Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to First Edition
- Preface to Second Edition
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Tables
- Note on Transcription and Glossing
- 1 The Study of Arabic in the West
- 2 Arabic as a Semitic Language
- 3 The Earliest Stages of Arabic
- 4 Arabic in the Pre-Islamic Period
- 5 The Development of Classical Arabic
- 6 The Structure of Arabic
- 7 The Arabic Linguistic Tradition
- 8 The Emergence of New Arabic
- 9 Middle Arabic
- 10 The Study of the Arabic Dialects
- 11 The Dialects of Arabic
- 12 The Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic
- 13 Diglossia
- 14 Bilingualism
- 15 Arabic as a Minority Language
- 16 Arabic Pidgins and Creoles
- 17 Arabic as a World Language
- Bibliography
- List of Abbreviations
- Index
Preface to Second Edition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to First Edition
- Preface to Second Edition
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Tables
- Note on Transcription and Glossing
- 1 The Study of Arabic in the West
- 2 Arabic as a Semitic Language
- 3 The Earliest Stages of Arabic
- 4 Arabic in the Pre-Islamic Period
- 5 The Development of Classical Arabic
- 6 The Structure of Arabic
- 7 The Arabic Linguistic Tradition
- 8 The Emergence of New Arabic
- 9 Middle Arabic
- 10 The Study of the Arabic Dialects
- 11 The Dialects of Arabic
- 12 The Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic
- 13 Diglossia
- 14 Bilingualism
- 15 Arabic as a Minority Language
- 16 Arabic Pidgins and Creoles
- 17 Arabic as a World Language
- Bibliography
- List of Abbreviations
- Index
Summary
The invitation by Edinburgh University Press toconsider a thorough revision of the book came at apropitious moment, when I was just going to retirefrom the university and was looking around forinteresting things to do. They proposed a new leaseof life for the book, which gave me a chance to giveit a general overhaul and bring it up to date. Inthis revised edition of the book a number of changeshave been implemented. In the first place, thenumber of chapters has been increased. The chapteron the linguistic structure of Arabic has been splitinto two chapters: one dealing with the modernlinguistic approaches to Arabic (Chapter 6), and theother with the Arabic linguistic tradition (Chapter7). The chapter on the sociolinguistics of the Arabworld has likewise been split into two chapters: onedealing with diglossia (Chapter 13), and the otherwith the linguistic situation in the former Frenchcolonies (Chapter 14). A new chapter has been addedon the Arabic pidgins and creoles. On this topic ahost of new material has become known, includingFida Bizri's description of a new pidgin, PidginMadame, which represents a real breakthrough in thestudy of Arabic pidgins and foreigner talk. Anotheraddition to the book is a lengthy note ontranscription; this was one of the omissions of thefirst edition that was rightly criticised in some ofthe reviews. In this note both the conventionalArabist transcription and the use of IPA charactersare explained.
Updating the bibliography was one of the major tasks inthe revision. The amount of literature that hasappeared between 1997 and 2013 is staggering. Thefive volumes of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language andLinguistics contain more than fivehundred articles on topics connected with thehistory and structure of Arabic in all itsvarieties. In the field of dialect geography, thevarious dialect atlases should be mentioned, whichare in different stages of completion, and, ofcourse, the large-scale Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte byPeter Behnstedt and Manfred Woidich, of which twovolumes have appeared.
I have refrained from giving doi identification numbersfor articles quoted in the list of references. Manyof these are available at sites like Jstor, butunfortunately only for researchers affiliated to auniversity with a subscription to such sites.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Arabic Language , pp. ix - xiPublisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2014