywhere in the Islamic world. According to to Prophet Muhammad Beautiful calligraphy gives truth more clarity. The paper which was used to written the Quran was very expensive, thats why a compact but understandable writing style had been chosen. Proportionality, repetition, symmetry, and embellishment are the some important characteristics of Arabic calligraphy. Some horizontal letters like ba and seen and vertical letters like the alef and lam give a beauty to the Arabic. Arabic flows in a particular direction and Loops, dots, and accent marks are used to make the writing interested and decorated. Calligrams are being constructed by Arabic calligraphers. Calligrams are words or phrases, which make a specific shape, for example shape of an animal or a tritangle. Mirror writing is also used in calligrams. In Mirror writing word or phrase are written as a mirror image of the original text. (Seikaly, 2001)
Example of Arabic calligraphy (The Arabic Language The Glue That
Binds the Arab World, 2001)
Some notable features of the Arabic language
The type of the writing style of Arabic is known as abjad.
The words in the Arabic language are written from right to left.
The Numerals in Arabic language are written from left to right.
Total 28 letters are there in the Arabic language. Some times some additional letters are being used to write foreign words.
Other languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Kashmiri and many more are based on the wring style of Arabic.
Form of the letter depends on their position in the word.
Letters can be joined in both writing and printing.
(Omniglot writing systems languages of the world, 2010)
Arabic Phonology
There are total 28 consonant (including two semi-vowels) in the Classic Arabic, but originally there are 28 letters and six vowels in the Arabic language. These six vowels contain three short vowels and three long vowels. Short vowels are not used generally in the written. Means there are total 26 consonants, 2 semi-vowels, and 6 vowels in the Arabic language. It can be said that Arabic is rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and pharyngealized sounds. (Shah, 2007)
We can see all these 26 letters of Arabic with the letters of other language in the following figure.
SHAPE MERGEFORMAT
Letters of Various Languages
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Modern Standard Arabic contains 28 Consonants, 3 short vowels, 3 long vowels, and 2 diphthongs. Following are the letters of Modern Standard Arabic.
Letter-sound correspondence
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Some Useful expression of Arabic
Here we will see some important and basic expressions of the Arabic. Every Arabic speaker should know these expressions.
Arabic Expressions (Shah, 2010, Arabic A Profile)
Now we will discuss that how can a speaker ask questions in Arabic. I am going to represent it in the tabular form.
Question (in English)Question (in Arabic)Where is arefeynWhateyhWhats thateyh daWhenimtaWhyleyhWhy notleyh laHowkeyfWhomeenHow manykam Questions (Shah, 2010, Arabic A Profile)
Arabic Script
The style which is used to write the Arabic is known as Arabic script. At some times it is also referred as Naskhi script. We have talked some features of the Arabic script in the above sections. Now we will focus on the remaining features of this script. In this script a letter can be written in four different forms and these forms are-
Independent (non-connecting)
Connecting only to the left (initial)
Connecting only to the right (final)
Connecting to both sides (medial or internal) (Shah, 2010)
We will see an example of letters kaaf, baa, and ayn.
(Referred from Shah, 2010, Arabic A Profile)
Text which is written with the all the diacritics is known as vocalized and a without them is known as unvocalized. Vocalized and unvocalized are also known as vowelled and unvowelled respectively. Pointed and unpointed is also used for them. (Habash, 2005)
Watch following example-
Vocalized and unvocalized form
(Referred from Shah, 2010, Arabic A Profile)
Now if we talk about the shape of the letters in the Arabic, following points come as result-
There is no distinction between handwriting and printing.
There is no role of capital letters like English.
Letters are written from right to left.
There are ambiguous shapes
Connected and disconnected both types of letters are used. (Habash, 2005)
Letter Shapes
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Now see the below examples. These examples tell about the process of making word from the letters of Arabic language. First example is for the word katab, which means to write and second one is for kitab, which means book. (Habash, 2005)
Making Word katab
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Making Word kitab
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Arabic numerals and numbers
In the Arabic numbers and numerals decimal system is used. Numbers are written from left to write into the right to left text. Following example will clarify this thing.
Numbers in the Text
(Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
The meaning of this line is Algeria achieved its independence in 1962 after 132 years of French occupation.
Number system also varies in Arabic on the basis of region. See the following example
Different Number Systems (Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing, 2005)
Now watch the following example. It is showing Arabic numbers with their sounds.
Arabic Numbers (Referred from Shah, 2010, Arabic A Profile)
Now it can be concluded that Arabic language is a rich language and thats why it is being used as an official language in more than 45 countries. But it is said that it is some what ambiguous because vowels are not used some times in the Arabic language. But it is not the general case. Generally vowels are used. There are many verities of Arabic language. Arabic language has taken many forms in different areas of world. Najdi Arabic is one of them and it is specially spoken in the Riyadh and its surrounding towns at Saudi Arabia. Najdi Arabic is also found in different forms in the different areas. Some analyses on the basis of Najdi Arabic have been explained in this paper. There are lots of examples, which show that beauty of the Arabic language. Nowadays Modern Standard Arabic has taken the place of Classic Arabic. In future some more changes will take place and make this language more powerful from the grammatical and communication point of view.
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