Skip to content

Copto-Arabica: The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions

Marijn van Putten


Pages 81 - 100

DOI https://doi.org/10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.171.1.0081




This paper builds on the important work that has been done in recent years on the phonology of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic based on the transcriptions of names in Greek papyri. This paper expands the view by looking at transcriptions of Arabic names in the early Islamic period based in Coptic papyri. It confirms many of the findings already found in the Greek papyri such as the retention of the fourth long vowel and the i-umlaut of *a to i in CaCīC nouns. But it shows certain developments and new findings as well. Coptic material confirms a palatal realization of the Arabic *g, the fricative nature of *f and the realization of the feminine ending as /-a/ rather than /-ah/.

Leiden

1 Al-Jallad, A. 2015: An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Leiden/Boston.

2 Al-Jallad, A. 2017a: “The Arabic of the Islamic conquests: notes on phonology and morphology based on the Greek transcriptions from the first Islamic century.” In: BSOAS 80,3, pp. 419–439.

3 Al-Jallad, A. 2017b: “Graeco-Arabica I: The Southern Levant.” In: A. Al-Jallad (ed.): Arabic in Context. Leiden/Boston (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 89), pp. 99–186.

4 Al-Jallad, A. 2018: “The Earliest Stages of Arabic and its Linguistic Classification.” In E. Benmamoun/ R. Bassiouney (eds.): The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics. London/New York, pp. 315–331.

5 Al-Jallad, A. forthcoming a: The Damascus Psalm Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī. Chicago, IL.

6 Al-Jallad, A. forthcoming b: “One wāw to rule them all: the origins and fate of wawation in Arabic and its orthography.”

7 Al-Jallad, A./ R. Daniel / O. al-Ghul 2013: “The Arabic Toponyms and Oikonyms in 17.” In: L. Koenen, M. Kaimio, J. Kaimio & R. Daniel (eds.), The Petra Papyri II, 23–48. Amman.

8 Blau, J. 1977: “The Beginnings of the Arabic Diglossia: A Study of the Origins of Neoarabic.” In: Afroasiatic Linguistics 4,4, pp. 175–202.

9 Cromwell, J. 2017: Recording Village Life: A Coptic Scribe in Early Islamic Egypt. Ann Arbor.

10 Crum, W. E. 2005: A Coptic Dictionary. Eugene, OR.

11 Diem, W. 1973: “Die nabatäischen Inschriften und die Frage der Kasusflexion im Altarabischen.” In: ZDMG 123, pp. 227–237.

12 Ingham, B. 1994: Najdi Arabic: Central Arabian. Amsterdam.

13 Kaplony, A. 2015: “On the Orthography and Pronunciation of Arabic Names and Terms in the Greek Petra, Nessana, Qurra, and Senouthios Letters (Sixth to Eighth Centuries CE).” In: Mediterranean Language Review 22, pp. 1–81.

14 Kogan, L. 2011: “Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology.” In: S. Weninger (ed.): The Semitic Languages. An International Handbook. Berlin/Boston.

15 Legendre, M. 2014: “Perméabilité linguistique et anthroponymique entre copte et arabe: Exemple de comptes en caractères coptes du Fayoum fatimide, en Annexe: Répertoire des anthroponymes arabes attestés dans les documents coptes.” In: A. Boud’hors / A. Delattre / C. Louis / T. S. Richter (eds.): Coptica Argentoratensia, Conférences et documents de la 3e université d’ été en papyrologie copte, Cahiers de la Bibliothèque Copte. Paris, pp. 325–440.

16 Peust, C. 1999: Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language. Göttingen.

17 Rabin, C. 1951: Ancient West-Arabian. London.

18 Richter, S. 2011: “Coptic.” In: L. Edzard/ R. de Jong (eds.): Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Leiden/Boston.

19 van Putten, M. 2017: “The development of the triphthongs in Quranic and Classical Arabic.” In: Arabian Epigraphic Notes 3, pp. 47–74.

20 Watson, J. C. E. / B. Glover Stalls/ K. Al-Razihi/ S. Weir 2006: “The language of Jabal Rāziḥ: Arabic or something else?” In: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 36, pp. 35–41.

Share


Export Citation