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Vestiges of tanwīn -un and the case ending -u as attested in Yemenite Judeo-Arabic texts from the seventeenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Joshua Blau
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Extract

Although in classical Arabic all short vowels, as a rule, are preserved, a is more persistent than i/u: in prose, pausal -in/-un are elided, yet -an shifts to -ā. In many modern Arabic dialects too (dubbed by J. Cantineau diffeérentiel) a tends to be sustained in phonetic environments in which i/u are elided. This is, it seems, the reason that in the Bedouin dialects of northern Arabia and the Syrian-Iraqi desert it is the historical tanwīn -an, rather than -in/-un, that is preserved, especially when preceding an indefinite attribute; even phonetic -in has, it seems, to be derived from original -an. The same applies to medieval Judeo-Arabic 'n (spelt as a separate word) in this position.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , October 1983 , pp. 529 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1983

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References

1 For further details Blau, V. J., The emergence and linguistic background of Judaeo-Arabic (2nd ed.), Jerusalem 1981, 188, 247Google Scholar

2 cf. Blau, op. cit., 174 ff. In the vocalized Judeo-Arabic texts from the twelfth/thirteenth century, T-S Arabic Box 18 (1) 113, this 'n is vocalized 'in, yet, in all likelihood, derives from historical an. Cf. also 'yn, to be pronounced īn, in the same function, Blau, ibid., 247

3 Greenman, V. J., ZAL, III, 1979, 47 ffGoogle Scholar

4 Diem, V. W., Skizzen jemenitischer Dialekte, Beirut, 1973, 66–7, with additional literatureGoogle Scholar Cf. also Jastrow, W. Fischer-O., Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte, Wiesbaden, 1980, 120–21Google Scholar

5 But see below

6 I quote from Goitein, S. D., Hatemanim [in Hebrew], Jerusalem, 1983Google Scholar

7 Here and in the following -an transcribes final alif, spelt in accordance with classical Arabic

8 V. Blau, op. cit., idem Hebrew Annual Review III, 10, 1979

9 Or, at least, in the dialect of the scribe of the document

10 Citations are taken from the introduction to Seri-Y, S.. Tobi, , Shirim hadashim leRabbi Shalom Shabazi [in Hebrew], Jerusalem, 1976, 7–37Google Scholar

11 Preceding an indefinite attribute, v. above and below

12 Bacher, W., Die hebrdische und arahische Poesie der Juden Jemens, Strassburg, 1910, p. 69n. 6Google Scholar

13 V. Blau, The emergence and linguistic background of Judaeo-Arabic, p. 174, n. 1; p. 195, n. 2

14 Bacher, op. cit., p. 69, n. 5 cites two instances without special syntactic conditioning

15 -i is added also to Hebrew nouns, v. Bacher, op. cit., p. 67, nn. 2–3

16 V. Diem, op. cit., e.g. pp. 27, 95, and especially Fischer-Jastrow, op. cit., 120