Lecture 02

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:23]Now welcome back to this lecture that will be considering the second lecture of this series related to the introduction of uh Arabic language and literature.

[00:00:37]We'll be starting this uh lecture with a question uh I had uh posed a short while ago in the last of my uh last lecture last segment of my last lecture.

[00:01:00]that was uh related to the historicity of Arabic language in literature like uh is it correct to say that Arabic is the oldest language of the world?

[00:01:13]This question is to be seen in purely historical perspective, historical, scientific perspective.

[00:01:20]The primary thing in this respect is that uh from the methodological point of view when we are dealing with the the questions of a social or societal phenomenon related to human uh existence, human culture or uh the language legacy, legacy of language.

[00:01:47]Yet the primary or the sole criteria of a judgment regarding historicity that is the how to locate it in terms of time and place it must be based on some the hard evidences the scientific evidences.

[00:02:11]So if uh we say that Arabic is the oldest language in this world, we have to take into account many parameters like what are the evidences that uh would prove that it is the oldest language in this world?

[00:02:30]Because if you say it is the oldest language in this world, we have uh to relate this uh uh this idea to the uh to the very concept of time, history of time and place that is the historical geographical perspectives must be over there.

[00:02:57]We have been for humanity has been fortunate enough to possess uh a significant uh legacy of its own in terms of uh the uh legacy of the past people's past civilizations.

[00:03:17]We have the legacy of uh the uh Fra culture culture of the Fra.

[00:03:26]We have uh in the Indian subcontinent we have the legacy of Moanjodaro culture the legacy of Inca and Kamir in other parts of the world we have we have the traces of the civilizations in Badu Rafiden Biladu Sham in Babylonia also uh in India uh as well as in the east we have so many examples.

[00:04:02]So they prove that uh they simply produce to us uh some hard evidences, scientific evidences on which our judgments regarding uh language, literature in the relation to time and place uh would be based and hence we can infer safely in scientific uh methodological way that uh this culture was before that culture. This language was before that language. In the domain of language the evidences we can have would be the inscriptions, the manuscripts. First it has it will be the inscriptions then we'll be having the manuscripts then of course we'll be having the books. after the advent of uh printing press in modern uh era of our civilization.

[00:05:05]So in this context we find that from the historical and scientific perspective it would be wrong to propose that Arabic is the oldest language in this world.

[00:05:19]Why? We'll be seeing uh some evidences in the uh you know slides that will be coming uh that uh the oldest inscriptions related to Arabic uh are uh uh cannot be dated uh far beyond the age we find uh in in relation to other cultures, other civilizations like the Fra.

[00:05:50]culture even the uh or the Greek culture uh the books of uh the Greek philosophers we have that's Aristotle and Plato and all we have that legacy we have the legacy of the Phoenician the new platonic philosophers in the Indian subcontinent we have the legacy of the Vedas, the opishads and uh other books related to uh language and literature, grammar like Peris grammar.

[00:06:32]uh regarding Arabic language and literature, the earliest segments we have in terms of inscriptions or the plates whether it is nakshin namara or the others.

[00:06:49]Uh they are not as old as we find the other segments of uh eastern legacy or the western legacy. So from the historical and scientific perspective uh it cannot be claimed that Arabic is the oldest language in this world. It is the youngest seem language.

[00:07:16]Youngest symmetric language. In the symmetric language, we have a meaning.

[00:07:21]We'll be going through that very shortly. So, it is youngest among them.

[00:07:26]It doesn't belittle the significance of Arabic language and literature.

[00:07:31]It is one of the most beautiful, historical, powerful, the relevant languages of the world. as we have seen in the statistics through the statistics a short while ago.

[00:07:46]So this is the first thing and the second thing in this perspective we must not forget that uh while uh saying anything about passing any judgment about analyzing anything about language and literature. We have to base ourselves on purely scientific uh evidences and our methodology must be purely scientific and we must not be confusing between some uh ideological overturns and the historical uh realities.

[00:08:25]So uh now let's move to the other uh points that is it is the Afroasietic symmetric languages. Arabic belongs to Afroietic symmetric languages.

[00:08:42]uh these languages have been dated to 4,000 sars 4,000 BCE sirsa and here the examples are Hebrew Aramaic Syria Tigrinia etc and Arabic is the youngest map actually shows the symmetric languages distribution in relation to the Arabian Peninsula.

[00:09:15]So we can uh just looking at this map we can simply infer that uh the two segments of or the two sides of the Arabian Peninsula uh that is the Yemeni side and the Shami side are very significant.

[00:09:36]In the Yemeni side we have the Sabayans.

[00:09:40]The Sabayians are over there, the Katanians, the peoples of Hadramoth.

[00:09:53]So, and as we know that this actually constitutes the core of the original Arabs related and designated as Al Kahan.

[00:10:08]And then you have the Adani into this segment in ancient north Arabic.

[00:10:17]And it was again the region was inhabited by the Nebatians uh by the Hebrew peoples by the Phoenicians, the Amorites etc. the Akadians etc. And this code actually constitutes uh the domain of Muppetian as we know as regards this region that we have that the heart of present Saudi Arabia nan hijaz so that chiefly consisted of the deserts.

[00:10:59]Hence with the exception of certain certain settlements which have been discovered and which bear historical significance like katulfa etc. uh and some historical evidences of settlements, human settlements in and around uh uh Riyad.

[00:11:28]The major chunk of this region uh was uh not well inhabited and uh it uh uh cannot be designated as a centers of uh human activity at large.

[00:11:47]If you just look at this uh this segment that is in present Ethiopia, Somalia etc. where the there were some cultural and language ties between this segment and that segment.

[00:12:03]we have the examples of Abra al-Habes uh in the early Islamic uh rather that pre-Islamic uh history which is very much close to the advent of Islam that happened during the time of uh the grandfather of prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam that is Abdul Muttalib.

[00:12:29]So we have uh the language interaction between between this uh part of uh Africa and uh this part of uh Asia.

[00:12:45]So uh this is again this this this this actually constitutes the grand uh geographical uh map or the stage related to the symmetric languages distribution.

[00:13:07]Now it's a historical fact regarding the languages. Languages are the social phenomenon developing in a society inhabitant by humans because we're talking about the human language.

[00:13:23]Language is not something imported or simply revealed something taken from outside.

[00:13:31]It's not like that.

[00:13:35]for when I it's a historical fact regarding the languages that they enter into interaction active interaction they give and take much give way to its neighbors and take from its neighbor. So and that actually constitute the core of historical linguistics.

[00:14:41]So Arabic has taken uh Arabic has impacted Persian, Turkish, Hindustani that is Hindian, Udu, Kashmir, Kurdish, Bosnian, Kazak, Bengali, Malay, Indonesian and Malaysian, Maldivian, Pashtu, Punjabi, Albanian, Armenian, Azarbaijani, Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog, Cindi, ura, Hebrew and African languages such as Hosa, Amharic, Tigrinia. Somali, Tamik, Sahi etc. So this the one aspect but before that we will be having another aspect.

[00:15:21]Conversely Arabic has borrowed some words mostly nouns from other languages including its sister language that is Aramaic, Persian, Greek and Latin and to a lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French and Italian.

[00:15:38]Here I'll be simply adding the core the the case of uh of Arabic borrowing words from uh some eastern languages chiefly uh Indian that is the Sanskrit. In one of my studies which has been uh published uh uh in u some academic journals in Algeria alongside uh uh a number of lectures delivered on the theme.

[00:16:13]Uh I have found that uh Arabic has taken uh many words. It has it has borrowed many words from Sanskrit.

[00:16:23]uh in one of my studies I have found that around 100 or 120 words of Arabic have the Sanskrit origin.

[00:16:35]So like Zanjabil Zjabil is Sanskrit word.

[00:16:44]In my study, I found that even words like uh uh like uh alkar which is stands for the peasant the cultivator aleros that is paradise jannam ja and many other words they have their origin in Sanskrit.

[00:17:14]So well that constitutes a a separate domain of uh of deliberation involving uh Arabic and Sanskrit.

[00:17:29]So regarding the orthography of uh Arabic uh as we know any language is divided in terms of history in uh many phases reflecting upon the very orthographic uh structure of that language.

[00:17:57]The change is the corpus of language, the change of language, the language structure, the phonetics related to that language that later on leads to the grammatical formulations.

[00:18:17]It is because it is the orthographic uh legacy, the orthographic uh corpus that uh serves as the primary source of the language formulations. The grammatical formulations, rules and regulations are actually inferred based on the that legacy. We find the corpus we find we have that.

[00:18:44]So here the earliest segment is classified as is is known as the old.

[00:18:51]So here it is the old Arabic.

[00:18:54]Old Arabic was the samodic, the safetic and the Isismic. It is related to the iron age that is 1200 sa 1200 to 500 50 BC.

[00:19:10]If we simply recollect the things we finding that this period is related to the Arabs who are no more we simply find some uh descriptions of them passing references of them like samud and etc. So what was their language? that language was Arabic. But how was that actually?

[00:19:43]We don't have the evidences.

[00:19:46]We don't have uh sometimes we do have some inscriptions as we'll be finding.

[00:19:53]We'll be saying what uh what were the phonetics?

[00:20:00]What was their legacy?

[00:20:02]It simply didn't survive. it didn't uh reach to us. We don't have access to that legacy because of this uh huge historical gap.

[00:20:18]Then ancestor of modern Arabic three lines of poetry by a man found in an evat Israel and dated to around 125 CE era. So this is the oldest specimen of Arabic language in terms of orthography means before that we don't have uh the recorded uh evidences the recorded facets of language Arabic language in history.

[00:20:54]The second is Nakshun Namara the Namara inscription that was the epitap of Lmed King Imis dating to 328 CE. It was found at Namara Syria. This known as Nakshun Namara.

[00:21:10]The Namatan script inscriptions in an undotted 17 letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE found at four locations in Syria that is Zabad, Jabal, Usai, Haran and Umul, Jamal.

[00:21:29]The oldest surviving paparos in Arabic dates to 643 CE and it uses dots to produce the modern 28 letter of Arabic alphabet.

[00:21:39]The language of that papyrus and that of the Quran is referred to by linguist as Quranic Arabic as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into classical Arabic means the specimen we have seen before that the samodi old Arabic we don't have the examples the ancestor of modern Arabic means it was something like a mix between Arabic and uh non-Arabic that is the sister language especially and wellch You must forch.

[00:23:39]languages are not limited to any specific uh domain of uh religion.

[00:23:50]So from the scientific uh perspective, historical perspective, we cannot say we cannot identify a language with a specific religion like again it would be wrong to identify Arabic with the Islamic religion. Why?

[00:24:08]Why? Because even from the early early days of of the pre-Islamic Arabia in what is uh what has been recorded by history we find that there were so many uh ethnicities, religions and religious cultures in Arabia like uh there were the Christians Christians in Najan for example there were the Jews in and around Medina the Jews in Medina Likewise there were the Assaba thear worshippers in Iraq in some parts of that is modern day Turkey that is Haran Salora as we find that Sham was predominantly Christian.

[00:25:13]So uh Arabic uh we have a large number of Arab Arab poets before Islam and after Islam whose faith was not Islam and still we have a large number of the men of letters in Arabic poets and men of letters and dramatist and fiction writers uh who are not uh who are not uh who do not belong to that uh religion. So religions there there's much difference we have to differentiate between religion and religious culture and language.

[00:25:58]So the classical Arabic as represent as as represented by the holy Quran we have the prelamic period then early Islamic period then omay and ambassad and Ottoman and the modern period in terms of orthography the Arab geography if you just look uh at this uh image we can find the location of Arabia that's the Arabian Peninsula Why it is Arabian Peninsula and not uh an island? Because of this uh this this segment and that segment we find that we have waters we have the seas this over here this side and that side red sea gulf of Adam presented Gulf of Aman and Arabian Gulf okay here we'll be having the Indian Ocean Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean and we have the Mediterranean Sea over here Baharum al- Mah uh Albatawas which is known as Alb al-Matawas in modern day Arabic. So we can say that well this is this stretches to uh Africa and uh this large segment stretches to Persia and Turkey. So that's why it is known as uh the Arabian Peninsula.

[00:27:27]So uh in terms of geography, natural geography we can say that uh uh this these areas are usually green. You have greenery over there.

[00:27:44]Greenery greenery over there.

[00:27:54]Here it This is Arubul Khali, the great desert.

[00:27:57]the great desert.

[00:28:00]Uh which uh as uh um seen in some historical sources that there were some of the alab like and ad lived in these areas.

[00:28:25]All right.

[00:28:29]Aram the city of Aram is uh has been identified in present day Oman city of Haram and the samur have been identified with the uh this place around taboo that is alaw near almadin alaw stretching to this petra religion albatra uh where you'll be having very magnificent monuments carved out of the mountains.

[00:29:17]desert. You have this adhana desert.

[00:29:21]You have the sahada bada asham. So these are the three desert segments followed by mountains and that region which is known as the albah.

[00:29:46]Arabs.

[00:30:15]Petro glyph panel.

[00:30:29]Muhamad.

[00:30:48]This actually construed the legacy of humankind because we find that there were the human settlements.

[00:30:57]Then of course we have the tribal system. the tribal systems that is the Kananis and Adanis.

[00:31:05]A lot of we have the primarily we have this classification of the Arab tribes that is the Katan is consist consisted of they were the original Arabs belonging to Arab Felix that is kalan etc. Then you have that is narr etc. This uh image actually shows uh the uh presence of the division of the Arab tribes. So Alkinda was over there. One of the very significant tribes. Mahar was over there. Al Harris in and around Nasha.

[00:32:12]We have then we have Kabad.

[00:32:28]Those are the very significant tribes uh whose names have been mentioned in the in in a number of text in Arabic poetry etc. This Adrani tribe has been classified has been divided into other segments. It it stretches wider the strata.

[00:32:48]Then we have the Katani tribes which is again uh the Adrani tribes. This is the tribe to which belonged prophet Muhammad in a later phase of history.

[00:33:04]Then you have the Katani tribe and the division of that.

[00:33:09]Then you have the Arab isklls.

[00:33:12]In the Arabic schools you'll find that there were widespread migration of the Arabs as it as a societal phenomenon in history due to many geographical and historical factors like uh in Kisar Sadar when the Sadar was broken this led to the influx of the Yemeni tribes or the migration of Yemeni tribes from other areas. to to other areas. So as of now all the Arabs the original Arabs in Arabs they trace their origin to their tribes and this is known as the isklls Jama.

[00:33:58]So Bakr has descendants in Arabia and Iraq.

[00:34:03]Kinana has descendants in Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria and Yemen. Hawazan has descendants in Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan and Iraq. Likewise, Tamim in Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Algeria and Morocco. Azda descendants had the descendants in in Arabia, Iraq, Lewan and North Africa. Gutan has descendants in Arabia and the Maghreb region. Mazj has descendants in Arabia, Syria and Iraq. Abdul Kais so in Arabia.

[00:34:36]Alis had descendants in Arabia, Syria and Iraq and so on and so forth. So these are the isklls of Arab. So hence we can find that they have to when someone claims that he is originally Arab, he has to he has to show the evidence that he belongs to this. So with this we'll be concluding that part of lecture and uh in next lectures we'll be discussing other aspects of this theme.

[00:35:01]Thank you very much.