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The Arabic of the Islamic conquests: notes on phonology and morphology based on the Greek transcriptions from the first Islamic century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2017

Ahmad Al-Jallad
Ahmad Al-Jallad*
Affiliation:
Leiden University1
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper attempts to reconstruct aspects of the phonology and morphology of the Arabic of the Islamic conquests on the basis of Greek transcriptions in papyri of the first Islamic century. The discussion includes phonemic and allophonic variation in consonants and vowels, and nominal morphology. The essay concludes with a discussion on possible Aramaic and South Arabian influences in the material, followed by a short appendix with remarks on select Arabic terms from the pre-Islamic papyri.

Keywords

Old ArabicSemitic linguisticsGreek transcriptionsIslamic conquestsArabic grammar
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , October 2017 , pp. 419 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2017 

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Footnotes

1

I first thank my colleague Marijn van Putten who read carefully a draft of this paper, correcting errors in the sigla in addition to his usual insightful comments. I also owe thanks to the enthusiasm of the scholarly community on Academia.edu for participating in a session surrounding this paper and discussing with me many of its points. I would especially like to thank Dr David Kiltz, Dr Julien Dufour, Dr Harald Samuel, Dr Maarten Kossmann and Dr Emily J. Cotrell for their helpful corrections and suggestions. All errors are my own.

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