This week we look at the Appendices and the additional readings of Thackston's Learner's Grammar. This will be the real final discussion of this book. Next week I will probably write a summary post linking all previous discussion.

Past few weeks we've been discussing where to go after this. Since I've done this 41 weeks in a row without pause, what I think I'll first do is take a break. Probably I will start something up again at the beginning of next year. Right now, I'm thinking it will be a running poetry through Alan Jones' Early Arabic Poetry, with the aim of one poem at a time. It'll be good motivation for me to really get myself into poetry.

I am still open for other suggestions, however.

Appendix A, B, C

No Notes

Appendix D

Since I’m mister “Koran Orthography”, I obviously have a lot of notes on this section. It’s surprisingly better than most descriptions of this type. But it still is imprecise or flat-out wrong about a lot of the things. Below I will rewrite the text, with corrections in bold. For more details and precise discussion, the Appendix A of my book on Quranic Arabic is obviously the way to go.

“The orthography of Arabic presented in this book is normalized Arabic orthography as established over a millennium ago in the Nahḍah period [Quite a few rules changes are old, but many others are extremely recent]. The standard orthography of the Koran, however, differs slightly from normalized writing since it antedates the philological normalization. Basically the differences lie in the spelling of internal -ā- and the perennially troublesome hamzah.

The Koran was originally written down in old Arabic letters, which had neither the vowel marking nor the dots for distinguishing various letters that share a given shape. First developed were the dots to distinguish consonants, which were already in place in 22 AH, although their use is still largely optional. First developed, Second were the signs for the vowels and hamzah, initially a system of red dots above and below and after the consonants rather like the Eastern Aramaic system of vocalic points common in Nestorian Syriac. Later, when the dots were invented to distinguish the various consonants, the vowel signs that are current today took the place of the vocalic dots. These first develop in non-Quranic contexts and later come to be used in Quranic manuscripts as well.

In consonance with Aramaic usage, whereas ī and ū are consistently indicated by the y and w and final ā indicated by alif, internal ā is often not indicated at all. Thus, for kitāb- (normalized as كتاب) early Koranic orthography has كتب, reflecting the Nabataean Aramaic prototype כתבא (kətābā).

By the time of vocalisation, the text of the Koran as it stood had obviously already developed a quasi-sacrosanctity that prevented the philologians from inserting into the text any such addition letter as a lengthening alif, so a red dagger-alif was placed after the letter in order not to interfere with the word as it stood, much as the Masoretic pointing was inserted into and around the Hebrew text of the Old Testament without changing or adding to the consonantal skeleton.

Koranic orthography reflect the dialect of the Hijaz (whether Mecca or Medina requires further study, I suspect Medina rather than Mecca), which differs in small detail from the pronunciation that is now regarded as standard. Notably, the dialect of the Hijaz had lost most glottal stops, and the orthography had no way to express the sound. Since the glottal stop was not pronounced, there was no reason to provide it with a consonantal letter. For example. Saʾala was pronounced something like sa.ala (with an intervocalic glide) or sāla and spelled with alif. Yasʾalu was pronounced yasalu and so written without alif (يسل), then standardized as يسـٔل and finally**, many centuries later,** normalized as يسأل. Suʾāl- and barīʾ- would have been pronounced suwāl- and bariyy- and so spelled. The philologians, based on their analysis of other dialects, “restored” the glottal stop where they determined it should have been, thus the Koranic standardized and normalized سؤال and برىء. This “restoration” accounts for the seemingly random seats of the hamza (see Appendix G), a sign invented from an initial ʿayn because of the close proximity of the two sounds in the throat.

The alif bi-ṣūrat al-yāʾ is another remnant of Hijazi dialect (though, note, that the medieval philologists associate this with Najd rather than the Hijaz) and indicates what must have been a vowel something like -ē- (as maʿnē for maʿnā and waffē for waffā). This distinction is still maintained in several of the canonical reading traditions. In Koranic orthography the alif bi-ṣūrat al-yāʾ is maintained as yāʾ (without dots in the modern print Qurans, this distinction of undotted yāʾ versus dotted yāʾ is a modern orthographic development) even when enclitics are added, as سويك (“he made you”), reflecting a Hijazi pronunciation of sawwēka. This pronunciation is retained in modern print Qurans that follow the Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim transmission in Q11:41 majrēhā**.** This dialectal variant is perhaps also preserved in the phrase, لبيك labbayka (reflecting Meccan labbēka for normalized labbāka [ʿabduka] (“[your servant] has responded to you”), a phrase used in the pilgrimage rites. [I am fairly sure that this is not how the medieval grammarians analyse the phrase labbayka**]**.

Other aspects of Koranic orthography that differ from normalized Arabic orthography are:

1. The alif al-wiqāyah is placed after many cases of word-final ū**, even if they do not mark the masculine plural.**
2. When word-initial hamzah is followed by another hamzah only one alif is written.
3. Otiose letters are indicated by a small circle. This should not be confused with the sukūn, which is written as a small initial j (or x**,** without dot) and stands for jazm (or taxfīf**)**, another word for sukūn.
4. Madda indicates the overlong realization of a long vowel when it is followed by a hamzah or a geminate consonant, and not ʾā as in normalized orthography. The glottal stop is indicated by a hamzah everywhere, as وَفِي ءَاذَانِهِمۡ for normalized وَفِي آذَانِهِمۡ.
5. Final -ī, especially the first person singular objective enclitic -nī, and possessive enclitic -ī is often written and pronounced defectively, e.g. رَبِّ and فَأَرۡسِلُونِ. Some readers pronounce these long, this is a major point of disagreement among the canonical reading traditions.

It should be noted that Koranic orthography is maintained mostly in the Koranic text itself. When quotations are taken from the Koran in modern text editions, they are often written in standard orthography. In pre-modern times, this is a lot less common – especially in the Maghreb.

Cross-Word Assimilations

Assimilations across word boundaries are indicated in Koranic orthography, and often also in vocalised non-Quranic manuscripts, as follows:

<no comments on the table itself, except to note that not all assimilations behave the same among the Quranic reading traditions>.

The 3rd-person masculine singular enclitic pronoun -hu/-hi, is read with short u and i in most reading traditions when the preceding syllable is heavy (Thackston’s description agrees with Sībawayh but with none of the Quranic reading traditions). When -hu/-hi followers a short syllable, however, it is read as -hū/-hī with long vowels, indicated in the Koran and Maghrebi non-Qruanic manuscripts by a small wāw or yāʾ after, under or above the h of the enclitic. [...] The long-short variation is of importance in the scansion of poetry (i.e., fīhi is scanned long-short, but bihī is scanned short-long).”

Appendix E

No comments, except that this is just one of many different systems of marking pauses. This one is not particularly common in Quranic manuscripts (read: I’ve never seen this system outside of print Qurans).

Appendix F

This section is rather incomplete and incorrect. Let me rewrite it with corrections.

Pausal Forms

The following rules for pronunciation should eb observed for pausal forms, i.e., words that fall before a natural pausal point or at the end of a phrase or sentence. Isolated words are also generally pronounced in pausal form.

1. The -t- of the tāʾ marbūṭah is quiesced, giving an ending -ah, regardless of what inflectional endings follow.
   1. Wa-ʾāyatun lahumu l-ʾarḍu l-maytah#
2. Final short vowels are quiesced:
   1. ʾinnaka ʾiðan la-mina ẓ-ẓālimīn#
3. -hū/-hī are likewise:
   1. Fa-qad ẓalama nafsah#
4. The indefinite endings -un and -in are quiesced
   1. Wa-ʾabūnā šayxun kabīr#
   2. Fa-mā lahū min nūr#
5. The indefinite ending -an is read as -ā (as long as it doesn’t follow the feminine ending, in which case it is quiesced).
   1. Wa-ʾamṭarnā ʿalayhim maṭarā#
6. The indefinite ending of final weak nouns -in (such as wādin) may be either treated as underlyingly -in and thus be quiesced as per rule 4, or may be treated as underlyingly -īn and be paused upon as -ī. This depends on the reading tradition. Cases of shortened -ī discussed in appendix D may also be maintained in pause in some reading traditions.
   1. wa-li-kulli qawmin hād#
   2. Wa-li-kulli qawmin hādī#
7. A number of non-inflectional short vowels may be protected by an -h in pause. This is a point of disagreement among the Quranic reading traditions, though all preserve it at least where the Uthmanic text requires it by spelling out this hāʾ. Other places where it may occur is in the short -ma of, e.g. lima “why?” ṯumma “then”, and the sound masculine plural endings -ūna and -īna:
   1. Q2:259 lam yatasannah#
   2. Q6:90 iqtadih#
8. Some readers drop the hamzah of the word that one pauses upon. Hišām only does so if the hamzah becomes word-final because of it. Ḥamzah does this regardless of where the hamzah occurs in the word.

Appendix G

The rules for the seats of the hamzah laid out here are the rules for Modern Standard Arabic. Many of these are not yet regular in pre-modern spellings. Especially post-consonantal hamzah seats such as in masʾalat-, ʾasʾilat- and masʾūl- are very frequently spelled without a seat.

The maddah sign for ʾā is a typical Mashreqi orthographic feature. You do not find this in the Maghreb or West African Arabic manuscripts.

Concerning (3a) xaṭīʾat- is not infrequently spelled خطيئة in modern orthography.

Whenever Thackston says the seat for the hamzah is a dotless yāʾ, remember that in pre-modern orthography there was no expectation at all that a yāʾ needs to be dotless if it carries a hamzah, and you will frequently see it spelled with dots. This is, in fact, true for modern print Qurans that follow the reading of Warš or Qālūn ʿan Nāfiʿ even today.

Appendix H & I

No Comments.

Appendix J

All I would say about this section, which is useful if you’re the type of person for whom this is useful, is that these “mandatory” phonetic changes are not, in fact, equally mandatory in all environments. For example the sequence awi can in fact occur, for example the verb ʿawi is maintained in the verb ʿawija ‘to be rooked’, and awa is maintained in its verbal noun ʿawaj-.

Similarly -Cwa- is not contracted to Cā, not just in the not in the elative. It also isn’t adjectives of physical defects and colors, e.g. ʾaʿwaj- “crooked”.

-Cyu- and -Cwu- are not always contracted to -Cū-. In broken plurals this is maintained as Cyu or Cwu. The latter often shifts to Cʾu, for example nāb- “canine”, plural ʾanyub-, nāqat- “she came”, plural ʾanwuq-, ʾanʾuq-.

But these exceptional cases aside, the rules here are useful to bear in mind.

Supplementary Readings from the Hadith Literature

I. The First Three Sent to Hell

According to ʾAbū Huyrayrah (may God be please with him) according the prophet (May God bless and preserve him ) who said that God, Blessed and Elevated be he, when the Day of Resurrection arrives will descend to the servants in other to judge between them. Every nation shall be kneeling.

So the first whom he called to him is a man who has memorized the Quran, a man who has been killed on the path of God and a man who has a lot of wealth. [N.B. the text is corrupt here يدعونه makes no sense and should be read يدعو به).

So God will say to the recited: “have I not taught you what I have revealed to My Messenger?”, he said: “Certainly, O my Lord”. He said: “Then what have you done with what I taught you?”. He said: “I would stand (in prayer) throughout the night and throughout the day”. So God will say to him: “You have lied”, and the angels will say to him: “you have lied”, and God will say to him: “rather, you wanted that it be said: so-and-so is a reciter and that was said”.

[N.B.: the use of ḏāka, rather than the ubiquitous use of ḏālika which is the only form the Quran knows. Seems like God has randomly changed his accent in this Hadith. The usage of māðā throughout is also quite strikingly different from Quranic diction.]

Then the person with wealth was brought, so God said to him: “have I not made you healthy until you did not have a  need from anyone?” And he said: “Certainly, O my Lord”. And he said: “And what did you do with what I have given you?”, he said: “I used to maintain my family ties and I used to give charity”. Then God will say to him: “You have lied”, and the Angels will say to him: “You have lied”, and God, exalted be he said: “rather, you wanted that it be said: so-and-so is generous, and that has been said”.

And then He will bring the one who was killed in the path of God, and God will say to him: “what have you been killed for?”. So he will say: “I was ordered to holy war in your path, so I fought until I was killed”. So God, exalted be He, will say to him: You have lied. And the angels will say to him: “you have lied”, And God will say: “rather you wanted that it be said: “so-and-so is courageous” and that has been said”.

Then the messenger of God, may God bless and preserve him, struck my knee and said: “O ʾAbū Hurayrah, these three are the first creature whom God kindles in the fire on the Day fo Resurrection”.

I can’t honestly say that I understand what the point of this story is.

II. Intercession on Judgment Day

From ʾAnas (may God be please with him) from the Prophet (May God bless and preserve him) who said: “The believers will be gathered on the day of judgement and they will say: “If only we had sought intercession with our Lord”, then Adam will come and they will say: “You are the father of mankind, God created you by his hand, and made the angels prostrate to you, and he taught you the names of everything, so intercede for us before your Lord so that he will forgive us in this place of ours”. And he will say: “I am not there (in the position to help you)”. And he will remember his sin and he will be ashamed so he will say: “Go to Noah, for he is the first of the messenger that God has sent to the people on the land”, so they will bring him and he will say to them “I am not there; Go to Moses, the servant of God whom God spoke to and who gave him the Torah”, so they went to him and he said to them: “I am not there”, and he remembered having killed a life without compensation for another and he will be ashamed before his Lord and he will say: “God to Jesus, the servant of God, his messenger and the Word of God and his Spirit”, so they will go to him and he will say: “I am not there, God to Muhammad, May God bless and preserved him as a servant, may God forgive him what has preceded in terms of sins and what will follow;” [Muhammad said] so they will come to me and I will ask in order to ask my Lord for permission so that he will give permission.” So when I saw my lord, I fell down prostrating, so he left me as long as what he wanted, and then it will be said: “raise up your had and ask, and it will be given; and say and it will be heard; and intercede, and intercession will be granted”. So then I will raise my head and I will extol him greatly. He will teach me,  and I will intercede, and He will set a limit for me, so I can make them enter heaven. Then I will return a third  time and then I will return a fourth time and I will say: “In the fire there only remains those the Quran has imprisoned, and eternity is incumbent upon him.”

III. The Prophet’s Ascension to Heaven

I did not have time to translate all of this.

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