Versteegh stated that
the early beginnings of grammar and lexicography began at a time when Bedouin
informants were still around and could be consulted. There can be no doubt that
the grammarians and lexicographers regarded the Bedouin as the true speakers of
the Arabic FuSHa, and continued to do so after the conquests. In the words of
Ibn Khalduun, the Bedouin spoke according to their linguistic intuitions and
did not need any grammarian to tell them how to use the declensional endings.
There are reports that it was fashionable among notable families to send their
sons into the desert, not only learn how to shoot and hunt, but also to
practice speaking pure Arabic.
The Prophet Mohammed was one of those when he
was a small boy. Other reports come from professional grammarians who stayed
for some time with a Bedouin tribe and studied their speech because it was
considered to be more correct than that of the towns and cities.
The Arabic linguistic references
tell us that the need for some "linguistic authority" came to exist
long before the time of Al-Khalil and Siibawayh. There is a vast amount of
anecdotes concerning the linguistic mistakes made by the non-Arabs who
converted to Islam. It is commonly believed that these anecdotes document a
state of confusion and corruption of the Classical language. According to many
resources, the Well-guided fourth Caliph, Ali Ibn 'Abi Taalib, the cousin and
son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, was the first to insist that something to
be done. One anecdote mentioned that Ali came to perform his pre-dawn prayer at
the Mosque of A-Kuufah. As he went in, he heard a non-Arab Muslim reading the
Quran and that man was assigning the end-words voweling incorrectly. The verse
in question was from FaaTir (Chapter #35. Verse # 28):
إنما يخشی اللهَ من
عبادهِ العلماءُ
Those
truly fear Allah,
Among
His Servants
Who
have knowledge
Apparently,
that man had the nominative case assigned to what supposed to be the direct
object اللهَ,
and the accusative case was assigned to the subject العلماءُ. Because the end-word
voweling is the manifestation of Arabic language grammar, the meaning of that
verse was completely messed up. That same day Ali handed a note to Abu
Al-'Aswad Al-Du'ali which said that, "Speech is made of three elements;
nouns, verbs, and particles." Ali asked Al-Du'ali to expand on that
definition and write the first grammar rules for Arabic. In other words, Ali was asking for a
"linguistic authority" whose rules should be enforced.
According
to some historians, Al-Du'ali at first hesitated but was later persuaded when
his own daughter made a terrible mistake in the use of the declensional
endings, by confusing the expressions:
ما أَحسنُ السماءِ؟ /
ما أحسنَ السماءَ!
How
beautiful is the sky!/What is the most beautiful thing in the sky?
She was reported to have said:
ما أحسنُ السماءَ؟ / ما
أحسنَ السماءِ!
The origin
of the "dot," notation of the three short vowels, and the Nunation is
ascribed to 'Abu Al-'Aswad, and the names of the vowels (FatHa, Dhamma, Kasra)
are connected to their articulations. From that we have the common expression, ضعِ النقاط علی الحروف!,
literally meaning "put the dots on the letters!, i.e., to "be more
clear/specific."Two other innovations attributed to 'Abu Al-'Aswad concern
the notation for hamza (glottal stop) and Shadda (consonant gemination). Both
signs are absent from the Nabataean script.
The
framework of the Arab grammarians served exclusively for the analysis of Arabic
and therefore has a special relevance for the study of the language. From the
period between 750 and 1500 we know the names of more than 4000 grammarians who
elaborated a comprehensive body of knowledge on their own language.
Most Arabic
grammars follow the order established by Siibawayh and start with syntax ألنحو ,
followed by morphology التصريف , with phonology
added as an appendix. Phonology did not count as an independent discipline and
was therefore relegated to a position at the end of the treatise, although a
considerable body of phonetic knowledge was transmitted in introductions to
dictionaries and in treaties on recitation of the Qur'an, تجويد
The
grammarians' main preoccupation was the explanation of the case endings of the
words in the sentence, called إعراب
, a term originally meant the correct use of Arabic according to the language
of the Bedouins but came to mean declension.
Kees believes that the works
which appeared after Al-Khalil and Siibawayh only contributed either by
offering commentaries or further explanations. In this context, this
publication is nothing more than an account of the most common rules
non-speakers of Arabic will need to refer to in their quest for learning the
language. Yet, our additional aim is to offer some suggestions and ideas on how
to present these commonly used rules.
Many
researchers agree that formal classroom instruction of certain grammatical
structures -that is, morphological inflections, function words, and syntactic
word order- can be beneficial to students. The rationale for teaching grammar
is multifaceted. First students are expected to be already literate and
therefore have established expectation concerning language instruction. Grammar
instruction can be beneficial because of the fact that it raises learners'
consciousness concerning the differences and similarities of L1 and L2. In this
respect, grammar instruction can be used as a "linguistic map," with
reference points of "rules of thumbs" to assist students as they
explore the "topography" of the new language.
However, we need to remember that
grammatical structures by themselves are rather useless. Like road signs,
grammatical structures take on meaning only if they are situated in a context
and in connected discourse. Furthermore, Krashen (1982) reminds us that
grammatical structures will become internalized only if the learners are placed
in a situation in which they need to use the structures for communicative
purposes. Consequently, an important role of the teacher is to create
learning situations in which the
students feel a need to master the grammar in order to comprehend and
communicate in the target language. A detailed pedagogy scheme on how to teach
and learn grammar is provided in a section that follows the presentation of the
rules.
Mohammed Jiyad
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