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Thread: This is how the prophet spoke.
Listen to me reading a number of Hadiths in old Hijazi, the dialect the prophet spoke:
Listen to me reading a number of Hadiths in old Hijazi, the dialect the prophet spoke:
This pronunciation is based on the works of Ahmad Al-Jallad @Safaitic and Van Putten @PhDniX .
Old Hijazi has four main features: a reduced case system, the lack of both Tanween and Hamzah (glottal stop), and the pronunciation of the Aleph Maqsurah ى as 'e' (Imalah).
Old Hijazi has four main features: a reduced case system, the lack of both Tanween and Hamzah (glottal stop), and the pronunciation of the Aleph Maqsurah ى as 'e' (Imalah).
Al-Jallad explains that Since Semitic scripts don’t write short vowels, scholars have been imposing classical Arabic pronunciation on ancient Arabic texts. Classical Arabic was standardized by grammarians more than a century after Islam.
Here is where Greek-Arabic materials come to help. They are Arabic inscriptions written in Greek script. And since that Greek script writes the short vowels, this allowed us for the first time to read fully vocalized ancient Arabic texts.
The Umayyad Islamic state of the first century of Islam used to issue some documents in both Arabic and Greek. The Greek translations contain Arabic names and titles written in Greek. And here’s the first surprise:
The prophet’s name wasn’t pronounced as Muhammad!.
The prophet’s name wasn’t pronounced as Muhammad!.
The name was written in three forms: Mamet, maamed and maamet.
Al-Jallad says these forms mean the prophet’s name was pronounced as Mahammad or Mhammad which is the modern pronunciation in Arabic dialects for personal names but never used for the prophet. We always call the prophet: Muhammad.
An Arab Muslim today might find it inappropriate to call the prophet as Mhammad because it equates him with ordinary people. This pronunciation isn't the only thing that Old Hijazi shares with modern dialects.
It's taken for granted today that Arabs in the first centuries of Islam spoke with the full case system of classical Arabic.That's how we depict them in historical movies and TV shows. Everyone in them talks like he's Sibaweh. And that's also how we read the prophet's sayings.
But the truth is: Just like the modern dialects, Old Hijazi vernacular lost final short vowels and Tanween. Although it kept other forms of I3rab that are expressed by long vowels such as the final uun/iin. We know this from the Greek-Arabic materials.
Here’s a papyri that bears the name and title of the first Umayyad caliph Muwaawiyah who was a companion of the prophet. The title means: The servant of Allah Muwaawiyah the commander of the believers.
The Greek transcription of this title reveals that every word of this title goes against the norms of classical Arabic.
In classical Arabic the word abd should be marked for the nominative case: Abdu. The word Allaah should be marked for the genitive case: Allaahi. And the words Muwaawiyah and Amiir should be marked for the nominative case: Muwaawiyatu, Amiiru.
But in the Greek transcriptions, the words: Abd, allah, Muwaawiyah and amiir aren’t marked for case. And the word Muuminiin is pronounced as Muumniin which is outside the norms of classical Arabic pronunciation and violates the rule that...
letters with no short vowels shouldn’t meet (The long u vowel meets the non-vowelled M in Muumniin).
The title “the commander of the believers” is mentioned tens of times in the Greek-Arabic papyrus. And it’s consistently written as ammiiralmuumnin.
The title “the commander of the believers” is mentioned tens of times in the Greek-Arabic papyrus. And it’s consistently written as ammiiralmuumnin.
Here’s another example of the title in a document bearing the name of the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid.
The compound name that starts with “Abd” is also mentioned tens of times with no sign of case.
But in Quranic old Hijazi as reconstructed by Van Putten, the case is always active in construct but inactive in non-construct. While in the Greek-Arabic materials the case is rarely active in construct.
As for Tanween, Al-Jallad says regarding the Damascus psalm fragment which is a Greek-Arabic material from the third century of Islam: (see the pic)
Sources:
Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Arabic of the Islamic conquests.
https://www.academia.edu/24938389/Al-Jallad._2017._The_Arabic_of_the_Islamic_Conquests_Notes_on_Phonology_and_Morphology_based_on_the_Greek_Transcriptions_from_the_First_Islamic_Century
Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Damascus psalm Fragment.
https://www.academia.edu/43189829/Al-Jallad._2020._The_Damascus_Psalm_Fragment_Middle_Arabic_and_the_Legacy_of_Old_%E1%B8%A4ig%C4%81z%C4%AB_w._a_contribution_by_R._Vollandt
Marijn Van Putten, Case in the Qurˀānic Consonantal Text.
https://www.academia.edu/37481811/Case_in_the_Qur%CB%80%C4%81nic_Consonantal_Text._Wiener_Zeitschrift_f%C3%BCr_die_Kunde_des_Morgenlandes_108_2018_pp._143-179
Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Arabic of the Islamic conquests.
https://www.academia.edu/24938389/Al-Jallad._2017._The_Arabic_of_the_Islamic_Conquests_Notes_on_Phonology_and_Morphology_based_on_the_Greek_Transcriptions_from_the_First_Islamic_Century
Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Damascus psalm Fragment.
https://www.academia.edu/43189829/Al-Jallad._2020._The_Damascus_Psalm_Fragment_Middle_Arabic_and_the_Legacy_of_Old_%E1%B8%A4ig%C4%81z%C4%AB_w._a_contribution_by_R._Vollandt
Marijn Van Putten, Case in the Qurˀānic Consonantal Text.
https://www.academia.edu/37481811/Case_in_the_Qur%CB%80%C4%81nic_Consonantal_Text._Wiener_Zeitschrift_f%C3%BCr_die_Kunde_des_Morgenlandes_108_2018_pp._143-179
The papyri:
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/papyri/jerus.html
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/papyri/enlp1.html
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/papyri/jerus.html
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/papyri/enlp1.html
