The Arabic Koine

Author(s): Charles A. Ferguson

Source: Language , Oct. - Dec., 1959, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1959), pp. 616-630
Published by: Linguistic Society of America

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/410601

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 THE ARABIC KOINE

CHARLES A. FERGUSON

Center for Applied Linguistics

0. It has usually been assumed' that the modern Arabic dialects are on the
whole lineal descendants of Classical Arabic or of a variety very similar to this.2
Stated differently, this assumption holds that apart from borrowings and innova-
tions the linguistic substance of the modern dialects is a direct continuation of
an earlier stage of Arabic substantially identical with the Classical Arabic of the
grammarians, with only a few isolated instances in which one or more of the
modern dialects seem to preserve archaisms antedating the codification of the
Classical language. Until clear contradictory evidence is produced, this assump-
tion will have to stand as the most reasonable working hypothesis. The purpose
of the present study is to offer one important refinement to this hypothesis,
namely that most modern Arabic dialects descend from the earlier language
through a form of Arabic, called here the koine,3 which was not identical with
any of the earlier dialects and which differed in many significant respects from
Classical Arabic but was used side by side with the Classical language during
early centuries of the Muslim era.
It is well known that there were great dialect differences in Arabia in pre-
Islamic times, and it is widely accepted4 that the Classical language, the 'Arabi-
1 Three linguists read a draft of this study: Haim Blanc, Jacqueline Wei, and Joseph
Van Campen. All made helpful suggestions about the substance and the presentation, many
of which I followed. The responsibility for all facts and opinions, however, remains mine.
2 Cf. C. Brockelmann, Semitische Sprachwissenschaft 41-4 (Berlin-Leipzig, 1916); C.
Bergstrasser, Einfuhrung in die semitischen Sprachen 156 (Munich, 1928); D. L. O'Leary,
Comparative grammar of the Semitic languages 16-20 (London, 1923); and J. H. Kramers,
De semietische Talen 47-8 (Leiden, 1949).
3 This thesis is not new: the term 'koine' has been used before in approximately this
sense for the history of the Arabic language; cf. AIEO 14.7 (1956), Enc. of Islam2 1.574 Col.
1, line 19 ff. (Leiden, 1957). This essay is, however, the first attempt known to me to es-
tablish the thesis by a full linguistic argument.
Two diachronic studies of Arabic have appeared recently which attempt to sketch the
phonological developments from the koine to a modern dialect, in one case that of Cairo,
in the other Jerusalem: H. Birkeland, Growth and structure of the Egyptian Arabic dialect
(Oslo, 1952), and I. Garbell, Remarks on the historical phonology of an Eastern Mediter-
ranean Arabic dialect, Word 14.303-45 (1958). My views on Birkeland's study were expressed
in a review in Lg. 30.558-64 (1954); the writing of that review was the stimulus for putting
the present article on paper. The Garbell study appeared after the article was completed,
but footnote references to it have been added. Both studies are structuralist in approach
and both present valuable material, the Garbell study being especially rich in historical
and dialectal detail. In my view both studies err on the side of placing specific phonological
changes at too recent a period and in too localized an area. Many of the changes they at-
tribute separately and at a late date to Egyptian and Eastern Mediterranean Arabic are
likely to have occurred much earlier, often in the formation of the koine itself. Further
investigation is clearly required to determine the relative merits of these views.
4 C. Rabin, The beginnings of Classical Arabic, Studia Islamica 4.19-38 (1955); id., Enc.
of Islam2 1.564-7; R. Blach&re, Histoire de la litterature arabe 66-82 (Paris, 1952). Certain
616

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 6i17

yyah of the grammarians, was based on a standard poetic lang

sarily identical with any one dialect, but in oral use by poets and o
dialects and known to us fairly directly from the remnants of pre
and from the Qur'an. After the 'Arabiyyah became accepted t
world of Islam and was explicitly codified in the works of the
remained essentially unchanged in phonology and morphology u
time, when it is still accepted as the norm both for written and fo
Arabic.6 During the centuries, however, spoken Arabic, even
Muhammad quite different from the 'Arabiyyah in many part
verged increasingly from this standard.
It is a priori quite likely that some dialect differences in Arabic t
the early dialect differences mentioned above, but on the whol
evidence of such continuation on any large scale. It is the thesi
(1) that a relatively homogeneous koine, not based on the dial
center, developed as a conversational form of Arabic and was s
of the Islamic world in the first centuries of the Muslim era, (2
existed side by side with the 'Arabiyyah although it was rarely
purposes, and (3) that most modern dialects, especially those o
are continuations of this koine, so that their differences are chiefl
innovations which took place subsequent to the spread of the
ation is thus partly analogous to the frequently cited case of Gr
the modern dialects are not direct descendants of the early dialects but derive
from the koine, and the present dialect differences are generally innovations which
took place subsequent to the spread of the koine. The major differences between
the two cases are the persistence of Classical Arabic virtually unchanged through
the entire time span of this series of developments, and the fact that the Greek
koine was based to a large extent on the spoken Greek of a single center.
It seems highly probable that the beginnings of the koine already existed before
the great expansion of Arabic with the spread of Islam, but it also seems prob-
able that the full development of the koine coincided with this expansion, which
brought about mingling of the original dialects, caused large numbers of speakers
of other languages to adopt Arabic, and required intercommunication throughout

specific explanations of the origin of the 'Arabiyyah (e.g. the Meccan or Qurayshi dialect)
can be rejected; others (e.g. from the dominant dialect of the Kinda confederacy, the
dialect of HIra) can be neither accepted nor rejected until more evidence is available.
Unfortunately, the term 'koine' (or 'poetic koine') has also been used to refer to the pre-
Islamic standard which was the basis of the 'Arabiyyah. Rabin, Beginnings, has pointed
out the inappropriateness of this term for a language apparently used little if at all for
ordinary conversation. If the term 'koine' becomes generally accepted in this meaning, the
Arabic koine which is the subject of the present article will have to be called Koine II or
something of the sort to differentiate them. Cf. Enc. of Islam2 1.574, where both uses of
koine occur in the same paragraph.
5 For statements of the present relationship between Classical Arabic and the dialects,
see A. F. Sultanov, National language and script reform in the countries of the Arab East,
Akademiku V. A. Gordlevskomu ... 252-74 (Moscow, 1953) [in Russian]; A. Chejne, The role
of Arabic in present-day Arab Society, The Islamic literature 10.4:15-54 (April, 1958); C. A.
Ferguson, Diglossia, Word 15.325-40 (1959).
6 Cf. A. Meillet, Aperfu d'une histoire de la langue grecque 259-64 (Paris, 1913).

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618 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

the whole world of Islam. Also, it seems highly probable that the koine developed
chiefly in the cities and in the armies and that its spread coincided roughly with
the spread of urban Arabo-Islamic culture. In some cases small pockets of spoken
Arabic doubtless remained relatively unaffected by the koine, and in certain
instances even fairly large-sized migrations (e.g. Bani Hilal in North Africa)
established in certain areas varieties of Arabic quite distinct from the main mass
of koine-based Arabic dialects. Generally, modern beduin dialects are not de-
scended directly from the koine, and some sedentary dialects have been 'be-
duinized' by the incorporation of certain elements. But all these constitute only
a small fraction of the total Arabic speech community: it is the dialects of the
overwhelming majority-chiefly the sedentary populations outside the Penin-
sula-which are under discussion in this study.
It must be noted that no attempt is made here to date the formation of the
koine with any precision or to locate its boundaries at any period; the validity
of the study does not depend on any historical verification of the TIME or PLACE
at which the koine existed, much though historical documentation of the FACT
of the koine's existence is welcome as a confirmation of the thesis.
The basic argument is very simple. The modern dialects agree with one another
as against Classical Arabic in a striking number of features. If these features can
plausibly be interpreted as a natural development or 'drift' which continues early
trends (e.g. loss of glottal stop, reduction of inflectional categories, increase of
symmetry in the grammar) the agreement among the dialects as against Classical
proves nothing, because it is perfectly possible that parallel changes of this sort
could have taken place independently in the various dialects. But if some of
these features are complicated, systemically isolated items difficult to account
for by drift, and if there is a sizable number of such features, then the agreement
among the dialects as against Classical shows that these dialects come from a
common, non-Classical source. Once again it must be noted that no assumption
is made here that all the features developed or became widespread at the same
TIME (several may have appeared very early, before the full development of the
koine), but the FACT of their existence is sufficient for the argument. It may even
be true that a few of the features of the koine continued an original state while the
corresponding forms of Classical were the innovations.
Fourteen features in which modern dialects agree as against the 'Arabiyyah
will be described here. Each 'feature' is in fact a constellation of minimum lin-
guistic elements which, taken together, seem likely to have functioned as a unit
in the historical development of Arabic. Most of the features are morphological,
but three lexical features and one phonological feature are included. The features
selected for description are those which seem most convincing to me. Many other
features could be adduced as possible supporting evidence which are not as fully
satisfying for the basic argument as the ones chosen. On the other hand, once
the thesis is accepted, we may proceed with somewhat more confidence to a re-
construction of the koine, making judicious use of features of agreement which
were not the basis of the original argument. Subsequent studies will do this, offer-
ing a fairly full outline of the sounds and forms of the koine so far as they can be
inferred from the modern dialects or other evidence.

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 THE ARABIC KOINE1 619

The assumption is made here that the koine came into existence through a
complex process of mutual borrowing and leveling among various dialects and
not as a result of diffusion from a single source. The reason for making this as-
sumption is that the history of the Arabic-speaking world shows no evidence o
long-continued linguistic predominance of a single center of prestige and com-
munication. Great respect has always been accorded to beduin Arabic as opposed
to the language of settled populations; since the 2nd century of the Muslim er
some lip-service has been paid to the superiority of the Meccan or the Qurayshi
dialect; and a great deal of discussion has always taken place about which spoken
variety is the 'best' kind of Arabic, i.e. nearest to the Classical. But there is no
evidence of conscious or unconscious normative influence on the whole spoken
language from a single center over a long period of time. In this respect the
modern Arab world remains unchanged. No variety of spoken Arabic is accepted
as the norm or standard for the whole speech community, although of course
important centers of prestige and communication may exert a considerable lin
guistic influence over a certain region (e.g. Cairo Arabic in Egypt).
1. Before listing the features themselves it may be useful to give some indica-
tions of the nature of the drift of Arabic. It is assumed here that a language or
group of related languages (i.e. continuations of a single language) often shows a
'drift' or general direction of development consisting of a number of specific
trends more or less integrated into a total pattern. Arabic is a good example of
this: certain trends continue or recur throughout the history of the Arabic lan
guage. Several of these trends are found also in other Semitic languages and may
be regarded as a part of the drift of the Semitic family as a whole; others are more
particularly Arabic.
The phonological drift of Arabic includes the following trends: loss of glottal
stop, loss of final -h, increase in number and symmetry of 'emphatic' consonants,
ay > e and aw > o, loss of unstressed short i and u (or phonemes derived from
them) in open syllables, shortening of unstressed long vowels, and vowel as-
similation (e.g. CaCiC > CiCiC). Some of these phonological trends have had
morphological consequences; thus, loss of final glottal stop leads to merger of
final-hamzah and final-weak verbs. Some of the more specialized phonological
developments of particular dialects have had even more far-reaching morpho-
logical consequences; thus, merger of /a/ and /i/ in Maghribi leads to disap-
pearance of the active/passive distinction in participles of derivative verbs.
An important trend on the border of phonology and morphology has been the
development of a difference between pause forms and context forms of words and
then the generalization of pause forms to all positions.7 Pause forms are generally
but not always shorter than the corresponding context forms, which in earlier
Arabic often have final inflectional material lacking in the pause forms.
Morphological trends include development of suffix alternants conditioned by
the consonantal or vocalic nature of the preceding phoneme, reduction in the
number of inflectional categories, and re-forming of nontriconsonantal roots into
the triconsonantal norm.

7 This trend is treated at some length in Birkeland, Growth and structure, as well as in
his earlier Altarabische Pausalformen (Oslo, 1940). Cf. also Lg. 30.560, 563 (1954).

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 620 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

All these trends appeared very early in the history of Arabic and are still in
force today; they have worked at varying speeds and with great variation in de-
tail at different times and places. But they tend to continue or to recur, and they
are generally irreversible. Accordingly, features of dialect agreement as against
Classical which seem to fit in with or exemplify these trends will not be used here
as direct evidence for the existence of the koine.

2. The first two features to be described here are rather general in nature,
i.e. they cut across major word classes. One is the special pattern of loss of the
dual, the other is the unexpected presence of short i vowels in certain affixes in
which Classical Arabic has short a.

I. Loss oF THE DUAL. Gradual loss of dual forms is a familiar story in the
history of Indo-European and Semitic languages, while good examples of the
formation of a new dual are hard to find in the history of these languages. Also,
the reduction of inflectional categories is part of the drift of Arabic. Accordingly,
the absence of dual forms in the dialects in contrast with their presence in the
'Arabiyyah is not in itself an argument for our thesis. One might expect that all
dialects would show fewer dual forms than Classical, with regional variation in
the degree of retention and in the exact details. This is the case, however, only
in the dual of nouns, which is regular and may be formed from almost any singular
noun in Classical Arabic but shows considerable variation in the dialects. Thus,
Moroccan has special dual forms only for nouns of measure and a few others-
and even these are probably Classicisms-while Syrian has a regular and highly
productive dual of nouns.
But there are two striking elements of agreement in the details of the loss of
the dual in the dialects. One is that the dual forms of adjectives, pronouns, and
verbs have disappeared everywhere without a trace.8 If this were a natural de-
velopment or a part of the drift of the language one would expect the same kind
of differences as those found in the dual of nouns, with dialects varying in the
amount of retention and with some dialects preserving some instances and other
dialects preserving others. Such an argument from silence, however, is not com-
pletely convincing. The other element is the nature of the concord with the dual.
In Classical Arabic a verb, pronoun, or adjective which refers to a preceding dual
noun is also dual. On the other hand, in Classical Arabic as well as in the dialects
a verb, pronoun, or adjective which refers to a preceding plural noun is either
plural or feminine singular, the plural generally being used if the noun refers to
human beings, the feminine singular if it refers to animals or objects. Accordingly,
with the gradual disappearance of the dual forms one would expect that the same
kind of concord would be found with dual nouns as with plural nouns. But this
is not the case: the dual noun wherever it occurs in the dialects requires
plural, not feminine singular agreement, whether it refers to persons or to things.
8 It seems quite likely that the dual forms of verbs and pronouns as well as the dual
agreement of adjectives are analogical extensions in 'Ur-arabisch' from the dual form of
the noun, which was presumably present in Proto-Semitic. But these additional duals were
apparently well established, although with regional variations in detail, in the dialects of
Arabia at the time of Muhammad, and were lost again in the development of the modern
dialects.

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 621

Thus Classical9 baytani kabirani 'two large houses' and buyuitun kab
'large houses' contrasts with Syrian betrn kb&r (pl) 'two large hous
kbire (f sg) 'large houses.
These two details in the development of the dual category in the dialects seem
a good piece of evidence for a common non-Classical origin: complete loss of the
dual in the adjective, the pronoun, and the verb; obligatory PLURAL concord with
dual nouns.

II. TALTALAH. A number of inflectional affixes which contain /a/ in Classical

Arabic have in modern dialects the reflexes of /i/ (including zero) instead of those
of /a/ whenever the dialect in question has retained the a-i contrast. The use of
/i/ for /a/ in some of these affixes (the prefixes of the imperfect) was noted as
dialectal even by the grammarians, who gave to this phenomenon, regarded as
a defect, the name taltalah.l10 If the modern dialects to a considerable extent con-
tinued the earlier dialects one would expect either that some dialects should have
reflexes of /a/ and others those of /i/, or that there should be variation in this
respect in single dialects. Instead, all dialects outside Arabia seem to have the
reflexes of /i/ instead of those of /a/ in the following affixes:

subject prefixes of the imperfect:loa

ta- in taftaHu 'you open', tiftaH
ya- in yaftaHu 'he opens', yiftaH
ta- in taftaHu 'she opens', tiftaH
na- in naftaHu 'we open', niftaH
intransitivizing prefix ta-:
ta'allama 'he learned', t'allam
yata'allamu 'he learns', yit'allam
context form of the feminine suffix -at-:
gurfatuka 'your room', gurftak
gurfatuhum 'their room', gurfithum
connective prefix wa- 'and':
walbintu 'and the girl', wilbint
alternant -al- of the definite article prefix after min 'from':11
mina Ibayti 'from the house', mnilbet

9 The examples in this article are kept to the minimum necessary to illustrate the points,
and the same words are used repeatedly to illustrate different points in order that the non-
Arabist may be able to follow the argument without the burden of too many unfamiliar
items to deal with. The usual order of citation will be: Classical form, gloss, colloquial
form, with the two Arabic forms in commensurate phonemic notations. Unless otherwise
specified, the colloquial items are in a slightly normalized Syrian (= Garbell's Eastern
Mediterranean Arabic); they are usually Jerusalem Arabic, but where this is aberrant in
the Syrian area a more typical form is supplied. Although a procedure of this kind has
obvious pitfalls, it is hoped that no change has been made which affects the argument.
Other procedures were rejected because the points to be made would have been obscured
in a mass of irrelevant details.
10 Cf. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian 61-3, map 60 (London, 1951).
lOa Cf. Garbell, Remarks 312.
" Cf. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian 71-3, map 72; Garbell, Remarks 334.

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622 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

prefixed 'a- of the 'plurals of paucity':

'alsunun 'tongues', 'ilsun
'argifatun 'loaves', 'irgfe
preformative 'a- of the second-person pronouns:
'anta 'you (m sg)', 'inte

It could be suggested that this /i/ for /a/ is either a general phonetic change or
a morphologically conditioned change of some kind affecting all affixes. In either
case the dialect agreement would not then be an argument for the assumption
of a koine. But initial Ca- remains in the vast majority of instances apart from
presumed vowel assimilations of the type CaCi > CiCi (examples: kataba 'he
wrote', katab; katabtu 'I wrote', katabt; fahima 'he understood', fihim; fahimutu
'I understood', fhimt). Also, there are some affixes with /a/ in Classical which
have the expected /a/ reflexes in the dialects. For example, the first-person sub-
ject prefix of the imperfect 'a- has generally remained, except where it has been
replaced by the analogical n- of Maghribi.'2 Also, the ma- and mi- prefixes of
Classical place, time, and instrument nouns have survived in the dialects, and
in fact even with an increase in the proportion of ma- to mi-. Also, the prefix
li- ' la- 'to, for' of Classical has la- or even ld- allomorphs in various dialects.
3. The verb system of the modern dialects generally continues the earlier
system as represented by Classical Arabic, with most of the changes exemplifying
the trends of generalizing pause forms and reducing inflectional categories. Even
some of the differences between Classical Arabic and the dialects which seem at
first sight to be striking agreements for my thesis turn out on closer inspection
to be natural consequences of these two trends. As an example I may cite the
agreement which the dialects show in having a long stem vowel in the imperative
of middle-weak verbs (cf. Classical qum, sir, xaf, colloquial qum, s?r, xcf). How-
ever, the loss of the indicative/subjunctive/jussive contrasts in the imperfect
and the generalization of the most frequent pause form of the stem would call
for exactly this development. Even such widespread phenomena as the dis-
appearance of the passive and of Form-IV verbs could be attributed in large part
to phonological trends (vowel assimilation, loss of glottal stop). But there are at
least three differences which cannot be accounted for in this way: the loss of final-
waw verbs, the re-formation of geminate verbs, and the development of a verb
suffix -1- 'to, for'.
III. Loss OF FINAL-WJW VERBS. Classical Arabic has five kinds of primary
verbs with a 'weak' final root-consonant (e.g. rama, gaza, sa'a, baqiya, saruwa).
Of these the first two types are by far the most common, followed in frequency by
the fourth; the third is relatively rare and the fifth so rare as to be negligible.
That the fifth type (saruwa) should vanish is not surprising, but that the second
type (gaza) should disappear in the dialects is a significant feature of dialect
12 In some parts of the Syrian dialect area (e.g. Damascus, most of Lebanon) the 'a-
prefix has followed the analogy of the other prefixes of the imperfect; but this is clearly a
subsequent development, since the 'a- remains in Iraq, Egypt, and much of the Syrian
area, having even spread to Form II and III verbs where the prefix was 'u- in Classical.
Cf. Mdlanges Massignon 1.312-3 (Damascus, 1956).

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 623

agreement as against Classical. The only apparent vestiges are eith

Classicisms such as the politeness formula 'arj0k 'please' [= 'I beg you
nal phenomena such as the Tunisian baby word iHbu 'he goes on all fours'.
Otherwise, the verbs of the second type have merged completely with those of
the first type (rama). Examples:

rami 'he threw', rama

ramaytu 'I threw', ramet
yarmz 'he throws', yirmi
gaza 'he raided', gaza
gazawtu 'I raided', gazet (expected *gazot)
yagzu 'he raids', yigzi (expected *yigzu)
IV. RE-FORMATION OF GEMINATE VERBS. In all varieties of Arabic the verbs
of which the second and third root-consonants are identical ('geminate roots')
have certain forms which differ from those of verbs with 'sound' roots. Classical
Arabic showed some fluctuation in the imperfect (and imperative) of these gemi-
nate verbs, and it is of some general interest to note which of the alternative
forms survived in the dialects, but this does not really advance the argument here.
Also, in the dialects the active participle in verbs of this type is CaCiC, contrast-
ing with the CaCC of the Classical language, but this can be regarded as a natural
development since (a) all other primary verb types have CaCiC in Classical
and (b) the syllable type CVC is extremely rare in Classical Arabic, occurring
chiefly in these very participles.
One difference, however, between Classical Arabic and the dialects in the in-
flection of these verbs is highly significant: in Classical the normal first and second
person forms of the perfect are exactly analogous to those of sound verbs (e.g.
Halaltu 'I untied': katabtu 'I wrote'; masistu 'I touched': 'amiltu 'I worked');
in the dialects the corresponding forms are similar to final-weak forms (e.g.
Hallet 'I untied', masset 'I touched'; cf. katabt, ramet) and are in fact identical
with the first- and second-person perfect forms of final-weak verbs of Form II,
i.e. with doubled second root-consonant: Hallet 'I untied': xallet 'I let' (cf. the
third-person forms Hall o/H 11, xalla V/x I y/w). This formation is mentioned
by the grammarians as one of various dialect formations but is regarded as non-
standard in Classical Arabic. It is the only formation in the modern non-Arabian
dialects, which seem to have no vestiges of the standard Classical forms.
V. THE VERB SUFFIX -1- 'TO, FOR'. In Classical Arabic there is a relational prefix
li- 'to, for' (with pronoun endings lz 'to me', laka 'to you (m sg)', lahu 'to him',
etc.) as well as an independent preposition 'ila 'to, toward' (with pronoun endings
'ilayya 'to me', 'ilayka 'to you', etc.). In the modern dialects these two items have
been combined and re-formed in a variety of ways. One feature on which the
modern dialects agree, however, is that the reflex of li- with pronoun ending is
added directly to verbs as a suffix -1-. There are differences of detail; for example,
Syrian dialects show shortening of any long vowel in the final syllable of the verb
to which the -1- is attached and have special 'heavier' alternants of the suffix
such as -ill-, -all- after certain verb forms; Iraqi has shortening in the case of only
one verb, gal 'say'; Egyptian may add to the same verb at the same time both

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624 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

-1- with pronoun ending and another pronoun ending as direct object. But all
agree in having the -I- suffix as an integral part of the verb phonologically and
morphologically.l3 There seems to be no trace of this in Classical Arabic, where
the li- la- plus pronoun ending is an independent word, in no way attached to
the verb and often separated from it by several intervening words.l4

4. The morphology and syntax of the cardinal numbers are fairly complicated
in Classical Arabic and, on the whole, considerably simpler in the dialects. So
far as this simplicity in the dialects is part of the general loss of inflections it can
be disregarded for our present purpose, since such change is part of the drift of
Arabic. But two points are relevant to my thesis: (a) certain features of the syntax
of the numbers 3-10, and (b) the form of the numbers 11-19, in particular the
presence of an unexpected emphatic /t/.

VI. CARDINAL NUMBERS 3-10. In Classical Arabic the numbers 3-10 occur
in two forms-a form with the feminine ending -ah ' -at- which is used with
MASCULINE nouns, and an apparently masculine form without the feminine end-
ing which is used with FEMININE nouns. Examples:

baytun (m) 'house' kam baytan 'how many houses?'

xamsatu buyuitin 'five houses' xamsatun 'five'
gurfatun (f) 'room' kam gurfatan 'how many rooms?'
xamsu gurafin 'five rooms' xamsun 'five'
It is hardly surprising that this strange feature of the Semitic number system
should tend to disappear, since it has no support elsewhere in the grammatical
structure-it is much more surprising that it exists in the first place; but the
exact nature of the disappearance is of interest. In the modern dialects the long
form (the form with the feminine ending) is used when there is no following
noun at all,'5 and the shorter, apparently masculine form is used before any noun,
regardless of the gender. Examples:

bet (m) 'house' kam bet 'how many houses?'

xams byut 'five houses' xamse 'five'

gurfe (f) 'room' kam gurfe 'how many rooms?'

xams guraf 'five rooms' xamse 'five'

Since this is only one of the various possible ways of eliminating the gen
polarity of 3-10, the fact that all dialects agree in this point is significant in it

13 The suffixal nature of the -I- is shown incontrovertibly by the position of word s
the lengthening of short vowel before -I-, and the existence of allomorphs of -I- condit
by the preceding morpheme. Cf. 4drabu 'they hit', /arabiukum 'they hit you (p1)', dara
'they hit for you'.
14 An early example of this construction is cited in G. Graf, Der Sprachgebrauch der
altesten christlich-arabischen Literatur 11 (Leipzig, 1905).
15 The long form is used before a noun under two special conditions: (a) in ordering or
listing items, where the following noun may be collective, singular, or plural depending on
circumstance (e.g. xamse 'ahwe 'five coffees' in ordering at a restaurant, cf. xams 'ahawi
'five cafes'); and (b) with ethnic collectives having no proper plural (e.g. xamse badu 'five
beduins').

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 625

Even more significant, however, is the nature of the one vestige of

long form with following nouns which has survived in the modern d
regional variation in the extent of the retention. In many moder
is a handful of high-frequency masculine nouns with plurals beg
glottal stop (Arabic hamzah) which replace the hamzah with a t- w
numbers 3-10 precedes. This t-, while unmistakably pronounced a
noun plural, is clearly a vestige of the feminine ending of the preced
There is some variation from dialect to dialect in the number of inst
construction. Two nouns, yom 'day' (xams tiyydm 'five days') and
(xams talaf '5000') are apparently found in this construction in al
preserve the feature at all (many Maghribi dialects have lost eve
while the number of other nouns rarely exceeds fifteen in any given dialect.
Example:

yawmun 'day', yom

'ayydmun 'days', 'iyyam'6
xamsatu 'ayyamin 'five days', xams tiyyam

It is interesting to note that all the instances of this t- involve reflexes of plural
patterns referred to in Classical Arabic as 'plurals of paucity' (jumu' al-qillah).
The Classical patterns are 'aCCuC, 'aCCiCah, 'aCCaC.17 The grammarians
assertl8 that when a given noun has several plurals in use of which one has one
of these patterns, this plural is preferred when a small number of items (3-10)
is referred to. Such an assertion has a ring of artificiality about it, and in fact it
does not seem to be supported by extant texts; yet if the thesis of this study is
correct, the statement was not just a meaningless creation of the grammarians
but probably reflected a special construction of the spoken language ancestral
to the construction described above. In any case, the notion of 'paucity' is mis-
leading, since the association was probably with the actual cardinal numbers
3-10, and the so-called 'plurals of paucity' may just as well occur with, say, 103-
110 or 503-510.

VII. /t/ IN THE NUMBERS 13-19. In Classical Arabic the cardinal numbers
11-19 consist of two parts, a form of the number '10' and a digit part correspond-
ing to 1-9. The noun which follows is in the accusative singular, and the 'ten'
part of the number always agrees in gender with the following noun (i.e. the long
form of '10', with the feminine ending, goes with feminine nouns), as do the digit
parts '1' and '2'; the digit parts '3'-'9', like the independent numbers '3'-'10',
disagree in gender (i.e. the long form with feminine ending goes with masculine

16 The Classicism 'ayyam is also in colloquial use without preceding number. It is some-
times difficult to elicit isolated plural forms without preceding numbers for nouns used in
this construction. Informants sometimes give a Classicism with 'a-, or a totally different
plural (e.g. shura), or even a form with t- (e.g. tishur).
17 The pattern CiCCah, commonly included among the plurals of paucity, does not fit
this discussion.
18 Cf. M. S. Howell, A grammar of the Classical Arabic language 1.885-8 (Allahabad,
1894); M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes and R. Blachere, Grammaire de l'arabe classique 178-82
(Paris, 1937); H. Fleisch, L'arabe classique 33 (Beirut, 1956).

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626 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

nouns). The numbers '11'-'19' themselves remain invariable in case inflection

(always accusative without indefinite -n).

xamsata 'asara baytan 'fifteen houses'

xamsa 'aWrata gurfatan 'fifteen rooms'

In the dialects, forms originally associated with a following masculine noun

have been generalized, becoming (if they did not already have that status in
Classical Arabic) compound words of a kind rare in Arabic, usually with double
stress, completely invariable internally, and showing no trace of gender (dis)-
agreement externally. All this could be attributed to drift, even though other ways
of simplifying the system could be imagined. The unexpected feature here is the
presence of 'emphasis' (velarization, tafxim) in the numbers '13'-'19'; in some
dialects it has spread to '12' or even to '12' and '11'. The focal point of the em-
phasis is the -t-, which is apparently the continuation of the -t- of the feminine
ending in the digit half of the Classical number. These numbers differ in certain
formal details from dialect to dialect: some dialects have lost the /'/ of the '10',
others not; some dialects have the final -r of the '10' only when followed by a
noun, others have it always; and so on. But all agree in having an emphatic /t/
in these numbers, a phenomenon for which no convincing explanation has ever
been found. It is sometimes asserted that the emphasis in some way reflects the
loss of the /'/ of the '10', and there may very well be some connection between
the /'/ and the emphasis; but there are two stumbling blocks: /'/ does not cause
emphasis elsewhere in the language, and the emphatic /t/ appears even in dia-
lects which have not lost the /'/.

xamsta'? 'fifteen'
xamsta'sar bet 'fifteen houses'
xamsta'sar gurfe 'fifteen rooms'

5. The adjectives of the modern dialects reflect quite closely those of Classical
Arabic in form and function, with only the kind of simplification and reduction
of categories found elsewhere in the grammar: case endings are gone, the dual is
gone, the varieties of feminine endings are fewer. But in three features the dialects
agree on a non-Classical form which is sufficiently unmotivated to serve as evi-
dence for my thesis: the loss of the feminine form of the comparative, traces of
a fu'dl plural, and the change of the nisbah suffix -iyy to -1.
VIII. Loss OF THE FEMININE COMPARATIVE. The Classical Arabic compara-
tive 'aCCaCu (e.g. 'akbaru 'larger, largest') has a special feminine form associated
with it, CuCCa (kubra). The modern dialects have a comparative form derivable
from a presumed koine form *'aCCaC just as might be expected (e.g. Syrian
'akbar, Moroccan kbar with regular loss of initial hamzah). No modern dialect,
however, seems to show any trace of the feminine except for set phrases clearly
borrowed from the Classical.
Since the feminine of the comparative was already of limited use in Classical
Arabic and was a special formation, its loss might seem to be a natural instance of
drift. But the feminine of ordinal numbers was similarly limited in use in Classical
Arabic and is preserved in the dialects, and the feminine of 'color' words of pat-

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 627

tern 'aCCaC, which was also a special formation, is also preserved. The
ten examples illustrate these points.
'akbaru baytin 't , J s 'akbar bet
albaytu'l akbaru 'th l Ibet I'akbar
'akbaru gurfatin , f 'akbar gurfe
. T n- the largest room' ^ , ?7
'algurfatu1lkubra 'h l Igurfe I'akbar
xamisu baytin fifth house' x&mis bet
, 7, , 7 . k'the fifth house' ?_
'albaytujlxamisu hIbw Ixamis
xamisu gurfatin fifth room' xamis gurfe
'the fifth room'lm7
algurfatujlxamisatu Igurfe Ixamse
'albaytuVl'aHmaru 'the red house' Ibet l'aHmar
'algurfatuUlHamra'u 'the red room' Igurfe lHamra
IX. ADJECTIVE PLURAL FU'AL. In Classical Arabic, adjectives of the pattern
CaCZC (fa'Zl) normally have a plural CiCaC (fia'dl). In adjectives of this kind the
modern dialects generally have a singular CCtC, sometimes CaCiC, and a plural
CCaC.19 But there is one unexpected complication. Generally it is impossible to
tell, apart from the evidence of Classical, whether the lost vowel of a modern
dialect form in which a short vowel has been dropped was originally /i/, /u/, or
/a/, but sometimes there are clues in the modern form itself. If the dialect in
question has a contrast r-r, then /r/ often appears near a lost /i/, and /r/ near
a lost /u/ or /a/. Again, in some dialects, notably Egyptian, phrase-initial
CVCVC retains the short vowel. And in some dialects, such as Moroccan, the
loss of /u/ often leaves labialized consonants.20 It is noteworthy, then, that all
dialects which can show one or two of these clues, give evidence for a lost /u/
in these adjective plurals, with modern forms such as kbar, kubar, k/br.21 Ac-
cordingly, we are probably justified in positing a plural *CuCaC in the koine,
a striking feature of difference from Classical Arabic, which shows no trace of
a fut&l plural.
X. NISBAH SUFFIX -iyy > *-i. In Classical Arabic pause forms there is con-
trast between final -iyy and final -1, e.g. 'arabiyy 'Arabic', sabiyy 'boy': 'alqadz
19 For the singular some dialects keep the -a- throughout; some lose it completely. In
areas where there is partial retention the -a- appears in adjectives of which C1 or C2 is a
guttural (x g H ' h ') or in Classicisms of various periods. The loss of -a- is probably to be
accounted for by vowel assimilation and loss of unstressed /i/ in open syllable (CaCIC >
*CiCIC > CCXC). Cf. H. Blanc, Studies in North Palestinian Arabic 32 (Jerusalem, 1953);
I. Garbell, Remarks 321. The plural seems perfectly regular CiCaC > CCaC.
20 The analysis of this labialization is uncertain. Some linguists recognize the labialized
consonants as separate phonemes, others posit a rounded shwa vowel phonemically present
but apparent only in the 'allophones' of these consonants. In either case the labialization
is distinctive.
21 In this particular example, used here to keep the illustrative material as limited as
possible, these apparent reflexes of /u/ could have developed simply because of the presence
of the labial /b/, but other adjectives of the same pattern without labial consonants also
show these reflexes (e.g. qusar, 'urJ4, gudfid). A striking piece of evidence for this *fu al
plural is supplied by Haim Blanc: dialects with second and third degree 'imalah (e.g. Aleppo,
Mosul, Jewish Baghdad) regularly have e or z in words derived from CiCaC but have a in
these adjective plurals. Examples: kleb, klib 'dogs'; Isen, Ismn 'tongue'; jmel, jmIl 'camels'
but smiin, koar, mlaH.

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628 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

'the judge', baytz 'my house' 'uktubl 'write (f sg)!' A very common instance
final -iyy is the suffix added to a noun to form a relative adjective (Arabic nisb
The dialects vary in their treatment of final vowel and semivowel contrasts, but
all agree on having the nisbah suffix identical with the reflex of final _-.22 Thi
especially surprising for two reasons. First, the functional load of this contr
is fairly heavy. There are several suffixes and several regular stem forms en
in -s as opposed to the nisbah -iyy, and minimal or near-minimal pairs are f
numerous (e.g. mdliyy 'financial': mall 'my property'). Second, there is st
support for the contrast from the feminine forms of the adjectives: the femini
of a nisbah in Classical Arabic ends in -iyyah, while that of an adjective with ste
final -1 ends in -iyah, a contrast continued in the modern dialects and reinforce
by shift of stress. Several examples will clarify this:

'aOOdan 'the second (m)', ttani

'aOOaniyah 'the second (f)', ttanye
'al'arabiyy 'the Arabic (m)', I'drabi
'al'arabiyyah 'the Arabic (f)', I'arabiyye
bal 'my mind', bali
taktubZ '[that] you (f sg) write', tikitbi
6. Recognizing definite differences between the lexical stock of Classical Arabi
and that of the dialects is much more difficult than recognizing differenc
morphology, since the grammatical system of the 'Arabiyyah is fairly well codi-
fied while the limits of its lexicon have never been established. As in any literary
language in use over such a large span of space and time, Classical Arabic has
coined new words, has absorbed and 'Classicized' words from the spoken dialects,
and has shown great variation in the relative frequency of use of words at different
periods and places. In spite of these and other difficulties it is possible to note
several lexical differences which are sufficiently clear to be significant for the
argument here.
A striking feature of lexical difference between Classical Arabic and the
dialects is the disappearance in the dialects of a group of high-frequency words
such as ma 'what', 'aydan 'also', laysa 'it is not'; a number of particles such as
'inna, 'an, 'anna 'that'; qad, sawfa tense markers; and several prefixes such as
ka- 'like'. The disappearance of the particles is connected with the loss of modal
distinction in the verb, and their functions are carried out by other syntactic
means. But words like ma and 'aydan have various equivalents in the dialects,
and no satisfactory explanation has been offered for this replacement. If there
22 The pause forms of Classical Arabic show a three-way final contrast in each of the high
vowel/semivowel ranges viz. -Cuww : -Cu : -Cw and -Ciyy : -Cs : -Cy. In many modern
dialects still another possibility is added, the reflexes of the Classical -Cuh and -Crh. In the
u/w range the dialects vary greatly, some even having a full four-way contrast, such as
those variants of Syrian Arabic which differentiate the final sequences of 'adtww 'enemy',
Hiliw 'sweet', kdtabu 'they wrote', katabu 'they wrote it'. But this is rare; usually only a
two- or at most three-way contrast obtains, with one reflex for both -Cu and -Cw and, in
dialects which have lost final -h, one for both -Cuww and -Cuh. Dialects show similar vari-
ation in the degree of retention of final contrasts in the i/y range, but even where a final
-iyy: -z contrast has been preserved, the nisbah ending has always merged with the reflex
of -1, sometimes pulling along with it a few other nouns in -iyy.

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 THE ARABIC KOINE 629

were also instances of retention of the Classical forms in certa

would constitute evidence against the thesis, but in fact the di
universal, and the varied replacements must be accepted as inst
the koine was not fully homogeneous.23 Three items of lexical ag
treated here: 'bring', 'see', and the relative.

XI. THE VERB 'TO BRING'. Classical Arabic had two verbs 'to co
ja'a; both of these could be used with bi- 'with' in a sense equiv
'bring'. The verb 'ata has disappeared from non-Arabian dialect
ja'a being in the dialects the usual word for 'come'. The exact for
word 'to come' varies from one dialect to another, since with t
hamzah this verb has too little substance to fit any normal pat
verbs.
The modern reflex of ja'a is not used with bi- to mean 'bring
word for 'bring' in the dialects is a new verb jab (imperfect yj3b
has arisen from a fusion, at some early date, of ja'a and bi-. Th
like a middle-weak verb (vj y b) with full regularity of form a
of any morphemic boundary remaining between the original ja
original bi- part. In the Classical language there is no trace of t
That such a fusion could take place at some point in the developm
is perfectly conceivable, but this is the only clear-cut case of suc
language, and the exact pattern common to the dialects is striki
retention (and varied re-formation) of ja'a, no use of reflexes of
mean 'bring'; fused verb jab 'bring'. To explain the persistence
throughout the Arab world one would have to assume that this
fusion was made at many times and places and always outlived th
The common origin of the dialects is a much simpler explanation

XII. THE VERB 'TO SEE'. By far the commonest verb 'to see' in C
is ra'a (imperfect yara); this is the ordinary word in all written
the Classical language today. On the other hand, as the ordinar
the dialects have saf (imperfect ysuf). The verb ra'a appears in t
in derivative forms (e.g. Moroccan warra 'show') or in marginal
the Maghribi rani 'I am', rak 'you are', etc. [= 'see me!', 'see you
verb saf occurs in Classical Arabic, but not with the meaning 'se
argued that with the loss of final hamzah the verb ra'a would la
fit the Arabic verb system, but this seems not to have prevented
tinuing in the dialects, and parallel formations to those of ja'a co
expected.

23 Certain preliminary reconstructions can of course be made for the va

they do not lead very far. For example, it seems likely (a) that ma 'wha
replaced by *'dyji ^ *'ays (< 'ayyu say'in), which led to the modern diale
Syr. 'es and Moroccan as, and (b) that side by side with this *'aysi ^ 'ays
an extended form *'aysinhu (< 'ayyu say'in huwa) was used, which resulted
Iraqi Xinu and Syrian su. But this still leaves unanswered such questions as
the loss of ma, the origin of Egyptian 'eh, and many points of detail. R
other items present similar problems.
24 Cf. W. Fischer, Die demonstrativen Bildungen der neuarabischen Diale
Hague, 1958).

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630 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 4 (1959)

XIII. THE RELATIVE *'illi. The relative 'pronoun' of Classical Arabic, 'allaYii,
with its feminine, dual, and plural forms, has disappeared in the modern dialects.
The forms of 'allaYii in Classical Arabic are isolated, having no support else-
where in the grammatical structure, and there was already great dialectal varia-
tion in Arabia in the forms of the relative.25 Accordingly, it is not surprising that
the Classical form should have vanished, but it is significant that throughout
the non-Arabian dialects the only forms found are those which may be derived
from a presumed *'illi, invariable for gender and number, occasionally reduced
to 1- or expanded to halli or yalli.26
7. The phonologies of the dialects continue to a remarkable extent the pho-
nology of earlier Arabic as represented by the 'Arabiyyah.27 Several consonant
phonemes show varying phonetic shapes in the dialects, notably those represented
by the letters jtm and qaf, and a few additional consonants have appeared in
various dialects, either filling 'gaps' in the structure or, as a result of mass influx
of loanwords, extending the basic structure. The long vowels have been relatively
stable, and the so-called diphthongs ay and aw have generally been monoph-
thongized. Only the short-vowel phonemes have been highly unstable; they have
been lost and combined, and new phonemes have arisen, all in a bewildering
variety of ways. Only one purely phonological feature seems to give clear evi-
dence for the thesis of the koine.

XIV. THE MERGER OF dad and <a'. The sound system of the 'Arabiyyah as
described by the early grammarians included two 'emphatic' interdental pho-
nemes, those represented by the letters Wa' and dad. The former was presumably
velarized, voiced, interdental (spirant), of the kind heard in dialects such as
Iraqi today. The other apparently had all the distinctive features of the SY'
and in addition was lateral or lateralized and probably a stop or affricate. What-
ever the phonetic details, the two were separate phonemes. Minimal pairs have
been listed by Cantineau and others, and there are consistent correspondences
with other Semitic languages. In no non-Arabian dialect today are there pho-
nemically independent reflexes of these two phonemes. In dialects which preserve
the interdental spirants /0 t/, the reflex /fi/ of the interdental emphatics is
phonetically the sound described above for 5a'. In dialects which have lost the
interdentals (0 W > t d), the reflex /d./ of the interdental emphatics is a velarized
voiced stop, now the voiced counterpart of the reflex /t/ of Classical td\ This
clearly suggests that Sa' and dad had merged in the koine and that the inter-
dentals were lost subsequently in various dialects.28

26 Cf. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian 39, 89-90, 154-5, 203-5, map 204.
26 The agreement of the dialects on this point has been noted before. Cf. I. Anis, Fl
al-lahajat al-'arabiyyah2 218 (Cairo, 1952).
27 For a description of the phonology of the 'Arabiyyah cf. J. Cantineau, Esquisse d'une
phonologie de larabe classique, BSL 43.000-0 (1946). The phonology of the koine as assumed
in the present study is roughly equivalent to Garbell's Stage 2, Remarks ?2, 301-12, but
with a number of differences of detail.
28 Cf. Fuick, 'Arabiyah 89; Garbell, Remarks 308. Dialects which have lost the inter-
dentals may have instances of /?/ in Classicisms or in re-borrowing of Arabic items from
Turkish, but not as the regular reflex of the earlier /?S/. Cf. Garbell, Remarks 317-8.

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