Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

For my Islamic Law class this past semester, I wrote a short essay about Muslim linguistic philosophy in light of modern linguistics. For some reason, I don’t have the final draft, but I do have the first draft. I don’t really want to go through and edit it, so I will post a PDF of the paper and the sources. Read it.  Or don’t.  It’s probably pretty boring.

Lameen on Farfur the Mouse.

My most recent assignment for historical linguistics was on analogical change. Part of the assignment required me to note examples of analogical change around me. Some of the examples I cited included things friends and I say. Well, mostly friends who are node-members say these:

· Succumb/succumbed/succumbed becoming succumb/succame/succame on analogy with with come/came/came.

· Ding/dinged/dinged to ding/dang/dang (or dung) on analogy to ring/rang/rung.

· Sacrilicious as a blend of sacrilegious and delicious. This is used to denote something that is remarkable, but perhaps also a sacrilege. I don’t know who came up with this originally, but it’s wonderful.

· Mayhaps as a blend of maybe and perhaps.

· To recreate, backforming from recreation.

Other analogical changes used commonly:

· Gruntled backforming from disgruntled.

· Thusly as a hyperrcorrection.

· Lead/leaded/leaded leveled from lead/lead/lead. This is highly used, but also highly stigmatized.

Any other examples from English or other languages?

While were at it, Dr. Campbell spoke with us today about the difference between a dialect and a language. Dialect is notoriously ill-defined. There are a couple of definitions used: dialects are mutually intelligible; a language is a dialect with an army. These seem to apply in some cases. The latter applies to Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, for example, but they both have their own armies (and independence for that matter). A similar situation is Dari and Farsi, which are mutually intelligible, but Farsi is the official language of Iran, while Dari is spoken in pockets within Iran.

The picture becomes really clouded when speaking about Arabic. Moroccan Arabic and Levantine Arabic are not mutually intelligible. Morocco and [Syria, Lebanon, Jordan] have their own nations and militaries, yet both are called dialects of Arabic. Further complicating the picture is what my structure of Arabic professor said to me: dialects share underlying representations (at least phonologically), but I wonder how many underlying representations are shared between Moroccan and Levantine.

Sorry, I’ve been busy. This semester is looking tough so far. However, I am learning some pretty nifty things. I look forward to relaying accquired knowledge to you in the near future. For now, let me discuss what I have been reading for structure of Arabic.

Triconsonantal verb morphemes in Semitic languages (in the pattern of C₁C₂C₃) C₁ and C₂ are not typically identical. In Arabic, for example, such roots don’t exist at all. An identical C₂ and C₃ is permissible, however, and occur regularly. So, we see roots like ∫kk ‘to doubt’ in Arabic, but not *∫∫k. The existence and non-existence of certain root patterns led Jospeh Greenberg (1950) to investigate all possible combinations. Here is a summary of what he found:

· In addition to prohibitions of geminates in C₁C₂ positions, homorganic consonants are prohibited. No Semitic language would have *bm- or *gk- (where both are velars) in addition to *kk-.

· In C₂C₃ positions, homorganic consonants are marked, though attested, but geminates are allowed. In Arabic, we find the root ∫kk, though not ∫gk.

· There is an exclusion, though not as rigorous as the preceding constraints, of C₁___C₃ homorganic consonants, including identical consonants. We do see a few instances of such roots. For example, qlq ‘to be confused’ in Arabic and prm ‘to tear’ in Syriac (where the first and third radical are labials).

Let’s see how well that stands up to the numbers Greenberg crunched (I am using the examples of labials) from a collection of 3775 Arabic roots [root (occurence)]:

C₁C₂

· bf- (0).

· bb- (0).

· bm- (0).

· ff- (0).

· fb- (0).

· fm- (0).

· mf- (0).

· mb- (0).

· mm- (0).

C₂C₃

· -bf (0).

· -bb (22) (geminates are allowed here).

· -bm (1).

· -ff (19).

· -fb (0).

· -fm (0).

· -mf (0).

· -mb (0).

· -mm (0).

C₁C₃

· b-f (0).

· b-b (1).

· b-m (5).

· f-f (1).

· f-b (0).

· f-m (11).

· m-f (0).

· m-b (0).

· m-m (0).

So…as al-Ghawalki said, “As regards Arabic formation, he most excellent are formed by letters which are distant in their points of formation.” Pretty nifty I think. Oh, and if this is hard to parse, keep in mind that I haven’t been sleeping much lately.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. Patterning of Root Morphemes in Semitic. Word 3: 162-180.

I read over a few Hadiths the other day. One in particular caught my eye. It was given in the context of after Friday prayer, when Muhammad got up to thank everyone for coming, etc. Here it is in Arabic and English:

و حدثني محمد بن رافع و عبد بن حميد قال عبد اخبرنا و قال ابن رافع حدثنا عبد الرزاق اخبرنا معمر عن الزهري عن ابن المسيب عن ابي هريرة قال

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم من اكل من هذه الشجرة فلا يقربن مسجدنا ولا يؤذينا بريح الثوم

Translation (excluding all the isnad):

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Whoever ate from this plant [raw onion and garlic and this case] should not approach our mosque, thus harming us with the smell of raw garlic.”

Reading this Hadith was followed by a discussion of the practicality of some Ahadith, compared to the more contemplative nature of others. I mentioned isnad above. Isnad is basically a chain of narrator of Hadith, and was probably brought to the study of Hadith by Jewish converts to Islam.

I have one problem with the above citation:

man akala min haðihi ʃ-ʃajara fala: ya-qrabna masjidana:

Who ate.3MS from this the-plant don’t approach.3FP mosque-our

Whoever ate from this plant, don’t approach our mosque.

I am not sure why the verbs don’t agree. One being 3^rd person masculine singular, the other being 3^rd person feminine plural. If anyone has a clearer understanding of this, let me know.

Anyway, classwork is over, and I am now working on finals. I finished my phonology take-home final, in which all the data is Arabic and Biblical Hebrew (I have this test in the bag), and now have to work on a Syntax take-home, a translation, and a short essay for anthropology. Then, I have a month off. Alhamdulillah.

Yeah, it’s been a while, but it’s also been a crazy while. In fact, it’s been so long that I had forgotten that I had changed the layout to a WP theme. If there is anything you would like to see as per the layout of the blog, let me know.  In fact, I may take some time over the upcoming break to re-engineer something of my own again.

For a while now, I have owned a copy of Clive Holes’ Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions and Varieties, but have never read it very thoroughly. For some reason, my Arabic sociolinguistics teacher had us buy it, since Holes in known in the realm of Arabic sociolinguistics, but she never had us read from it. It’s a shame, because the book is a wealth of information. It clarified a discussion I had with one of my clients (I decided to call the people I tutor clients) about the importance of case ending in Classical, specifically Qur’anic Arabic. Frankly, I couldn’t give her a clear answer, but Hole’s explanation makes the most sense. To understand it, it’s important to know that the Qur’an isn’t so much of a ‘read’ text, but a recited text (Qur’an, itself, means recitation). In fact, it wasn’t compiled into a codex until long after Muhammad’s death, and was generally only recited from memory. I quote an excerpt.

Recitation is a species of oral performance, and, like any other type, Muhammad’s would have been marked by the use of sentence stress, intonation, and possibly para-linguistic gestures in order to make his meaning clear. In other words, Koranic ‘i`ra:b [case markings] may well have been an appropriate stylistic feature, but was by no means an indispensable syntactic one, required for the unambiguous communication of meaning.

I find Holes’s explanation important from more than a pedagogical point of view. It has also been of concern to linguists whether ‘i`ra:b was spoken at the time the Qur’an was recorded. Perhaps, as Holes claims, it wasn’t the case. In fact, I haven’t seen evidence that it was so. Some claim that the occurrence of tanwi:n [indefinite case markings] in modern Bedouin dialects is evidence of the common use of ‘i`ra:b in common speech in early Arabic. However, Holes argues, the occurrence of such markings only occurs in formulaic utterances like poems, proverbs, etc. On the other hand, as far as I am aware, even in formulaic utterances tanwi:n occurs only in Bedouin dialects, not urban dialects. Perhaps that is meaningful. I will stew over that for a while.

In other Arabic news, I was going to post part of a translation of some stories from 1001 Nights and talk about some of the sentences I found interesting, as well as discuss the cultural importance of the text, which I think those of you with an anthropological streak may enjoy. I really don’t think the translation is very polished yet, so maybe I will post that next time.

Traditionally, I post a list of my top-ten albums of the preceding year. This year, I have decided not to do so. The reason for my decision is two-fold: it has become harder to find good music and I don’t really have time to look for it anyway. As such, I haven’t listened to much of anything worth mentioning. Nor, for that matter, have I seen many good movies, played many good games, or read many good books recently. Looking back at this, I was lead to think about my hobbies and hobbies in general.

I divide my hobbies into two categories, level one and level two, and they are divided by what the priority they fall into when I am not pursuing my regular vocations, i.e school, and other primary interests and pursuits. Note, I don’t include ‘interests’ in these categories. That would be for another discussion.

Level 1

· Reading.

· Music.

· Games.

· Writing.

Level 2

· Philately.

So level two is small, but I like collecting stamps, but I don’t do it whenever I have free time. You will also notice missing from the list is exercising. While it may be a hobby, I didn’t include this. Once upon a time, I would just run every day. That became too difficult, so now I just exercise because it feels normal. It’s just part of the daily routine, I guess.

I recall having something more to say about this, like something profound, but I can’t remember. Sorry about trailing off into nothingness. I am also amazed at how quickly I changed the subject.

I wasn’t planning on writing an update today, but an article on Jabal al-Lughat caught my eye today. If you aren’t familiar with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, here is a brief description: there is a relationship between the grammatical categories of a language and the way native speaker of the same views the world. So, rather than culture influencing language, language influences culture to a certain extent. The Islamophobes of the world have jumped on the hypothesis, without a thorough understanding of what it is, and are arguing that the Classical Arabic language encourages radicalism.

It is absurd to argue that a language causes radical impulses. There are far too many other variables to consider that the ’scholars’ missed. For example, increasing Arabic literacy increases the ability of those who already have radical tendencies to access radical literature. We may as well argue that the French language is the root of the pretension of the French. Further, as Lameen writes:

Mind you, like most people who cite the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, he doesn’t seem to have a very clear idea of its content. On my reading of Whorf, his core idea is (plausibly enough) that a language might make its speakers more conscious of some grammaticalized categories by forcing its speakers to mark them, or less conscious of them by not providing any simple way to describe them; it would thus render some ideas more intuitive than others. For this sort of deep influence to be plausible, the speaker has to do most of his/her thinking in the language in question. But both classical Arabic and French in Algeria are only ever used by most speakers in writing, or in highly formal contexts - scarcely the sort of situation Whorf had in mind…

This comes down to a number of things that really irritate me: one, people who pretend to be scholars, but in reality have nothing but ideological motives — religious, political, or otherwise — behind their work; two, another attempt by the Daniel Pipes fan club to demonize the Islamic world; and three, a misunderstanding about what language is. When we talk about language, we are referring primarily to sounds, not letters. Written language is of course important, and my primary interest is in text linguistics, but it isn’t hardwired into our brain like speech is. Literacy needs to be learned. People can be fluent in their native language, but not know how to read or write. Now I am getting into something I was saving for another update, so…

In conclusion, this is another example of people making a claim, citing a hypothesis of which they have no real understanding. Unfortunately, I see it all too often in the Middle East department at the University of Utah. I have an associate with whom I often joust over Biblical archaeology and whether or not it lends credence to or discredits Israel or Palestinian claims, what language Abraham spoke, etc, while I have others whose sole purpose for studying the region is to capture terrorists. What happened to real scholarly pursuits?

edit: I updated the bio with a lot of information, in case you are bored.

edit2: I will post the old archives within the week.

edit3: The doors are opening.

So, there are still a few little quirks to work out with the transfer. Some things are not lining up properly, but I can fix that in two minutes as soon as I have the will to do so. If you happened to be reading the blog last night between 9:46 PM and 9:50 PM, you would have noticed that the home page had 20 additional posts dated January 1970. This was the result of my attempt to automate the import of my old archives. Unfortunately, I will lose my comments since CuteNews doesn’t keep the comments anywhere near the Really though, the reason why the site is bare again stems more from my incompetence: I don’t know how to send posts to the archive with this new-fangled devilry I am using.

Anyway, I could talk about my boring weekend, but I want talk about second language acquisition instead; primarily what fluency is and how it is achieved. I know for a fact that several people reading my web log are studying or have previously studied a foreign language, but how many of them are fluent? Who knows? I, for one, become rather irritated when people refer to me as the kid fluent in Arabic. I am nowhere near fluency. I haven’t developed what is necessary to achieve fluency in Arabic. To understand fluency, we need to understand linguistic competence.

In a nutshell, linguistic competence is our innate ability to speak and the intuition we have about the language we speak. Naturally, we have an extraordinary intuition about our native language, even if we have never touched a grammar book. Fluency in a foreign language requires a speaker to achieve to some degree a pseudo-competence within the language he or she is learning. I have never taken an L2 acquisition course, but I hypothesize that with Semitic languages, like Arabic and Hebrew, morphology is the primary obstacle to achieving this level of competence.

As native English speakers, we don’t store the word ‘uncomfortable’ in our minds as the word ‘uncomfortable.’ Rather, we store it as three morphemes: ‘un,’ ‘comfort,’ and ‘able.’ When we need to say, “Uncomfortable,” we put the pieces together and spit it out on the fly. A native speaker of Arabic doesn’t store the word ‘maktu:b’ in his head as ‘maktu:b,’ but as the root /ktb/ and the affixes that are attached to it. A student learning Arabic, however, cannot do this in a classroom setting — he has to store the word along with his English lexicon as one word.

In short, how do we achieve the ability to mimic what native speakers do? Live with them. That said, I am thinking I will live in the Middle East for a year or two after I graduate. That’s all I have to say.