III. Relations to Hebrew. — " The close affinity, and consequently the incalculable philological use of the Ar- abic with regard to the Hebrew language and its other sisters, ma}' be considered partly as a question of the- ory, and partly as one of fact. 1. The following are the theoretical grounds : First, the Arabs of Yemen are derived from Kahtan, the Joktan of Gen. x, 25, whom the Arabs make the son of Eber (Pococke's Specimen Hist. Arab. p. £9 sq.). These form the pure Arabs. Then Ishmael intermarried with a descendant of the line of Kahtan, and became the progenitor of the tribes of Hejsiz. These are the insititiovs Arabs. These two roots of the nation correspond with the two great dia- lects into which the language was once divided : that of Yemen, under the name of the Himyaritic, of which all that has come down to us (except what may have been preserved in the Ethiopic) is a few inscriptions; and that of Hejaz, under that of the dialect of Mu- dhar, or, descending a few generations in the same line, of Khoreish — the dialect of the Koran and of all their literature. Next, Abraham sent away his sons by Keturah, and they also became the founders of Arabic tribes. Also, the circumstance of Esau's settling in Mount Seir, where the Idumaeans descended from his loins, may be considered as a still later medium by which the idioms of Palestine and Arabia preserved their harmony. See Arabia. Secondly, Olaus Cel- sius (in his Hist. Liny, et Ervd'tt. Arab.) cites the fact of the sons of Jacob conversing with the Ishmaelite caravan (Gen. xxxvii, 28), and that of Moses with his father-in-law the Midianite (Exod. iv, 18). To these, however, Scheiling (in his Abhandl. v. d. Gebrauch. dfr Arab. Sprache, p. 1-1) objects that they are not conclu- sive, as the Ishmaelites, being merchants, might have acquired the idiom of the nations they traded with, and as Moses might owe an acquaintance with Arabic to his residence in Egypt. Nevertheless, one of Cel- sius's inferences derives considerable probability from the only instance of mutual intelligibility which Mi- chaelis has adduced {Hi urthe'duvy der Mittel die ausye- gtortene Hebr. Sprache zu versteken, p. 150), namely, that Gideon and his servant, went down by night to the camp of "Midian, Amalefc, and all the Bene Ke- dem," to overhear their conversation with each other, and understood what they heard (Judg. viii, 9-14). Lastly. Schultens (('Initio de Rey. Sabceor. in his Opp. Minora) labors to show that the visit of the queen of
ARABIC LANGUAGE 349 ARABIC LANGUAGE
Sheba to Solomon is a strong proof of the degree of \ form so broad a basis of community and harmony be- proximity in which the two dialects then stood to tween the two dialects as could hardly be anticipated, each other. These late traces of resemblance, more- i when we consider the many centuries which separate over, are rendered more striking by the notice of the the earliest written extant documents of each. The early 'diversity between Hebrew and Aramaic (Gen. diversities between them, which consist almost en- xxxi, 47). The instance of the Ethiopian chamber- | tirely of fuller developments on the side of the Ara- lain in Acts viii, 28, may not be considered an evi- ' bic, may be summed up under the following heads : dence, if Heinrichs, in his note ad loc. in Nov. Test. A much more extensive system of conjugations in the edit. Kopp, is right in asserting that lie was reading j verb, the dual in both tenses, and four forms of the the' Septu'agint version, and that Philip the deacon : future (three of which, however, exist potentially in a Hellenist. Thus springing from the same root the ordinary future, the jussive, and the 'cohortative
was
the Hebrew, and possessing such traces of affinity j of the Hebrew ; see Ewald's Hebr. Gram. § 290, 293) ; to so late a period as the time'of Solomon, this dialect j the full series of infinitives ; the use of auxiliary verbs; was farther enabled, by several circumstances in the j in the noun, the formations of the plural called broken social state of the nation, to retain its native resem- j or internal plurals, and the flexion by means of ter- blance of tvpe until the date of the earliest extant ' minations analogous to three of our cases ; and a per- written documents. These circumstances were the fectly defined system of metre. The most important almost insular position of the country, which prevent- of these differences consists in that final vowel after
ed conquest or commerce from debasing the language of its inhabitants ; the fact that so large a portion of the nation adhered to a mode of life in which ev
the last radical, by which some of the forms of the
future and the several cases in the noun are indicated,
Inch has been too hastily ascribed to an attempt of
impression was, as it were, stereotyped, and knew no the grammarians to introduce Greek inflexions into variation for ages (a cause to which we may also in ! Arabic (Hassc, Magazinfur Biblisch-Orientalisehe Lit- part ascribe the comparatively unimportant changes teratur, i, 230 ; Gesenius, Geschich. d. Hebr. Spr. p. 95). which the language has undergone during the 1400 The Arabic alphabet also presents some remarkable years in which we can follow its history); and the ! differences. As a representation of sounds, it contains great and just pride which they felt in the purity of ; all the Hebrew letters ; but, in consequence of the their language, which, according to Burckhardt, is , greater extent of the nation as a source of dialectual still a characteristic of the Bedouins (Notes on the Bed- , varieties of pronunciation, and also in consequence of ouins, p. 211). These causes preserved the language , the more developed and refined state of the language, from foreign influences at a time when, as the Koran ! the value of some of them is not exactly the same, and and a national literature had not yet given it its full \ the characters tlTat correspond to 9 » 2 1 Pi PI are used stature, such influences would have been most able to I in a double capacity, and represent both halves of destroy its integrity. During this interval, neverthe- those sounds which exist unseparated in the Hebrew,