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Introduction

Arabic displays one of the most famous cases of diglossia today, meaning the simultaneous use of two languages or dialects in one language community. In Arabic, these two forms are the written and formal Standard Arabic and the various colloquial Arabic dialects that occur throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

Standard Arabic can refer to either Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, which are similar forms of Arabic used as a written and formal language across the Arabic-speaking world. Classical Arabic is a conservative form of Arabic based on pre-Islamic and early Islamic literary texts that has remained largely unchanged since it was standardised by Arabic grammarians in the early Islamic period. Modern Standard Arabic is a simplified and modernised version that is more commonly in use today.

Arabic dialects are the varying national and regional spoken forms of Arabic. The Arabic dialects are often divided into the more conservative dialects of the Arabian peninsula (often known as Bedouin dialects) and the sedentary dialects of the rest of the Arabic-speaking world.

Many scholars in the field of Arabic linguistics have attempted to explain the exact origin of the modern dialects. In this essay I will describe Charles A. Ferguson’s theory of the origin of the sedentary modern dialects through a common Arabic koiné, and the opposing theories of Kees Versteegh and Joshua Blau with their criticisms of Ferguson’s koiné theory.

Summary of Charles A. Ferguson’s “The Arabic Koiné”

The modern Arabic dialects are usually assumed to have evolved from Classical Arabic. Ferguson offers a refinement to this theory, stating that the sedentary dialects have instead evolved from an Arabic koiné, meaning a form of the Arabic language that was used as a common language, evolved from earlier dialects and was separate from Classical Arabic. The development and spread of this koiné is estimated to be around the time of Arabic expansion and the spread of Islam. The koiné and Classical Arabic were then both used as separate common languages, with the koiné being mostly a spoken language.

According to Ferguson, various dialects of Arabic already existed on the Arabian peninsula in pre-Islamic times. After Classical Arabic was accepted as the written and formal language of the Islamic world, the spoken dialects continued to diverge from it. The koiné is then assumed to have developed through mutual borrowing and leveling among the various dialects, rather than being based on a single dialect, as is often common for the formation of koinés. This assumption is based on the lack of evidence for a single historically predominant dialect of Arabic that had more prestige or wider use than others. This mixing of dialects would have mainly occurred during the expansion of the Muslim world with the spread of the Arabic language across the Middle-East. This era involved an increase in the mingling of dialects, the adoption of Arabic as a second language in newly conquered lands and intercommunication within the newly expanded Islamic world. Although the time and place the koiné evolved and spread is not significant for Ferguson’s thesis, these facts suggest that the full development of the koiné probably happened during this expansion of Arabic. It is also stated that the koiné was used mostly among sedentary populations outside the peninsula of Arabia, mostly in cities and in armies, where people of different backgrounds mingled the most. 

The thesis is supported by the many morphological, phonological and lexical features common to the modern sedentary dialects that agree against Classical Arabic, indicating a separate common ancestor form of Arabic that had those features. It is also important to note that these features do not fit into the general drift of Arabic. The drift is the general direction of development in the language, made up of various trends such as vowel assimilation, monophthongisation of diphthongs, and the disuse of context forms. These trends occur throughout the Arabic language (as well as other Semitic languages) and began to appear very early in the history of Arabic, before the supposed existence of the koiné. Therefore, features that seem to fit in with the general drift of Arabic are not used as evidence for the koiné.

Ferguson describes 14 features of modern sedentary Arabic dialects that support his thesis. They are the following:

  • Loss of dual forms is common in the history of many languages that have at some point used them, but what makes it noteworthy in the case of Arabic is the fact that all dual forms except dual nouns have been lost in the dialects, and that the verb, adjective or pronoun referring to a preceding dual noun is always in the plural form, whereas the expected concord would be that dual nouns describing animals or objects would be followed by a feminine singular verb, adjective or pronoun, as is the rule for plural nouns.
  • Taltalah is the phenomenon of certain affixes which contain /a/ in Classical Arabic containing instead /i/ or losing the vowel completely in dialects.
  • Loss of final-wāw verbs, which are a specific type of verb that has forms ending in /u/ in Classical Arabic. These forms have instead adopted the inflection patterns of a similar type of verb that has different form endings in the dialects.
  • Reformation of geminate verbs, which are verbs with identical second and third root-consonants. The inflections of these verbs have a common pattern in dialects that is completely different to that of Classical Arabic.
  • The verb suffix -l-, preceded by a verb and followed by a pronoun ending, replaces what in Classic Arabic would be the prefix li- (‘to, for’) with a pronoun ending.
  • The cardinal numbers 3-10 are used in the feminine form (ending with a -t) when followed by a masculine noun and the masculine form with a feminine noun in Classical Arabic. In dialects, the feminine form is used as an independent form when there is no following noun and the masculine form is used before any noun. Certain common masculine noun plurals beginning with the glottal stop hamza replace the hamza with a t- when they follow a cardinal number 3-10, which is presumably a vestige of the feminine -t ending of the number.
  • The cardinal numbers 13-19 are, in Classical Arabic, expressed as the number 3-9 and the number 10 with opposite genders; which part is masculine and which one feminine depends on the following noun. In the dialects, the number 3-9 is always in the feminine form and the number 10 in the masculine. The surprising feature of the dialects is the velarisation of the feminine -t ending, making it a -ṭ instead.
  • The feminine form of comparative adjectives has disappeared in the dialects.
  • A plural form of adjectives *CuCāC seems to have been the basis certain plural adjectives in modern dialects developed from. This pattern is not found anywhere in Classical Arabic, which suggests that it was present in a separate common ancestor form of the dialects.
  • The relative adjective ending -iyy becomes -ī in the dialects. This is surprising because the ending -ī already has other grammatical functions in adjectives and the contrast between the -iyy and -ī endings is still supported by the fact that modern dialects continue to differentiate between the feminine forms of adjectives classically ending with -iyy (becoming -iyyah in the feminine) and those classically ending with -ī (becoming -iyah).
  • The verb ‘to bring’ is, in Classical Arabic, expressed by the prefix bi- (‘with’) with the verbs ʼatā and jāʼa (‘to come’). In modern dialects, the word jāb is used, likely as a fusion of bi- and jāʼa. This sort of fusion has not been noted elsewhere in Arabic and the form is common in all the sedentary dialects, indicating that it is not part of the drift and likely emerged from a common source to the dialects.
  • The verb ‘to see’ is raʼā in Classical Arabic and šāf in the dialects.
  • The relative pronoun ʼallaḏii has disappeared in the dialects, and the only forms found seem to be derived from a common form *ʼilli.
  • The letters ḍād and ẓāʼ were, in Classical Arabic, two separate phonemes that have both merged into either /ḍ/ or /ẓ/ in all the sedentary dialects.

All these features support the theory of the koiné as they are changes that cannot be explained by the general drift of Arabic and are common to the modern non-Arabian dialects, suggesting a common ancestor form of Arabic other than Classical Arabic, which is considered to be the basis for the general drift.

Criticisms of “The Arabic Koiné”

“The Arabic Koiné” is one of the most famous theories of the origin of the dialects. Ferguson’s koiné has often been dubbed the ‘military koiné’ (e.g. Versteegh 1984), as it is assumed the armies were one of the main sources of development of the koiné. People from different Arabic-speaking areas mingled and their dialects mixed. This mixed dialect would have also been used to communicate with people of the newly conquered lands, causing it to spread. Ferguson mentions armies as one of the primary settings for the development of the koiné, but does not focus much on this aspect.

In the nearly 60 years since it was published, Ferguson’s theory has gained criticism from many other scholars of Arabic, perhaps most notably Kees Versteegh and Joshua Blau. They theorise that in pre-Islamic times there was only one Classical Arabic language in use, as opposed to separate colloquial and poetic languages as Ferguson believes. With the Islamic conquests, linguistic influences from conquered lands caused spoken Arabic to diverge from Classical Arabic and develop into various spoken dialects which were used beside the written Classical Arabic, resulting in the Arabic diglossia. Classical Arabic was still used colloquially on the Arabian peninsula for some time after this, which explains why the Arabian and sedentary dialects have diverged from Classical Arabic in different ways. (Versteegh 1984)

One of Versteegh’s (ibid.) criticisms of Ferguson’s theory is that he overemphasises the similarities between the sedentary dialects and does not take into account the differences between them. He finds that Cohen’s (1970) theory proves through these differences that a single koiné cannot have been the basis for all dialects, rather, that there were various Arabic language centres that provided the basis for dialects in different areas. However, this theory does not give a satisfactory explanation to the uniformity of similarities between the dialects.

Blau (1977) theorises that the koiné was a final result of post-conquest linguistic development rather than the starting point, as it emerged from intensive contact between the different dialects that had developed. He explains that the similarities between the dialects were influenced by their common basis of Classical Arabic, the general drift and contact between dialects. His theory is further explained by linguistic wave theory, according to which similarities between the dialects developed as a result of linguistic changes happening in one place and spreading through to other language areas in a wave-like motion. Therefore linguistic development resulted in a koiné, as the changes happening in different sedentary dialect areas spread.

Blau goes so far as to criticise each of the fourteen features Ferguson brings as evidence for the koiné:

  1. Use of the dual is restricted to cases where it has communicative value, and is not only used for nouns as Ferguson states. Blau connects the plural concord of dual nouns to plural concord of constructions such as “a few” or “several” followed by a noun or numeral + noun, which is common to many sedentary dialects.
  2. Taltalah occurs as a result of intricate processes of general drift and mutual contact.
  3. Loss of final-wāw verbs is attributed to the general drift, as this type of verb has disappeared in other Semitic languages and most of them have disappeared from Standard Arabic as well.
  4. Reformation of geminate verbs is attributed to dialect contact with early Christian Arabic which displayed this feature.
  5. The verb suffix -l- is found in dialects on the Arabian peninsula as well, and can be attributed to the general drift and contact between dialects.
  6. The cardinal numbers 3-10 is part of the general drift, as independent forms of monosyllabic words (as most of the numerals are) commonly occur as the longer feminine forms. This feature is also not as widespread as it should be if it stemmed from a common koiné. The replacement of a beginning hamza with a /t/ is also not common to all dialects.
  7. The cardinal numbers 13-19 do not have the velarised /ṭ/ in all dialects, and the occurrence of it can be explained by the /ʕ/ and /r/ that the number ten contained in Classical Arabic, which have commonly resulted in velarisation in the dialects.
  8. The loss of the feminine form of comparative adjectives is explained by the fact that it was a special formation and had very limited occurrence.
  9. The plural form of adjectives *CuCāC was derived from the adjectives kibār > kubār (‘large’) and ṭiwāl > ṭuwāl, which are explained by the general drift. The new form extended to the whole pattern.
  10. The relative adjective ending -iyy becoming -ī is part of a normal phonetic development in Standard Arabic.
  11. - 13. Lexical changes of the words ‘to bring’, ‘to see’ and the relative pronoun are not common to all the dialects and have spread due to intercommunication.
  12. The merging of the letters ḍād and ẓāʼ is part of the general drift.

Blau also notes that Arabian dialects have developed features of sedentary dialects, which cannot be derived from Ferguson’s koiné, as it influenced only the sedentary dialects. These features have developed with the general drift and dialect contact. As Arabian dialects are converging with the sedentary dialects, perhaps to develop into a new koiné, it can be assumed that the sedentary koiné also developed from a convergence of dialects rather than being the basis of their divergence.

Conclusion

Ferguson makes a convincing argument for his theory of an Arabic koiné as the basis of sedentary dialects by listing fourteen features common to the sedentary dialects that do not fit the general drift of Arabic and argue against Classical Arabic. He claims that the only reasonable explanation for so many significant differences that feature so uniformly in the sedentary dialects is that they had a common basis which was separate from Classical Arabic. This koiné would have developed mostly during the Islamic conquests, during which the people of the newly conquered lands adopted Arabic and there was increased communication between people who spoke different dialects, causing them to mix.

Disagreement with Ferguson’s theory starts from the assumption that there were pre-Islamic dialects at all, with Blau (1977) and Versteegh (1984) claiming there was no diglossia before the Islamic conquests. Versteegh (ibid.) argues that Ferguson’s theory places too much emphasis on the similarities between sedentary dialects and does not take into account the differences between them. Blau (ibid.) also argues against each feature of the sedentary dialects that Ferguson uses for his theory, attributing many of them to the general drift of Arabic and pointing out that many are not actually common to all the sedentary dialects. His opposing theory is that the koiné emerged after the sedentary dialects developed and began to converge, rather than as a basis for the development of the dialects.

This essay has shown that the question of the origin of the Arabic dialects is oft disputed, as there are many opposing theories with strong arguments for and against. A likely reason for the difficulty in determining the true origin is the fact that the dialects have always been mainly spoken rather than written, meaning there are few materials that would show the development of the dialects throughout history. 

Bibliography

Blau, Joshua, 1977. The Beginnings of the Arabic Diglossia: A Study of the Origins of Neoarabic. - Monographic Journals of the Near East: Afroasiatic Languages 4, 4, 175-202.

Cohen, David 1970. Koine, langues communes et dialectes arabes. David Cohen (ed.), Etudes de linguistic semitic et arabe. The Hague: Mouton, 105-125.

Ferguson, Charles A, 1959. The Arabic Koiné. - Language 35, 4, 616-630.

Versteegh, Kees, 1984. Pidginization and Creolization: The Case of Arabic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.