Arabic Culture: Development and Spread of Arabic Language

DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF ARABIC CULTURE
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Development and Spread of Arabic Language
The role of language in the development of human civilization can be summarized by Lyons’ (1991) assertions that “language is purely human and non-instinctive methods of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntary produced symbols” (p.3). However, based on this belief, it is accurate to say that there is more to language than what it is perceived to be. This is because Lyons assertion ignores the cultural form of language which forms its base. Additionally, the significant role of language in communication can take various forms and not just limiting it to ideas, desires and emotions, they stretch beyond the symbols. However, despite providing a narrow perspective of language, Lyons provides a clear sense by saying, “language is a system of vocal symbols by means of a social group co-operation” (p.5). Based on this insight into language, it is easy to analyze language on the subject of development and its expansion in order to make clear conclusions on its role in the society and impact.
The Arabic language is among the major languages of the world with more than 250 million people in Arab countries using it as their first language. Consequently, it also uses a major language in non-Arab countries and as a minority language in various countries such as Israel, Iran, Afghanistan and Nigeria. In 1974, the United Nations adopted it as one of its official languages to join the likes of English, Spanish, Chinese, French, and Russian. The Arabic language is used as a liturgical language by more than one billion Muslims in various countries who study it as a second language. In the U.S.A, the Muslim and Arab communities use it in their daily activities and religious purposes (Al-Sharkawi, 2016).
Explaining the development of the language is not an easy task because little written literature exists about its origins (Jespersen, 2013). However, the existing literature documents that the Arabic language belongs to the Afro-Semitic family of languages which comprise of more than 300 languages where some have become extinct while some are still used as liturgical languages. The only surviving Semitic languages are Arabic and Hebrew while Hausa and several Berber dialects are the only remnants of the Hamitic languages.
The existing literature is inconsistent in documenting the origins of the Arabic language. Some documents that the earliest examples of the Arabic inscription were found in the Syrian Desert back in the 4th century, while others argue that it dates back to the 7th century. This inconsistency is what makes it hard to trace the early developments of the language. This is because it is agreed that the pre-Islamic Arab tribes who resided in the Arabian Peninsula and its neighboring had an oral poetic tradition that had no systematic collection and recording until the 8th century (Versteegh, 2014). This poetic tradition was as a result of fusion of the various dialects.
It is believed that Prophet Muhammad used to receive messages from God through his Angels in Arabic for more than two decades. These messages were then included in the Holy Quran which was committed as a reference by some of the professional reciters. As Islam spread over the years, the Quran got different pronunciation accents until a standardized version was adopted in the mid-7th century. As more non-Arabic speakers became converted into the Islamic, the Quran gained its position as the most significant bond among the Muslims, both Arabs and non-Arabs. They used to revere its content and admired the beauty of the language as well. Both Arabs and non-Arabs regardless of their religion and ethnic background hold the language in highest esteem and view it as a medium of a cultural heritage. It is from this intimacy between the Arabic and Quran that gave the language a special recognition and contribution to its spread in the diverse cultural backgrounds.
During the early 8th century, the Islamic Arab Empire had begun to expand beyond the Persian boundaries to Spain which resulted in a diverse interaction between the Arabs and other groups that used different languages. Upon its conquest in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the Arabic language replaced various local languages. In Iraq, it became the most dominant language, replacing the most spoken Arabic and Persian dialects. The Arabization took a gradual process in Egypt, where Greek and Coptic languages enjoyed dominancy. However, the process was incomplete in some parts of North Africa, where Berber dialects were dominant and are still used in the modern day. The Arabization process was felt in most parts of the world, but it did not have any effect in Persia and Spain as they retained their languages. The Arabic language was successful in imparting its vocabularies in other languages, but it failed in taking effect in Spain. This is well explained by Titus Burckhardt in The Moorish Culture in Spain where he asserts that:
“Languages tend to become poorer, not richer, with time, and the original character of the Arabic language, unworn by time, reveals itself in its very wealth of words and immense range of expressions. It can describe one object with different words and from different aspects and possesses words in which different, allied concepts are condensed, without ever being illogical. This equivocal aspect of Arabic in the most positive sense of the world, is without doubt what makes it so appropriate as a holy tongue. …According to Ibn Khaldun, Arabic is a perfect language because it can not only be declined and conjugated, but because the “what” and the “how” can be derived from an action – in other words, nouns and adjectives can be derived from the verbs. However, this is possible because in Arabic, the “doing” verbs are far more comprehensive than, say, in English. Much of what we tend to express by using an adjective in conjunction with the verb “to be”, such as “to be beautiful”, “to be inside”, “to be outside”, is expressed in a single verb in Arabic.”
The use of Arabic spread faster in some regions of Spain that were under the Muslims and by the tenth century, elementary education became general in Arab Spain with only the poor being exempted. Majority of the Arab Spain population became literate unlike some of the Christian regions and ...