Arabic Linguistics. A Historiographic Overview
Streszczenie
The study of Arabic language seems to have started under the driving need to establish
a correct reading and interpretation of the Qur’ān. Notwithstanding the opinions of some
writers about its origins one should stress that the script and spelling of the Holy Writ
derives directly from the Nabataean cursive. Aramaic Nabataean script was used to write
Old Arabian since the first century A.D., also at Taymā’ and Madā’in Ṣaliḥ, in the
northern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Variant readings and divergent interpretations
of Qur’ānic sentences, based on ancient Arabic dialects, are not expected to disturb the
Arabic grammatical tradition, which was possibly influenced to some extent by Indian
theories and Aristotelian concepts. It served as foundation to modern European studies
and was then expanded to Middle Arabic, written mainly by Jews and Christians, and
to the numerous modern dialects. From the mid-19th century onwards, attention was
given also to pre-classical North-Arabian, attested by Ṣafaitic, Ṯamūdic, Liḥyanite, and
Ḥasaean inscriptions, without forgetting the North-Arabian background and the loanwords
of Nabataean Aramaic, as well as the dialectal information from the 7th–8th centuries,
preserved in Arabic sources.
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