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Koranic Arabic and modern standard arabic | ||
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| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 9 of 28 20 December 2010 at 12:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I thought the Bible was in Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament), is that wrong? It would be rather ironic if the Roman Catholic Church imposed one particular translation (Latin) as the correct one ahead of even the originals (as a lapsed Catholic I could well believe it, though)!!!! Edited by Random review on 20 December 2010 at 12:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zamie Groupie Australia Joined 5254 days ago 83 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Modern Hebrew | Message 10 of 28 20 December 2010 at 7:31am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I only asked this question because many people have told me that the original language of
the koran is mostly incomprehensible without the help of a side by side translator or commentary. I suppose these people were lying. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 28 20 December 2010 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I understand that the Najd dialect, favoured by Saudi Arabia's upper caste, is widely supposed to be the closest. Hejazi is a more widespread dialect in Saudi Arabia but is strongly influenced by Egyptian and other dialects. All dialects, including Najd, have travelled some considerable way from the Arabic of the Koran, which is what you would expect in the course of more than a thousand years of language development. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Huliganov Octoglot Senior Member Poland huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5356 days ago 91 posts - 304 votes Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 12 of 28 22 December 2010 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I hear people make that observation from time to time, but I am a but skeptical about it. I think there is a tendency for people with not much familiarity with Islam to assume it is broadly like an earlier form of Christianity. There's a tendency to equate the military or political activity of Islamists, for instance, with the behaviour of the Crusades and the Inquisition during a period when the Roman Church was concerned mainly in my opinion with its earthly political influence and its power and wealth, and for most church officers lost sight of the actual Christian mission for centennials. And also some Protestant branches which also became over politicised and were little or no better, only less successful at worldly power than Roman catholics were. Do a degree there is an element of truth in it, but this is comparing what we would call the failures of the Church to teh successes of Islam. When Islam has conquered territory by the sword, that has been its golden age. Whereas when the Church did it it was the time when they were entirely failing to do what Jesus asked them to do in fact, and had subverted the mission to something else. And hence, in due course, they stopped it. In the main. The question of whether Shia and Sunni are really as diverse as different branches of Christianity I would perceive differently to you. There is no disagreement between these two factions about the contents of the Koran, that it needs to be read in Arabic, that it is infallible, that Allah created the world, etc. All they differ on is one two opposing points of view on which of two people was the successor of Mohammed in leading Islam. They don't have different pillars of wisdom, they don't have different verses or texts or parts of the Koran they say are not authoritative. They all pray in a similar way, go to mosque on the same day, use similar attire. I believe that between Sunni and Shia you have no more real doctrinal difference than would exist within different parts of Roman Catholicism alone, and that the doctrinal pick 'n' mix available across the whole denominational spectrum in Christian churches, even those broadly following the Nicene creed, is of a totally different order of magnitude to that in Islam, and pretty much always has been, if you look at the discussions going on among the Church fathers. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5273 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 13 of 28 22 December 2010 at 3:36am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I was not saying that all Muslims don't agree on many things but they most certainly don't agree on everything. There is also a huge difference between Sunnis and Shias as the current suicide bombings in Iran on Shia Mosques by Sunnis shows. I'd also go as far as comparing Shias to Catholics as they pray to Saints for certain things. Sufis are also even more different and some Muslims consider them extremely blasphemous. Alot of Muslims also want unity just like many Christians or Jews in there religion. Nothing is black and white. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 28 22 December 2010 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think the range of doctrinal interpretation within Islam is as variable as within Christianity. Sunnis tend to be quite strict about banning images, whereas Shia will display pictures representing the Imam Ali or the Twelve Imams. I know many Alevis in and from Turkey. Alevism is often seen as Shia Islam in the form it takes in Turkey, though this is only partly true. Alevis do not fast during Ramadan and do not worship in mosques, having buildings called cemevis which bear little resemblance to mosques. There have sometimes been outbreaks of sectarian violence towards Alevis, such as Maras in December 1978, when mobs incited by the claim that "the Alevis and the Communists are burning down mosques" killed in excess of a hundred people in the course of a pogrom that went on for days. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6260 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 15 of 28 22 December 2010 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The Quranic Arabic is not totally incomprehensible. Yes, some parts are difficult to understand for a layman, but it is primarily an issue of vocabulary rather than grammar. There is a difference not only between between Quranic Arabic and MSA, but even between Quranic and Classical Arabic which is mostly in style. Nearly 61% of the Quran is thought to be revealed in Mecca, while %39 is revealed in Medina. Most of the Meccan verses are easy to understand even to 10 years old child. It talks mostly on subjects related to monotheism, faith, morals, good deeds, life in the hereafter, idol worhsip, etc.) The ambiguous parts are in the Medinite, which talks mostly on worships, legal issues, marriage, divorce, jihad, etc. The Quran itself described some of its verses as 'vague', or 'multiple-meaning' verses, and that only God knows the true meaning of them and those who are well-founded in knowledge. In chapter 3 verse 7 it says: "It is He who has sent this Scripture down to you [Prophet]. Some of its verses are definite in meaning- these are the cornerstone of the Scripture- and others are ambiguous. The perverse at heart eagerly pursue the ambiguities in their attempt to make trouble and to pin down a specific meaning of their own: only God knows the true meaning. Those firmly grounded in knowledge say, ‘We believe in it: it is all from our Lord’- only those with real perception will take heed" As for which dialect similar to Quranic Arabic, language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15700&PN=22">see this thread.
Actually, even the Arabic version is not the Quran itself. The physical book is called 'musHaf'. We, Muslims, sometimes burn old copies of the musHaf. We are just burning papers and ink! That's why most Muslim scholars do not care about those people, but the media like to exaggerate things.
....and Wahabis to Protestants (or baptists?) as they call to return to the original teachings in the scriptures. Edited by Hashimi on 22 December 2010 at 8:02pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 28 23 December 2010 at 2:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think many things said on this thread were more or less correct or have a kernel of
truth to them, but there have also been several misconceptions which I hope I can clear up. "Koranic Arabic" (aka Classical Arabic or "CA") is the same language as MSA. They use essentially the same grammar, and MSA vocabulary is a subset of Classical Arabic's vocabulary along with some modern loanwords and coined terms. However, MSA and CA differ in a few ways: (1) Stylistic differences: MSA style, especially in media circles, is noticeably influenced by constructions and phrases from English and French. This is not surprising since even newspapers consist largely of translations from international press agencies. (2) Changes in usage: some words' meanings have drifted slightly over the past 1400 years and not all people who read the Quran can recognize a word whose meaning has shifted. So, people who understand MSA can read the Quran easily, but that does not mean they will understand all of it correctly and there will be many obscure or archaic words that will require a dictionary or a commentary. Some passages are very easy to understand, while some rare passages can seem inscrutable (not inscrutable grammatically; just too many obscure words). Think of it as an American highschool student today reading an article by H.L. Mencken. She'll recognize the language as basically the same as her own, but the style will seem anachronistic and every few sentences she may need to consult a dictionary. Now, as to your other question, I don't think there is any dialect that *closely* resembles the Arabic of the Quran (it has been 1400 years after all). But there are dialects that are more conservative -- that is, that have preserved more features from the Arabic of the Quran's era -- than others, even though many of these archaic features do not appear in the Quran (some are phonetic features that do not show up in writing anyway). I believe the most conservative dialects are the non-urban dialects of western and central Arabia along with certain dialects in Yemen (in their traditional form). In fact, when used in vernacular poetry, the Arabic of these dialects can feel remarkably similar to Classical Arabic!
Firstly, Najdi-Arabic is not "favoured by Saudi Arabia's upper caste." The Saudi royal family is from Najd, so their traditional dialect was Najdi, but few members of the royal family speak a true Najdi dialect except for the elderly members. Most royals nowadays speak heavily watered-down dialects that are almost hybrids with Hejazi, Gulf and other dialects, and royal living in Jeddah will likely speak something more like Urban Hejazi. The "upper castes" come from many diverse regions and speak many dialects and I would argue that most of the very rich in Saudi Arabia speak in a way that is heavily-influenced by Urban Hejazi (I hope it comes through this paragraph that the dialect situation in Saudi Arabia is very fluid and that the borders between dialects are fuzzy to non-existent. We are not talking about discrete languages here like French, English, Spanish, etc., at least not in the past 50 years or so). The *traditional* Najdi dialect (which is rapidly being watered-down) is indeed one of the most conservative, but the dialects of the rural/tribal areas of Hejaz, Asir and Yemen are probably equally conservative. As for Urban Hejazi (which is not the same as the lesser-known non-Urban Hejazi), it is by no stretch of the imagination spoken by the "majority." It is actually one of the most localized dialects in the country because it is spoken only by certain communities in the major cities of the Hejaz (Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Yanbu). It is, however, widely understood and used in the media and is influential out of proportion to its number of speakers (it probably helps that it is the most easy to understand for people in Egypt, Syria, etc.). The fact that it is a simpler dialect in many ways means that, in the modern era, many dialects have been watered-down to be "compatible" with it (by "simpler" I don't mean "inferior" of course. Many speakers of Urban Hejazi refer to their dialect as "simple" and regard this as a positive trait).
I know this is off-topic, but I feel compelled to respond here because I believe your views on this are very misinformed. The differences between Shi'ites and Sunnis are huge and cannot be underestimated. I have studied the differences between Christian sects and I think it can be argued that Sunnism and Shi'ites differ even more greatly from each other than Protestants and Catholics. The succession to Muhammad may be the seminal issue, but out of this issue entire universes of dogma, doctrine, theology, ritual and political outlook were developed over 1300 years. The examples are too numerous to outline here. Just as one example (since you mentioned it), there has always been a school of thought among Shi'ites that accuses the Quran of being tampered with to omit verses that support the Shi'ite point of view. Today, most Shi'ites disavow this belief but their interpretation of Quranic verses can be so wildly different from the Sunni interpretation that they might as well be reading different books. Plus, most Islamic dogma and law comes not from the Quran but from the Hadith, and the Sunnis and Shi'ites each have their own separate Hadith collections with zero overlap, so even if they believe in the same Quran, that does not really amount to as much as you think. Studying these things thoroughly can take years, but just to give you a flavour, the Shi'ites hold that Muhammad was succeeded by 12 infallible "imams" whose words are equivalent to the Quran itself. This in effect extends Islam's revelation period by almost 300 years and adds an entire body of theology and law attributed to these 12 imams that the Sunnis simply don't have. It's almost like the difference between Judaism and Christianity if you think about it! That's not to mention the widely divergent attitude towards saints (Shi'ites are like Catholics with a long list of saints and demons, while Sunnis are more like Protestants), the Islamic state and community (the Shi'ites consider most of Islamic history to be illegitimate and even view Saladin himself as a villain), the attitude towards Jihad and proselytization (Shi'ites are concerned almost entirely with converting other Muslims rather than converting non-Muslims, and Jihad is frowned-upon in the absence of the 12th imam, who is in occultation), etc. Having studied Shi'ism and Sunnism closely I really consider them to be two separate religions for all practical purposes, even though they share the same roots and have a few rituals in common. Edited by WH2010 on 23 December 2010 at 2:28am 15 persons have voted this message useful |
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