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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Islam couldn't have had much of a linguistic effect as it was such a late development. Literary / social influence, an entirely different mater.
For example in western literature we have Beowulf, a purely pagan poem that got a smattering of Christian influence from finally being inscribed by a monk.
Then you have Dante's inferno that has a completely non Christian, Aristotelian ethical construct. (except for the good pagans in level 1 and the heretics in level 7)
Tales from the 1001 nights to brothers Grimm all originated in India BCE, including the very structure of the stories.
The New Testament is the first time you have stories of common people as key protagonists and their plight ( a few short precursors in the OT) and that tradition continues thru the western literary tradition. The western concept of the equality of the individual both politically and in a literary sense originates with Christian teachings.
Islam propagated via the sword from day one and they were great appropriators (like the Romans). They had the entire library at Alexandria at their disposal till they decided it was heretical and burned it. It also contains core theological concepts that are the antithesis of the western notion of equality (Dhimmi, Taqiyya, institutional slavery)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Tall Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 12:49pm PT
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Really good stuff here, lots of interesting asides, too.
Anyone know, maybe Gumby or JoeSimo, what dialect is spoken (maybe the "Fusha" that Gumby alluded to or something more colloquial) when we in the West through the media hear that kids learn the Koran by heart in medrasahs? Are Korans written in different dialects? Different dialects in Arabic? Different dialects in Farsi? Was it ever a crime, is it now, like once upon a time in Europe and Britain?
Thanks, Jan, for reminding me about the ol' time edicts across many religions of having to cite prayers, scriptures, in a certain dialect or language. Else it was an offense.
I appreciated the insights.
EDIT
WEll the Quran is written in classical Arabic and is only supposed to be learned and recited in the Classical way. In fact they are quite anal about this.
Ding! Right to one of my questions. Thanks JoeSimo. Is there a name for the classical Arabic dialect. Is it the flowery one Gumby cited? So is the classical (Arabic) dialect relatively constant then across countries, regions, with the colloquials of course varying greatly?
Finally, if you know, does the Classical and Colloquial (say of Egypt) vary about as widely as King James and Colloquial in English. Or is it tighter or looser? I'm learning here.
EDIT Yeah, just read your last paragraph. Thx. Very insightful.
EDIT 10:35am TGT- As an aside, wasn't it early Egyptian / Greek Christian leadership that burned the Ptolemaic Library in Alexandria down and not the Arabs and/or Muslims. But it's been awhile for me in this area of history, I'll check further.
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JoeSimo
Trad climber
New York
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WEll the Quran is written in classical Arabic and is only supposed to be learned and recited in the Classical way. In fact they are quite anal about this. Hardcore Muslims will say any translation of the Quran is wrong because the true meaning can only be known in the original Arabic.
So, when you see kids reciting Quranic passages they are reciting it in classical Arabic. Or at least should be. Basically you get a different dialect of Arabic in every country to visit. There is moroccan dialect just as there is egyptian and saudi arabian. The Egyptian dialect is the most well known and understood in the arabic world because most arabic media is made in egypt. Still these all vary greatly from the classical dialect.
For some reason every arabic teacher in the US feels compelled to teach the classical dialect to students. My teacher teaches me this and when I try to talk to native Arabic speakers the most common thing I hear is "You sound like the Quran". The idea being if you learn the classical, or intellectual, dialect first it will be very easy to transition to regional dialects later on. I good comparison would be teaching a foreigner english in the bronx or staten island then telling him to have a conversation with someone from Texas. The first reaction would be "where the hell did this guy learn english?"
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Tall Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
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Hey, while I have ya JoeSimo, one more question: I've heard it said that there is a poetic melodic flow to Arabic-- I should say Classical Arabic -- that's really not present in other languages, most notably English and German. Is that your understanding or experience?
And this quality makes the Koran, almost mesmerizing, seducing, to the faithful's ear. A quality that is lost in translation esp to English. So I've heard. Can you confirm or deny?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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TGT wrote: "Tales from the 1001 nights to brothers Grimm all originated in India BCE, including the very structure of the stories."
It would be interesting to hear what else you might say per the "structure" of 1001 Nights. I have a complete set of Burton's Original Translations (17 volms., if I remember correctly), and most of the stories have no paragraph breaks at all, and are broken only by little fragments of verse. If you meant story progression, in terms of how the narrative unfolds, perhaps this is another issue to investigate.
What's more, I believe Burton's translation was sourced from a Persian "original."
Interesante . . .
JL
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Story progression.
I can't recall the name of the Indian collection of poems that is the common source. (Werner probably knows)
Back to the Koran, it's my understanding that you aren't considered truly pious unless you have the whole thing memorized in classical Arabic. It serves as a modern day equivalent to the body of Chinese classical poetry that was used as a common court language in both China and later Japan. (quote a short snippet to get your point across without being too direct)
The Koran is also organized in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense to westerners. Longest Suira to shortest, not chronological or thematic. Had a conversation with my Pak friend a while back and he suggested it would make more sense if read back to front as the shorter surias are more mystical/theological and the longer ones more legal and social.
As far as the "Poetic" qualities of classical Arabic I think you'd find the same thing for any language that was going thru its classic period of making the transition from a primarily heraldic spoken tradition to written. Chinese and Indians think of their classical poetry the same way and any English speaker that thinks that his language was not at one time supremely poetic hasn't heard much Shakespeare.
As far as fires at the Library of Alexandria there were at least four starting with one in the first century BCE when a fire at the docks got away while Julius Cesar was invading. The Greek Orthodox Bishop ordered the destruction of the Sarapeum a temple. There are no contemporary accounts of any books being destroyed and the events were well documented by both Christians and pagans.
The Muslims finished off what was left when they sacked the city a hundred or so years later.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Tall Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 02:26pm PT
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Thanks for this perspective.
Regarding the burning(s) of Alexandrian library, didn't Sagan in his Cosmos series describe the tragedy of millions of papyrus scrolls being destroyed. Of course, along with Hypatia, the lady librarian by the Bishop Cyril. If memory serves.
In fact, I just wiki-ed it. Damn, the internet, google to wiki, is amazing!!!
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Yeah, Segan got it wrong to dramaticaly make an eroneous point.
It's complete myth that Christians burned it.
Juilius and Aurelian did most of the damage and Amir ibn al `Aas finished off what was left and hadn't been moved to Constantanople.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 6, 2010 - 04:19pm PT
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TGT wrote: Yeah, Segan got it wrong to dramaticaly make an eroneous point...It's complete myth that Christians burned it...Juilius and Aurelian did most of the damage and Amir ibn al `Aas finished off what was left and hadn't been moved to Constantanople.
Seems to me, your post is... too definitive... overstated. A little loose with the declaratives? But then, this is the internet, guess it's acceptable.
More here: http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/articles/ArticleView.cfm?AID=9
Quoting:
"So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar) to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased. Probably everyone mentioned above had some hand in destroying some part of the Library's holdings. The collection may have ebbed and flowed as some documents were destroyed and others were added. For instance, Mark Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library long after Julius Caesar is accused of burning it."
Gumby- Now that you know that the root denoting the notion of study would be DRS you could engineer your own words to some extent.
Gumby- your piece about the 3-letter consonant structure and how this structure carries meaning was very interesting.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
شقوق واس
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I did.....I burn ALL the libraries.
Wait until I visit YOUR town.
BWHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
(was that evil enough? Or should it have more W's?)
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there all, say, this is a fun share...
i always loved words and languages... i once was trying to learn aboaut 75, at once time, by taking them in groups...
then, i had to get divorced and stopped... dont even have the books any more...
what i did was learn to read all the alphabets... like cracking codes... then, i got language tapes, little by little ...
i really miss it... :(
would never have the time to do this again...
i had the major languages through europe in english alphabets
(slavic, frech, german, gaelic--spell? etc, etc,) then, hawaian, tahitian, etc, etc...
then, i had the
arabic (classic with all the vowels written in)
farsi
urdu
hebrew ("""")
yiddish
russian
bulgarian
hindi
japanese (chinese, did not do at that time, as there was so much to learn)
napal
thai
burmese
malayalam
khmer?cambodian? (can't even remember now if these were the same?)
vietnames (had little sybols, etc, for tone)
eskimo (in the symbols)
man oh man, can't even remember them all...
i love seeing all the HUGE alphabets, with all the vowel combinations...
really neat...
i think there was a few more, that i have left out but i
can't recall them this instant...
*did do navajo, apache, and ojibwe, too...
but----all GONE now... oh my...
but it was a small treasure for a season...
well, have fun folks...
learning is neat...
specially learning to read, write and communicate...
:)
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
شقوق واس
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I like their numbers, but the language strikes my ear ALL wrong.
Sounds clumsy. Rough-edged. Inelegant.Maybe if I learned its song.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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he's in Tahoe...snowboarding, Mason is....
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gumbyclimber
climber
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HFCS,
Gumby- your piece about the 3-letter consonant structure and how this structure carries meaning was very interesting.
I was a bit lazy and should have illustrated the patterns better; since you're interested:
XXX = verbal root (example = KTB, the idea of writing)
XaaXiX = someone who does the action (kaatib = writer)
maXXaX = place where the action happens (maktab = desk/office)
And so on....
kutub books
kutubī bookdealer
kutayyib booklet
maktūb letter
maktab school, office
maktaba library, literature
maktabī individual office
miktāb typewriter
mukātaba correspondence
iktitāb registration
istiktāb dictation
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