al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, A common phenomenon known to linguists is that of semantic shift, whereby a word acquires new shades of meaning over time. This phenomenon is also noticeable when we take a look at Islamic terminology, such as zakat, or Shari’ah, or the Names and Attributes of Allah, or words related to the […]
Discover your roots. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, One of the most fascinating aspects of Arabic in my eyes, is finding the relationship between words that come from the same root but do not seem to have an obvious link in their meaning. The study of etymology in any language is fascinating in itself, but due to the root
Tales from the riverbank. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, I thought that my previous entry on Ishtiqaaq marked the end of the linguists’ theories on this phenomenon, but it turns out there is more. Rather than looking at the roots as individual units, some scholars of Arabic viewed them according to their articulation points (makhaarij) or phonological characteristics (sifaat), and
Words are sounds of the heart. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, In continuing the theme of derivation, a third form was noticed among the linguists, commonly known as al-Ishtiqaaq al-Akbar [1] (‘The Greatest Derivation’). One angle of this theory is that it went one step further and even claimed, in the presence of certain conditions, there was a link between the common
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, The last post on Ishtiqaaq saw how the scholars of Arabic agreed that words derived from the same [usually triliteral] root share a common meaning among them. A number of great classical scholars of Arabic such as al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Faraaheedee, Abu ‘Ali al-Faarisi, and his student Ibn Jinni, understood this
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, One of phenomena that is immediately noticed among learners of Arabic is that its lexicon resembles a tree wherein some words are built on and branch out from others that usually take the form of tri-consonantal roots. This etymological phenomenon in Arabic is known as al-Ishtiqaaq and there are various theories
A tree, sent down from above. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh There is a phenomenon in Arabic known as al-naht النحت. It is when two words are merged to make one word that refers to them both. Such words are often found in books of fiqh, and this is where I first came across the most common ones, some examples of which
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al-Salāmu 'alaykum wa rahmatullāh One of the words for a 'tap' in Arabic is a hanafiyyah. If it makes you think of the Hanafī madh`hab, there is a quirky story that explains why. When taps were invented, the scholars held that wudū' (ablution) must only be performed using still water, and that running water coming
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