Arabic Linguistics

Godine 2015. objavljen je novi prijevod i komentar Kur’ana na engleskom jeziku pod nazivom ‘The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary’. Ukupan broj stranica ovog znamenitog djela koje uključuje uvod koji prethodi prijevodu i komentaru a napisao ga je glavni urednik Seyyed Hossein Nasr, prijevod i komentar, petnaest eseja međunarodno priznatih učenjaka koji pokrivaju gotovo sve punovažne teme za prohodnost kur’anskim sadržajem, tri apendiksa, biografije komentatora, indeks i mape, iznosi više od dvije hiljade stranica. Riječ je o djelu na kojem su radili desetak godina spomenuti Nasr i uređivački odbor sastavljen od naučnika – američkih muslimana koji su svoje doktorate iz islamskih nauka stekli na vodećim američkim univerzitetima te imaju bogato iskustvo islamskoga svijeta i dobro poznaju tradicionalne islamske nauke odnosno klasični arapski jezik. U komentar su uvrštena brojna djela tradicionalnih mufesira, kako sunijskih tako i šiijskih, dok su izostavljena djela za koja su urednici smatrali da se ne uklapaju u dugu tradiciju tumačenja Božije Riječi. Svakako, djela nemuslimanskih proučavalaca i orijentalista isključena su jednostavno zbog toga što ne prihvaćaju Kur’an kao Božiju Objavu. Ovdje iz spomenutog djela donosimo prijevod i tumačenje Ajeta o svjetlosti – jedan od najpoznatijih i najčešće učenih kur’anskih ajeta, koji se tumačio metafizički, kosmološki, kosmogonički, epistemološki i psihološki te je imao velik utjecaj u islamskoj umjetnosti i arhitekturi.

Editorial

This special issue of the Language Scholar is dedicated to Arabic language learning and teaching in Higher Education. The idea of this issue stemmed out of a growing interest in researching Arabic language pedagogy and an increasing number of scholarship projects that investigate Arabic learning and teaching from different perspectives. Such work was witnessed in two international conferences that took place in March 2017 at the University of Leeds, then in April 2019 in Kings College, University of London. The conferences aimed to bring together researchers, scholars and teachers who share the interests and expertise in Arabic language pedagogy and who indeed presented an impressive range of contemporary topics that are being researched in order to advance the field of Teaching Arabic as a Second Language (TASL). In 2019 conference, the call for papers for this issue was announced and it has been a delight for us to receive a number of very interesting topics from colleagues in the UK and abroad who all strive to tackle issues faced by Arabic teachers and learners and suggest ways to overcome challenges, to develop and to promote the learning of Arabic in Higher Education.
This issue has six papers starting with Al-Hamad and Mohamed’s paper which builds on current research on error analysis with a focus on Arabic phonology and orthography. The paper presents interesting examples of phonological and orthographical errors made by 60 participants who are all English speakers studying Arabic in the UK and it showed an inclination to revert to the closest sounds to those in English language. The paper gives good insights to Arabic teachers when planning their teaching activities to support their students getting used to new phonological and orthographical systems. The second paper by Al Tubuly looks at the extent and range of cultural knowledge found in four common Arabic textbooks and shows that although these books dedicate some sections to present Arabic culture, they lack the focus on the deep culture that is needed for proper understanding of the Arabic speaking communities, their beliefs and lifestyles. The paper helps teachers to consider the missing elements of culture that they may need to supplement into their curriculums.
The third paper by Durkawi and Mouazen is a timely topic that looks at the application of the Integrated Approach (IA) in teaching and gives a practical guide to Arabic teachers who plan to use the IA in their programmes. The authors in this paper share examples of good practice and the challenges that they faced in applying the IA at different proficiency levels as well as a number of positive outcomes that they observed. Our fourth paper by El Essawi also provides analysis of Arabic textbooks on how much they focus on communication strategies. This is a topic that received very little attention in the field of TASL as communication strategies are limitedly found and even non-existent in some textbooks as revealed in this paper. El Essawi’s paper concludes with pedagogical suggestions on how to incorporate communication strategies in classroom activities and teaching materials for the objectives of orientation, exposure and practice.
The fifth paper here by Golfetto shifts the readers’ attention to the students as it investigates the learning experience of Arabic heritage learners. The study, which focused on heritage learners in Italian universities, presents an argument that supports the merging of heritage and non-heritage learning classes. It lists the benefits of merging them including the creation of a more homogenous and authentic learning environment that supports linguistic variation in the class and bridges learning gaps. Finally, the issue concludes with the sixth paper by Khalil providing a comparative linguistic description of Modern Standard Arabic and the Cairene dialect at phonological, lexical and grammatical levels with many examples from the two Arabic varieties. The paper is a useful reference to learners and teachers who incorporate linguistic variation in their programmes. It also provides a framework that can easily be followed by other researchers and scholars who wish to analyse other Arabic varieties.
We are grateful to all our authors who shared here their scholarship and research work and made it available to a wide range of readers. We are also deeply thankful to our reviewers, in alphabetical order, Yolanda Cerda, James Dickins, Hanem El-Farahaty, Giorgia Ferrari, Kassem Wahba and Shahira Yacout, who dedicated their time, efforts and knowledge to review these papers and provide invaluable advice. Huge thanks go to the Language Scholar managers Irene Addison-Child and Milada Walkova who put a lot of efforts on checking papers, communication with authors and reviewers and putting all of this work together. We hope that this special issue will provide a good reference for many Arabic teachers and researchers who strive to advance the field of Arabic language pedagogy.
Rasha Soliman (on behalf of the Language Scholar editorial team)

This article studies two unique Greek inscriptions from Wadi Salma in north-eastern Jordan. The first contains seven lines of Old Arabic written in Greek letters, and is our first secure example of Arabic prose written in Greek in the pre-Islamic period. The inscription sheds light on several grammatical features otherwise obscured by the consonantal skeletons of
the Semitic scripts, such as the presence of case inflection, the realization of III-w suffix-conjugated verbs, and the vowel pattern of the prefix conjugation. The second inscription is written entirely in the Greek language, but contains a long section of prose which is thematically similar to what is typically found in the Safaitic inscriptions.

In Moroccan Arabic, like in many other Afroasiatic languages, certain nouns may have more than one plural form. For instance, tʕəsʕwera ‘photo’ has plurals tʕsʕawər and tʕəsʕwerat. However, their diminutive systematically resorts to –at suffixation in the plural. The aim of this study is twofold. First, it presents an interface approach which aims to determine the structural location of number and capture the empirical contrast between broken and sound plurals. It is argued that the sound plurals are associated with the standard Num projection, whereas the broken plurals are associated lower in the structure with the n projection. Second, it provides a templatic analysis of the diminutive formation, showing that the diminutive and the internal plural markers compete for the same templatic position. External evidence for the analysis is drawn from the phenomenon of emphasis spread. The nP is presented as the maximal domain of emphasis spread in nouns.

Arabic is one of the language subjects that must be learned by all students at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Even the Rector has established Decree No. Un.01/R/HK.005/233/2012 which sets the standard of value in Arabic and English to be achieved by each student as an essential condition of graduation. But the competence of Arabic students are generally still far from the level of mastery to be achieved. over the last few years 90% of the students obtained a score TOAFL below specified standards. It can be caused by a number of new students who do not have basic knowledge of Arabic. So that students who do not have basic knowledge of Arabic can take the classes in Arabic well, it should be given special materials such as morphological and syntactic structures taken from the book Al-Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jami'ah they will use later in the lecture. Thus an urgent need is the preparation of a special material that is given to students prior to taking courses in Arabic. As the first step of the preparation, research needs to be done. Data based on the structure of the sentence in this study were taken from the reading text material in the book Al-'Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jami'ah, consider that the book became a handbook for students at Islamic university. Based on the analysis we concluded that not all morphological and syntactic function commonly studied in classical texts used in the reading text material book Al-'Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jami'ah. So there needs syllabus that takes into account the existence of the form and function of words in this book. Further necessary to develop books for students in order to introduce the form and function of words as introductory material before studying Arabic in regular lectures. Keyword: kalimah, jumlah, ṣīgah, i'rāb Abstrak Bahasa Arab merupakan bahasa yang wajib dipelajari oleh seluruh mahasiswa di semua Fakultas di UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Bahkan Rektor telah menerbitkan SK No. Un.01/R/HK.005/233/2012 yang menetapkan standar nilai bahasa Arab dan bahasa Inggris yang harus dicapai mahasiswa sebagai syarat kelulusan.Namun kemampuan bahasa Arab mahasiswa pada umumnya masih jauh dari taraf penguasaan yang diharapkan. Buktinya selama beberapa tahun terakhir ini mereka 90% mahasiswa mencapai skor TOAFL di bawah standar yang ditentukan. Hal ini kemungkinan besar disebabkan oleh banyaknya mahasiswa baru yang tidak memiliki pengetahuan dasar bahasa Arab. Agar mahasiswa yang tidak memiliki pengetahuan dasar bahasa Arab dapat mengikuti perkuliahan bahasa Arab, maka perlu diberikan materi khusus berupa bentuk ṣarf dan struktur nahwu yang diambil dari buku Al-Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jāmi'ah yang akan mereka gunakan nanti dalam perkuliahan. Dengan demikian kebutuhan yang sangat mendesak adalah penyiapan materi khusus yang diberikan kepada mahasiswa sebelum mengambil mata kuliah bahasa Arab. Sebagai langkah awal penyusunan materi khusus yang dimaksud maka penelitian ini perlu dilaksanakan. Data tentang struktur kalimat dalam penelitian ini diambil dari teks bahan qirā'ah dalam buku Al-'Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jāmi'ah, mengingat buku tersebut merupakan buku yang menjadi pegangan bagi mahasiswa di perguruan tinggi Islam. Berdasarkan hasil analisis diperoleh kesimpulan bahwa tidak semua bentuk kata dan fungsi sintaksis yang biasa dipelajari dalam kitab-kitab klasik digunakan dalam materi qira'ah buku Al-'Arabiyyah li Ṭullab al-Jāmi'ah. Sehingga perlu ada penyusunan silabus yang memperhatikan keberadaan bentuk dan fungsi kata dalam buku ini. Selanjutnya perlu disusun buku bagi mahasiswa dalam rangka mengenalkan bentuk dan fungsi kata sebagai bahan pengantar sebelum mempelajari bahasa Arab dalam perkuliahan regular. Kata Kunci: kalimah, jumlah, ṣīgah, i'rāb

هدفت الدراسة إلى الكشف عن رأي مُتعلّمي اللغة العربية مِن الناطقين بغيرها في دور منهاج الجامعة في تعليمهم التعبير الوظيفي. ومن ثم تحليل مُحتوَى منهاج تعليم اللغة العربية للناطقين بغيرها لقياسمدَى احتواء المنهاج على تدريبات تزيد مِن قُدرة المُتعلم علَى التعبير الوظيفي كتابيًا وشفويًا، ومدَى فاعلية دُروس التعبير الوظيفي في الوحدات الدراسية للمنهاج.كما هدفت إلى تعرّف إمكانية توظيف المتعلّم لما يتعلّمه مِن موضوعات في دروس التعبير في حياته العملية. وأخيرًا هدفت الدراسة إلى الكشف عن الأخطاء التي يقع فيها متعلمو اللغة العربية من الناطقين بغيرها في كتاباتهم التعبيرية.

In this paper, we focus on plural nouns in two Afroasiatic languages: Moroccan Arabic and Djibouti Somali. Within a syntactic approach to word formation, we show that not all plurals are located in the same syntactic position. In Moroccan Arabic, one plural results from the merger of a root with the head n, whereas the other realizes a feature on the number head. In a similar way, Somali displays two suffixal plurals, which realize two distinct syntactic structures. One suffix is associated to numP and behaves as a regular plural suffix; in contrast, the other suffix is analyzed as a bound root that selects for xPs (nP or numP) containing the feminine gender.