Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic in Letters from the Cairo Genizah

Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic in Letters from the Cairo Genizah

Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval Fondées par

Georges Vajda Dirigées par

Paul B. Fenton

TOME XLI

Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic in Letters from the Cairo Genizah By

Esther-Miriam Wagner

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wagner, Esther-Miriam. Linguistic variety of Judaeo-Arabic in letters from the Cairo genizah / by Esther-Miriam Wagner. – 1st ed. p. cm. – (Etudes sur le judaïsme médiéval, ISSN 0169-815X ; t. 41) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18776-4 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Judeo-Arabic language. 2. Arabic language–Dialects. 3. Jews–Correspondence. 4. Cairo Genizah I. Title. II. Series. PJ5071.W34 2010 492.7'7–dc22 2010020792

ISSN: 0169-815X ISBN: 978 90 04 18776 4 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Chapter One Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Two General Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Three Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Four Phonology and Orthography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Five Morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Six Letter Style, Presentation, and Lexicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Seven Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Eight General Trends in the Judaeo-Arabic Letters from the Genizah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 11 13 25 69 97 117

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

235 243 249 253

227

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research that forms the basis of this investigation was undertaken for my doctoral thesis, and would not have been possible without help and support from many people. My profound thanks go to Prof. Geoffrey Khan, who took me on as a Ph.D. student and supervised me with great leadership, benevolence, and contagious enthusiasm. Not only has he been a fountain of knowledge and wordly wisdom, but he also knew how to motivate me, how to exercise exactly the right amount of pressure, and how to give kind support and guidance whenever I encountered problems during my research. I could not have imagined a better and more suitable supervisor, and I am deeply grateful for all that he has done for me. I also would like to thank everyone in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, where I learned about the idiosyncracies and richness of the Genizah material, and had a proper training in the codicology and palaeography of manuscripts. In particular, I have to express my gratitude to Dr Ben Outhwaite for sharing his immense knowledge of the Genizah sources, for always having the patience to explain, and for discussing large parts of this investigation with me. Melonie Schmierer, Dr. Dan Davies, Dr. Mark Williams, and Dr. Theresa Biberauer deserve sincere thanks for reading parts of this work and providing me with comments. I am most appreciative of Prof. Benjamin Hary for giving invaluable input in his review of the thesis. I would also like say thank you to Dr. Rebecca Jefferson, Dr. Siam Bhayro, Dotan Arad, Prof. Gideon Bohak, Maciej Pawlikowski, Blazej Mikula, Dr. Avi Shivtiel, and Henrike Kuehnert, as well as to Fabio, Alex, Mina, Mair, Mike, and all of my football friends for their help and advice in various matters. The Master and Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge, must be thanked for taking me into their fold. My husband Sebastian Engelstaedter has been a steady source of encouragement and positivity. He should be praised for making me reflect on all my doings and for letting me be myself. My fairy godmother Antje, my father, my parents-in-law, and the rest of my family have provided constant support.

viii

acknowledgements

I am grateful for the financial support I received from the AHRC, the Faculty of Oriental Studies in Cambridge, the Cambridge Board of Graduate Studies, and the Kurt Hahn Trust Cambridge during my studies. The people at Brill have been brilliant to work with and my thanks go to Jennifer Pavelko, Katelyn Chin, and in particular to Michael Mozina for being such a patient and reliant editor. All images are reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. I would like to dedicate this thesis to the memory of my mother Renate Margot Manegold Wagner (–).

chapter one INTRODUCTION

.. Spoken and Written Languages No language is ever written as it is spoken. Rather, written and spoken varieties of a language represent two connected but divergent entities.1 These entities emerge because their discourse is shaped by two different sets of participants who operate in quite different linguistic environments: writer/reader in the case of written texts, and speaker/listener in oral conversation. Furthermore, there is temporal separation between writer and reader, but immediacy between speaker and listener. Whereas speech makes use of means such as intonation and extra-linguistic cues (e.g., hand or facial gestures), and has the simultaneous advantage and disadvantage of evanescence, written varieties may be formulated and edited over a period of time, and the writers are usually aware of the protracted availability of the produced work.2 A reader may re-read passages of a written text, while listeners have to understand statements as they hear them, although they may interact with the speaker to clarify matters where necessary. This leads to structured, generally syntactically more complex, written varieties and less structured spoken varieties, in which complexity is achieved less through syntactic relations but by other means, such as intonation, use of demonstrative and pronouns, or repetition. Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of modern linguistics, has provided an explanation of how spoken and written varieties can be two distinct branches of one language when he posited the seminal dichotomy of langue and parole. According to Saussure’s theory, the abstract language system (langue), an institution of norms, controls the possibilities in the individual utterances (parole). This has fostered the understanding that

1 For the divergence of spoken and written varieties of languages, see Halliday (), Chafe () and Tannen (). 2 See Daniels (, ff).



chapter one

all languages have different, grammatically correct registers of language. These registers range from formal literary standard to vernacular, from sociolects to idiolects. Different varieties may be found within both the categories of written and spoken language. Literary varieties, for example, include the registers of language used in legal codices, poetry or technical contexts. Vernacular varieties can be categorised according to the groups in which they are spoken. There may be sociolects germane to distinct social groups but also between younger and older speaker of the same variety. Religiolects may be spoken by member of different religious denominations. There are also idiosyncracies of individual speakers or registers reserved for certain speech situations. This leads to a large variety of written and spoken registers within any one language. Written languages ordinarily emerge from spoken languages, so they naturally have an initially close relationship with a spoken variety. Over time, however, this closeness may diminish as the spoken language undergoes changes which are not reflected in the language’s writing system; as writing systems are conservative, it is often the case that they diverge markedly from the corresponding spoken system. On the other hand, written language can influence the spoken variety, too, for example, when people use RSVP (répondez s’il vous plaît) as a verb in speech (‘I rsvp-ed immediately’), or when ‘and slash or’ is used to mimic the initially written-language form ‘and/or’. The situation in Arabic, however, is more complex. In Arabic we encounter not only the kinds of variation that typically occur within one language. Instead, all Arabic varieties are sited in a spectrum between two poles. While Standard Arabic is for most speakers an acquired language form and considered the ‘High’, ‘correct’ or ‘pure’ variety of the language, there are also the vernaculars of the different regions, regarded by many Arabic speakers as ‘Low’ and even ‘incorrect’ varieties. The phonological, morphological and syntactic differences between Modern or Classical Standard Arabic on the one hand and the vernaculars, spoken for instance in Egypt and the Maghreb, are vast. Uneducated vernacular speakers may not be able to understand the ‘High’ variety Standard Arabic, as Diem (, f) has discussed. Educated vernacular speakers of Maghrebian and Egyptian varieties may prefer to communicate in French or English rather than Arabic, because of the differences between the dialects. To explain this phenomenon, we must look to the history of the Arabic language.

introduction



.. Diglossia, Multiglossia, Continuglossia: The Case of Arabic After the Arab conquests in the th century, Islam, and Arabic with it, spread over a vast area in a relatively short time. The extreme social changes in the newly-founded empire were accompanied by rapid language change, from which various dialects of Arabic emerged. In Modern Arabic dialectology, most scholars distinguish between five major dialects: the dialects of the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, the Levant, Maghreb and Egypt. There are also peripheral Arabic dialects spoken in countries such as Sudan, Malta, Nigeria and Uzbekistan. At the same time, some urban spoken varieties of different dialect groups are closer to each other than to the rural varieties of their own dialect. Whilst various spoken varieties of Arabic developed in different geographical regions, the written variety remained the same for all Arabic speakers. This literary standard, Classical Arabic, probably emerged from a register associated with poetry and divination and is the language variety in which the Qur"an and the religious literature were codified in the first centuries of Islam. It forms the prescriptive background for Muslim literary writing and is relatively uniform, exhibiting only minimum variability. Due to its link with the Qur"an, the literary variety Classical Arabic was and is considered ‘correct’ Arabic, while the vernacular has little prestige in comparison. Educated Arabic speakers may choose to converse with each other in Modern Standard Arabic (which arose out of Classical and post-Classical Arabic), while speakers of different dialects may have no other choice but to revert to the written variety to be able to communicate. Diem () has given an excellent evaluation of the distribution of the different language layers in Arabic speaking societies and has also shown to what percentages vernacular and standard language may be mixed in which situation to address certain groups or express certain ideas. The dichotomy between written and spoken Arabic is one of the most striking features of Arabic, and was termed diglossia by Ferguson (), which is still the most widely used term among Arabists and linguists. Hary ( and ), however, has suggested nomenclature such as multiglossia and continuglossia to describe the linguistic situation more accurately, because beside the dichotomy between standard and vernacular, there are other poles within the Arabic spectrum. For example, there is a contrast of nomadic versus sedentary dialects, which share common features across dialectal borders. Additionally, spoken varieties of Arabic can be found which are exclusively used by Christians and Jews. These



chapter one

religiolects may be a result of segregation between the religious communities and, in the case of the Jewish population, the continued exposure to Hebrew, but they could also attest a desire of different religious groups to have their own language, a common feature of sociolects. Interestingly, these two mentioned phenomena often converge. Christian and Jewish religiolects may differ from their neighbouring Muslim varieties because they did not undergo Bedouinization and retained the old urban dialects while nomadic dialects infiltrated the Muslim spoken vernacular. Consequently, the difference between religious groups also extends to writing. Literary forms of Arabic other than Classical Arabic were used by non-Muslims. These written varieties exhibit more vernacular elements than Classical Arabic and were thus termed ‘Middle Arabic’ by the first scholars working on them, such as Blau. However, the term ‘Middle Arabic’ has since been largely discredited (Blau himself has partly changed his terminology) as it proposes a false continuity between Old and Modern varieties of Arabic but is nevertheless still used by scholars as it describes a wide range of Arabic substandard varieties as opposed to Classical Arabic or the Modern Written Standard Arabic.

.. Substandard Arabic (‘Middle’ Arabic) As described above, there is a clear Arabic dichotomy in the Muslim part of the population between the spoken vernacular, on the one hand, and the literary language based on the language of the Qur"¯an, S¯ıra and Had¯ . ıt on the other. The situation in the Christian and Jewish parts of ¯ the population was slightly different. In addition to the specific cultural environment and segregation of the non-Muslim communities, they were not bound as their Muslim counterparts were to the literary ideal of al-#arabiyya, the Arabic standard language based on the Qur"¯an and Muslim religious literature. An additional factor, as suggested above, might have been the desire of Christian and Jewish speakers to segregate themselves linguistically from the Muslim population and to create their own sociolect. Milroy and Margrain () and Milroy and Milroy () have shown that low-prestige varieties persist in closely-knit social networks, which are dependent on strong solidary relationships for survival. Despite the stigma that may be attached to substandard language, these varieties provide the speaker with a social identity and enforce ties within the social network. This explains the continued use of

introduction



substandard varieties by the religious minorities in Arab countries, which led to the development of substandard written varieties of Arabic. This is not to say that there are no Muslim ‘Middle’ Arabic texts. A number of Muslim sources can be found which are not written in Classical Arabic but exhibit a register that includes elements of vernacular origin and of substandard literary language. This register is found not only in documents and letters but also in literary works, for example, those by Ibn Hald¯un, Us¯ama b. Munqid and Ibn al-Muj¯awir.3 Especially in the ¯ is clear that the Muslim writers concase of ˘the former two authors, it cerned knew how to write Classical Arabic but deliberately employed a more vernacular or substandard style for certain purposes, probably to make the accounts more lively, and to communicate with readers on a more personal level, perhaps engaging with a broader audience including parts of the population that had less training in Classical Arabic. In general, however, mediaeval Christian and Jewish sources exhibit many more vernacular features than contemporary Muslim texts, as the literary traditions of the Muslims penetrated the non-Muslim literary tradition only to a limited degree. Therefore, many vernacular elements of mediaeval dialects can be found exclusively in the language strata of Christian4 and Jewish Arabic. This makes the study of these ‘Middle’ Arabic varieties very important for the history of the Arabic language and its vernaculars. While Christian Arabic is written in Arabic script, Judaeo-Arabic employs the Hebrew alphabet. Through this use of a different alphabet, Judaeo-Arabic is of special interest for anyone working on historical linguistics of the Arabic language, as it helped abandoning Arabic orthographical traditions and facilitated the influence of Hebrew norms, which in turn makes it easier to access certain Arabic vernacular elements.

.. Judaeo-Arabic Judaeo-Arabic is the name given to a variety of Arabic speech forms used by Jews that differ from the language employed by their Muslim and Christian neighbours. Hary (, ff) has proposed a periodization of Judaeo-Arabic into Mediaeval, Late and Modern, with the 3

See Rex Smith (). For Christian Arabic, see the works of Georg Graf, especially Graf (), and Blau (–). 4



chapter one

Mediaeval period being separated into Pre-Islamic, Early and Classical Judaeo-Arabic. A weakness of his approach may be that it mixes spoken and written Judaeo-Arabic. Our knowledge of Pre-Islamic Judaeo-Arabic comes from Arabic sources which describe a Jewish sociolect (see Newbury ) that had no written form. While it is very likely that Arabicspeaking Jews spoke a sociolect throughout the centuries, the degree to which it differed from their non-Jewish neighbours must have varied considerably. For example, since the surviving works of pre-Islamic poets ‘do not exhibit anything that distinguishes them from the works of their non-Jewish contemporaries’ (Khan a, ), the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish varieties of Arabic might have been both marginal and limited to the lexicon in pre-Islamic times. This changed in the course of the Islamisation of Arab society and the increasing association of Arabic with Islam, which lead to the segregation of non-Muslim communities and the rise of religiolects; as mentioned above, in some towns Muslims adopted Bedouin vernaculars, while Jews maintained the older urban dialects. Examples of this can be found in Baghdad and Lower Iraq (Blanc ), in North-African cities such as Tripoli, Oran, Benghazi, and in the Algiers region (Khan a, ). This increasing divergence may be attributed to the advancing segregation of nonMuslim parts of the population. A parallel can be found in the Jewish variety of German, where it is probably no coincidence that the Jewish sociolect became increasingly separated from the language of their German neighbours after the Fourth Lateran Council in  and the following ghettoisation of Jews within Germany, a process eventually leading to the emergence of Yiddish. In contrast to the spoken varieties, the written registers of JudaeoArabic raise somewhat different issues. The earliest written sources in Judaeo-Arabic are papyri from the th century, which are written in a phonetic orthography. Saadiah Gaon’s Bible translation and commentary popularised an arabicised orthography, which was used from the th century onwards. Despite the obvious differences between th-century and th-century written varieties, there is no evidence for language change in the spoken variety. Instead, it may be assumed that Jews, members of a prosperous Middle class in the early Fatimid empire, chose to write in a style that emulated Saadiah and was close to Classical Arabic, with which many of the learnt members of society were familiar in the th and th centuries. Hary (, ) remarks that writing by Jews in standard Arabic cannot be considered Judaeo-Arabic. Blau (, ) has expressed similar

introduction



reservations for ‘Jewish writings adressed to the general public (such as medical works)’, and suggested to call them Middle Arabic instead of Judaeo-Arabic. This approach may be necessary and useful for literary Judaeo-Arabic, it is, however, not practical when dealing with epistolary writing. Many of the th-century letters written by Egyptian Jewish merchants in the Hebrew alphabet display hardly any linguistic phenomena that do not appear in contemporary Muslim letters, and they show only a few forms that vary from Classical Arabic. Nevertheless, it can certainly be assumed that they spoke a Jewish religiolect at the time but chose to write in a style which gravitated heavily towards Classical Arabic norms.5 This work will, therefore, adopt the view of Khan (a, ), who suggests that the term Judaeo-Arabic be applied based on a descriptive criterion, i.e., that it should be used for any form of Arabic written in Hebrew script. Khan proposes three major phases, Early (th century), Classical (th–th century) and Late Judaeo-Arabic (from th century onwards). The Genizah letters analysed for this investigation follow this timeline, although there is a major change in epistolary style in the th century, and the classical period may be divided into two subgroups, th/th and th/th century. Additionally, there is a transitional period for letters in the th/th, with a completely new epistolary style emerging at the end of the th century, which breaks with previous orthographic and morphological traditions. This investigation focuses on the language varieties that occur in Judaeo-Arabic Genizah letters from the th to the th century. Although thorough linguistic research on Judaeo-Arabic has been carried out by Joshua Blau,6 Simon Hopkins,7 Benjamin Hary,8 Geoffrey Khan9 and other scholars, with the exception of Geoffrey Khan’s articles,10 their research has focused on Judaeo-Arabic in general or upon specific literary sources. The language used in utility prose, such as letters, however, has not been the subject of any sustained research so far. Blau’s investigations have been based on a disparate corpus that includes many different varieties of the language, drawn predominantly from literary 5 There is a similar discussion in Yiddish Studies about early Yiddish texts that are basically Middle High German texts transcribed into Hebrew, see for example Timm (, f). 6 For example, Blau (), () and (). 7 See Blau and Hopkins () and (). 8 For example, Hary () and (). 9 See Khan (), (), () and (). 10 See Khan (), (), () and ().



chapter one

sources. Hary11 has offered brilliant studies of the different varieties of substandard Arabic, but his linguistic investigation has centred, too, on literary texts. Linguistic features, however, vary to a great extent according to the type of text. Letters and utility prose tend to make use of a considerably different type of language from that of literary texts, which may follow existing literary traditions borrowed from contemporary Muslim Arabic literature. Therefore, the linguistic features observed in an analysis of literary texts differ from those found in the investigation of utility prose. Despite the closeness to the vernacular, the language of letters also exhibits some features that are distinctive of Classical Arabic. Furthermore, they also exhibit some phenomena that are neither vernacular nor Classical Arabic features but which represent varieties somewhere along the Arabic continuum. Some of these can be categorised as part of substandard writing in general, or in particular of the epistolary register. This work, therefore, aims at offering a description of the register used in Judaeo-Arabic letters.

.. Linguistic Analysis of Epistolary Judaeo-Arabic All letters used for this investigation come from the Cairo Genizah. Working on a homogenous corpus of datable material enables us to identify linguistic phenomena that are impossible to detect in literary material, which has been subject to copying and revision over a long period of time, sometimes centuries. Due to the closeness of utility prose to the vernacular language, insights into colloquial forms can be gained that cannot be accessed through any other written register. On the other hand, writers may deliberately use higher registers, such as Classical Arabic, which is usually indexical to the social functions of the language. For example, Classical Arabic phrases occur in letters in which people are communicating with someone of higher rank, begging for money or are in the grip of some other pressing needs they would like to have attended to, and consequently they employ a flowery, artificial, often hypercorrect level of Arabic to bolster their apparent level of education and social standing in the eyes of the reader. In some of the letters, writers switch to a vernacular register of Judaeo-Arabic when they are rendering speech of people of lower education than themselves, perhaps to give their accounts

11

For example, Hary () and ().

introduction



authenticity or a touch of realism. Similarly, in one letter, the shouts of an angry man are cited in the vernacular, probably to show the writer’s antipathy. And last but not least, there are typical phenomena developed within and germane to the epistolary register itself, with a mosaic of forms borrowed from both ‘High’ and ‘Low’ registers of Arabic. This work aims at providing a systematic grammatical (orthographical/phonological, morphological and syntactic) analysis of letter-writing within the historical phases of Judaeo-Arabic, both on a synchronic level with descriptions of the epistolary register in the various time periods, as well as diachronic developments in the Judaeo-Arabic used in the letters. For example, in the chapter on orthography and phonology, the orthographical conventions of each corpus are discussed and, if possible, conclusions about the phonological processes at work are drawn. In the realm of morphology, the use of Classical Arabic and vernacular forms is investigated, for example in the conjugation of weak verbs, and the internal passive. On the syntactic level, the emergence of the bi-imperfect and the tanw¯ın-derived relative particle an are discussed and the distribution of demonstratives and negation particles in the different corpora is compared. The time span of material investigated in this work ranges from the classical Judaeo-Arabic period of the th to th century to the post-classical Judaeo-Arabic of the th to the th century. Occasional reference is made to material from the Early Judaeo-Arabic period, and in a few chapters examples from the th-century letter-corpus published by Blau and Hopkins () and () have been included for the purposes of diachronic comparison. Research on Muslim Arabic documents has shown that Maghrebian sources differ considerably from material written further to the East. An initial analysis of a preliminary corpus of ten letters revealed that there are indeed observable differences in letters from the Maghreb and Egypt. Therefore, attention has been focused upon the provenance of the documents and two different corpora were set up for th-century letters to catalogue and establish differences in the epistolary language. In total, five different corpora were set up: one corpus of Egyptian letters from the th-century, one of Maghrebian letters from the th century, one of the th-century letters, one of letters from the th and the th centuries and one of letters from the th and th centuries. Substandard or dialectal features observed in the letters were compared to Modern Arabic vernacular phenomena. Similarly, the letters have been compared to other examples of written sub-standard Arabic,



chapter one

such as literary Judaeo-Arabic, and certain Muslim and Christian varieties of the language. Care has been taken to separate features of written substandard Arabic from actual vernacular phenomena. For example, the standard use of the negation particle lam for all kind of negations, the tanw¯ın-derived relative particle an or the demonstrative d¯alika d¯ı in Late Judaeo-Arabic are neither Classical Arabic forms nor do¯ they represent vernacular usage. Rather, they are typical features of written substandard Arabic. The spelling of long final alif with t¯a" marb¯ut. a, on the other hand, is not only a feature of written Arabic emulating Hebrew spelling but indeed reflects actual shortening of alif at the end of words in the vernacular. Lists of phenomena that can help to determine the temporal origin of letters through linguistic and stylistic have been compiled. Although the major concern of this work is on orthographical, morphological and syntactic problems, other features such as the general style and layout of the letters are also of interest. Discussions concerning the introductory formulae, the dating and the lexicon, which vary considerably in the different centuries, have therefore been included. Similarly, the varying degrees of Hebrew content and Hebrew vocalisation of the material in the different periods are described. Other features investigated include abbreviations and the physical writing materials of the letters.

chapter two GENERAL METHODOLOGY

Due to the enormous importance of a homogenous corpus of documentary material, as discussed in the introduction, only original letters were used for the analyses in this thesis and they all come from the same source, the Cairo Genizah. Five corpora were set up, containing material from th-century Egypt, th-century Maghreb, from the th, th/th and th/th century. To ensure a reliable dating, only letters that were either dated or written by or to a well-known personality were used for the th-century and th-century corpora. This is necessary as the script itself is unfortunately not a dependable criterion for the exact dating of letters. The compilation of the th/th-century corpus presented greater difficulty due to the scarcity of letters from that period. Therefore, letters that were considered to be from the th or th century thanks to a convincing argument based on historical events or on the currency used were also included in the corpus. The th/th-century letters are all dated. The reason for the temporal gap between the corpora was, in the case of the th- and th-century material, to facilitate the detection of differences between the sources. As the th-century letters contain features found in both the th-century and th-century corpora, their omission made it easier to contrast the two corpora. The lack of letters from the th century onwards determined the size and temporal extension of the corpus of th/th-century letters, while another larger group of letters written in the late th/early th century made it possible to set up the corpus of th/th-century material. Every corpus was examined separately, and only after a complete analysis of each corpus were the results compared to each other. At first, a template was developed according to which the letters were completely analysed as regards their orthographical, morphological and syntactic features. This template was initially applied to a corpus of ten letters from the th century, and the application then refined after the first results were evaluated. After that, twenty letters from the th-century corpus were analysed in contrast to the th-century material, and the results of both analyses compared to one another. This led to another revision of



chapter two

the framework. The same template was then applied to the th/thand th/th-century material, and to some extent to other sources, such as the th-century papyri edited by Blau and Hopkins (). Finally, the corpora from the th and th century were enlarged to  and  letters respectively. In order to detect dialectal differences in the language of the letters, the provenance of the letters was carefully examined. Only the th-century corpus, however, provided enough material to warrant a sound geographical division into Maghrebian and Egyptian material and was thus consequently divided into two corpora, separating Egyptian and Maghrebian letters. The methods underlying this separation are described in the chapter which follows. For the purposes of linguistic examination, all letters were analysed in full and every example for a given phenomenon extracted. The gathered examples were then evaluated as regards both their deviation from and their adherence to the rules of Classical Arabic, and were then compared to other substandard Arabic varieties, and to the other letter corpora. The recto and verso sides of each letter were kept as they were conserved in the collections, even in cases when it is clear that the letter actually starts on the verso.

chapter three CORPUS

.. The Letter Corpora The size of the corpora in this investigation differs considerably. The reason for this uneven distribution lies in the fact that the majority of Genizah documents comes from the th to the th century. Few letters from the th and th century can be found. Another large group of letters come from the late th and early th century but only few of those have been published. The main criteria for the inclusion of letters into this investigation was their easy accessibility, i.e., letters which are transcribed in publications. Therefore, the majority of letters used for this linguistic investigation comes from the th century, most of them edited by Gil (), and from the th century, mainly from the correspondence of the Judge Elijah family published by Motzkin. For the th and th century, only six suitable published letters were included. The corpus from the th/th century shows a language that is very different from that of the earlier corpora, and is of special interest for the diachronic research into the language used in letters. As only two letters of this time period have been published so far, a number of unpublished letters were included into this investigation. The aim of this work is to provide a comprehensive examination of the register of letters and an evaluation of both dialectal and classical features of the epistolary language. Likewise, there was an objective to establish whether any differences can be observed in letters from different geographical regions. In the case of Judaeo-Arabic, such investigations may be too ambitious because within the Jewish religiolects it is difficult to separate between geographical regions due to emigrated dialectism. In general, Jewish dialects appear to preserve older urban linguistic traits, and due to the connectedness between the Jewish communities all over the Middle East, many Jewish varieties were probably closer to each other than to their respective non-Jewish neighbouring dialects. Nevertheless, concerning Maghrebian sources there is a lot of evidence



chapter three

from non-Jewish Arabic documents that material from this region displays more conservative traits, i.e., features from older layers of Arabic, than contemporary material in territories more central within the Muslim empire, such as Egypt. It is a common linguistic phenomenon that dialects from peripheral areas behave differently than central varieties.1 The peripheral varieties may retain older features for a longer time and display language change in a temporally shifted mode. This may involve that they exhibit change in writing more slowly than the varieties in the centre of a language area. A short survey at the start of this investigation revealed enough differences in orthography, morphology and syntax in the Maghrebian sources as opposed to those originating in Egypt to warrant a provisional separation into Egyptian and Maghrebian material. This separation was only possible in the letters from the th century as this is the corpus in which enough letters from both geographical regions are available.

.. Material of the Letters The letters are almost exclusively written on paper. The exceptions come mainly from the Maghrebian th-century corpus, in which a number of letters are written on vellum, such as T-S ., T-S NS ., TS ., T-S . or T-S .. T-S . is a letter written on vellum from Alexandria. Bloom (, ) mentions that letters and accounts ‘were written on parchment in Tunisia well into the eleventh century’, while ‘Egyptian writers had made the transition to paper about a century earlier’. He thinks the major reason for this ‘was that the provinces of Ifr¯ıqiyya (corresponding to modern Tunisia) and Sicily were centers of sheep raising, and the manufacture of leather and parchment, as well as the export of hides, remained an important industry’. But it may not only be due to the availability and low cost that vellum continued to be used in the th-century Maghrebian corpus. Sheep and goats are also kept also in Egypt. Perhaps, the longer use of vellum (the traditional letter material) in the Maghreb is owed to the general conservatism of Maghrebian documents, which will be shown along many other examples in the chapters of this work.

1 For the peculiarities of peripheral dialects see for example Wolfram (), in particular p. f.

corpus



.. th Century In the first half of the th century, Fatimid Egypt was at its heyday, and the relatively tolerant attitude towards non-Muslims and an apparent lack of discriminatory custom tariffs for non-Muslims led to a certain degree of economical prosperity in the Jewish population of Egypt. Jewish merchants formed an important part of the trading community. Because of the general insecurity and the slowness of communications, international trade was largely dependent on personal relationships and mutual confidence. In some cases relationships between trading partners were maintained throughout a lifetime or even through generations of families, and were often secured by inter-marriages. Therefore, extended family businesses played a major role in trading.2 The second half of the th century saw the demise of this prosperous society. This was the time of the Seljuk conquests, when the Turcomans (of which the Seljuks are the most prominent family) conquered Palestine and destroyed large parts of the country, killing many of its inhabitants, followed by raids into Egypt. The Fatimid rulers of Egypt battled the invaders from the East until they were finally overthrown by the Ayyubids at the end of the th century. On a religious level, there was much change for the Jewish authorities as following the atrocities committed by the Turk invaders and the general insecurity of the country, the Palestinian yeshiva relocated from Jerusalem to Tyre. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of letters in the Genizah collections comes from the times under the Fatimids. Many of the letters were sent from the Maghreb, which makes it possible to separate the material into a Maghrebian and an Egyptian corpus. The main criteria for assignment of letters into either the Egyptian or the Maghrebian corpus was where the letter was written. If, however, there was a strong indication that the writer of the letter was not from the same area but originated elsewhere, the letters were set aside into an extra corpus (C unassigned). Admittedly, this process is riddled with inconsistencies. The people sending letters are not necessarily penning the documents themselves but may use scribes. There is virtually no information at all about many of the writers’ backgrounds. Other writers have been included and excluded because of arbitrary considerations, or based on anecdotal information. For instance, the trader Benayah b. Moses, the author of T-S J.,

2

See Stillman () and Goitein (–).



chapter three

T-S . and T-S J., was a very prominent Alexandrian merchant, but he was of Maghrebian origin and according to Cohen(, ) the leader of the Maghrebian traders in Alexandria. It is unsure how early he came to Egypt and whether he had been a trader before in the Maghreb. Thus it is impossible to ascertain how influenced he would have been by either Maghrebian or Egyptian writing styles. A letter of his son Nissim b. Benayah, however, has been included in the Egyptian corpus as it can be assumed that he grew up and became a merchant in Alexandria. A similar situation is the case of #Aw¯ad. (Abraham) b. Hananel, who is . mentioned in Goitein (–, I ) as a resident of Alexandria. His letters T-S J., T-S Misc . and T-S J., were written from Alexandria to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t. but have been excluded from the Egyptian corpus because of a remark in his son’s (Ab¯u l-Hayr b. #Aw¯ad. ˘ states his b. Hananel) letter T-S Misc . (to the same addressee) who . problems as a trader because his father had been a t. a¯r¯ı, a foreigner or someone who had come from the far. This statement implies that the son, on the other hand, was not a t. a¯r¯ı anymore, so he is included in the Egyptian material. Equally excluded from the Egyptian corpus was the correspondence of Jacob b. Salm¯an al-Har¯ . ır¯ı. Although many of his letters come from Egypt, he writes to his mother in Qayraw¯an. This is a strong indication that he was Maghrebian of birth, yet it is not clear when he left the Maghreb and came to Egypt and, therefore, he has not been included in the Maghrebian corpus. On the other hand, letters written by members of the Tahert¯ı family have been included in the Maghrebian corpus despite the fact that the clan sent its younger men to Egypt for a number of years to act as agents there before they returned to the West.3 Most of the Tahert¯ıs were, therefore, probably very familiar with Egyptian writing. Yet, the prominence and grounding of the Tahert¯ıs in the Maghreb make them ideal candidates for the Maghrebian corpus. Some of the decisions of assignment may be flawed but the methodological problems are outweighed by the benefits of having two reasonably reliable corpora of Egyptian and Maghrebian material for the purpose of comparison. Many of the letters in this corpus are addressed to Joseph ibn #Awkal, who was an important Jewish merchant and resided in Egypt in the first

3

Goitein (–, I f).

corpus



half of the th century. His family originated in Tunisia but he was probably born in Cairo or Fust.a¯t.. His exact date of birth is not known but by the year  he already had two adult sons which points to a birth date before . The latest correspondence addressed to him personally that we know of comes from the year . Joseph ibn #Awkal exported a great variety of commodities from Egypt into the Mediterranean world, such as flax, dyeing materials, pepper, Brazilwood, lacquer and sugar. At the same time, he was not only an outstanding member of the Egyptian business community but also a prominent Jewish communal leader, acting as an intermediary between the Maghrebian Jewish communities and the Academies of Iraq and Palestine. Therefore, his correspondence provides a picture of both the mechanisms of international trade at the beginning of the th century and also of the administrative aspects of how religious queries and financial donations were sent from distant communities to the Jewish Academies, the ‘great seats of Jewish learning’, in return for responsa and treatises. Another prominent recipient of letters in Fust.a¯t. is Nahr¯ay b. Nissim, who also was a prominent merchant originally from the Maghreb. All of the th-century letters have been published by Gil () in his extensive letter compilation. Their readings have been checked against the manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library (CUL) and the Bodleian, with the exception of T-S *, which was lost during the Second World War and Dropsie , which was checked against a digital image of the letter. If a dating is provided in the th-century letters, it has been taken from Gil. ... th-Century Egypt The most prolific writer in the th-century Egypt letter corpus under investigation is Nissim b. Halfon. His activities as an agent in the Egyp. tian province make it likely that he was a native Egyptian, although a lot of his correspondence was sent to Alexandrian traders of Maghrebian origin. The following letters written by him have been included in the th-century Egyptian corpus: () T-S . (, Gil no. ); () T-S J. (about , Gil no. ); () T-S J. (about , Gil no. ); () Mosseri IV.. (about , Gil no. ); () T-S J. (about , Gil no. ); () T-S Misc . (about , Gil no. ); () T-S NS J (about , Gil no. ); () T-S . (about , Gil no. ); () T-S J. (about , Gil no. ); () CUL Or  J (about , Gil no. ); () T-S J. (about ,



chapter three

Gil no. ); () Bod MS Heb e . (Gil no. ). Letters ()–() and () are directed to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t.. The letters were written in different places in the Egyptian province, such as Tinn¯ıs and Damsis, where the writer acted as agent for Nahr¯ay. Letter () was sent to M¯us¯a Tahert¯ı in Fust.a¯t., a member of the large Maghrebian Tahert¯ı clan from Qayraw¯an (see the th-century corpus from the Maghreb below). The inclusion of such a large number of letters by the same author brings with it the danger that the idiosyncracies of one writer may spoil the general statistics of linguistic features in the Egyptian letters. Therefore, if there are any linguistic phenomena that feature in considerable numbers in Nissim b. Halfon’s correspondence but do not . occur in other letters, they will be mentioned and evaluated as a specific trait of his letters. () T-S Misc . (Gil no. ) was directed to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t. and written in about  by Ab¯u l-Hayr b. #Aw¯ad. b. Hananel . ˘ who describes his problems of getting into business after the death of his father. The latter had been a business partner of Nahr¯ay, too, and several of his letters are preserved. His son complains about the high taxes he has to pay due to the fact that his father was only a t. a¯r¯ı, a foreigner. He stresses that this has nothing to do with the tax authorities but is imposed on his head by the Jewish community while others of genuine Egyptian pedigree have to pay less. The letters () T-S J. (Gil no. ), () T-S J. (about , Gil no. ), () Bod MS Heb d. . (Gil no. ) and () T-S J. (arrived th April , Gil no. ), were all sent by Ephraim b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Jawhar¯ı from Alexandria to Joseph b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S J. (around , Gil no. ) was written from Tinn¯ıs by Raham¯ . ım b. #Imr¯an and directed to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t.. No information about Raham¯ . ım is available but there is no indication to assume that he was not a genuine Egyptian. Gil describes the letters as written in the hand of Benayah b. M¯us¯a whose letters have been excluded from the Egyptian corpus as he originated from the Maghreb. This, however, must be a printing error as the script looks nothing like Benayah’s handwriting in T-S J. and T-S J., and the letter has thus been included in the Egyptian corpus. () Dropsie  (around , Gil no. ) was written by Nissim b. Benayah, the son of the above mentioned trader Benayah b. Moses, the author of the letters T-S J., T-S . and T-S J. from the unassigned th-century corpus, who was a very prominent Alexandrian merchant.

corpus



() T-S . (Gil no. ) and () T-S NS . (Gil no. ) were directed to Joseph b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t. and sent by his agent M¯us¯a b. Is. h¯ . aq b. Hisd¯ . a from the Egyptian province. () T-S J. (probably th July , Gil no. ) and () PER H  (st May , Gil no. ) were composed by Ibr¯ah¯ım b. Farr¯ah, . whose nickname al-Iskandar¯an¯ı mark him as a native Egyptian, and directed to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t.. He owned a mail agency responsible for forwarding letters to the Maghreb. ˇ ama for the () T-S . (Gil no. ) was written by Daniel b. al-S¯ merchant Abraham b. Joseph in Alexandria to Ibn Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. ... th-Century Maghreb Most of the letters from the Maghreb were written by members of the prominent Tahert¯ı family. As it has been explained above, the members of that clan often spent a number of years in Egypt to act as trading agents before returning to the West. () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) and () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) were written in the name of the sister of Ism¯a#¯ıl b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı to her brother in Fust.a¯t.. These are private letters, written in the hand of Sedaqah b. #Ayy¯aˇs. Gil claims that () T-S J. (around . , Gil no. ) was written by the same Sedaqah but the hand, while . looking similar, is not identical. There is no other indication in the letter that would hint at Sedaqah b. #Ayy¯aˇs as the scribe. The letter was written . for Judah b. Joseph to #Ayy¯aˇs b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S J. (Gil no. ) and () T-S . (Gil no. ) were written by Yeˇsu#ah b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Mahm¯ur¯ı in  and . He lived in ˘ Alexandria at that time, but was of Maghrebian origin and spent his youth learning there. His letters have thus been included in the Maghrebian corpus. There is also a letter () T-S J. (around , Gil no. ) to him from his sister in Tripolis. () T-S . (Gil no. ) was written by Joseph and Nissim b. Berehyah4 to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.,  or little later. () ˘ . (Gil no. ) was sent by Joseph b. Berehyah to Joseph b. T-S NS ˘ Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S K . (around , Gil no. ) was written by a female family member to M¯us¯a b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı. () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) is a letter from M¯us¯a b. Barh¯un

4

For this family, see Gil (, ff).



chapter three

Tahert¯ı in Qayraw¯an to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S . (th Februar , Gil no. ) was sent by M¯us¯a b. Yahy¯ . a alMajj¯an¯ı from Qayraw¯an to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) was sent by Ism¯a#¯ıl b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı from Qayraw¯an to Ephraim b. Shemariah in Fust.a¯t.. () CUL Or  J (probably th August , Gil no. ) was written by the Tahert¯ı brothers M¯us¯a, Isaac and Sali . h. from Qayraw¯an to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S AS .–T-S J. (nd February , Gil no. ) sent by Joseph b. M¯us¯a Tahert¯ı from Mahdiyya to Yeˇsu#ah b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Mahm¯ur¯ı in Fust.a¯t.. () Bod MS Heb d. . (around , Gil no. ) was ˘sent by Joseph and Nissim b. Berehyah to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S . (th January˘ , Gil no. ) was written by Barh¯un b. Isaac Tahert¯ı from Mahdiyya to Nahr¯ay b. Nissim in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S * (th August , Gil no. ) was written by Nahum b. ˘ Joseph al-Bard¯an¯ı in Qayraw¯an to the Gaon Samuel b. Hofn¯ ı. The reading . of this letter could not be checked as the original manuscript was lost during the Second World War. The transcription originally made by Goldziher () was, therefore, used. () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) was sent by the Tahert¯ı brothers M¯us¯a and Isaac, probably from Mahdiyya, to Sahl Tustar¯ı in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S J. (Gil no. ) was written by Ism¯a#¯ıl b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı from Qayraw¯an to his brother Isaac b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S J. (rd September , Gil no. ) was sent by Nissim b. Isaac Tahert¯ı from Qayraw¯an to M¯us¯a Hal¯ıla in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S . (rd August , Gil b. Ab¯ı l-Hayy . ˘ no. ) was written by Joseph b. M¯us¯a Tahert¯ı from Mahdiyya to Yeˇsu#ah b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Mahm¯ur¯ı in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S . (around , Gil no. ) ˘ was written by Faraj, the freed slave of Barh¯un (Tahert¯ı?) from the West to Joseph b. Jacob ibn #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. () T-S J. (around , Gil no. ) was written by Joseph b. Berehyah to Joseph b. Jacob. b. #Awkal. ˘ ... th Century (Unassigned) In this corpus letters from the original th-century material were compiled that were excluded from the Egyptian and Maghrebian corpora because of doubts about the writers’ provenance. The author of () T-S J. (st October , Gil no. ) was Hall¯uf b. Zechariah, who wrote the letter in Alexandria but was of ˘ Maghrebian origin. () T-S J. (around , Gil no. ) was written by Joseph b. Yeˇsu#ah in Alexandria to Ab¯u l-Faraj Joseph b.

corpus



Jacob ibn #Awkal, but Joseph was probably of Maghrebian origin. () T-S J. (ca. , Gil no. ) was written by Jacob b. Salm¯an al-Har¯ . ır¯ı, who lived in Egypt but we have letters from his mother in Qayraw¯an. Thus it may be assumed that he stemmed from there. () CUL Or  J (Gil no. ) and () T-S . (Gil no. ) were written by Judah b. Joseph b. Simha . in Alexandria, but letters of his from the Maghreb can also be found and he was most likely Maghrebian. () T-S . (, Gil no. ), () T-S J. (, Gil no. ) and () T-S J. (, Gil no. ) were written by Benayah b. Moses, a very prominent Alexandrian merchant, who was of Maghrebian origin. () T-S J. ˙ al from (, Gil no. ) was written by H¯ar¯un b. Joseph al-Gazz¯ Qayraw¯an to Joseph b. Jacob b. #Awkal in Fust.a¯t.. .. th Century The Ayyubids had succeeded the Fatimids at the end of the th century and ruled over Egypt during the time when the letters of the th-century corpus were written. It was a time of social transformation caused by the generally worsening economic conditions in the times of constant warfare between crusaders, Turk invaders and local dynasties. The correspondence from the th-century includes a greater number of letters of a more private nature than the earlier material. Dates are rarely given but they all stem from the first half of the th century. Most of the correspondence in the present corpus was written by or addressed to the family of the judge Elijah in Fust.a¯t.. Especially his son Solomon is the author of many documents. Solomon was married ˙ al, the daughter of Ab¯u l-Faraj, in an unhappy to his cousin Sitt Gaz¯ marriage which was also the cause of a lot of correspondence between Solomon and his wife’s family. Most of the letters (nos. –, –) were transcribed and some translated by Motzkin () in his PhD thesis. His readings have been checked against the manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library. GW VIII was published with photograph in Gottheil and Worrell (). T-S J. was published by Ashtor () and its reading has been checked against the original in the Cambridge University Library. Letters written by Solomon b. Elijah are () CUL Or  J to Ab¯u l-Barak¯at al-Har¯ . ır¯ı, () CUL Or  J to his father the judge Elijah, () T-S . and () T-S . to his father-in-law Ab¯u l-Faraj in Alexandria, () T-S J. to the judge Hananel, () T-S J. to his .



chapter three

father-in-law Ab¯u l-Faraj in Alexandria, () T-S J. to his brother Ab¯u Zikr¯ı, () T-S J. and () T-S J. to his paternal aunt, () T-S J. to his brother Ab¯u Zikr¯ı, () T-S NS J a begging letter to an unknown recipient, () T-S NS J a note to Ab¯u l-Rab¯ı#. Letters written by the judge Elijah include () T-S J. an order of some clothes to an unknown recipient, () T-S J. to David Kohen in Bilbays, () T-S J. to his two sons Solomon and Ab¯u Zikr¯ı, () T-S . to his brother-in-law Ab¯u l-Faraj in Alexandria. Letters from other writers: () CUL Or  J and () T-S . sent by Ab¯u l-Faraj from Alexandria to his son-in-law Solomon b. Elijah; () CUL Or  J the beginning of a letter of Judah #Amm¯an¯ı to Judge Elijah; () CUL Or  J a business letter from Ab¯u lMajd, temporarily in Damascus, to the judge Elijah; () T-S . from Alexandria to Solomon b. Elijah; () T-S . to the judge Elijah from an unknown sender; () T-S . Rachel of Byzantium to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. and () T-S J. from Abraham b. Solomon, the Yemenite Rav, in Jerusalem to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. Umm Ism¯a#¯ıl to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. from Joseph b. Jacob ha-Kohen in Bilbays to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from his nephew M¯us¯a; () T-S J. from Umm Halaf to Solomon; () ˘ T-S J. Tuviah Ab¯u Mans. u¯ r to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. . business letter to the judge Elijah from Joseph b. Nad¯ıv the cantor; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from a female relative; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from an unknown sender; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from Da"¯ud, the muqaddam of Bilbays; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from Alexandria; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from his wife’s nephew Ab¯u l-Barak¯at b. al-#At.t.a¯r; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from his brother-in-law Ab¯u l-Fadl . in Alexandria; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from an unknown writer in Bilbays; () T-S J. from the uncle of Solomon’s wife, Ab¯u l-Barak¯at in Alexandria, to Solomon and his wife; () T-S J. to Solomon from the mentioned Ab¯u l-Barak¯at in Alexandria; () T-S J. to Solomon from the mentioned Ab¯u l-Barak¯at in Alexandria; () T-S J. to the judge Elijah from Da"¯ud in Qaly¯ub; () T-S J. from Umm Da"¯ud to her nephew Ab¯u Zikr¯ı; () T-S J. from Ab¯u l-Majd and his father Ab¯u l-Faraj to the judge Elijah; () T-S J. from Simha . Kohen to his father-in-law judge Elijah; () T-S NS J from Ab¯u Zikr¯ı to his father Elijah; () T-S J. from Umm Mak¯ın to the judge Elijah; () CUL Or  J was written by Da"¯ud b. Judah to the judge Elijah;

corpus



() GW VIII5 was written in  by a certain Ab¯u l-Tan¯a to the judge Elijah; () T-S J.6 was written in the middle of the¯ th century by a certain Benjamin to Hayyim in Alexandria; () CUL Or  J is . a business letter to the judge Elijah. () T-S J. was written to the judge Elijah by his son-in-law Simha. . .. th/th Century The letters of this corpus were written under Mamluk rule (–), with one letter sent just at the turn to Ottoman rule (). These were turbulent and economically bad times, with repeated plague epidemics and a short succession of sultans due to power play between the different political groups. This corpus consists of six7 letters. GW XXX and GW XXVIII were published in Gottheil and Worrell () with photographs. The other four letters ()–() were published by Ashtor () and their readings have been checked against the manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library.8 () GW XXX and () GW XXVIII are probably fragments of the same letter. They were written by a man who appears to have originally come from Fust.a¯t. to Damascus and was trying to establish a business there. He writes to someone back in Fust.a¯t. and recounts the problems he faces from Muslims and Jews alike in setting himself up. Because of the currencies used in the letter (nus. f was not used before the reign of al-Mu"ayyad –), the letter has been dated into the th century. () T-S NS J, sent from Damascus to Fust.a¯t., is dated to  because of historical correlations. () T-S . has been dated to the end of the th century because it was written to the nagid Nathan ha-Kohen. () T-S J. comes from the second half of the th century. () T-S . was written from Gaza by the physician ‘Af¯ıf b. Ezra to a certain Samuel in Fust.a¯t. at the beginning of the th century.

5

Published by Gottheil and Worrell (). Published by Ashtor (, no. ). 7 Another letter (T-S .) is dated to  by Ashtor. Goitein, however, has pointed out that the letter in fact comes from the year . 8 In particular many readings in Ashtor needed corrections, so the examples in the following may differ markedly from Ashtor’s transcriptions. 6



chapter three .. th/th Century

The letters of this corpus were written after the Ottoman rule over Egypt had been interrupted by the French occupation of Egypt in . After the French had been driven out, a civil war ensued between the Ottomans, Egyptian Mamluks and Albanian mercenaries led by Muhammad Ali, who then took control of Egypt in  as governor (wal¯ı) under the Ottoman sultan but effectively ruled on his own. His aegis of over fourty year was marked by rapid reforms and modernisation, making Egypt one of the most developed countries outside of Europe. The th/th-century corpus consists of  letters. Many of them are business letters sent to a certain Mercado Karo y Frances or to Mercado Hayyim Abraham ha-Levi by Solomon Hayyim Abraham Chizana or . . Abraham Gabriel. Although the ten letters used for the analysis here all come from the first two decades of the th century, other very similar letters that were not taken up into the corpus for various reasons were written in the late th century. Because of those, the material has been named the th/th-century corpus. Two of the letters, T-S AS . and T-S J. have been published by Khan.9 The other eight are, yet, unpublished. The readings of letters from the Cambridge collections were checked against the originals in the Cambridge University Library, while the letters from Alliance Israélite Universelle were checked against digital images. () T-S AS . ()10 was written by a certain Moses Bibas, an Egyptian Jewish trader, and addressed to the trader Mercado Karo y Frances. () T-S NS . () was written to Mercado Hayyim Abra. ham ha-Levi by Solomon Hayyim Abraham Chizana. () T-S NS . . (), () AIU VIIE  () and () AIU VIIE  () were written to Mercado Karo y Frances and Simeon Frances by Abraham Gabriel. () T-S Ar. . () to Mercado Karo y Frances by Abraham Gabriel. Abraham () T-S J. ()11 was written by Solomon Hayyim . Chizana to Mercado Karo y Frances and Abraham ha-Levi. () AIU VIIE  () was written to Mercado Karo y Frances and Simeon Frances. () CUL Or .. was sent by Joseph Yu#bas. to Jacob Yu#bas. . () CUL Or .. () was sent to David b. Na#¯ım by Me#ir b. Na#¯ım. 9 10 11

Khan () and (). Edited and analysed in Khan (). Edited and analysed in Khan ().

chapter four PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY

.. Introduction and Methodology The purpose of this chapter is to outline the changes in orthography and phonology within the different periods of Judaeo-Arabic epistolary writing. Letters represent an ideal corpus for such examinations as, unlike literary works, they can be accurately dated and because they mirror the conventions at the precise point of time of their writing. By contrast, literary sources are subjected to copying and re-editing, with the result that the occurrence of certain forms or words can never be dated exactly. When dealing with a corpus of written material the study of phonology meets a fundamental difficulty: orthographical conventions often disguise phonological change. The problem is exacerbated in the case of Judaeo-Arabic because, to varying degrees, its writers may have sought to emulate the ideal of Classical Arabic orthography. Furthermore, there are hypercorrect1 or hypocorrect2 forms, which represent neither the actual contemporary pronunciation nor the Classical Arabic spelling. It is clear from vocalised texts, such as T-S Ar. ()., that the actual pronunciation, or more properly, the reading tradition of the letters differed greatly from Classical Arabic vocalisation. Vocalised words are rare in the corpus, so it is impossible to separate orthographical and actual phonological features; they, therefore, have to be treated as one. 1 These are defined by Blau (, ) as ‘[employing] forms peculiar to Classical Arabic, even in a context which demands forms occuring in Middle Arabic as well’, leading to ‘overshooting’ and using a form grammatically incorrect in that specific context according to Classical Arabic rules. 2 A term introduced by Blau for hybrid forms that display ‘Classical and vernacular features simultaneously, and [are] non-existent […] both in Classical and Middle Arabic’ (Blau , ); the writer endeavours in these forms ‘to correct the vernacular form to a Classical one, but, owing to deficient knowledge, he corrects only one of its features to the rules of Classical grammar, retaining also a vernacular feature’ (Blau , ).



chapter four

Even when vocalised letters are available they may add further to the confusion. Incorrect interpretations of Tiberian vocalisation signs in vocalised letters, in particular T-S Ar. ()., have resulted in scholars over-emphasizing supposed Maghrebian features in the Egyptian material. Blau and Hopkins (), for example, interpreted the occurrence of shewa in T-S Ar. (). as elision or reduction of short vowels in unstressed syllables and as a sign of oxytone stress, characteristic of Maghrebian phonology. This evaluation of Maghrebian features in Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic was subsequently taken up by various scholars and has lead to a slightly distorted picture of the Egyptian Jewish dialect. Khan (b), however, has shown that this shewa most likely represented short vowels, mainly a but also i and u, rendering the theories of Maghrebian syllable structure and stress patterns somewhat doubtful. For this phonological investigation of the letters, deviations from Classical Arabic were collected. Classical Arabic serves as the initial model against which the Judaeo-Arabic of the corpus is compared; it is ideal for a comparative approach since it has a relatively clear, prescriptive set of rules and standards, forming a perfect base for a comparative approach. The rules for phonology and orthography of mediaeval JudaoArabic as described in Joshua Blau’s grammar () provide a second standard comparison. He examines the orthographical and phonological deviations of mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic in contrast to Classical Arabic in great detail, and although his grammar is principally based upon literary sources, many of his findings hold true for the letters of the earlier corpora. The later material, on the other hand, displays a break with earlier orthographical conventions. Hence, there is a twofold aim in this chapter, first, to give a comprehensive insight into the deviations from standard Arabic occuring in the letters and evaluate the distribution of more common phonological and orthographical epistolary phenomena, and secondly, to compare the findings in the various mediaeval and Late Judaeo-Arabic corpora with one another. Where appropriate, the epistolary forms are compared to corresponding dialectal forms to show how mediaeval vernacular forms penetrated the written substandard Judaeo-Arabic variety in the letters, and to other Arabic substandard varieties. Since the letters from the th century (the th-century papyri) were treated extensively in Blau and Hopkins3 and their phonological and

3

Blau and Hopkins () and ().

phonology and orthography



orthographical properties are exhaustively described there, they have not been included in this chapter. Suffice it to say that the papyri show a peculiar pre-classical orthography, for example in the use of ã for d¯al, d¯al, ¯ d¯ . ad and z. a¯" and the assimilation of the article before sun-letters. Instead, in this chapter the examination will focus on the letters from the th century onwards.

.. Consonants As the Hebrew alphabet consists only of  graphemes, while Arabic possesses , in Judaeo-Arabic a number Hebrew graphemes are each called upon to represent two (or more) Arabic graphemes. This concerns the graphemes è ö ë ã â and ú. In most cases, one of the set is provided with a dot4 above the grapheme whereas the other is not. Those graphemes supplied with a dot are in many cases t, j, h, d, d. and z. (ë˙ ˙â ú˙ etc.), whereas ¯ ˘Some ¯ letters, however, indicate t, d, s. , t. , g˙ and k are without (ë â ú etc.). g˙ with the dot and not j. Others, such as T-S J. and T-S J., point both g˙ and j. In a few Late Judaeo-Arabic letters, such as T-S J  and T-S NS ., dots are placed below the consonant and may indicate both g˙ and j. Additionally, a great number of letters do not differentiate at all in writing between the two phonemes, and there are also letters in which k5 or d are marked with a supralinear point or stroke.6 As these phenomena are restricted to the earlier material and relatively rare, they have not been included in the table. Dots or strokes above k and d occur frequently in the th/th-century material. The purpose of the dotting was probably to distinguish between b and k, and d and r, which can be very similar in their form.7 In the th/th-century material f may be marked with a stroke above, and is used in its initial and medial form

4 In letters from the th century, t may be indicated by two dots, for example, ¯ on the other hand, two dots may be used to in T-S J./ . In Maimonides letters, differentiate t (see T-S ./ ) and t¯a" marb¯ut. a (see T-S ./ ) from h, while he assigns three dots to t (see T-S ./ ). ¯ for -k appears from the th century onwards and is especially 5 Final ê with a dot frequent in material from the th century onwards. It appears, the dot is used to distinguish final -k from Hebrew -k and Judaeo-Arabic h. ¯ transition between ˘ dot, stroke-like dot and stroke 6 In the letters, there is a smooth above the consonant. For practical reasons, all these signs are indicated in this work with a dot above the consonants. 7 See Khan (a, ).



chapter four

even in word final position. These letters also display other dots whose functions are not yet clear and worth a separate investigation. " b t t ¯j h. h d˘ d r¯ z s8 ˇs s.

à á ú ˙ú ú ˙â â ç ˙ë ë ã ˙ã ã ø æ ñ ù ö

d. t. z. # g˙ f q k l m n h w y

˙ö ö è ˙ è ö˙ è ò ˙â â ˙ ôô ÷ ë ì î ð ä å é

The following sections note the deviations from Classical Arabic found in the letters. As the Hebrew alphabet is unsuitable to describe the phenomena because of the variations in spelling, the graphemes have been transcribed into their standard Classical Arabic transliteration. ... d. and z. Blau and Hopkins9 both point out that d. and z. had already merged in pronunciation in the th century and hence the resultant sound could be spelled with either ö˙ /ö or è, or even ã in early vulgar Judaeo-Arabic spelling. In the letters of our corpus, the writers, however, seem to have been aware of what the original sound in Classical Arabic would have been at least in the case of Classical Arabic d, . which is exclusively spelled with the grapheme ö, in most cases with a dot above; it is only dotless in letters that add no other dots to the script.10 The situation is different with Classical Arabic z. . Here, the problem may have been not so much the Classical Arabic grapheme  because no variations in the spelling of Classical Arabic d. can be observed. Instead, the difficulty 8 In particular in letters from Byzantium, we also find ù for s, see Outhwaite (, ). There are no such examples in our corpus. 9 Blau and Hopkins (, f) and Hopkins (, f). 10 In other documentary sources from the Cairo Genizah, è ˙ may be used for Classical Arabic d, . for example in the legal document T-S J./  àðøè˙ ç ‘we were present’ and T-S J./v. àðéìà úøè˙ ç ‘she presented herself to us’.

phonology and orthography



might have been how to represent  in Hebrew script. Two different spellings of Classical Arabic z. are observed: either the corresponding Hebrew spelling equivalent è/è˙ to the actual Classical Arabic grapheme (), making its differentiation from d. easier, or ö˙ to represent both Classical Arabic z. and d. . The latter may be evidence that some writers were unfamiliar with the Classical Arabic distinction between z. and d. because they were pronounced identically in the vernacular, in which the merged consonant is either stop or fricative.11 This subsequently became a standard spelling used even by writers who were probably very much aware of the original Classical Arabic sound. Some proof for this theory arises from Nissim b. Halfon’s letters. While he uses è˙ . for z. in his earlier letters, T-S . and T-S J. (both from the year ), he writes ö˙ for z. in his later letters T-S J. (), T-S . () and T-S J. (). It is feasible that he changed the spelling in order to accord with the orthographical practises of his business partners. Some th-century letters may display two different spellings, both ˙ and ö˙ , for z. , for example øö˙ ðà T-S J. / 12 ‘see!’ and úððè˙ T-S è/è J. / 13 ‘I thought’ (also in letters that have not been included in the corpus, such as ïèà Bod MS Heb d. ./v. ‘I think’14 and ˙ Bod MS Heb d. ./lm. ‘he triumphed’). Does this mean both øôö spellings were equally acceptable or is there another explanation for the two variants? A possible cause may be that there was no homogenous pronunciation of Classical Arabic z. in the dialect. This is supported by Spitta’s (, ) examples of the pronunciation of Classical Arabic z. in th-century vernacular Egyptian. He shows that Classical Arabic z. could be pronounced as both d. and z, depending on the word. For instance Classical Arabic #az. ¯ım (mighty) becomes #azym (Spitta) while Classical Arabic #az. m (bone) becomes #adm . (Spitta). On the other hand, there is no reflection of this in Late Judaeo-Arabic letters as only ö˙ and no examples of æ can be found for Classical Arabic z. in the th/th-century material, although spellings with ã also occur.

11

See also Diem (, f). The letter was composed for a woman in Tunisia in the Maghreb, where both spellings were equally common. 13 Another example of Classical Arabic z written as è ˙ occurs in this letter: l.  äøè˙ úðî. . 14 The reading is, however, not a entirely certain. The è is oddly stretched and disjointed compared to other T¯ . a"s in the letter, for example in line . 12



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a) th-century Egypt In the letters from th-century Egypt, both è˙ and ö˙ can be found for Classical Arabic z. , with ö˙ occuring more often. In some of the letters, the handwriting makes it difficult to tell è and ö apart. ö˙ for z. : íéö˙ ò T-S J. /  ‘big, mighty’; øö˙ ðú T-S . /  ‘you should see’; øö˙ ðà T-S J./v. ‘see!’; àäøåäö˙ T-S J. /  ‘their backs’; äö˙ ôç T-S . /  ‘he guarded it’; ïö˙ é T-S J./v. ‘he thinks’. è˙ for z. : íéè˙ ò T-S . / , ; T-S J./v. ‘big, mighty’; è˙ ôçé T-S J. /  ‘he guards’. è for z. : ˙éèò T-S J. /  ‘big, mighty’. As mentioned before, Nissim b. Halfon uses è˙ for z. in his earlier letters . T-S . and T-S J. (), while he writes ö˙ for z. in his later letters, T-S J. (), T-S . () and T-S J. (). Nissim’s letters also show another phenomenon in this connection. He writes the forms of the verb ã˙ ôð ‘send’ as õ˙ ôð. This spelling is consistent in all his letters and appears for example in T-S J. / , T-S J./v., Mosseri IV.. / , T-S Misc . / , T-S NS J / , T-S . / , T-S J. /  and Bod MS Heb e..  / . Derived forms of õ˙ ôð also occur in a letter (T-S J. / , ) sent to Nissim by another merchant, which in addition shows õ˙ ë˙ à in place of ã˙ ëà in line . It appears, therefore, that this group of merchants influenced each other in their choice of orthography. b) th-century Maghreb The distribution of è˙ and ö˙ for Classical Arabic z. is about even in the th-century Maghreb letter corpus. As in the Egyptian letters, it may be difficult to tell è and ö apart as their written forms closely resemble one another. T-S J. has both ö˙ and è˙ for Classical Arabic z. . Similarly, two letters by Yeˇsu#ah b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Mahm¯ur¯ı have both ö˙ (T-S ., dated ) and è˙ (T-S J., dated ˘). ˙ for z. : éøàö˙ èðà T-S . /  ‘my expectation’;15 øö˙ ðú T-S ./v. ö ‘you should look’; äîéö˙ ò T-S . /  ‘big, mighty’; óøö˙ à T-S . /  ‘more elegant’; øö˙ ðà T-S J. /  ‘see!’; äö˙ ôç T-S . /  ‘may he protect him’. è˙ for z. : øàäè˙ úñà T-S J. /  ‘to ask for help’; úððè˙ T-S J. /  ‘I thought’; ïè˙ ú àì T-S K ./ ‘do not think’; êè˙ ôç

15

For ú > è see ...

phonology and orthography



T-S J. /  ‘your protection’; è˙ àôìà T-S */ ‘words, speech’; íè˙ òà 16 17 T-S J. /  ‘more’. è for z: . íèòà T-S AS .–T-S J. /  ‘more’. c) th century ˙ ö

(in a few examples ö) occurs more frequently than è˙ in the thcentury letters, there are, however, examples for both spellings. ö˙ for z. : ˙ ôç CUL Or  J /  ‘he guarded it’; íéö˙ ò CUL Or  J/v. äö ‘great, mighty’; øö˙ ð CUL Or  J/v.18 ‘to see (infinitive)’; øö˙ ð T-S . /  ‘he saw’; êøö˙ ðá T-S J. /  (compare also l. ) ‘in seeing you’; äîéöò T-S ./v.19 ‘big, mighty’; åðö˙ CUL Or  J/v.20 (compare also l. ) ‘they thought’. è˙ for z: . øè˙ ðì CUL Or  J /  ‘to see’ (compare also l. ); è˙ ôç T-S J. /  ‘may he guard’; äîéè˙ ò T-S . /  ‘big, mighty’ (compare also l. ); and from outside the corpus ˙ ò T-S . /  ‘big, mighty ; íéàè˙ ò T-S . /  ‘big events ’ from äîéè outside the corpus. d) th/th century The th/th-century letters show only ö˙ for Classical Arabic z: . øö˙ ð T-S . /  and T-S . /  ‘seeing’; êøö˙ ð GW XXX/ ‘seeing you’; ˙ òà T-S . /  ‘more’. íéö e) th/th century In the earlier letters many examples with z. are derivates of the root #zm . ‘powerful, mighty’. The sparcity of examples with Classical Arabic z. in the th/th-century material may perhaps be due to the unpopularity of the root #zm . in the later material. ˙ and è˙ for z: ö . åøåö˙ ðà T-S NS . /  ‘look (pl.)!’; øåè˙ ðé CUL Or .. /  ‘he will see’. Classical Arabic z. ahr ‘back’, however, is spelled with d in íëøäã AIU VIIE /m. ‘your back’. This may reflect the merging of the dental and alveolar plosives (after z. had merged with 16

Gil reads ïèé àî in T-S ./  ‘he thinks’ but I believe the reading is actually àî

ïåëé. 17 18 19 20

In this letter õ˙ ôçúî also occurs in lv.. The letter is conserved the wrong way round so the recto of the letter is on verso. See the preceding footnote. The letter also has è˙ for z. .



chapter four

d. into d) . or, more likely, the orthographical representation of not only dental plosive d and interdental fricative d, but also of alveolar plosive and fricative d. and z. by the grapheme 㯠in certain layers of the vernacular. This phenomenon also occurs in th-century Judaeo-Arabic papyri.21 ... Tafh¯ım: s. for s (and z) ˘ In an emphatic environment, s can change to s. , e.g., beside q and s. , or beside r. This phenomenon is called tafh¯ım and denotes the supraseg˘ mental spread of emphasis caused by an emphatic consonant in the word or word group. The fact that q causes tafh¯ım in examples from the th to the th centuries may indicate that the ˘modern pronunciation with glottal stop for q had not penetrated the Jewish vernacular of the respective writers. Grotzfeld (, f) gives evidence for the glottal stop pronunciation for q as early as th-century Cairo, but Davies (, f) points out that a range of post-velar reflexes of q can be found in the dialects of Egypt, both modern and mediaeval. a) th-century Egypt Examples of s. for s occur frequently: ä÷öå T-S J. /  ‘its load’ (Classical Arabic ); éðéú õàø T-S J. /  ‘Ra’s T¯ın¯ı’ (Classical Arabic ); èàôöà T-S J./rm. ‘baskets’ (Classical Arabic U ); øöð T-S J. /  ‘we are glad’ (Classical Arabic ); øåöëî T-S Misc . /  ‘broken’ (Classical Arabic ); ÷öåî T-S J. /  ‘loading’ (Classical Arabic ); ïé÷åöåî T-S J. /  ‘loaded’ (Classical Arabic  ). b) th-century Maghreb Examples of s. for s occur occasionally, usually in an emphatic environment, similarly to the th-century Egyptian letters: ïàèìöìà T-S J. /  ‘the sultan’ (Classical Arabic  M); äðàèìö T-S J. /  ‘his sultan’; èôö T-S AS .–T-S J. /  ‘basket’ (Classical Arabic F); à÷öå T-S J. /  ‘freight’ (Classical Arabic ).

21

See Blau and Hopkins (, ) and (, ff).

phonology and orthography



c) th-century (unassigned) äèàöåá

T-S J. /  ‘through mediation’ (Classical Arabic I ).

d) th century Examples of s. for s occur occasionally: ïàèìöìà T-S ./v. ‘the sultan’ (Classical Arabic  M); øéèàöî CUL Or  J/v.,  ‘lines’ (Classical Arabic  I ); úîãöðà CUL Or  J/v. ‘it healed’ (Classical Arabic ). e) th/th century Examples of s. for s occur occasionally: øéèöú T-S . /  and T-S NS J /  ‘to write’ (Classical Arabic  M). An example of s. for z is found in ê÷öø GW XXX/ ‘your life support’ (Classical Arabic  ). f) th/th century Examples of s. for s occur frequently, although it seems to be restricted to certain letters within the corpus: äòøåö T-S NS . / , ,  ‘quickly’ (Classical Arabic !"); øàòöà T-S J. /  ‘prices’ (Classical Arabic  #); åîö÷åé T-S J. /  ‘they will divide’ (Classical Arabic $%&). ... Tarq¯ıq: s for s. There are also cases of loss of emphasis (tarq¯ıq) where Classical Arabic s. .

ñ

is written for

a) th-century Egypt and th-century Maghreb Examples of s for s. occur very occasionally in derivations of äøñ ‘purse’ (Classical Arabic '(), in Mosseri IV.. / , T-S ./rm. and T-S . / . b) th century In the th-century letters, we can find the following examples of tarq¯ıq: âàáñìà T-S J. /  ‘as. -Sabb¯ ag˙ (the dyer)’, and in some letters, in . derivations of the word s. a˙g¯ır ‘small’; äøéâ˙ñ T-S . / , , ; øéâ˙ñ



chapter four

T-S J. / ; øàâ˙ñ T-S J. / . In most cases, however, the spelling accords with Classical Arabic: øàâö T-S . / ; øâöà T-S J. / . Even the writer who uses äøéâ˙ñ (T-S . / , ,  above), also employs øéâö T-S . /  in the same letter. c) th/th and th/th century No examples can be found in the th/th-century corpus but a number of examples occur in the th/th-century corpus: âàáñ T-S AS . / ,  ‘dyer’; éôøéñ T-S AS . /  ‘money lender’; âàñ T-S AS . /  ‘pure’; ìåñåá T-S J. /  ‘about the arrival’; ìñç T-S J. /  ‘it happened’. In one letter we can observe tarq¯ıq and tafh¯ım ˘ in the same word: íåëìñåè T-S J. /  ‘it reaches you’ (Classical Arabic )*); äðö˙ ñ÷ T-S J. /  ‘he came to us’ (Classical Arabic +). Khan (, ) suggests that in these cases the use of ñ might not necessarily reflect a loss of emphasis but may simply be an orthographic alternative. On the other hand, it could indicate metathesis of velarisation, by which one consonant loses its point of articulation to another. ... tarq¯ıq and tafh¯ım: d. for d and d (t) for d. ˘ Examples of d. for d are rare in letters from the th to the th centuries. One example is øö˙ àùð T-S . /  ‘ammonia’ (Classical Arabic , -)22 from an th-century Maghrebian letter. In particular letters from the th/th century, however, a larger number of examples can be found, for instance in T-S J.: øö˙ ðá T-S J. /  ‘town’; ˙ T-S J. /  ‘we searched’; íåëåö˙ ö÷ð äðåë íì T-S NS . /  äðøåö ‘we wouldn’t have approached you’; äðö˙ ñ÷ T-S J. /  ‘he came to us’ (Classical Arabic +). There is also an th/th-century example êçúéúá T-S AS . /  ‘you are laughing’ (from the root ., ‘to laugh’) where the consonant is additionally devoiced (see below).

22 This appears also in a letter from the th-century unassigned corpus: ‘ammonia’ CUL Or  J/ .

˙ àùð øö

phonology and orthography



... Voicing and Devoicing of Dentals: d for t and t for d Examples of d for t are extremely rare. There is only one instance in the th-century Maghreb corpus: éøúñã T-S AS .–T-S J. /  ‘Tustar¯ı’.23 This might not necessarily be due to devoicing; the spelling could in fact represent an unaspirated /t/. In certain, more vernacular, letters of the th/th-century material, t for d occurs frequently through assimilation; for instance åòôúú T-S J. /  ‘you should pay’ and àäåòôúú T-S J. /  ‘you should pay it’, and the above mentioned êçúéúá T-S AS . /  ‘you are laughing’. ... tafh¯ım: t. for t ˘ In letters from the th/th century, øùòèñîë for øùò äñîë is found in GW XXX/ ‘fifteen’.24 In the th/th-century material, a large number of examples occurs, which, however, seem to be limited to particular letters; for instance åôøòè T-S NS . / , ,  ‘you should know’; øèëà T-S J. /  ‘most’ (after the shift aktar > aktar); êàøèùà T-S J. /  ‘he shares’; àäåèòè T-S NS .¯/  ‘you should give her’. Cases of dissimilation in verbal forms, where d. and t apparently merge into an emphatic t, spelled è, also occur, such as àäåèá÷ T-S NS . /  ‘you received them’. ... ˇs for j Davies (, f) has summarised the discussion on the pronunciation shifts of Classical Arabic j¯ım (/) and stated that the depalatised pronunciation g came about between  and . Hary () has similarly shown that from the th to the th centuries, / had an affricate pronunciation, only changing to the present-day velar stop pronunciation from the th century onwards.25 One method of investigation employed by Hary, the pointing of â as a marker of pronunciation, is not suitable for the letter corpus as the pointing occurs erraticly, with the dots indicating either g˙ or j, or even both.

23

Similarly in a letter from outside the corpus, Bod MS Heb d. ./v.address. Another example in Ashtor, ìåèèá àìå T-S ./v. ‘do not delay’, actually reads ìåè ìàèá àìå T-S ./v. ‘do not delay’ (which has an odd first stem verb instead of a second stem). 25 For the th century, also see Blanc (, f). 24



chapter four

A related phenomenon occurs in the letters from th-century Egypt and in the th-century unassigned corpus. A few examples show ˇs written in place of j. This may suggest a pronunciation similar to that of modern Palestinian or Maghrebian dialects, for example, the spelling could reflect North African dialectal /ˇz/for j¯ım, see Heath (, f). However, ˇs written in place of j occurs only with the root ijtama#a: òîúùð ‘we meet’ T-S J. / ; úòîúùà ‘I met’ Dropsie  / ; òàîúùàìà T-S J. /  ‘the reunion’; òîúùàìà T-S . /  ‘the meeting’; perhaps this was caused by a crossover with the root ˇsml, which carries a similar meaning. ... ˇs for s In the th-century corpus, a few examples may be found in which ˇs appears in the place of s in tenth stem forms. It is unclear why it occurs there but may have to do with the presence of ˇs in the root. Another possibility could be the use of ù for s as it appears in Byzantine sources: ùçåúùî T-S J. /  for ùçåúñî ‘missing somebody’; øéùúùð CUL Or  J/vm. for øéùúñð ‘we ask for advice’. ... d for d. ¯ In a letter from th-century Maghreb (T-S AS .–T-S J. / ), there is an occurance of äøèã˙ é ‘it forced him’ for Classical Arabic 01M2&. Here, ã˙ could be an alternative spelling of d, . but it could also reflect a phonological situation where d, d, z. and d. had all become interchangeable. The spelling of d, d, z. and d. ¯with ã is a common feature of the thcentury Judaeo-Arabic¯ papyri.26 Heath (, f) also mentions the spirantization of stops k, t, d in Maghrebian dialects, which could explain the example. ... Voicing of the Alveolars: ö˙ for t. A very rare phenomenon occurs only in a letter from the th-century Maghreb: õ˙ ôð T-S . /  ‘pitch’ for Classical Arabic F.

26

Blau and Hopkins (, ).

phonology and orthography



... h for h. The spelling h for h. is found uniquely in àúä for éúç in GW XXX/ (and possibly ) (C/C). As this has no parallel, it probably represents a spelling mistake rather than a phonological phenomenon. ... Double Spelling of Consonants A number of examples with double spelling in the letters differ from Classical Arabic use. Most frequent is the double spelling of yy when the radical is doubled. As Blau (, ) has mentioned, the writing éé or åå follows Rabbinic Hebrew orthography to mark geminated or simply consonantal y and w, to differentiate it from the long vowel. In many of these cases, however, it is to be questioned whether the second é actually represents a short i-vowel or whether we are really dealing with the double spelling of y. There is also double spelling of l. a) th-century Egypt A few examples with double spelling of éé can be found, and there is one example of åå, restricted to certain writers: äáééèà T-S J. /  ‘his best’; øééâ àì T-S . /  ‘nothing else’; øééâìà T-S NS . /  ‘the rest’. In äììáåå T-S J. / , the double spelling of åå may indicate the emphatic pronunciation of the word caused by the emphatic l in all¯ah, although all¯ah is normally pronounced emphatically only in wall¯ahi and not in connection with the preposition bi-, at least not in bill¯ahi. The reading of the example is a bit problematic but if it is correct the phrase may be a blend form of bill¯ahi and wall¯ahi, thus exhibiting the emphatic pronunciation of the latter. In many cases it is unclear whether éé represents -yy-, -iy- or -yi-: ãééâ ‘good’ T-S ./v., T-S J. / , T-S J. / , T-S J. / , and T-S J. / ; éãééñ ‘my master’ T-S NS ./v., Dropsie  / , and T-S ./v.; àáééè ‘good’ T-S . / . b) th-century Maghreb The majority of examples with doubly written consonants are those with -yy-. The orthography emulates Rabbinic Hebrew spelling: ééçìà T-S . /  ‘al-Hayy (name)’; åãééò T-S J. /  ‘they celebra.



chapter four

ted’.27 In many cases there is either a plene spelling of the vowel i or double spelling of the consonant. These examples form the biggest part of double spelling of consonants: áééè T-S J. /  ‘good’; ãééâ T-S . /  and T-S . /  ‘good’; äãééâ T-S J. /  ‘good’. In examples such as ééìà T-S J. /  ‘to me’, the double spelling of y could either be influenced by Hebrew spelling, or the é may represent alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" for the short a (see ..). c) th-century (unassigned) In the unassigned corpus an example of geminated l¯am contrary to Classical Arabic can be found, possibly influenced by the spelling of all¯ah: éãììà T-S J. /  and  ‘which’ (Classical Arabic 345). d) th century In the th-century material, double spelling of geminated y is the standard rather than the exception. In many cases, a plene writing of an adjacent i might similarly have contributed to the double spelling. While yy is the standard, ww occurs often. Many double spellings are additionally marked by ˇsadda; ãééñ T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘master’; øééñ T-S J./v. ‘he sent’; úøéé6 ñ T-S J. /  ‘I sent’; äéé6 áö T-S J./v. ‘girl’; äééöå T-S ./v. ‘order’; äåå÷ T-S J. /  ‘strength’; äãåå6 ò T-S J. /  ‘he returned it’; âååæúéá T-S . /  ‘he is getting married’. The double spellings may occur even in cases in which the consonant is not doubled; ééù CUL Or  J /  ‘thing’; ä÷ôååî T-S . /  ‘supporting’; ó÷ååé T-S J. /  ‘he will halt’. e) th/th century Double spelling of yy and ww occurs occasionally, but in contrast to the th-century material it is not the standard for yy. Again, double spelling can in most cases be read as plene spelling of an adjacent i-vowel, éãééñ T-S . / ; T-S . /  ‘my master’; úîååò T-S J. /  ‘I went by ship’. It may also occur where the consonant is not doubled: ùééà T-S ./v., ‘what’. There is also double spelling in the word ill¯a ‘except’

27

This could also represent short -i- in the dialectal form of the second stem ‘ayyid¯u.

phonology and orthography and il¯a ‘to’, probably by analogy with the spelling of all¯ah ‘God’, GW XXX/ ‘to’; àììà GW XXX/ ‘except’.

 àììà

f) th/th century Double spelling of yy and ww occurs very frequently and is the standard in many letters. In the case of yy, there is usually an adjacent vowel i that could be written plene. Commonly, double ww appears often in places where it is not geminated in Classical Arabic. Typologically interesting parallels are provided by comparison with spelling practises of Yiddish, where double spelling is used to distinguish between consonants y and w (spelled éé and åå) and vowels i und u (spelled é and å). Examples in the letters include äééä AIU VIIE  /  ‘she’; äééëøù T-S NS . /  ‘partnership’; äâååúà CUL Or .. /  ‘he turned to’; äååä AIU VIIE /m. ‘he’; ìàééø T-S AS . /  ‘riyal’; ìéëåå T-S AS . /  ‘he appointed an agent’; áàååâ T-S J. /  ‘reply’; äðìöåå T-S NS . /  ‘it arrived to us’; éååàð T-S AS . /  ‘intend to’; ãéçàåå T-S AS . /  ‘one’; ååä T-S Ar. . /  ‘he’; éú÷åå T-S NS . /  ‘my time’. ... Assimilation Assimilation or dissimilation in the spelling of the suffix conjugation only occurs from the th/th century onwards: úò÷ GW XXX/, ,  ‘I stayed’ (Classical Arabic 7#) (C/C); úëà GW XXX/ ‘I took’ (Classical Arabic 748) (C/C); àäåèá÷ T-S NS . /  ‘you received them’ (Classical Arabic 9:2;) (C/C). ... Writing of t¯a" Marb¯ut.a in the Construct State Although t¯a" marb¯ut. a is usually transcribed by ä, some of the scribes follow Hebrew orthography or early Judaeo-Arabic writing traditions and spell it with ú in the status constructus. For instance, in T-S J. many of the construct forms are spelled as such: éàìåî úîàìñ T-S J. /  ‘the well-being of my master’ (C Egypt); ìàãòàìà úìîâ T-S J. /  ‘the entirety of bales’ (C Maghreb); íéñð àðáø úàôå T-S T-S J. /  ‘the death of our lord Nissim’; àìåîìà úåëð T-S J. / f (C) ‘the generosity of the master’. However, a systematic study of the writing of t¯a" marb¯ut. a in the status constructus is impossible because in many letters the forms of ä and ú



chapter four

are almost identical and cannot be distinguished from each other with absolute certainty. Thus it should suffice to say that in all investigated periods of Judaeo-Arabic, both ä and ú can be found for t¯a" marb¯ut. a in the status constructus. Sometimes, double strokes or dots over the ä are used to indicate the < àôå T-S J. /  ‘the death of his father’ (C t¯a" marb¯ut. a, as in: äåáà ä ˙ Maghreb); àìåîìà ä < øöç éìà T-S J. /  (C) ‘to the excellency of the master’; êéùìà áàúë øöçà ïà ä¨ òàñô T-S J./m. ‘the (very) moment I finish the letter of the elder’. Summary: C E C M C C/C both, ö˙ more both equally both, ö˙ more ö˙ common common common

both, ã

common

occasional

occasional

occasional

very common

s for CA s.

rare

rare

rare

no

common

d. for CA d d for CA t

no

very rare

no

no

occasional

no

very rare

no

no

no

˙ è

and ö for CA z. s. for CA s

C/C

t for CA d

no

no

no

no

occasional

ˇs for CA j

rare

no

no

no

no

ˇs for CA s

no

no

rare

no

no

d for CA d. ¯ double spelling of consonants

no

very rare

no

no

no

yy common ww rare

yy common ww rare

yy standard ww occasional

yy common ww occasional

yy standard ww standard in some letters

phonology and orthography



.. alif ... Final alif for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra Spelled with y¯a" a) th-century Egypt In the Egyptian corpus, alif is, with the exception of a handful of words, written almost exclusively for alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a", e.g., àåñé T-S J. /  ‘it equals’; à÷áúé íì T-S J. / f ‘it has not remained’;28 àøúùà T-S J. /  ‘he bought’; àåñ T-S NS . /  ‘equalling’ (Modern Egyptian Arabic siwa, Classical Arabic siwan/suwan). Regular exceptions are ‘al¯a, il¯a, mat¯a, hatt¯ . a and names, such as M¯us¯a, which are usually spelled with y¯a’, in accordance with Classical Arabic rules. There are, however, also cases in which those words are written with alif, compare for example: àúî T-S J./v. and T-S . /  ‘when’; àúç T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘until’; àìò CUL Or  J /  and Bod MS Heb e. . /v. ‘on, about’. Hypercorrect forms occur, such as éìà for ill¯a (‘except’), which is written with alif in Classical Arabic, probably under the influence of il¯a (‘to’), and similarly éãë kad¯a (kida) (‘thus’). ¯ b) th-century Maghreb As in the Egyptian corpus, alif is almost exclusively written for alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a": àö˙ î T-S J. /  ‘he went’; àå÷ð àî T-S ./v. ‘we are not able to’. Again, parallel to the Egyptian letters, #al¯a, il¯a, mat¯a, hatt¯ . a and names, such as M¯us¯a, are exceptions, although they may be written with alif : àúç T-S J. /  ‘until’; íåéì íåé ïî éðìèàîé åäô äøàãçðà íåé àìà T-S . / f ‘and he put me off day after day until the day of his departure’. The spelling of éøâ T-S . /  and T-S J. /  either follows Classical Arabic orthography or mirrors a change in the morphology of the verb (jariya instead of jar¯a).

28 In Classical Arabic, the apocopate would follow the negation lam and the y¯ a" would be omitted.



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c) th century As in the earlier material, Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" is in most cases spelled with alif : øàãìà àðòî CUL Or  J /  ‘the matter of the house’; éù àåñé àî ãð÷ìàå CUL Or  J /  ‘the candy is not worth anything’; àìåî T-S . /  ‘master’ (same line also has éìåî); àáøî T-S NS J /  ‘jam, marmalade’ (Classical Arabic murabban).] Compared to the earlier sources, however, exceptions are more numerous. Aside from the regular examples ‘al¯a, il¯a, mat¯a, hatt¯ . a, alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" as written in Classical Arabic also appears, for example, in éìåî T-S J./v., T-S . / , T-S . /  (same line also has àìåî) and CUL Or  J/v. ‘master’; éìàòú CUL Or  J/m., T-S . / , T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘exalted’; éöåú T-S . /  ‘he was entrusted’; éåñ T-S J./v. ‘except’; éøúùà T-S J./v. ‘he bought’. The regular exceptions #al¯a, il¯a, mat¯a, hatt¯ . a may be written with alif, for example: àìà T-S J. /  ‘until, to’; àìò T-S J. /  ‘on, about’. d) th/th century As in the earlier material, Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" is in many cases spelled with alif : àøâ T-S NS J /  ‘it happened’; à÷á GW XXX/ ‘it remained’;29 àåñ T-S ./v. ‘except’. Exceptions are words such as #al¯a, il¯a, mat¯a, hatt¯ . a and names, such as M¯us¯a, éñåî T-S J. /  ‘M¯us¯a’, although, again, these may be spelled with alif, compare: àììà GW XXX/ ‘to’; àìò T-S . / 30 ‘on’. e) th/th century The spelling alif for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" occurs only rarely in the th/th-century material. This is due to the fact that final alif is usually spelled with -h, which includes those forms originally spelled with y¯a". The spelling emerged as a result of ‘hebraized

29

After baqiya changed to baq¯a. In this letter, àúç T-S ./v. and àìà T-S ./  can also be found, whereas Classical Arabic alif is usually spelled with -h. 30

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orthography’31 in combination with pre-existing Arabic t¯a" marb¯ut. a for final short a (see ..). Therefore, the few examples of alif for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" in this corpus are in fact hypercorrect according to Classical Arabic standards as they emulate an older JudaeoArabic writing tradition that is incorrect according to Classical Arabic rules: àìò T-S NS . / , , CUL Or .. / , ,  and CUL Or .. /  ‘about, to’; àìà T-S NS . /  ‘to’. ... Final y¯a" for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra Spelled with alif Under the influence of il¯a ‘to’, ill¯a ‘except’ is sometimes written with y¯a". This only occurs in the earlier material; from the th/th century onwards alif is mostly replaced by h¯a", as explained in the previous paragraph. a) th century éìà (ill¯ a) ‘except’ occurs in T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  (in an extreme ligature); éãë (Classical Arabic kad¯a, Modern Egyptian Arabic ¯ kida) ‘thus, so’ T-S J./topm..

b) th century éìà (ill¯ a) ‘except’ in T-S J. /  and in éìà éìà äéìà ãðúñú ãðñ àäì àî äììà

T-S J. / f ‘there is no support she could lean upon except God’.32 Cases of other hypercorrections which show Classical Arabic alif written with y¯a" can be found in éúùìà T-S NS J /  ‘winter’ (Classical Arabic = :>); éùòìáå äøëá íåé ìë T-S J. /  ‘every day, in the morning and in the evening’ (Classical Arabic = -!). ... Final alif for Classical Arabic t¯a" marb¯ut.a a) th-century Egypt The spelling alif for t¯a" marb¯ut. a occurs frequently, for example in: àâúôñ T-S J. /  ‘bill of exchange’; àåô T-S NS . /  ‘madder’; àøâåà

31 32

Hary (b, ). … ill¯a il¯a ll¯ah.

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T-S . /  ‘wage’; àçéá÷ìà T-S NS ./v.f ‘his abominable doings’; àéöå Bod MS Heb e. .  /  ‘order, assignment’; àøàëù T-S J. /  and T-S . /  ‘portion, piece’; àøéúë T-S J. /  ‘many’. The spelling of alif for the feminine nisba ending occurs very frequently: àéèéëìà T-S J. /  ‘Hit.t.ian’; àéáøâî CUL Or  J/v. ˘ and T-S J. /  ‘ruba#iyya’; ‘Maghrebian’; àéòàáø T-S J./v. àéøöî T-S ./v. ‘Egyptian’. b) th-century Maghreb The spelling of alif for Classical Arabic t¯a" marb¯ut. a occurs only in a few cases and less frequent than in the Egyptian material: àåúù T-S . / ; T-S J. /  ‘winter’ (ˇsatwa); àéãäî T-S . /  ‘Mahdiyyan’. c) th century There are a number of examples in this corpus in which alif occurs for Classical Arabic t¯a" marb¯ut. a: àãéãâ T-S J. /  ‘new’; àáøâ T-S ./v. ‘the far’; àå÷ T-S J./v. ‘power’; àéàáâ˙ T-S J. /  ‘tax collection’; à÷éø T-S J./v. ‘saliva’; àáø÷ T-S ./v. ‘the near’. There is also an unusual spelling of Classical Arabic lill¯ahi: àìì T-S J. / . d) th/th century ä has replaced final alif in many examples in the th/th-century material. There are, however, cases in which alif is written for Classical Arabic (and Hebrew) h¯a", probably as a hypercorrection: òâø ìà T-S Ar. . /  ‘the receipt’; àìéä÷ ìà AIU VIIE /m. ‘the community’; àçìöî T-S NS . /  ‘beneficial service, business matter’; àòì÷ ìà CUL Or .. /  ‘the fortress’; äòñì T-S Ar. . /  ‘still’.

... ä for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra Spelled with y¯a" In a number of cases, which are almost exclusively limited to the feminine forms of ìåà ‘first’, øëà ‘other’ and ãçà ‘one’, alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" is replaced by ä in analogy with the formation of ordinary feminine forms. Only in a few examples are these words spelled according to Classical Arabic norms.

phonology and orthography

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a) th century In all letters of Nissim b. Halfon, the name Yahy¯ . . a (Classical Arabic ?@ A) is spelled äéçé in Judaeo-Arabic, e.g., T-S J./address and Mosseri IV../v.address, although in the address in Arabic script in the first letter (T-S J.) he spells it according to Classical Arabic standards. Further examples for ä for Classical Arabic alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" are äìåà Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘first’; äøëàìàå T-S J. /  and äøëåàìàå T-S J. /  ‘the other (world)’. b) th century for alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" is rare in the th-century material: T-S J. /  ‘the other (world)’. In construct forms, nouns ending in alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" may be spelled with -t, apparently after the form was reanalysed as written with t¯a" marb¯ut. a: êúøëà T-S J. /  ‘your other (world)’; äúøëà T-S . /  ‘his other (world)’. ä

äøëàìà

c) th/th century As ä becomes the standard spelling for final alif, most words written with alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a" are spelled with ä. ... ä for Classical Arabic alif ä appears frequently for Classical Arabic alif. In particular from the th

century onwards it replaces Classical Arabic alif in most examples. Hary (b, ) has pointed out that this is a feature of ‘hebraized orthography’ whereby in imitation of Hebrew orthography ä is used to spell final alif. This was probably helped along by the fact that Arabic has the similar t¯a" marb¯ut. a at its disposal to write final short a, and that—with the shortening of final long vowels—h¯a" or t¯a" marb¯ut. a became an obvious orthographical choice. For more examples, compare also forms of the demonstrative pronoun äãä/äãàä used with the masculine (see ..). a) th century In a number of Egyptian examples ä is spelled for alif : äðà Bod MS Heb d. .  /  ‘I’ (Classical Arabic ); äö˙ éá T-S J. /  ‘white’

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(Classical Arabic = 2@B); äöéà T-S J./v. ‘also’ (Classical Arabic 2&). A few more examples can be found in the th-century Maghrebian corpus, such as äö˙ éá T-S J. /  ‘white’. The th-century unassigned corpus also has äîéàã T-S J. /  ‘always’ (Classical Arabic C &,) b) th century In the th-century letters t¯a" marb¯ut. a (or Hebrew h¯a"/construct -t) for alif may be used in the construct: äúéðã T-S . /  and T-S J. /  ‘this world of his’. c) th/th century One letter in the corpus from the end of the th century (T-S .) anticipates the spelling of letters from the th / th century and has ä regularly spelled for alif, although the same letter also has a few words spelled according to Classical Arabic norms. Many of these are suffixes of the st plural. äð÷ååòú àì T-S . /  ‘do not hinder us’; äðà T-S . / ,  ‘I’; äðãðò T-S . /  ‘with us’. In the same letter, examples in which Judaeo-Arabic alif is spelled with ä occur in words that are written with y¯a" in Classical Arabic: ä÷áé T-S . /  ‘it will remain’; äìàòú T-S . /  ‘exalted’; àìò T-S . /  ‘on, to’. On the other hand, many examples show alif : àî T-S . /  ‘what’; àäá T-S . /  ‘with her’ (all rd feminine singular suffixes are written like that, as two -h beside each other are apparently unacceptable), àìò T-S . /  ‘on’ (Classical Arabic D !); àìà T-S . /  ‘to’ (Classical Arabic E); àúç T-S ./v. ‘until’ (Classical Arabic ?:.). Apart from that, in GW XXVIII and GW XXX the st plural suffix may be written with -h: äðúñ GW XXVIII/, ,  ‘our lady’; other examples include äúù GW XXVIII/ ‘winter’ (Classical Arabic = :>); äãáà GW XXX/ ‘ever’. d) th/th century All in all, ä is the standard spelling for final alif in the th/th-century letters. In a few letters, for instance T-S AS ., AIU VIIE  or T-S NS ., all alifs aside from those in the rd feminine suffix -h¯a (which

phonology and orthography

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is always spelled àä-) are spelled with -h: äðì T-S AS . /  ‘to us’; T-S AS . /  ‘except’; äì T-S AS . /  ‘no, not’; äö˙ éà AIU VIIE  /  ‘also’; äðáçî AIU VIIE  /  ‘our beloved’; äðãë˙ à T-S NS . /  ‘we took’; äðòôðé àì T-S NS . /  ‘it does not benefit us’; äãë T-S NS . /  ‘so, thus’; äðáúë T-S NS . /  ‘we wrote’; äðôøèá T-S NS . /  ‘in our area’. Other letters, such as AIU VIIE , write most final alifs with ä but show a number of exceptions in which they use à as in Classical Arabic: äðì AIU VIIE  /  ‘to us’; äðéìò AIU VIIE /m. ‘over us’; äðìñøà AIU VIIE  /  ‘we sent’; but: àðéìò AIU VIIE  /  ‘over us’; àðéáç íì AIU VIIE  /  ‘we did not want’. In some letters, however, such as CUL Or .., the final Arabic alifs are written with à as in Classical Arabic: àðìöå CUL Or .. /  ‘it arrived to us’; àðáì÷ CUL Or .. /  ‘our heart’. äìéà

... Otiose alif Only three writers in the entire corpus use otiose alif. They are all from the th-century corpus: Judge Elijah, who uses it quite regularly, his son Ab¯u Zikr¯ı and another writer in a query addressed to Judge Elijah. Exposure to Classical Arabic as a result of their public position may be responsible for their use of this feature, as well as their relationship and correspondence with each other: àåøééñéå T-S . /  ‘they will send’; àåìà÷ T-S J./v. ‘they said’; àåö˙ ôçé T-S J./topm. ‘they should guard’; àåðàë T-S NS J/v. ‘they were’; àåðâúñúô T-S J./v. ‘you should dispense with’. ... The Use of alif for the Expression of the Accusative Ending -an The accusative had become redundant in Judaeo-Arabic speech by the time the earliest letters were written, but the old accusative ending survived in several forms. The most visible of these is the phenomenon of the independent word an used in attributive expressions (see .). The old accusative is also preserved in the adverbial ending -an, which is productively used to form adverbs. This adverbial ending is often written conservatively, i.e., as in Classical Arabic, in the form of alif. The accusative may also appear, sometimes hypercorrectly, to emulate Classical Arabic literary norms. The occurrence of these forms, however, varies considerably among the separate corpora.

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a) th-century Egypt The majority of examples showing a reflex of the old accusative ending in the form of alif are those with the adverbial ending -an, written conservatively with à, such as àøéúë Bod MS Heb d. .  /  and T-S J. /  ‘many, much’; àîìàñ T-S J. /  ‘safe’; àøéë Bod MS Heb d. .  /  ‘good’; àãáà T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘ever’. Apart from those, there appear to be no cases (apart from one example given below) in which the accusative is used, neither according to Classical Arabic conventions nor hypercorrectly. The only exception can be found in a construction, which is typically expressed in Classical Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic with the independent tanw¯ın-derived particle an. In this example, however, the Classical Arabic accusative occurs: äãò àáúë êéìà [úáúë úð]ë T-S NS J / f ‘I wrote you a number of letters’. b) th-century Maghreb In contrast to the Egyptian corpus, the Maghrebian letters use the accusative alif in many more constructions and in more conservative ways, following the rules of Classical Arabic. A number of hypercorrect uses may also be found. As in the Egyptian examples, alif is used as an adverbial ending -an: àîéàã T-S J. /  ‘always’; àîéã÷ Bod MS Heb. d. ./rm. ‘old’; ˙ àîìàñ T-S J. /  ‘safe and victorious’. àøôàö A number of examples occur after numerals –, which require the counted noun to stand in the accusative singular in Classical Arabic. This construction is apparently kept in some of the Maghrebian letters: àøàðéã T-S . / , , , ,  and T-S . / .33 The accusative also occurs hypercorrectly after numbers – and even hundreds, in places where the genitive would be expected in Classical Arabic: àøðéã äéàî T-S . /  ‘hundred dinars’; àéáò ˙â T-S . /  ‘three mantles’ (#ubiyyan). In addition, the nouns may occur in the Classical Arabic h¯ . al accusative in a number of examples, some of them hypercorrectly: àéëàù T-S . /  ‘moaning’; àéëàá T-S . /  ‘crying’. 33 The old accusative ending is also retained after numerals – in letters from outside the th-century corpus such as: àìãò è˙˙é Bod MS Heb d. ./  ‘ bundles’ and àìãò ïéñîë äòáøà Bod MS Heb d. ./  ‘ bundles’.

phonology and orthography



In àëàù úñì T-S */ ‘I do not doubt’ laysa has its predicate in the accusative as in Classical Arabic.34 Since the original manuscript has been lost, however, this reading of the example has to rely on Goldziher’s transcription. The spelling of alif also occurs in other accusative constructions, both correctly or hypercorrectly according to Classical Arabic rules: äì úòáå à÷öå T-S J. /  ‘he sent him freight’; àáàá çéöú T-S . / f ‘she screams at (?) the door’; àééìå êì ïàë T-S . /  ‘he shall be your helper’. c) th century In the th-century letters, the accusative is almost exclusively used as adverbial ending: àãâ˙ T-S ./v. ‘very’; <àéòàè35 T-S J. /  and àéòàè T-S J. /  ‘willingly’. Only in a few examples the Classical Arabic accusative occurs in numeral constructions: àäøã ïéúìú T-S J./vm. ‘ dirhams’; äéàî àîäøã ïéúñå GW VIII/v.(b)f ‘ dirhams’. In the following example, the writer used the accusative hypercorrectly, possibly influenced by the Classical Arabic accusative that occurs directly after anna (vernacular in) or after the negations laysa, m¯a and l¯a in certain functions:36 àäá íàé÷ìà éìò àøãà÷ øéâ äðàå T-S J./v. ‘and that he was not able to support her’. d) th/th century The th/th-century letters use the accusative only as adverbial ending. In one example the nunation n is actually spelled: ïàøáâ GW XXX/ ‘by force’ (Classical Arabic F G) e) th/th century The old Classical Arabic tanw¯ın accusative is almost exclusively used in adverbs and the alif is often spelled with h¯a" (see ...), e.g., äö˙ éà CUL Or .. / ; AIU VIIE  / ; T-S NS . / ; but there is also àö˙ éà CUL Or .. / ; AIU VIIE  / ; T-S NS . / . 34 35 36

Compare Brockelmann (, § ). The ending -an is also indicated by the tanw¯ın. Brockelmann (, §§  and ).



chapter four

In some examples, the adverbial ending -an is spelled with n¯un: ïìàç AIU VIIE /m. and T-S NS . /  ‘now’. ˙ ø ïãçà íìå T-S J. /  ‘there was no one who ïãçà in äðì èøôé éö agreed to sell to us at a low price’ could be interpreted as a hypercorrect Classical Arabic accusative, or may be a reflection of the independent tanw¯ın-derived relative particle an that occurs frequently in earlier letters. ... Elision of the Glottal Stop: Hamzat al-qat.# and Hamzat al-was. l In most cases, hamza disappears in the script. However, some words still retain the hamza in the spelling. a) hamza written on the line Normally, Classical Arabic hamza written on the line is not represented in the script and was probably lost in the pronunciation of the JudaeoArabic reading tradition: êà÷á T-S . /  ‘your preservation’ (Classical Arabic H= %B) (C Egypt); äììàù ïà T-S . /  ‘God willing’ (Classical Arabic = >) (C Maghreb); éù CUL Or  J /  ‘thing’ (Classical Arabic =I) (C). b) hamza in verbal roots Verbs with hamza in their root are spelled with alif in many perfect and imperfect forms: úàø÷ CUL Or  J/v. ‘I read’ (C Egypt); úéàø T-S J. /  ‘I saw’ (C Maghreb); ãëàé T-S J. /  ‘he should take’ (C); ìàñú GW XXVIII/ ‘you should ask’ (C/C); ãåëàé T-S NS . /  ‘he should take’ (C/C). In some imperfect forms, hamza seems to have been dropped in the orthography. In the case of the verb sa"ala it is problematic to judge because the ligature between alif and l¯am is sometimes hardly distinguishable from l¯am on its own. However, the imperfect of sa"ala can also be written without the hamza in Classical Arabic:37 ìñà T-S J. /  ‘I ask’ (C Egypt); åãëð38 T-S NS . /  ‘we will take’ (C/C). Often it is also difficult to determine whether hamza has

37 38

Compare Brockelmann (, § ). Similar to the dialectal forms.

phonology and orthography



been replaced by y or w or whether a y or w is still being used as a base for it. Additionally, it is sometimes not clear whether the writer might have used the verb in a derived stem and thus actually followed Classical Arabic orthography: ãëåú Mosseri IV.. /  ‘you should take’ (C Egypt); øëåú àì CUL Or  J/v.f ‘do not delay!’ (C Egypt); íëéø÷é T-S . /  ‘he should read to you’ (C Maghreb); àðôàìúéà T-S . /  ‘our forming of a coalition’ (Classical Arabic JK :L) (C unassigned); ãëåú T-S J./m. ‘you should take’ (C). Further examples in nouns and adverbs in which either y or w may be used as bases for hamza or the spelling may reflect the replacement by the half vowel: éñééø T-S . /  ‘my leader’ (Classical Arabic M @L) (C Egypt); àîéàã T-S J. /  ‘always’ (Classical Arabic $L,) (C Maghreb); ìàåñ T-S J. /  ‘question’ (Classical Arabic NO) (C Maghreb). Hamzat al-was. l which had earlier been written according to Classical Arabic orthography may disappear from the th century onwards: éôøùá GW XXX/ ‘for an ashraf¯ı’ (C/C); äðçå T-S NS . / ,  ‘and we’ (from wa-ihna) (C/C); äðáâòúñå T-S NS . /  ‘and we . were astonished’ (C/C). Denominations of kinship such as ab¯u, ibn and ah¯u, are exceptions ˘ because they lose the alif regularly. For the article, compare below. Summary: C Egypt à

for CA alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a"

é

C Maghreb

C

C/C

C/C

almost always, more exceptions than in C

always, few exceptions

rare

rare

rare

no

no

always, with always, with exception of exception certain words of certain words

for CA final à rare

à for CA t¯ a" common marb¯ut. a ä for CA occasional alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a"

occasional

frequent

no

occasional

occasional

rare

no

–

ä

occasional

occasional

occasional

occasional39 standard

no

no

three writers

no

for CA alif

otiose alif

39

Standard in one letter, T-S ..

no



alif derived from CA accusative -an

chapter four C Egypt

C Maghreb

C

C/C

C/C

–adverbial ending

–adverbial ending –after numerals –CA h¯ . al accusative –other accusatives –hypercorrectly

–adverbial ending –after numerals

–adverbial ending

–adverbial ending

no

no

rare

occasional

hamzat al-was. l no disappears

The orthographic changes in ...–... suggest that final long a¯ was already shortened in the vernacular in the th century so that the graphemes for long a¯ in Classical Arabic, alif and alif maqs. u¯ ra spelled with y¯a, could be used interchangeably with the grapheme for final short a in Classical Arabic (in the form of t¯a" marb¯ut. a). Yet, the writers usually follow Classical Arabic conventions. From the th century onwards ä for final alif starts to appear, but only becomes the rule in the th century. This development was probably influenced by both Hebrew orthography and the existence of t¯a" marb¯ut. a for final short a. The old accusative ending is almost exclusively used for the adverbialisation of words. Only very few Classical Arabic accusatives are used, appearing mainly in the material from th-century Maghreb. This is probably owing to the conservatism of the Maghrebian material compared to the Egyptian sources.

.. The Short Vowels Short vowels are not written in the rasm (the ‘skeleton’ of the word) in Classical Arabic but only expressed with the help of additional vowel signs. In substandard varieties of Arabic, however, they can be part of the orthography. The amount of examples varies from corpus to corpus. There appears to be no difference between the use of plene writing in examples in which it helps the reading for the addressee, for instance when reading a passive, and those examples in which there is no ambiguity. A number of examples of plene writing of short u and i are probably not purely orthographical but indicate morphological change and/or

phonology and orthography



vernacular interference. This includes for instance suffixes such as the rd masculine suffix in äåîñà T-S . /  ‘his name’ (C Egypt), which indicate the vernacular form of the suffix -u(h) that could be pronounced as a long u¯ when stressed, or the Maghrebian forms àðåä T-S . / ; T-S ./rm.; T-S . /  ‘here’ and ïåä T-S . / ; T-S . / , which do not indicate short vowels but rather reflect h¯on and h¯ona.40 ... Short u Plene short u is the most common plene spelling in all corpora. a) th-century Egypt Plene spelling for short u occurs more frequently than that of short i or short a. It occurs most frequently in weak verbs and pronouns or pronominal suffixes, but also as mater lectionis of perfect and imperfect bases with -u- and in kul, for example, íåäö˙ á÷ú T-S J. /  ‘you should take them’; íåëãðò Bod MS Heb e. . /v. ‘with you’; äåîñà T-S . /  ‘his name’; úìå÷ T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘I said’; úðåë T-S . /  ‘I was’; øåîé T-S NS . / , T-S ./m., and CUL Or  J /  ‘he walks’; äãåë T-S J. /  ‘take it!’; ãëåà T-S J. /  ‘it was taken’; êåùà àî T-S J. /  ‘I do not doubt’; áåúëð T-S J. /  ‘we write’; àøâåà T-S . /  and T-S NS . /  ‘wage’; áåúë T-S J./v. ‘books’; áäãåî T-S J. /  ‘golden’; áéâåà T-S J. /  ‘it was brought’; øéäåæ T-S . /  ‘Zuhayr’; ìåë T-S J. /  ‘all’; ìåâø T-S J. /  ‘man’; ìäñåé T-S ./v. ‘he makes it easy’. b) th-century Maghreb Plene spelling for short u occurs frequently in the Maghrebian letters: íåäìå÷ T-S . /  ‘their speech’; òôãåé Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘it was paid’; åòàáåé T-S J. /  ‘they are bought’; úáìåè T-S J. /  ‘it has been sought after’; úáúë úðåëå T-S . /  ‘I had written’; íúåé T-S J. /  ‘it will be completed’; äãåî CUL Or  J /  ‘period of time’.

40

See Stillman (, ).



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c) th century Plene writing of short u in the th-century material does not occur in all letters, but in those in which it does, such as CUL Or  J, there is usually an abundance of examples: íåú T-S J. /  ‘then’; ïàèìåñ T-S NS J/m. ‘sultan’; áúåë CUL Or  J /  ‘books’; íåà T-S J. /  ‘Umm, mother’; ãåëàú T-S J. /  ‘you should take’. d) th/th century Not many examples of short u written plene occur in this corpus: íåäìë GW XXX/ ‘all of them’; íåëøîò GW XXVIII/ ‘your life’; à÷ìåî T-S . /  ‘meeting’. e) th/th century Plene writing of short u is very common in most letters and almost obligatory in some, such as T-S AS .: úìå÷ T-S AS . /  ‘I said’; íåúðà T-S NS . /  ‘you (pl.)’; øåè˙ ðé CUL Or .. /  ‘he will see’; äîæåø AIU VIIE  /  ‘bundle’; íåäì AIU VIIE  /  ‘to them’; ìéô ˙ àð T-S ïàëåã T-S J. /  ‘in the shop’; ìåë AIU VIIE  /  ‘every’; ãåë Ar. . /  ‘we will take’; äðåë T-S NS . /  ‘we were’. ... Short i The amount of plene written i varies greatly between the corpora. a) th-century Egypt Plene written short i does not occur in many examples in the corpus. It is used in a few cases to indicate an imperfect base -i- and in the preposition bi- followed by a suffix. Another group include those words which have i following y. In these cases it is not clear whether the éé simply represents -yy- following Hebrew orthography, or whether one of the graphemes is actually a mater lectionis for short i in -yi- or -iy-. çéöé T-S J./v. ‘it is true’; ãééâ T-S J. /  ‘good’; éãééñ Dropsie  /  ‘my master’; àáééè T-S . /  ‘good’. In some words, it is not clear whether the spelling is a plene written short vowel or whether it indicates actual change in morphology (lengthening of the vowel): äòéá T-S J. /  ‘sell it!’;

phonology and orthography



òéá CUL Or  J/v. ‘sell!’. In other examples, plene written i may reflect vernacular pronunciation: äéá T-S J. /  and T-S J. /  ‘with/in it’ (Modern Egyptian Arabic b¯ıh).

b) th-century Maghreb In a number of examples short i is written plene: ìúéî T-S J. /  ‘like’; íäúñéà T-S K ./ ‘he made an effort’; äééìå Bod MS Heb. d. ./v. ‘his helper’; áééè T-S J. /  ‘good’; ãééâ T-S . / ; T-S . /  ‘good’; äéá T-S . / , T-S AS .–T-S J./ v., and T-S . /  (Modern Egyptian Arabic b¯ıh) ‘with it/him’; êéá T-S . /  (Modern Egyptian Arabic b¯ık) ‘with you’. c) th century As in the th-century material, far fewer examples of plene short i than of short u may be found, and although the number of plene short u in the th-century letters has increased in certain letters, still only few examples of short i occur: ãðéò T-S J. /  ‘with, at’; ïåëéú CUL Or  J/v. ‘you should be’; éúðà T-S J. /  ‘you’. d) th/th century No unambiguous examples for plene written short i may be found apart from those examples in which geminated y with adjacent short i is written yy (see ..e). e) th/th century Plene written i occurs very frequently in the th/th-century letters, although it is completely missing in some: áàñéç CUL Or .. /  ‘account’; úäéâ ïî T-S J. /  ‘on behalf of ’; òàúéá T-S NS . /  ‘belonging to (genitive particle)’; åðéà T-S AS . /  ‘that he’; äðéì T-S AS . /  ‘to us’; ãéçàå AIU VIIE  /  ‘one’; ïéëàì AIU VIIE  /  ‘but’.



chapter four

... Short a Plene written alif for short a indicated by fatha . in Classical Arabic41 is rare in the earlier sources but becomes more frequent in later material. a) th-century Egypt Plene written short a is rare in the Egyptian corpus: àòî T-S J. /  ‘with’. There is also the form äúäàâ ïî T-S NS ./v. for Classical Arabic min jihatih¯ı ‘concerning him’ but the change from -i- to a possible -a- (*jahatih¯ı?) is difficult to explain. b) th-century Maghreb Plene written short a is rare, although it is frequently found in the word lacquer (Classical Arabic 5), spelled with alif : êàì T-S AS .– T-S J. / , T-S ./v., T-S . / , and T-S J. /  ‘lacquer’. This might be motivated by the need to differentiate it graphically from the common phrase lak(a) ‘to you’. In the following examples, the writing of two y¯a"s could be due to double spelling of the consonant or may render short a by alif maqs. u¯ ra: ééìà T-S J. / , T-S . / , T-S K ./, and T-S J./rm. ‘to me’; ééàìåî T-S K ./ ‘my master’. c) th-century (unassigned) In the unassigned corpus alif may be spelled for short a: J. /  ‘to me’; êàì ‘laquer’ Bod MS Heb d. ./v..

àéìò

T-S

d) th century Short a appears occasionally in the th-century corpus: àéìò CUL Or  J/vm. ‘to me’; àåä T-S J. /  ‘he’.42 In the follow-

41 At the end of words, short a is often spelled with t¯ a" marb¯ut. a (with exceptions, such as the suffixed personal pronoun -ya, pronouns huwa and hiya, etc.), while word-initial short a is indicated by alif. 42 This seems to be an early example of Hebraized orthography, as explained by Hary (b, ).

phonology and orthography



ing example, the spelling may reflect vernacular ma#¯a: êàòî (or possibly äàòî) T-S . /  ‘with you’, although the spelling is odd—it seems the writer first wanted to write äàòî and then changed the ä to ê. e) th/th century Examples in the th/th-century corpus include: ééìò GW XXX/, ,  ‘on me’; àåä T-S . /  ‘he’;43 äåä GW XXVIII/ ‘he’. f) th/th century A lot of examples in this corpus show plene short a, written with ä at the end of the word and à in the middle of the word: äééä T-S NS . /  ‘she’; äòî T-S AS . /  ‘with’; íåäàòî AIU VIIE  /  ‘with them’; ú÷àå AIU VIIE  /  ‘time’; àäúáàúë T-S AS . /  ‘I wrote to her’; äøàî ìéã T-S J. /  ‘this time’. The spelling of à in monosyllabic words is probably a spelling convention of Late Judaeo-Arabic to give a ‘lengthier look’ (Hary) to the short word, compare Khan (a, ) in Late letters, and Hary (, ) and Doron (, ) for literary Late Judaeo-Arabic. ôàö TS J. /  ‘line’; éàù T-S NS . /  ‘thing’; ïàò T-S NS . /  ‘about’. ... Interchangeability of u and i In the abundance of plene written short vowels in the th/th-century material a number of examples demonstrate the interchangeability of i and u in the dialects. The first two examples support Rosenbaum’s (c, ) observation about the preference of u over Standard dialect i in Jewish Arabic: áàúåë CUL Or .. /  ‘book’; åðåçé T-S NS . /  ‘they would like to’; ÷åãðéá T-S AS . /  ‘bunduq (unit)’.

43

Again, this is hebraized orthography.



chapter four

Summary: C Egypt

C Maghreb C

C/C

C/C

plene short u common

common

very frequent occasional in certain letters

very frequent

plene short i

occasional

occasional

occasional

no examples

frequent

plene short a

very rare

rare

occasional

occasional

common

.. The Long Vowels ... Superscribed alif A common mater lectionis is the spelling of superscribed alif.

à

for Classical Arabic

a) th-century Egypt Superscribed alif is represented by à very frequently in the th-century Egypt material, with examples found in almost every letter of the corpus. Compare for instance the derived forms of the demonstrative pronouns h¯ad¯a and d¯alika, and l¯akin ‘but’: éã˙ àä T-S J. / ; T-S ./v.; T-S ¯ .¯/ ; T-S Misc . / ; CUL Or  J / ; PER H / ; T-S Misc . / ; äãàä T-S J. / ; T-S J. / ; àãàä T-S ./rm.; T-S J. / ; Mosseri IV.. / ; T-S Misc . / ; T-S . / ; T-S J./v.; CUL Or  J / ; T-S NS . / ; êìàã˙ T-S NS . / ; T-S . / ; T-S Misc . / ; T-S J./v.; T-S J. / ; Bod MS Heb e. . / ; êìàãë T-S J. / ; T-S . / ; éàìåàä T-S ./v.; ïëàì T-S J. / ; Dropsie /rm.. b) th-century Maghreb Superscribed alif spelled with à occurs only rarely in the th-century Maghreb corpus, to the extent that its occurrence in the derivations of h¯ad¯a may be used as an indication whether the writer was an Egyp¯ One Maghrebian letter44 has superscribed alif written in the forms tian.

44

Gil (, III ) also suggests êàãàä in T-S J./  but the reading is êàãä.

phonology and orthography



h¯ad¯a/h¯adihi: äãàä T-S J. / . This lack of spelling is probably ¯ ¯conservative trait of Maghrebian letters, which aim at following another Classical Arabic spelling conventions. In contrast, every Egyptian letter in the corpus spells the superscribed alif in h¯ad¯a/h¯adihi. Superscribed alif occurs slightly more often¯ in d¯a¯lika. This might be because Classical Arabic d¯ak is occasionally used¯ in the letters trans¯ orthography to d¯alika, which is only writferring its Classical Arabic ¯ ten without alif in Classical Arabic as a spelling convention: êìàã T-S AS .–T-S J. / ; T-S NS . / ; T-S J. / ; T-S . / . c) th century Superscribed alif is written plene in only a few cases. The overwhelming majority of examples adhere to Classical Arabic spelling, especially in the case of derivates of h¯ad¯a which occur in plene writing only in ¯ / , v.; CUL Or  J/v.. Since in two letters: äãàä T-S J. this spelling feature no continuity between the th-century and the th-century letters can be observed, plene written alif in the thcentury Egyptian letters may have followed a local custom that was later abandoned. As observed in the th-century Maghrebian letters, plene written alif for superscribed alif occurs slightly more frequent in d¯alika and ¯ ïëàì T-S l¯akin: êìàã T-S J. / ; T-S J. / ; T-S J./v.; J. / ; T-S J. / . d) th/th century In three of the six letters, superscribed alif is written plene. äãàä GW XXVIII/; GW XXX/; T-S . / , v.; àãàä GW XXVIII/; êìàã T-S . / , , , . e) th/th century Plene written superscribed alif occurs in a number of letters in the words d¯alika and l¯akin/l¯akinna. Forms of h¯ad¯a do not occur in this corpus. ¯êéìàã˙ T-S AS . / ; êìàã T-S NS¯ . / ; T-S NS . / ; AIU VIIE  / ; ïéëàì AIU VIIE  / .



chapter four

... Long a¯ When examining the representation of long vowels, it is often unclear whether the forms reflect defective spelling or whether there is shortening of a long vowel. The scriptio defectiva of medial long a¯ in nouns has been described as a frequent form in early Muslim Arabic,45 and it is also already common in Early Judaeo-Arabic.46 According to Blau and Hopkins, it occurs especially frequently in non-final closed syllables. The form íìñ for sal¯am ‘peace, greeting’ is prevalent in the transcriptions of Gil, but the forms are exclusively written as a ligature resembling the Arabic rasm and thus do not necessarily show a defective spelling of a¯. The ligature may be read íàìñ rather than íìñ. a) th-century Egypt The mater lectionis for Classical Arabic long a¯ is rarely absent, and if it is it mainly concerns the words as. h¯ . ab ‘companions’ + suffixes and d¯ın¯ar ‘dinar’; àðáçöà for example in: T-S J. / ; Bod MS Heb e. . /v.; T-S J./v.; CUL Or  J/v.; ïéøðéã in: øéöåáá õ˙ ôð ìà ïà àðâìáå ˙ ìà ïéøðéã T-S NS . /  ‘we have been told that the threshing àåô ÷ in B¯us.¯ır costs two dinars per  madder plants’. Only àðáçöà shows loss of a¯ in a non-final closed syllable. The spelling of d¯ın¯ar could be a graphical contraction reflecting the common abbreviation for d¯ın¯ar, d¯ın". b) th-century Maghreb The vocative particle may be written in defective spelling: éëéùé T-S . / ,  ‘oh my elder’; éàìåîé T-S . /  ‘oh my master’ and éãéñé T-S . /  ‘oh my lord’. In the same letter, we also find òîúâà ìà T-S . / f ‘the gathering’47 (infinitive eighth stem). All in all, however, shortening of long a¯ in the spelling is rare.

45

See Hopkins (, f). Blau and Hopkins (, ). 47 A similar example in the alternative spelling òîúùàìà appears in T-S ./  from the unassigned corpus. 46

phonology and orthography



c) th century A few examples may be explained by vowel shortening as in Modern Egyptian Arabic: ïéçøô T-S J. /  ‘being happy (pl.)’; 48éð÷ò T-S J./v. ‘he hindered me’. The following example seems to reflect shortening of final long a¯: ìåîìà T-S . /  ‘the master’. Other examples are difficult to explain: øëù T-S J. /  ‘thanker’. d) th/th century An interesting example occurs in GW XXX/: éì÷ ‘he said to me’. This reflects qal-l¯ı, with shortening of q¯al because of the attachment of a suffix starting with a consonant.49 Of course, -l¯ı is not an original suffix but a secondary suffix emerged from li- + st suffix attached to q¯al because of the lexical merging of the two words. e) th/th century Often, a¯ in the st plural suffix seems to be shortened before an object suffix. This does not accord with Modern Egyptian Arabic as it is not in a closed syllable. These may simply be spelling conventions, particularly as final a¯ has been replaced by ä. Since that would turn into -t in the construct, which of course it does not in the pronunciation of these forms, the writers simply omitted it. íåäðìñøà T-S NS . /  ‘we sent them’; íåëðôøò T-S J. /  ‘we informed you’; íåäðôøò T-S NS . /  ‘we informed them’; íåäðö˙ àá÷ T-S AS . /  ‘we received them’. Examples of defective writing in cases where a¯ is shortened in Modern Egyptian Arabic may also be found, thus possibly reflecting the short pronunciation: íåëáñéç T-S NS . /  and T-S J. /  ‘your account’; ïéãò÷ T-S J. /  ‘sitting (pl.)’; íëòúá AIU VIIE  /  ‘yours’. ... Long ¯ı Long ¯ı seems often to be spelled defectively beside another y.

48 49

See Spitta (, ). See Spitta (, ).



chapter four

a) th century The spelling ãéàú for Classical Arabic ta"y¯ıd ‘support’ can be found in the majority of the letters from this corpus, for example in: T-S J. / ; Mosseri IV. ./v.address; T-S J. / ; T-S J. / ; PER H  / ; T-S J. / . Classical Arabic ra"¯ıs ‘leader’, usually spelled 50ñééø in Judaeo-Arabic, is sometimes written as ñéø which may represent shortened y¯a", e.g., Bod MS Heb d. .  / . b) th century Several spellings of ra"¯ıs may be found: ñéàø T-S . / ; T-S . / ; ñéø T-S J. / ; T-S J. / ; T-S J. / ; ñééø CUL Or  J / ; CUL Or  J/v.address; T-S . / . The following form cannot be explained: äô CUL Or  J/v. ‘in it’. c) th/th century and th/th century No examples occur in the th/th-century corpus, but ñéøìì GW XXX/ ‘to the leader’ can be found in a letter from the th century. ... Long u¯ The only examples of defectively spelled long u¯ occur in places in which they can easily be explained as due to hypercorrect morphology. Accordingly, the defective spelling of u¯ in the following examples should be explained as a hypercorrective apocopate: ìöú ïà éìà øàø÷ àðì ïëé ñéìå íäáúë àðéìà T-S J. / f ‘there will be no rest for us until their letters have arrived’ (C Egypt); êì÷éå T-S ./v. ‘and he will say to you’ (C Egypt); ÷çö éáà éìà [ä]úìîç àî äìîâ ïëé T-S J. /  ‘everything I sent him should (go) to Ab¯u Is. h¯ . aq’51 (C Egypt); ïëúì äìàëåìàå êãéá Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘the guardianship (certificate) should be in your hand’ (C Egypt). The form laysa + imperfect in the first example is probably partly modelled on lam + imperfect (which requires the 50 The Classical Arabic spelling ñéàø occurs in T-S ./  (C unassigned) and T-S J./  (C Maghreb). 51 Ish¯ . . aq shows tafh¯ım of ñ and defective spelling of the long vowel, which is a typical ˘ name, probably influenced by its Hebrew equivalent ÷úöé. phenomenon with this

phonology and orthography



apocopate in Classical Arabic and is usually used in the apodosis and protasis of conditional clauses) because of the conditional connotation of the temporal clause. ... Long e¯ e¯ does not belong to the Classical Arabic phoneme inventory but occurs in Judaeo-Arabic as a result of the monophthongisation of -ay-. ùà for e¯ˇs ‘what’ (> ayˇs > ayyu ˇsay) may be found, for example, in T-S NS . / ; T-S J./rm.; T-S J. / ; T-S . /  and T-S J. /  (C Egypt); and T-S J. / ,  and in T-S ./v. and v. (C Maghreb). Blau (, ) believes this to be Maghrebian aˇs, but proposes a very similar development to e¯ in àúîéà > àúîà later in the same article (p. ). ... The im¯ala52 The fact that the im¯ala was established by the th/th century is confirmed by the vocalised letter T-S Ar. ().53 where long and short a are often vocalised with Segol and Tsere, indicating a higher tongue vowel. An example from the th-century Maghreb corpus shows a possible occurance of the im¯ala: âéâåç T-S . /  could be either a blend form of the Classical Arabic plural forms huj¯ . aj or haj¯ . ıj or the é could represent the a¯ in huj¯ . aj with the im¯ala. Another thcentury example is ïéééãìà CUL Or  J /  ‘the judge’, with double spelling of yy and another y for e¯. th-century examples with Tiberian vocalisation show the im¯ala in øàäð àìå T-S J./v. ‘and no day’ and äáçàö òî à÷úìà àìå T-S J./v. ‘he did not meet his partner’. Evidence for the im¯ala in Late Judaeo-Arabic letters is the spelling of éô for fa- ‘and’ (pronunciation: fä-) in T-S AS . / ; AIU VIIE  / ; AIU VIIE  / , or áéëøî for markab ‘ship’ (märkäb) in T-S NS . / .

52 The examples with double spelling of yy, as in dyyn ‘judge’, have been excluded here as they are probably examples of double spelling of the consonants rather than a possible im¯ala. 53 Published by Blau and Hopkins (, f) and Blau (, f).



chapter four .. The Article

... Omission of l¯am with Sun-Letters The letters show an astonishing result: hardly any article before a sunletter is written in assimilation. Even more astonishing is the fact that hardly any cases may be found in the letters from the th/th century, which usually show more vernacular forms. This lack of the assimilated article is very surprising considering that utility prose is often regarded as a lower register of substandard writing. A feature that may have contributed to this adherence to Classical Arabic writing standard is the ligature between alif and l¯am, which made writing a plain alif just as time consuming as the whole ligature, thus keeping the morphophonematic spelling. a) th-century Egypt The omission of the article before sun-letters is very rare in this corpus and occurs in most cases in the phrase äòàñìà ‘now’. This adverb may have developed into a fixed form, so the writers were probably not aware that there had originally been an article affixed to the phrase: äòñà éìà T-S J. /  ‘until now’. The only unambiguous example of an assimilated article in connection with a common noun occurs in êéùà T-S J./v. ‘the elder’. This letter is written in a unskilled hand and was probably composed by a writer less familiar with Arabic writing conventions.54 The article may also lack before geographical names, such as äéìé÷ñà T-S J. /  ‘Palermo/Sicily’. In äòñà T-S J. / , Gil55 interprets äòñà as ‘now’. It could, however, also represent the Egyptian form is#a ‘make haste, hurry, make an effort’. Another possible example is êáàúë éô úáúë éã˙ ìà íñøá äéìò úáúë T-S . /  ‘I wrote the mark on it which you had written in your letter’.

54 For peculiarities of th-century letters written in unskilled hands see Wagner (). 55 Gil (, III ).

phonology and orthography



b) th-century Maghreb One example occurs in ìäñà ïá íéäàøáà T-S . /  ‘Ibr¯ah¯ım b. asSahl’, although the father’s name could possibly, though unusually, be ‘Ashal’. c) th century The examples from the th century mostly concern reanalysed forms of äòàñìà ‘now’: äòñà CUL Or  J/v.; T-S . / ; T-S J./v.; T-S J. / ; äòñì T-S J. /  ‘still’. Another possible example is ïàñìà T-S J. /  ‘the language’. d) th/th century Two examples occur in this corpus: ñéáìá éô úáñà úéâ GW XXX/ ‘I arrived on the Sabbath in Bilbays’ and ïàëãàì çåø{à} äãàä ãòá GW XXVIII/f ‘after that I go to the shop’. e) th/th century Although the letters show an abundance of colloquialisms, the definite article is always written morphophonematically in the corpus. ... bil- without alif Whereas the preposition bi- + article in Classical Arabic orthography is spelled with alif, it occurs without alif in Judaeo-Arabic, probably by analogy with the preposition li- + article. The reading, however, is often difficult as the ligature of alif and l¯am looks very similar to normal l¯am in many of the hands. No examples occur in the corpora from the th/th and th/th centuries. a) th century In the th century, bil- spelled without the alif is rare. J. /  ‘by God’; éö˙ ÷ìá T-S J. /  ‘with the q¯ad¯ . ı’.

äììáåå

T-S



chapter four

b) th century In many examples of this corpus bil- is written without the alif : àìåîìá T-S J. /  ‘with the master’; íìòìá T-S J. /  ‘with the knowledge’; äéôàòìá T-S . /  ‘in well-being’; éùòìáå T-S J. /  ‘and in the evening’. ... lil- with alif The hamzat al-was. l of the article is spelled after li- in a few examples, for instance ãîçìà äììàì T-S . /  (C Maghreb) and äììàì CUL Or .. /  (C/C) for Classical Arabic P. ... f¯ı + article f¯ı + article may form a union, sometimes omitting the y¯a". The forms are rare, and appear with and without the alif : ãìá ìô T-S . /  ‘in the town’; áàúë ìô T-S . /  ‘in the letter’; éðàú ìà íñåî ìàô T-S . /  ‘the second spring caravan’ (all C Maghreb); íàùô GW XXX/ ‘in Syria’; äéàø÷ìô GW XXVIII/ ‘in the reading’; øö˙ çîìô GW XXX/ ‘in the presence’ (all C/C).

.. Separation and Union of Words ... Separation of Words Two different levels of separation of words can be observed in JudaeoArabic. The most common is the separation of the article from its noun. In the th/th-century material, this is usually the case: òö˙ àåî ìà T-S J. / f ‘the places’ (C Egypt); ãìá ìà T-S . /  ‘the city’ (C Maghreb); éðàú ìà íñåî ìàô T-S . /  ‘and the second spring caravan’; íàìñ ìà T-S J. /  ‘the greeting’ (C/C); øåëã˙ î ìà T-S AS . /  ‘the mentioned’ (C/C). In some cases, the article is written at the end of one line with the noun following in the next line: òàì÷à // ìà T-S J. / f ‘the setting of sails’ (C Egypt); êéù // ìà T-S J./rm.f ‘the elder’. The second level of separation is when words other than the article are separated at the end of a line and continued in the next. This occurs in one th-century letter: ìé÷ // à˙ úî øùò àìå àåñú àî … ãð÷ìà CUL Or 

phonology and orthography



J / f ‘the candy … which is worth not even  mat¯aq¯ıl’. A letter from ¯ corpus has words the th/th-century that has not been taken up in the separated between lines, and in one example, the part of the word in the line above ends in a final n¯un although it is in medial position within the word: àäåú //ò¯ áðåå CUL Or .. / f ‘we will send it’; // ïá äðçà çéø ìà åáéâ CUL Or .. / f ‘we are bringing the wind’. In the first example, a stroke above the last letter of the line seems to indicate the continuation in the next line. ... Union of Words In certain phrases, words that are separate in Classical Arabic are written as orthographic units. This occurs for instance with the vocative particle, the preposition f¯ı, the conjunction ink¯an (from in + k¯an), and the formula inshallah: éàìåîàé T-S J. /  (C Egypt); éëéùàé T-S NS . /  (C Egypt); éëéùé T-S . / ,  (C Maghreb); éãéñàé T-S . /  (C Maghreb); äììàù ïà T-S J. / f ‘God willing’ (C); éãìàéô T-S ./v. ‘in what’ (C/C); ïàëðà T-S J. /  ‘if ’ (C/C).

.. Spelling of Hebrew Words In selected letters, Hebrew words show an orthography deviating from the Rabbinical Hebrew standard. In a th-century letter, there is for example íåìàù T-S . / . Especially from the th/th century onwards spellings such as ãñàç for ãñç GW XXVIII/; ìäà÷ for ìä÷ GW XXVIII/; à÷àãö for ä÷ãö GW XXVIII/;56úàáù T-S NS . / ,  occur, but a few examples of names appear in letters from the th century: ïàðàçìà for ïðçìà Bod MS Heb e. ./m. and T-S J./ upperm..

56 This is a reflection of dialectal ˇ sabb¯at in spoken Late Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic, see Hary (, ).

chapter five MORPHOLOGY

.. Introduction The examination of morphology in the Judaeo-Arabic Genizah letters is complicated by intertwined orthographical and morphological phenomena, to the degree that it is often difficult to tell whether a variation is orthographical in origin or whether it actually indicates morphological change. As in other chapters, Classical Arabic is the first point of comparison, and when deviations from Classical Arabic forms are found, the nature of the variation must be identified: is it a reflection of a vernacular form, does it simply mirror conventions of substandard letter writing, is it due to orthographical variations, or is there an actual error of the writer? Several factors make the detection of morphological variety difficult. For example, morphological variations are often disguised by orthographical conventions. Khan () has shown the gap between orthography and actual prounciation within the Judaeo-Arabic reading tradition on the basis of vocalized manuscripts. In addition, short vowels in conjugation and declination typically do not appear in written forms. Particularly in mediaeval letters, the vowel patterns in verbs are left to speculation as few short vowels are spelt in plene writing. The lack of the superscribed hamza makes it impossible to distinguish whether hamza is carried on y¯a" or w¯aw, or whether hamza has actually been replaced by y¯a" or w¯aw. In addition, colloquial forms rarely feature in the letters because a vernacular pattern is simply replaced by a Classical Arabic one. For example, although vernacular verbal stems such as itfa##ala and itf¯a #ala may occur, the majority of fifth and sixth stem perfect verbs are spelt according to the Classical Arabic norm, tafa##ala and taf¯a #ala. Similarly, it is difficult to assess the use of na- in naf#al (the st plural in Classical Arabic) as a morpheme of the st singular, when phrases such as an¯a fa#aln¯a ‘I did’ occur (in which the plural ending -n¯a has replaced the singular -tu). It is possible that the plural verbal morphemes replace singular morphemes for stylistic purposes as a result of letter writing conventions.



chapter five

When variations do occur, it does not necessarily indicate that these are vernacular forms. Not every orthographical deviation indicates morphological change, and there may be a variety of other reasons for a particular spelling. Hypercorrect examples, formed in mistaken analogy, and hypocorrections, hybrid forms that display Classical and vernacular features simultaneously, add to the confusion. In mediaeval letters, only a few features regularly change. These concern, for example, the loss of cases or the verbal moods. The use of the oblique case in place of the nominative plural, for example, has become part of letter writing and is the norm rather than the exception. In fact, the old Classical Arabic nominative ending -¯un does not occur at all in the letters. Likewise, the disappearance of the verbal moods is very consistant in the plural indicative ending -¯una, which has been replaced by the subjunctive -¯u in all letters. In the case of the apocopate, it is often difficult to judge whether w¯aw or y¯a" spelt in hollow roots actually represents the loss of the mood or whether the short vowel is simply spelt plene. Apart from these common variations, however, many of the letters, in particular from the th century, are surprisingly homogenous and mostly agree with Classical Arabic morphology. Letters from the th century show few variations although considerably more forms deviate from Classical Arabic norms than in the earlier material. In contrast, the Late Judaeo-Arabic sources allow much deeper insights into vernacular morphology.

.. Pronouns ... Personal Pronouns Arabic distinguishes between independent personal pronouns, which occur in the nominative, and pronouns that are affixed to verbs and nouns, in genitive, dative and accusative functions. There is very little variation in the independent pronouns. The suffixed pronouns, however, show a variety of forms. .... Independent Pronouns Independent pronouns in the letters from the th to the th century show little variation and solely orthographical deviations from Classical Arabic. In the th/th-century letters, however, vernacular indepen-

morphology



dent pronouns are frequently found, in particular the forms for the st which occur in most letters, such as T-S NS . / ; plural, äðçà (ihna), . T-S J. / ; AIU VIIE  / ; AIU VIIE  / . Although ihna . is the most common pronoun for the st plural in the th/th-century letters, Classical Arabic forms are also occasionally found, e.g., ïçðå CUL Or .. / . One early example in the th-century Maghreb letters might reflect the prosthetic alif of the vernacular st plural pronoun ihna, although . ïçðà it is followed by the orthographical form of Classical Arabic nahnu: . äá êáúàëð CUL Or  J ‘we corresponded with you about it’. .... Suffixed Pronouns ..... rd singular masc In the earlier letters, the majority of suffixes conform to Classical Arabic spelling. The rd singular masculine pronominal suffix, however, is sometimes spelt in its vernacular form -u as å- even in the earlier material. It is also realised as äå-, which points to the actual pronunciation -u(h) as in modern colloquial suffixes, and which is also a spelling that corresponds to the forms found in phonetically spelled Judaeo-Arabic texts, see Blau (, ), and also in vocalized Judaeo-Arabic texts, see Khan (). Blau takes the rendering of the ä- as an indication that the ending ‘originally at least, […] terminated in -h’. According to Mitchell (,  and fn ), this also applies to a certain degree to the morpheme in Modern Egyptian Arabic, in which the suffix is ‘usually pronounced with a weak final h before a pause’. This morpheme could, however, also be interpreted as a simple blend (mischform) of the actual pronunciation within the reading tradition and the spelling norms of Classical Arabic, a possibility supported by other forms of the suffix occuring in the same documents, which lack final -h. For the use of the standard and colloquial rd singular masculine pronominal suffixes in connection with standard and colloquial verb forms, see also Hary (, f). a) th-century Egypt Deviations from the Classical Arabic standard in the use of pronouns are rare in this corpus. Only few letters show vernacular or hybrid vernacular-classical forms of the rd singular masculine pronoun. These substandard suffixes have the morphemes äå-, å- and åä-, å- only occurs



chapter five

after -h-, for example in åäéâåú T-S NS . /  ‘its sending’; åäâåð àðà T-S . /  ‘I will send it’; åäâåú T-S ./v. ‘you should send it’. åä- can be found in åäáéâé T-S ./v. ‘they will bring it’. äå- occurs for example in äåîñà T-S . /  ‘his name’. Another deviation from Classical Arabic use occurs in the thcentury Egyptian letters in the suffix of the rd dual masculine that occasionally replaces the rd plural masculine, probably due to hypercorrection: äììà àîäîìñ àðáàçöà T-S J. / f ‘our companions, God may bless them’; äììà àîäîìñ T-S J. /  ‘God may bless them’. b) th-century Maghreb There is only one unambiguous example of the vernacular rd singular masculine suffix, å-, which appears in a Classical Arabic nominative position. Unlike the Egyptian examples, å- appears here not after h but t: áúëúô åúäâå ã÷ ïàë ïàô T-S AS .–T-S J. / f ‘if you have sent it, then write’. There is also äåáìèð ‘we are in demand of it’ in T-S ./v. but this may also be evaluated as the vernacular plural form nat. lub¯u plus suffix. There is a spelling after the preposition f¯ı that may reflect a rd singular masculine suffix Ø:1 éô äìîà ïàë àã˙ ä ïà óøòð àðà T-S . /  ‘I know that this was his hope in it’. As in the contemporary Egyptian corpus, hypercorrect dual suffixes may serve for the plural: àîäøëàù T-S ./v. ‘their thankful’. c) th-century (unassigned) In the letters not identified as either Maghrebian or Egyptian more examples of the suffix äå- occur, see äå÷éôåú T-S J. /  ‘his success’ and äåø÷éå T-S J. /  ‘he will read it’. In the latter example, the å could also be used as a base for the hamza of the root qara"a. There is also the spelling å- in åòî T-S J. /  ‘with him’ and äéìà åòôãðå T-S J. /  ‘I/we paid (it) to him’, although the latter form may also be an example of naf#al¯u for the .pl. ‘we paid’ with or without the suffix of the rd singular masculine.

1

See also Blau (, § b).

morphology



d) th century In the th-century letters, å- is not restricted to following t or h but can be found after other consonants as well: åá T-S J. /  ‘with it’; åúâàçå T-S J./v. ‘and his request’; åîà÷î T-S J. /  ‘his place’; åäéìà T-S J./vm.below ‘to him’; åúëà ïáà T-S J./v. ‘the son of his sister’; åäì T-S J./v. ‘for him’; åäðà CUL Or  J/v. ‘that he’. The spelling äå- can be found in many examples in T-S J.: äåúáçö T-S J. /  ‘with him’; äåúøéñ T-S J. /  ‘I sent him’; äåãìå T-S J./v. ‘his son’; äåãðò T-S J./v. ‘with him’. e) th/th century å-

occurs after -h- and occasionally after other consonants: åäðà T-S . / , ‘that he’; åäì T-S ./v. ‘to him’; åòî T-S . /  ‘with him’. The suffix åä- can be found in: åäðèá GW XXX/ ‘inside of it’; åäãìàå GW XXVIII/ ‘his father’. There may also be a reflection of Palestinian vernacular,2 l¯e(h) for l¯o(h), in äéì GW XXVIII/ ‘to him’. f) th/th century For the letters T-S AS . and T-S J., Khan3 has established a system according to which the suffixes are attached: . å- after consonant and ma#a, . ä- or Ø after vowels, and . åä- after the prepositions li-, and partly after f¯ı ‘in’ and in ‘that’. This system holds for the other letters investigated in the th/th-century corpus, with the addition of min with åä- following. Examples for (.): åðéà T-S AS . /  ‘that he’; åìë˙ àã ïî T-S Ar. . /  ‘inside of it’; åðéî T-S AS . /  ‘from him’; åúàðñ äééä íì T-S NS . /  ‘there is none this year’; åìåë T-S J. /  ‘all of it’; åðî T-S J. /  ‘from him’; åòî T-S J. /  ‘with him’; åøéâå T-S J. /  ‘and others than it’; åôøè T-S Ar. . /  ‘with him’. Examples for (.): äåëøùð äðåë T-S NS . /  ‘we made him a partner’; äàøúùà éãìà T-S J. /  ‘what he bought’. Examples for (.): åäì T-S Ar. . / , T-S J. / , AIU VIIE  / , and T-S NS . /  2 3

Suggested by Gottheil and Worrell (, ). Khan (a, ) and (, ).

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chapter five

‘to him’; åäéô T-S J. /  ‘in him’; åäðà T-S J. /  ‘that he’; åäðî T-S Ar. ./m. ‘from him’. Exceptions are Ø after f¯ı: éô T-S NS . /  ‘in it’, and occasionally Classical Arabic forms: äðàå CUL Or .. /  ‘that he’. ..... nd plural The th/th-century letters show a few unusual suffixes for the nd plural, for example íàëãáò GW XXVIII/ ‘your slave’. This may reflect the Hebrew personal suffix íë-. The following forms may be due to poetic licence and rhyming: åîëàôâ˙ øàðá éáì÷ å÷øçú àì GW XXVIII/bisf ‘do not destroy my heart with the fire of your cruelty’; åîëàùç åîëàøð GW XXVIII/bis ‘I will see you, far be it from you’. Even the letters of the th/th-century corpus show no reflexes of the Modern Egyptian Arabic vernacular suffix -ku but write -kum in all examples. On the other hand, the suffix -kum written with plene w¯aw occurs from the th century onwards. This spelling may be a compromise between the actual pronunciation -ku and Classical Arabic spelling conventions. ..... nd singular feminine The feminine suffix is often spelt with plene written y¯a", although exceptions occur in connection with ab¯u ‘father’: êéì T-S J. /  ‘for you’ (C); êéðò T-S J. /  ‘about you’ (C); êéìòâ˙é T-S J. /  ‘he should make you’ (C); êéîòå êéãâå êåáà òî äéìîòú éúðë éãìà øîàìà êéúìàë òîå êéâ˙åæ òîå øéáëìà êàìåî ïééãìà òî äéìîòà T-S J. / f ‘the way you were acting towards your father and your grandfather and your uncle, do it toward the judge, your great master, and toward your husband and your aunt’ (C); êéîà T-S J. /  ‘your mother’ (C). ..... Dual The rd dual masculine suffix is occasionally used, sometimes even for inanimate things such as letters (mail) as in the first example: éðìöé íìå àîäáàåâ T-S J. /  ‘no reply to them (the two letters) reached me’ (C); õòá íäöòáì íäîæìé äàñò ÷ç ìë ïî àö˙ òá àîäö˙ òá åàøáà íäðàå T-S J./m.ff ‘they (husband and wife) released each other from every right that could possibly oblige them to each other’ (C). Sometimes the dual is used hypercorrectly: äììà àîäîìñ àðáàçöà T-S J. / f ‘our fellow Jews, may God bless them’ (C Egypt); äììà àîäîìñ T-S J. /  ‘may God bless them’ (C Egypt).

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... Demonstrative Pronouns The letters show several demonstrative pronouns. The most prominently used pronouns, at least until the th century, are the Classical Arabic demonstratives h¯ad¯a and d¯alika. Beside these, a few other pronouns, ¯ In the¯ Late Judaeo-Arabic material, di is the most such as d¯aka, occur. ¯ common demonstrative but a few examples of d¯alika occur also. Most of the pronouns used in the letters are likely to be ¯features of literary writing and the reading tradition and do not reflect the actual spoken vernacular. In most cases, the demonstratives appear to be gender indifferent. In the case of h¯ad¯a, differentiation between the Classical Arabic mas¯ culine h¯ad¯a and feminine h¯adihi is difficult because of orthographical ¯ Due to the shortening ¯ conventions. of final vowels, and the representation of short /a/ by both alif and h¯a", the two forms have become indistinguishable. Thus äãä occurs both with feminine (and inanimate plural) and masculine nouns: íåéìà äã˙ ä éô T-S J. /  ‘on this day’ (C Maghreb); íàéàìà äãä éô [âåéôìà] åìöå ã÷å T-S . /  ‘the couriers have arrived these days’ (C Maghreb); äìôà÷ìà äãä T-S . /  ‘this caravan’ (C Maghreb); äøéëàìà áúëìà äãä T-S J. /  ‘these last letters’ (C Maghreb). The use of the spelling àãä, however, appears to be restricted to masculine nouns: ú÷åìà àã˙ äå T-S . /  ‘this time’ (C Egypt); àãä éùìà T-S ./v. ‘this thing’ (C). Occasionally, the form éãàä is found with feminine nouns and inanimate plurals, which may reflect Modern Egyptian Arabic di + the presentative prefix h¯a-: äòîâìà éã˙ àä T-S . /  ‘this Friday’ (C Egypt); äãîìà éãàä T-S NS . /  ‘this period’ (C Egypt); äðñìà éãàä éô T-S J./rm.ff ‘during this year’ (C unassigned); âéàåçìà éãàä T-S J. /  ‘these things’ (C unassigned); øäùà ˙åìà éãàä éô CUL Or  J / f ‘in these  months’ (C Egypt). éãàä may also appear with masculine nouns: ìòôìà éãàä åìòô T-S J./v. ‘they did this doing’ (C unassigned). The Classical Arabic feminine demonstrative tilka is very rarely used, perhaps because in the letters d¯alika mostly appears in pronominal ¯ the noun to which it refers, leaving the position. There it is separated from demonstrative vulnerable to be viewed as gender indifferent. Therefore, tilka has been largely replaced by d¯alika. Only in attributive use does ¯ although extremely rarely:4 êìú the Classical Arabic form tilka appear, úàøôñìà T-S J. /  ‘these travels’ (C). 4

Some of the transcriptions in Gil have to be corrected, e.g.,

ïàìåëì êìú ïî

T-S

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In the th-century letters, d¯a/d¯a is used gender indifferent: àã˙ éô T-S J./v. ‘in this ¯time’ (C); úåëåæìà àã éô T-S J./ v. ‘in this privilege’ (C). In Modern Egyptian Arabic, the masculine demonstrative is da and the feminine is di, although in historical stages of vernacular Egyptian di was used in gender indifferent manner. It is possible that d¯a/d¯a is a typical substandard literary form, reflecting ¯ pronoun but also the Classical Arabic demonstrative both the vernacular particle -d¯a-. In the Late Judaeo-Arabic material, di is used in gender ¯ with both masculine and feminine nouns: äøàî ìéã T-S indifference J. /  ‘this time’ (C/C); éú÷å ìéãå T-S J. /  ‘this time’ (C/C); ò˙ ìéãá T-S NS . /  ‘at this value’ (C/C). For a discussion of the historical gender of di, see ..a. In a few examples, the form d¯alika is combined with di- in the com¯ âìáî ìéã ê˙ éìàã˙ éô T-S AS . / f pound demonstrative d¯alika di-: ¯ ‘in connection with that sum’ (C/C); ÷éãàðá ìéã êéìàã T-S AS . /  ‘those bunduqs’ (C/C). Although plural nouns are usually refered to by singular demonstratives, examples for Classical Arabic (h¯a"ul¯a"i) and Modern Egyptian Arabic (dol) plural demonstratives may occur: áøà÷ ïà éàìåä åøëã òâàø ìàúò ìà øñé T-S J./v. ‘these (people) mentioned that the boat of Yusr al-#Att¯al is about to return’ (C Egypt); àî éàìåàä äãéøé óåö äéô ïàë T-S ./v. ‘he wants those that have no wool in it’ (C Egypt); íëôøè àìà ïàùåù çìàö äâåúî éìåã ïéîåé ìà ïàá íëôøòðå AIU ˇ uˇsa¯n is coming to VIIE  / f ‘we let you know that these days5 S¯ . alih. S¯ you’ (C/C). Other demonstratives that occur in the letters are êàã (in thcentury and th-century letters, with masculine), êéã (in th-century letters, with plural) and êéãä (in th-century letters, with feminine), which appears to be a blend form of either h¯ad¯a plus the demonstrative ¯ element -ka or of colloquial d¯ık with the presentative h¯a- prefix, e.g., äìåàìà áåúëìà êéã ãòá T-S J./rm. ‘after these first letters’ (C unassigned); éùîìà êàã àðää äì ñéì éáàúòìàå T-S ./rm.f ‘and the #Att¯ab¯ı is not going this well here (lit. there is here not this going)’ (C Maghreb); êàììà êàã T-S AS .–T-S J. /  ‘this lacquer’ (C Maghreb); äâ˙àçìà êéãä T-S J. /  ‘this thing’ (C); àéàáâ˙ìà êéãä T-S J. /  ‘this tax’ (C). ïàîæìà

./v. ‘from that papyrus (succus lycii)’ (C Maghreb) actually reads ïàìåëìà. 5

For dual of paucity compare ...

˙ ïî êìàã

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... Relative Pronouns In the entire letter corpus, the most frequent relative pronoun for all genders and numbers is éãìà, as for example in ïî úàâ éãìà øàáëàìà íåëãðò T-S J. /  ‘the news that came from you’ (C unassigned); ˙ à íäðàì T-S NS J / f ‘because they took from àäì éãìà úåéáìà àäðî åãë her the houses which are hers’ (C/C); åúáçåö éãìà ñééø ìà ˙åö íåäìæðå íëòúá äîæåø ìà AIU VIIE / f ‘he send them down with the leader with whom your bundles are’ (C/C). A few rare forms of éúìà occur, as in: äáåøòìà äìéì íëãðò øö˙ çð àîáø àòáøàìà äìéì éä éúìà T-S J./rm.ff ‘possibly we will stay with you for Hosha#na Rabbah which is the fourth night’ (C). Both éãìà and éúìà are, however, pseudo-classical forms, only used in written substandard Arabic and not in the spoken language, and were probably vocalised ald¯ı or Ãldi in the Judaeo-Arabic reading tradition (see chapter ...). The actual vernacular relative pronoun illi is found, too, in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters: ñåìéô˙ êì éèòé êãðò éàâ åðéà äéìò ìå÷úá éìà éãåäé ìà ˙ ãéòà÷ T-S AS . / f ‘the Jew about whom you are saying øöî éô that he is coming to you to give you money, is (actually) staying in Cairo’ (C/C).

.. The Verb ... Conjugation .... st Person In Arabic dialectology, there is a West/East divide in the morphemes used for the st singular and plural. In the West, the forms have been remodelled by analogy to the nd and rd persons as sg. naf#al and pl. naf#al¯u, whereas in the Eastern dialects the Classical Arabic forms sg. af#al and pl. naf#al are found. The place of Egypt in this division is problematic. While the Modern Egyptian dialects show overwhelmingly sg. af#al and pl. naf#al, the situation in mediaeval and post-mediaeval Egypt is less clear. Blanc () has stated that sg. naf#al/pl. naf#al¯u were part of many Egyptian dialects, and that only the spread of the prestigious standard Cairene dialect led to the loss of the so-called n-forms in the majority

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of Egyptian dialects. The n-forms have still survived in some areas according to Hary (, ), who remarks that ‘these forms, which are frequently found in the West Delta as well as in Cairene Judaeo-Arabic […] may have developed parallel to the Maghrebi forms’. Within Cairo, the forms are restricted to the Jewish variety (Hary , f). There, the forms still occured in Egypt in the th century (see Blanc’s article and Rosenbaum6), but within Egypt the n-forms are not restricted to urban dialects,7 as evident in Sa#¯ıd¯ı colloquial Egyptian (Khalafallah ). The question remains whether the Jewish Cairene n-forms are remnants of an old Cairene phenomenon, or whether this was an innovation that in Cairo had always been limited to the Jewish variety. It is doubtful that the standard Cairene vernacular never incorporated the n-forms. A possible scenario is that the n-forms were an integral part of Egyptian Arabic, even in Cairo, but that they gradually faded out of the standard Cairene dialect due to the influence of Classical Arabic. This feature then spread to other Egyptian dialects, supported by the prestige of the standard Cairene dialect. Analogies are found in other urban Jewish dialects, which preserve traits of an older urban vernacular. For example, Baghdadi Jewish Arabic8 preserves the vernacular spoken by the old sedentary population, whereas the Baghdadi Muslim variety was heavily influenced by non-sedentary or semi-sedentary dialects. Perhaps, the nforms in Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic similarly indicate older urban registers. Thus naf#al¯u forms in the Egyptian letters cannot be interpretated as simply due to Maghrebian influence. This is also supported by the sheer dominance of examples in the majority of letters from the Egyptian corpus, which show quite clearly that naf#al (sg) and naf#al¯u (pl) were part of many writers’ vernacular, from the th century to the th century. a) th century Egypt In the corpus of th-century Egyptian letters, unambiguous examples of naf#al forms for the st singular can be found in letters by the majority of authors: éìàë éìà áúëð äììàù ïà àðàå T-S J./rm.ff ‘and I, God willing, will write to my uncle’; àäàøù òè÷ð àðà êìàã øàúëú íì àã˙ àô 6

Rosenbaum (c, ) and (b, ). For dialects showing the distribution aktub/naktub¯u see Behnstedt (, ). 8 See the comparative analysis of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Baghdadi spoken Arabic as described by Blanc (), in particular p. . 7

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àéìåëìàá T-S NS . / f ‘if you don’t want that, I will stop buying it

entirely’; ñáìð ïà áåú éì àî T-S ./v. (added above the line) ‘I don’t have any garment to wear’; éòî äáéâð T-S J. /  ‘I will bring it with me’; íìëð àðà T-S ./v. ‘I am saying’; äáìèð úî÷àô T-S J. /  ‘I went to ask him’; ìàãòà ã˙ úãù ïà éëéùàé êîìòðå T-S . /  ‘I inform you, my elder, that I have packed  bales’. As most writers use naf#al for the st singular, it probably echoes the Jewish Egyptian vernacular. If naf#al is used as the singular form, the st plural would become naf#al¯u by analogy. However, there is an obvious lack of naf#al¯u forms for the st plural. One explanation is that naf#al¯u does not exist in Classical Arabic, and was, therefore, not considered literary enough to be used in letter writing. A possible perfect form that occurs in one of the letters, however, once again raises the question whether these forms actually represent the spoken language at the time: àðãëà ïà éìà ìéì÷ éøéøçìà òî úéöà÷ àîå ˙ øã ã˙ ˙ðã ä˙ äðî T-S J. / f ‘I (had to) go to court against al-Har¯ ä . ır¯ı repeatedly (lit. I did not go to court … a little) until I took the  dinars and  dirhams from him’. This form àðãëà proposes another possibility: that naf#al for the st singular is in fact a literary phenomenon.9 It may have been used as a stylistic element in Egyptian letters, similar to the royal ‘we’ in Indo-European languages, possibly influenced by the existence of Maghrebian forms. This may have emerged as a stylistic feature because many letters were written by scribes on behalf of their clients. It may have felt more natural for the scribe to use a st plural form rather than a st singular simply because two people at least were involved in the writing process. Similar phenomena have for example led to the empathic ‘we’ used by nurses and doctors in today’s hospitals when addressing a patient. b) th-century (unassigned) The form äéìà åòôãðå T-S J. / f ‘I/we will pay (it) to him’ could be either an example of naf#al¯u for the .pl. ‘we will pay to him’ or naf#al plus suffix of the .sg.m ‘we will pay it to him’ (or naf#al¯u plus suffix).

9 More examples for this form can be found in documents outside of the corpus, e.g., in the th-century letter T-S J./  äéøãðëñà éìà àðìöå àðà ‘I arrived in Alexandria’.

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c) th-century Maghreb Unambiguous forms of naf#al for the st singular appear in the majority of the letters from the Maghreb: óøòð àðà T-S . /  ‘I know’; àðà âàúçð T-S ./v. ‘I need to’; éìà áàúë êì éøð íì T-S J. / f ‘I did not see a letter from you to me’. In Bod MS Heb. d. ., a huge number of naf#al¯u forms for the st plural can be found, and there is also possible evidence from another letter: åãéøð Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘we want’; åìîòð Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘we are working’; å÷çìð íì Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘we have not reached’; äåáìèð T-S ./v. ‘we10 are in demand of it’. In Bod MS Heb. d. ., both naf#al and naf#al¯u appear as st plural verbs: áúëð ïçðå Bod MS Heb. d. . /  and b ‘we write’ vs. àðúãàñì áúë åáúëðå Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘we are writing letters to our masters’. Similarly, naf#al forms may be used for both singular and plural in the same letter: àðìë ïçð àäéìð T-S . / f ‘we all help her’ vs. ñáìð úéâ T-S . /  ‘I came to dress’. Many examples show the st singular is written in Classical Arabic morphology, such as äðî õ˙ á÷à T-S . /  ‘I receive from him’. There is even such a singular form in a letter that is written in the name of three men: áçàô CUL Or  J /  ‘and I would like’. As in the Egyptian letters, two interpretations are possible: either a) the pair naf#al (sg) and naf#al¯u (pl) were the vernacular morphemes, but naf#al¯u was suppressed because it does not occur in Classical Arabic, or b) naf#al was used as stylistical form in letter writing. The Maghrebian forms naf#al/naf#al¯u seem established, as a few more examples for naf#al¯u occur in contrast to the Egyptian letters, although most examples come from one letter only. It may, therefore, be more likely that the lack of naf#al¯u forms in the Egyptian letters is due to writing conventions because the form does not exist in Classical Arabic. d) th century The th-century letters show many examples of naf#al (sg) and naf#al¯u (pl). Singular forms can be found in äìòôð àî àì éä ìå÷ú T-S ./v.f ‘she says: no, I won’t do it’; àìöà ê÷øàôð úðë àî ãçàå ãìá éô êòî ïëàñ úðë åì

10

This form could also be interpreted as naf#al + suffix äå–.

morphology



T-S ./v.f ‘if I lived with you in one country I would never leave you!’; çåøð éðà CUL Or  J/v. ‘I will go’; áâòúð éððà T-S ./v. ‘that I am astonished’; ìå÷ð úðë T-S J. /  ‘I had said’; ìá÷ð àðà T-S J./v. ‘I kiss’. Plural forms occur for example in øàãìà ïî åâ˙øëð åçúôð åìëãðå å÷ìâð T-S . / f ‘(when) we go out of the house, we lock (it) and (when) we go in, we open it’; åìå÷ð ïçðå T-S . / f ‘we say’; åòîúâ˙ð CUL Or  J /  ‘we will gather’; åðåëð CUL Or  J /  and T-S ./v. ‘we will be’; åòè÷ð T-S J. /  ‘we will cut’. However, Classical Arabic forms may also be used, for example: íìòð ïçðå T-S J. /  ‘we know’. e) th/th century Only Classical Arabic forms occur in this corpus. f) th/th century Singular forms occur for example in õ˙ á÷ð éååàð T-S AS . /  ‘I intend to acquire’, and in a letter from outside the corpus: úòáð úéãø àìå íìëð CUL Or .. ‘I was not willing to send and talk’. Plural forms can be found in åðúñéð T-S AS . /  ‘we will wait’; íäåìéñøð T-S AS . /  ‘we will send them’; íåëåáñçð T-S NS . /  ‘we will account it for you’; åôøòð íì T-S J. /  ‘we do not know’. .... nd Person In the perfect, the nd plural form often changes by analogy with the rd plural to fa#alt¯u, in particular in the later material: éô àðì åúáúëå áàúëìà T-S J. /  ‘you wrote to us in the letter’ (C); åúøëô T-S NS . /  ‘you thought’ (C/C); åúçøù T-S Ar. . /  ‘you explained’ (C/C). In two letters from the Maghrebian corpus by the same writer, the preservation of the old ending -tum¯u before suffix shows an adherence to Classical Arabic morphology: âøëé äåîúéìë T-S . /  ‘you let him go out’ (C Maghreb); íäåîúãåò àî T-S ./v. ‘what you used to do with them’ (C Maghreb); äåîúøáë T-S . /  ‘you informed him’ (C Maghreb). This may be evaluated as another attestation of the conservatism of the th-century Maghrebian corpus. Forms without the reinstated long u¯ may occur: äîúìîà àî T-S . /  ‘what you hoped for’ (C Maghreb).



chapter five

The nd singular feminine perfect, imperfect and imperative also occur in a number of examples with plene spelling: éúðë éãìà øîàìà êéâ˙åæ òîå øéáëìà êàìåî ïééãìà òî äéìîòà êéîòå êéãâå êåáà òî äéìîòú11

T-S J. / f ‘the way you were acting towards your father and your grandfather and your uncle, do it toward the judge, your great master, and toward your husband’ (C); äéìòôú àì éùìà àãä àäì ìå÷à T-S ./v. ‘I tell her: don’t do this thing’ (C). No moods are discernible for the nd plural, and the ‘moodless’ imperfect is taf#al¯u throughout the letters, e.g., íúðàå áàúëìà éô àðì åúáúëå ˙ á äòàö˙ áìà åìå÷ú12 T-S J. / f ‘you wrote to us in the äñéôðà äòàö letter and you say the merchandise is a very precious merchandise’ (C). The Classical Arabic indicative taf#al¯una does not occur. .... rd Person The rd plural imperfect has the form yaf#al¯u throughout the entire corpus. The Classical Arabic indicative ending -¯una is lacking altogether and has been replaced by the subjunctive ending -¯u: ñàð åéâéå T-S J. /  ‘people are coming’ (C unassigned); ìà éô òéàè÷ìà åéîøé éáàúë ãâå øçá T-S J. / f ‘the day after (the writing of) my letter they will put the galleys to sea’ (C Egypt); øàâú ìàá åãò÷úé áëàøî ìà áàçöàå T-S J. / f ‘and the owners of the ships let go of the trade’ (C Egypt); ãåäùìà äéìò åãäùéå T-S J. /  ‘the witnesses will give testimony about him’ (C); éù åãéøé øàâöå T-S J. / f ‘the children need something’ (C). .... Dual Particularly in texts of a more formal nature, dual forms occur very occasionally. The following example is especially interesting as the plural pronoun is combined with the verb in the dual: à÷øúôà íäðàå T-S J. v.f ‘(we established) that they both had separated (from each other)’ (C).

11

The resumptive pronoun (Arabic #¯a"id) refers back to al-amr ‘the way’. appears here instead of äñéôð.

12 äñéôðà

morphology



.... Bi-Imperfect The bi-imperfect appears from the th century onwards (for its emergence see chapter ..) and exhibits the following forms: st singular àìå éùá äáìàèàá GW VIII/ ‘I am not claiming anything from him’ (C); øåîàìà ïéáú óéë íìòàá àîå T-S J./v.f ‘I do not know how you will explain the matters’ (C); íäááñá ÷ååòúàá éðàì T-S . / f ‘for I am hindered because of them’ (C/C). st plural äãàäù ìåöå íëðî åðúñðáå AIU VIIE  /  ‘we are awaiting from you the arrival of the statement’ (C/C). nd singular äðéìò êçúéúá åäì úìå÷å T-S AS . /  ‘I told him: you are laughing about us’ (C/C); éàâ åðéà äéìò ìå÷úá éìà éãåäéìà ˙ ãéòà÷ ñåìéô˙ êì éèòé êãðò T-S AS . / f ‘the Jew about whom øöî éô you say that he is coming to you to give you money, is (actually) staying in Cairo’ (C/C). rd singular âåæúá åäå T-S J./rm.f ‘he is getting married’ (C); âååæúéá äðà éðâìá T-S . /  ‘it reached me that he is getting married’ (C); ïéøäù éãðò ä÷éòà éñò ìå÷éá T-S J./v.f ‘he says: It is possible that I will keep him away from me for two months’ (C); ìîòéá ùééà T-S . /  ‘what he is doing’ (C/C); äìòôéá T-S ./v. ‘he is doing it’ (C/C); éìéöá äâàåë˙ ìà íìëéá äðôåùå ˙ ìà ìåöðå÷ ìà àìà áåúëî äìò øë˙ ô˙ AIU VIIE  / ff ‘and we saw éåñðøô the honourable Bas.¯ıl¯ı Fahr talking about a letter to the French consul’ (C/C); äéøàòé íì˘ äååä ïà ïàùìò éá ìéîòééá 駧ä äàåô ˙éñìàå T-S J. / f ‘Mr Puwwa, may God comfort him, is working at his behest so that he will not expose him’ (C/C). ... The Verbal Stems Verbs of the V. and VI. stem preceded by a prosthetic alif, resulting in itfa#ala and itf¯a #ala, appear in all corpora: íã÷úà T-S . /  ‘it preceded’ (C Egypt); úéøòúà T-S . /  ‘I was naked’ (C Maghreb); åø[ä]àöúà T-S . /  ‘they became related by marriage’ (C Maghreb); äéìò úôìñúàå T-S J. /  ‘and I borrowed for it’ (C unassigned); õ˙ òáìà àðö˙ òá ïî àðéðà÷úàå T-S J. /  ‘we made the symbolic purchase with one another’ (C); íàìë ãçà íìëúàå T-S . /  ‘he spoke one word’ (C/C); äðìéá÷úéà T-S AS . /  ‘we met’; äðôøöúà AIU VIIE  /  ‘we traded’ (C/C); åúôøöúà T-S NS . / f ‘you traded’ (C/C). In letters from all time periods, however, the regular Classical Arabic V. and VI. stem forms can also be found.



chapter five

... The Passive Blau13 observes that the internal passive in Judaeo-Arabic as well as in most modern dialects has been superseded by reflexive verbal forms. The letters, nonetheless, contain a number of examples of the internal passive. It appears that within epistolary Judaeo-Arabic, the internal passive was a productive form, while passives in the n-stem were used simultaneously. The internal passive forms, however, occur mainly in the th and th century. In the th/th-century material, a few examples of internal passives may be found, which is surprising given the many vernacular features of Late Judaeo-Arabic. In addition, the vowel patterns of mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic may have been closer to Classical Arabic than to Modern Egyptian Arabic, thus allowing an internal passive to penetrate the letter language. Alternatively, despite the diglossia between the vernacular and Classical Arabic, the conventions of Classical Arabic may still have been emulated to the degree that the passive form was retained in active use. In the vocalised letter T-S Arabic Box (). from the th/th century it is evident that the vowel structure of the verb was based on Classical forms, at least in the Judaeo-Arabic reading tradition. For example, the vowel harmony that is part of Modern Egyptian Arabic was not yet established; compare the forms yähruj (l. ) ˘ yuhruj ‘he will go out’, #amilt (l. ) ‘you did’ (Modern Egyptian Arabic and #amalt). These examples demonstrate that it was easily possible˘ for internal vowels to mark the passive within the reading tradition, and it might have appeared more plausible to writers of the th to the th century to make use of the internal passive than to writers in later periods, during which implementation of internal passives was hindered by vowel harmony in the verbal conjugation. a) th-century Egypt Internal passives occur in ïåìëñò ïî äðî áéâåà ïàì T-S J. / f ‘because (large quantities) of it were brought from Ashkelon’; ìòôé àî íäá ìòôé íì éá T-S Misc . / f ‘it is not being done to them what is being done to me’ (after complaining how all the native Jewish traders treat him); òéîâå òåâøìà àäðî ãçà øëãé íì áëàøî ìà T-S J./v.f ‘of all the ships, not one of them has been said to come back’.

13

Blau (, ) and (, ).

morphology



Passive n-stem verbs can be found in: áçàö øñëðà ïà éðâìá ïà éìà T-S J. /  ‘until it reached me that the ruler of Qayrawan had been defeated’; ãòá úáúë éãìà áúëìà ïî êìã êì óùëðà ã÷ ïà åâøàå ìåàìà áàúëìà T-S J. / f ‘I hope that this had already been revealed to you from the letters that I wrote you after the first letter’; óéøìàá ïàë ñéðú ïî øéë òàáðà T-S J. /  ‘in the province it sold better than in Tinn¯ıs’. ïàåøé÷ìà

b) th-century Maghreb Internal passive forms appear to occur more often in Maghrebian than in Egyptian letters. This may be another feature that demonstrates the conservatism of Maghrebian sources as compared to the Egyptian material. Internal passive forms are used in êìã íúåé T-S J. /  ‘this will be completed’; àðéìà úòôã àãëå úëñðå à[ä]ì[åö]å ãòá íàéà ˙â úñáúçàå T-S J. /  ‘they (the letters) were held back for three days after their arrival and copied and so send to us’; ïàñðà ìëì òôãåé íë Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘how much was paid to everyone’; ï]ôã äðà åøëãå äéãäî ìà[á äòîåâìà íåé T-S J. / f ‘they mentioned that he was buried on Friday in al-Mahdiyya’; ìé÷ T-S . /  ‘it was said’; úáìåè T-S J. /  ‘it was in demand’; àøúùé T-S AS .–T-S J./v. ‘it is being bought’; åòàáåé T-S J. /  ‘they are being bought’. The reading of internal passives may be helped by the use of Tiberian vowel signs, which allow easier identification of forms: ïá ïàå … åøëãô ˙ ìà T-S J. / f ‘they mentioned … that Ibn al-Tumna has ìúR äðîú ¯ úìî%ç been killed’; úøè%î T-S AS .–T-S J./v. ‘it rained upon’; T-S . /  ‘it was carried’. c) th century Internal passives occur in: æôçá áúë T-S J./v. ‘it was written in haste’; àäá øàèù äéìò áúëåé T-S J./v.f ‘a note will be written to him about it’; äéìàâìà éìò øéâöìà êñîé ïà óåë àìà éøåö˙ ç úéìë àî éðàå T-S J. / f ‘indeed, I have left only out of fear that the boy would be seized on account of the poll-tax’; ä˙˙éìà ïðáø óøòåé GW VIII/ ‘it may be known to our lord Eliyahu’; ãìàåìà ãééñìà úåëæ äì ÷ôåéå T-S J. / f ‘may the merit of his father be bestowed upon him’; also in another th-century letter from outside the corpus: ìîòé T-S ./vrm. ‘it will be done’.



chapter five

As in the Maghrebian letters, the reading of internal passives may be aided by the use of vowel signs. In contrast to the earlier letters, however, the writers use Arabic vowel signs: äòøñ áàåâìà ïåëéå øëQã àîë ïàë ïà T-S J./v.ff ‘if it is as it has been mentioned, may the answer be fast’; àé6 áö éìò úëìîà Q äéáöìà äãä ïà åàëçàå T-S J. / f ‘and they said that this girl was engaged to a young man’. d) th/th century Internal passives occur in éñåî äììà÷é T-S . /  ‘he was called M¯us¯a’ and ïéðúà ìà íåé áúë T-S ./v. ‘it was written on Monday’. Examples of n-stems can be found in: àãáà ãòðé àî GW XXVIII/f ‘it will never be counted’; áàá çúôðé T-S NS J /  ‘a door will be opened’. e) th/th century Although vernacular vowel patterns in the th/th century should make the use of internal passives impossible in the spoken language, Classical Arabic appears to have a normative influence on the epistolary register despite its relative closeness to the vernacular, and a few examples of internal passives occur: äðì åîö÷åé 䧧òá ïéô÷ååúî ïéãò÷å T-S J. /  ‘(we) are waiting and expecting, God willing, that they will be divided to our credit’; ïî 䧧òá éù øö˙ çé ïàë ïà 駧ä éøæò ˙éñ äðì ìà÷å ˙ ìà åãë˙ àð äðçà å÷áð äøàá T-S J. /  ‘Mr Ezri, may God äðì íö÷åé éã comfort him, told us: If there was anything, God willing, coming from abroad, we would take what has been given as a share to us’. ... Weak Verbs .... Geminate Verbs In Modern Egyptian Arabic, the conjugation of geminate verbs shows some differences in comparison to Classical Arabic. Classical Arabic inflects farra, farrat, fararta, fararti, farartu, but in the nd person and st person the third radical occasionally unites with the second and a vowel sound is inserted, either with the diphthong -ay (farraytu etc.) or long vowel a¯ (farr¯atu etc.).14 Grammars such as Fischer and

14

See Wright (, I ) and Fischer (, ).

morphology



Wright list these forms as Classical Arabic but they may be post-classical varieties. Similarly, Modern Egyptian Arabic inserts e¯ in the conjugation before suffixes originally starting with a consonant. The verbs are thus conjugated farr, farrit, farr¯et, farr¯eti, farr¯et.15 This is reflected in the letters as early as in the th-century corpus: úéðö˙ CUL Or  J /  ‘I believe’ (C); úéáç GW XXX/ and T-S NS J /  ‘I would like’ (both C/C); àðéáç AIU VIIE  /  ‘we would have liked’ (C/C). .... Verbs with w¯aw as First Radical Occasionally, w¯aw is retained as first radical in the imperfect, probably reflecting Modern Egyptian Arabic forms in which the w¯aw merges with the i of the prefix into long u¯ , for example y¯us. al ‘it will arrive’ and y¯uga# ‘it will hurt’: íëìö˙ ôú ñàðìà úôøòå àðì ìöåé ïà ìá÷ òö˙ àåîìà ìë éô T-S J. /  ‘in every place, before it arrives to us, people have known your courtesy’ (C); áåúëî íåëìöåéå T-S AS . /  ‘a letter will arrive to you’ (C/C). .... Verbs with a Weak Third Radical In Modern Egyptian Arabic, the verbs with w¯aw, y¯a" and hamza as third radical have merged into one common class. This class has two conjugation paradigms in the perfect, fa#al and fi#il, similar to the Classical Arabic paradigms fa#ala and fa#ila/fa#ula. Spitta and Mitchell give the following conjugation tables for the fa#al class: Spitta16 m f m f c

15 16 17

Mitchell17

sing

plur

sing

plur

qar¯a qaret qar¯et qar¯ety qar¯et

c qar¯u

rama ramit ram¯et ram¯eti ram¯et

ramu

c qar¯et¯u c qar¯en¯a

ram¯etu ram¯ena

See Mitchell (, ). Spitta (, f). Mitchell (, ). To facilitate comparison, ee was changed into e¯, and ii into ¯ı.



chapter five

The fi#il class is inflected as follows:

m f m f c

sing

plur

sing

plur

miˇsy miˇsijet miˇsyt miˇsyty miˇsyt

c miˇsij¯u

miˇsi miˇsyit miˇs¯ıt miˇs¯ıti miˇs¯ıt

miˇsyu

c miˇsyt¯u c miˇsyn¯a

miˇs¯ıtu miˇs¯ına

In Classical Arabic, the rd plural masculine of first stem final w¯aw fa#ala and first stem final y¯a" fa#ala are uniform, for example halaw and ˘ fa#ula) ramaw, while the corresponding forms of final w¯aw fa#ila (and and y¯a" fa#ila also show identical morphology, for example rad¯ . u, sar¯u and haz¯u. In the nd person, differences between the verbal classes ˘ apparent in the first stem forms, such as .sg.m. halawta (final become w¯aw fa#ala), ramayta (final y¯a" fa#ala) and raˇs¯ıta (final ˘w¯aw and y¯a" fa#ila). There is early evidence for the merging of the first stem final w¯aw fa#ala into the final y¯a" group, because the -y- from the nd person (e.g., ramayta) starts to appear in the .pl.m of first stem final w¯aw fa#ala verbs by the th century, for example åéìë T-S J. /  ‘they have passed’ (C Egypt) for Classical Arabic halaw. These examples suggest that in ˘ had merged into the final y¯a" at an the vernacular the final w¯aw class earlier stage. In Classical Arabic, verbal forms of final y¯a" and w¯aw in higher stems cannot be distinguished on the basis of their spelling. The forms in the letters are thus in accordance with both Classical Arabic and Modern Egyptian Arabic: úéëçà GW XXX/ ‘I told’ (Classical Arabic hakaytu/a hkaytu, Modern Egyptian Arabic ihk¯ . . . et) (C/C); úéñà÷ T-S J. /  ‘I have suffered’ (C Egypt). Traces of Maghrebian morphology may be found in the letters. The forms åà÷ì T-S J. /  ‘they met’ (C Maghreb), åàúôà T-S . /  ‘they gave a fatwa’ (C Maghreb), and åàèòå Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘and they gave’18 follow the modern Maghrebian forms for the final weak verbs, in which both final y¯a" and w¯aw of the forms fa#ala and fa#ila have merged in the perfect, and the forms of the rd singular feminine and rd plural masculine perfect are, for example, mˇsa¯t and mˇsa¯w, see M. Cohen (, ) and D. Cohen (, ). 18 The fourth stem verb is either used in the first stem, which is a common phenomenon in Judaeo-Arabic, or the verb-initial hamzat al-was. l is not written.

morphology



Another example that probably reflects this Maghrebian inflection can be found in an th-century Egyptian letter: úàîø T-S J. /  ‘they19 threw out’. Similar constructions occur in later Egyptian letters from the th century: àé6 áö éìò úëìîà Q äéáöìà äãä ïà åàëçàå T-S J. / f ‘and they said that this girl was engaged to a young man’, and åà÷áð T-S . /  ‘we remain’. These forms may be explained as reflexes of the Maghrebian conjugation in Jewish Egyptian dialects, or as independently developed phenomena in Judaeo-Egyptian as part of a wider Jewish religiolect. In the imperfect, the y¯a" is retained in plural forms, thus treated like an ordinary consonant, for example äåéîøéå T-S J. /  ‘and they will throw it’ (C Egypt); åéòàøé T-S J. /  ‘they will supervise’ (C Egypt); åéîøé íì T-S J. /  ‘they did not throw’ (C Egypt); íì åéìëé T-S J. /  ‘they did not make space’ (C Egypt); åé÷áé T-S . /  ‘they will remain’ (C Maghreb); åéöà÷ð T-S J. /  ‘we will go to court’ (C unassigned). This phenomenon does not occur in Modern Egyptian Arabic but can be found in the Maghrebian vernacular, see M. Cohen (, ). The distribution of these forms in Egyptian letters may also show the influence of Maghrebian morphology on Egyptian vernacular. All three Egyptian letters in which these forms occur were, however, written by the same author (incidentally, the same author whose letter contains the above mentioned ram¯at). If this is not an independent feature of the Jewish Egyptian religiolect, it may suggest a Maghrebian origin of the writer. The lack of such forms in the later documents may indicate that the writers of the letters had less contact with Maghrebians, or that Ephraim b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Jawhar¯ı, the author of T-S J., T-S J. and T-S J., was actually of Maghrebian origin. .... Verbs with Hamza in Their Roots In general, hamza is relatively stable as a radical in the letters. This is certainly true for the mediaeval material, although a few exceptions may be found, notably in the verb sa"ala. In the later sources from the th/th century, hamza is dropped more frequently.

19 The rd singular feminine is used because inanimate ships are the subject of the clause.



chapter five

..... Hamza as First Radical Hamza as first radical is retained in most examples, following Classical Arabic rules and similar to verbs with initial hamza in Modern Egyptian Arabic; ãëàú T-S ./v. ‘you should take’ (C Egypt); éúàé T-S J. /  ‘he will come’ (C Egypt); éðøëàé àìå T-S ./rm. ‘he should not delay me’ (C Egypt); øîàìà øëàé àì ïà T-S J. /  ‘so that they do not delay the affair’ (C Maghreb); øéëàú T-S . /  ‘to delay’ (C Maghreb); ãëàé T-S . / , T-S J. /  ‘he will take’ (both C); ãåë˙ àé T-S NS . /  ‘he will take’ (C/C). In examples from the th/th century, the hamza is sometimes dropped: åãë˙ ð T-S NS . /  ‘we will take’ (C/C). In the imperfect derived stems II–IV, Classical Arabic has w¯aw as hamza carrier. This can also be found in the letters: äøëåú àì CUL Or  J/v.f, T-S J./v., T-S J./v. ‘do not delay it’ (all C Egypt). This feature appears to have spread occasionally into the first stem forms. Derivates of ahada in Modern Egyptian Arabic often merge into ¯ ‘you should take’ in Mosseri IV.. /  (C the initial w¯aw group:˘ ãëåú Egypt) and T-S . /  (C Maghreb), which may also lie behind the occurence of w¯aw in the first stem. ..... Hamza as Second Radical Spitta describes sa"ala as the only verb of this group in everyday use in th-century Egyptian colloquial Arabic, and it is inflected regularly. Although the majority of examples from the letters involve the verb sa"ala, there are also examples involving derivatives of r¯a"a. In most examples, the hamza is retained: äúìàñå T-S J. /  ‘I asked him’ (C Egypt); äìàñú Bod MS Heb e. . /  ‘you should ask him’ (C Egypt); úéàø T-S . /  (C Egypt) and T-S J. /  (C Maghreb) ‘I saw’; úìàñå T-S . /  ‘I asked him’ (C Maghreb); äàðìàñ T-S J. /  ‘we asked him’ (C); ìàñð T-S J. /  ‘we will ask’ (C); ìàñú GW XXVIII/ (C/C) and T-S NS J /  ‘you should ask’ (C/C); úìàñ CUL Or .. /  ‘I asked’ (C/C); ìàñ T-S AS . /  ‘he asked’ (C/C). In some imperfect forms, however, hamza appears to have been dropped in the orthography.20 However, most of the examples involve the verb sa"ala, and the ligature between alif and l¯am is in many cases hardly

20 According to Brockelmann (, § ) the imperfect of sa"ala can also be written without the hamza in Classical Arabic.

morphology



distinguishable from l¯am on its own: ìñà T-S J. /  (C Egypt) and T-S . /  (C Maghreb) ‘I ask’. ..... Hamza as Third Radical In Modern Egyptian Arabic, verbs with third radical hamza have merged into the final y¯a" class. In the letters, most forms retain Classical Arabic spelling but a few examples show y¯a", which may indicate that the forms had merged in the mediaeval vernacular. In the imperfect, however, it is often impossible to tell the difference, as hamza may be carried on the y¯a". Forms with alif include äàø÷ú T-S J./m. ‘read to him’ (C Egypt); úàø÷ T-S J./v. (C Egypt) and T-S ./rm. (C Maghreb) ‘I read’; àø÷ú Mosseri IV.. /  ‘you should read’ (C Egypt); úàéäú T-S . /  ‘it was ready to go’ (C Maghreb); àî êðéò àìîú T-S . /  ‘what(ever) satisfies your eye’ (C Maghreb); ˙ òá àîäö˙ òá åàøáà íäðàå T-S J./m.f ‘and they released ÷ç ìë ïî àö each other from every right’ (C); äúàøáà ã÷ àäðà T-S J./m. ‘that she just released him’ (C); úàø÷ T-S . /  ‘I read’ (C). Forms with y¯a" are, for example, úéø÷ T-S J. /  ‘I read’ (C Egypt); àðéø÷ T-S J. /  ‘we read’ (C); äúéø÷ T-S ./v. and T-S . /  ‘I read it’ (both C); àäåéø÷ T-S . /  ‘they read it’ (C/C). In the double-weak verb j¯a"a ‘to come’, hamza may disappear. In other examples, a y¯a" which could be either hamza carrier or full consonant is retained: äðñ úâå äðñìà úçø T-S J./v. ‘the year went and a (new) year came’ (C); úéâ˙ GW XXX/, , ,  ‘I came’ (C/C). ... Moods According to Blau,21 the moods have disappeared in Judaeo-Arabic. Analyses of verbal forms in the letters largely confirm this assessment. In the plural, the indicative ending -¯un has disappeared in the rd and nd plural masculine and is generally replaced by the subjunctive and jussive ending -¯u, for example ãéòìà éìò åìöé äììàùðà íäå CUL Or  J/v.f ‘they will arrive, God willing, for the holiday’ (C); äãìåå åä êéìò åìàñé T-S J./v.f ‘he and his son ask about you’ (C). In the singular, the loss of the moods is only apparent in hollow roots and roots with final vowels because in these verbs the medial or final

21

Blau (, ) and (, ).



chapter five

vowel shortens in the apocopate. The following examples were taken from the th-century letters, showing that the loss of moods was long established in the ‘Classical’ mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic period. The forms in the first four examples are particularly suited to demonstrate the loss of the moods because they show alif. In the th century, there is virtually no plene spelling of short /a/, proving that the vowel must have indeed been read as long. In the examples where w¯aw or y¯a" is spelt, there is always an ambiguity whether this actually reflects the loss of the apocopate or whether the short vowel is simply spelt plene. Examples with alif include äâàç øáìà éìò àäì à÷áé íì T-S J. /  ‘there is nothing left to do for them on land’ (C Egypt); éìò àðì à÷áúé íì ãçàå ìãò øáìà T-S J. / f ‘not a single bale left for us on land’ (C Egypt); éù àäéìò à÷áé íìå T-S J. /  ‘nothing remained on it’ (C Maghreb); äôìñ àäéìò à÷áé íì T-S J. / f ‘no debt remained on it’ (C Maghreb). Medial y¯a" and w¯aw are written in òéáé íì T-S . /  ‘he did not buy’ (C Maghreb); äåòéáð íì T-S . /  ‘we have not bought it’ (C Maghreb); ãéøà íìô T-S . /  ‘I did not want’ (C Maghreb); […] éì ïåëé íìå T-S . /  ‘there was no … for me’ (C Maghreb); äéãäîìà éô ìåöå íäì ïåëé íì T-S ./lm.f ‘there was no arrival in Mahdiyya’. Certain rare forms retain the Classical Arabic apocopate: ÷áé íì T-S J. /  ‘it has not remained’ (C Maghreb). Occasionally the apocopate is used hypercorrectly, sometimes for the subjunctive or after laysa, probably by analogy with the apocopate after lam: àðì ïëé ñéìå øàø÷ T-S J. /  ‘there will be no rest for us’ (C Egypt); êì÷éå T-S ./v. ‘and he will say to you’ (C Egypt); [ä]úìîç àî äìîâ ïëé ÷çö éáà éìà T-S J. /  ‘everything I sent him should (go) to Ab¯ u Is. h¯ . aq’ (C Egypt); äéãäîìà éìà [ä]úìîç àî äìîâ ïëú T-S J. /  ‘everything I sent him should (go) to al-Mahdiyya’ (C Egypt); äìàëåìàå êãéá ïëúì Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘the power of attorney (certificate) should be in your hand’ (C Maghreb). ... Vocalisation of Verbs Unlike the later letters, sources from the th to the th centuries show hardly any traces of vernacular vocalisation. There is, however, éìà úôåéú T-S J. /  ‘she died on me’ (C), which may reflect either the i-vowel in the vernacular stem prefix it-, or the imperfect conjugation prefix ti- for the rd feminine singular in other stems.

morphology



In some of the th/th-century letters, such as T-S AS ., short i and u are frequently written and provide insight into the vocalisation of the verbs. In the perfect of the first stem, three vocalisation patterns can be found in Modern Egyptian Arabic: fa#al, fi#il and fu#ul. Hary (, ff) has demonstrated that many verbs which have the pattern fu#ul in Later Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic (LEJA) have the pattern fi#il in Modern Cairene Arabic. He explains that the contrast between the internal passive fu#ila and the stative verb pattern fa#ula were annulled in LEJA, resulting in a single pattern for non-transitive verbs with the two realisations fu#ul and fi#il. Roots with emphatic radicals favoured fu#ul and with non-emphatic fi#il. Eventually, both vowel patterns were used for all roots. Following the end of the th century, the tendency has been to replace fu#ul with fi#il. In the letters part or full vocalisation of both patterns can be found. ˙ åç T-S NS . /  and øåö˙ ç Or... /  ‘it was present’ show øåö fu#ul in accordance with the vocalisation of LEJA (Modern Egyptian Arabic ha . dar . ‘to be present’ according to Mitchell, LEJA hu . dur . ‘to come’ äðìéöå T-S and Modern Cairene Arabic hi dir ‘to come’ according to Hary); . . AS . /  ‘it arrived to us’ (Modern Egyptian Arabic wis. il according to Mitchell). The imperfect forms in Modern Egyptian Arabic are yif#il (fa#al), yif#al (fi#il) and yuf#ul (fu#ul). Traces of these vocalisms are found in the letters, for example, in áéúëéð T-S AS . /  ‘we will write’ from katab. âåøîéú T-S AS . /  ‘you will delay’, however, lacks vowel harmony and does not accord with Modern Egyptian Arabic (tumru˙g). The forms áåçð AIU VIIE  /  ‘we would like’ and åáåçé T-S NS . / f ‘they would like’ show the Judaeo-Arabic preference for u, in contrast with Classical Arabic and Muslim Egyptian nahibb/ni hibb, see Hary (, . . ). Examples of the vocalisation of the second stem, perfect fa##il and imperfect yifa##il, may be found in ìéëåå T-S AS . /  ‘he appointed as agent’ and åìéååèéú T-S AS . /  ‘you should prolong’. The fourth stem in Modern Egyptian Arabic has the perfect af#al and the imperfect yif#il. This is reflected in: íåëîéìòéð T-S AS . /  ‘we inform you’ from a#lama (this could also reflect second stem ni#allim).



chapter five .. The Noun

... The Cases: Oblique Case Replaces Nominative After the disappearance of the case system, the Classical Arabic oblique case ending superseded the Classical Arabic nominative as default form in substandard Arabic, both in the dual (if it is not expressed by the plural, anyway) and in the plural. This is accordingly found in the letters, and, perhaps surprisingly, there is an absolute lack of examples showing the old plural Classical Arabic nominative case ending in the entire corpus investigated for this work, not even in hypercorrect forms. E.g., äøñ øðéã ïéøùòå äéàî àäéô T-S . / f ‘a purse, in it  dinars’ (C Egypt); ïéøéàç ñàðìà T-S J. /  ‘the people are distracted’ (C Egypt); ˙ ë ïé6 éøàãðëñà ñàðà åàâå T-S J. / f22 ‘there came a lot of people ïéøéú from Alexandria’ (C); òéá ìà äìò ïéìâòúñî äðçà AIU VIIE  / f ‘we are hurrying with the sale’ (C/C). ... Cases in the Word ab¯u The only exceptions to the occurence of old Classical Arabic nominative endings are the word ab¯u ‘father’ and ah¯u ‘brother’. In particular in the word ab¯u ‘father’, the distribution of˘the original nominative and genitive endings -¯u and -¯ı does not always conform to Classical Arabic grammatical case. For instance, the original nominative ab¯u occurs in constructions in which the genitive is required in Classical Arabic, e.g., after prepositions and in id¯ . afa-constructions: á÷òé åáà ãé éìò éáúë ãëàå T-S J. /  ‘he took my letters to Ab¯u Jacob’ (C unassigned); íñàá äåáà T-S J. /  ‘in the name of his father’ (C Maghreb); äàôå äåáà T-S J. /  ‘the death of his father’; ïàøîò éáà êéìà äìîç àî T-S . /  ‘what Ab¯u #Imr¯an brought to you’ (C Maghreb); úáøúá êåáàå êéîà T-S J. / f ‘the education of your mother and father’ (C); êàìåî ïééãìà òî äéìîòà êéîòå êéãâå êåáà òî äéìîòú éúðë éãìà øîàìà êéúìàë òîå êéâ˙åæ òîå øéáëìà T-S J. / f ‘the way you were doing towards your father and your grandfather and your uncle, do it toward the judge, your great master, and toward your husband’; êåëà éìà CUL Or  J/m. ‘to your brother’ (C) vs. äéëà éìò CUL Or  J/v. ‘to his brother’. M. Cohen (, ) has described that suffixed forms for

22

The T¯a" in this example is indicated by two dots. ¯

morphology



‘father’ in the Jewish dialect of Algiers are created by attaching the pronominal suffix to either b¯u- or ub¯u, depending on the person. In view of these Maghrebian forms, the åáà forms in genitival constructions may reflect vernacular pronunciation. ... Dual A number of dual forms are found in the letters: øàéà ïî ïé÷á ïéîåéì T-S J. / f ‘two days remain of (the month) Iyy¯ar’ (C Egypt); ïéúøñìàå T-S J. /  ‘two purses’ (C unassigned); ïéìãòå T-S J. /  ‘two bundles’ (C Egypt); ïéåì÷øáå T-S J. /  (C Egypt) and T-S . /  ‘two barqallos’ (C Maghreb). As many of the objects in these examples do not belong to the group of things that naturally come in pairs, the use of the dual ending appears to have been productive in the written language of the traders, at least in the th century. In the phrase bayn yadayn (literally ‘between the hands’ = ‘before’) the nunation may be preserved in the construct state,23 in what appears to be a hypercorrection, e.g., àìåîìà ïéãé ïéá T-S J. /  ‘before the master’ (C); äðãééñ ïéãé ïéá T-S ./v. ‘before our master’ (C/C); and in a letter from the th-century unassigned corpus àìåîìà ïéãé ïéá T-S J. /  ‘before the master’. In the th/th-century material dual forms appear to be used as duals of paucity:24 íåëôøòð ïéèë˙ ìéã ááñ T-S NS . /  ‘the reason of these lines (i.e., the letter) is to inform you’; äâåúî éìåã ïéîåé ìà ïàá íëôøòðå íëôøè àìà ïàùåù çìàö AIU VIIE  / f ‘we let you know that these ˇ uˇsa¯n is coming to you’ (C/C). days S¯ . alih. S¯

23 24

This phenomenon also appears in literary Judaeo-Arabic, see Blau (a, ). Parallel constructions can be found in Hebrew, see Outhwaite (, ).

chapter six LETTER STYLE, PRESENTATION, AND LEXICON

.. Introduction The Genizah letters from various centuries differ not only in their linguistic phenomena, but also in miscellaneous features contributing to ‘general layout and style’. These include introductory formulae, dating, and the use of vocalisation signs to facilitate reading. The Hebrew content, lexicon and the use of number signs also vary in the corpora.

.. Introductory Formulae Letters of the different corpora are easily distinguishable from each other as the introductory formulae differ considerably throughout the centuries. a) th-century Egypt A typical letter introduction in the th-century Egypt corpus is the phrase: êãéàúå êàîòð íàãàå êà÷á äììà ìàèà ìéìâìà êéùìà éàìåîàé éáàúë äúãàòñå äúîàìñå ‘my letter, oh my master, the magnificent elder, may God prolong your life and make your well-being, your support, your safety and your happiness lasting’. This formula, with slight variations, is found in Bod MS Heb d. ., Mosseri IV.., T-S Misc ., T-S NS J, CUL Or  J, T-S J., Bod MS Heb e. .. In many of the letters, the initial kit¯ab¯ı stands isolated and is not integrated into a following clause, and has a presentative function. Letters may additionally give a date following this introductory formula, typically constructed with the preposition li-, followed by the number of days, and, depending on which time of the month, derivations of baqiya ‘remain’ or hal¯a ‘pass’, for example øàéà ïî ïé÷á á˙ ì ‘two days remain from Elul (= th˘Elul)’ and áà ïî úìë ˙âì ‘three days have passed from



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Ab (either the rd or the th of Av)’, or another fixation ìåìà óöð ‘middle of Elul (around the th of Elul)’. This is found, for example, in the letters T-S . and T-S J.. T-S NS . and T-S . add more good wishes to the above formula without supplying a date: êàìëà àì ä÷éôåú ïîå ‘may he not deprive you of his success’. These, or similar wishes such as úà÷åàìà äãàä äéìò äììà ãàòà äøúëá ïéðñ äëøàáîìà ‘may God return to him these blessed times for many years’ or äúîúàë ïñçàá ø˙ ùé ìë éìàå àðéìòå êéìò äììà äîúë ‘may God destine for you and for me and the whole of Israel the best of destiny’, can be found in the following letters, along with a date: T-S J., T-S J., T-S J., T-S J., and T-S .. At the beginning of T-S J. a finite verb replaces the usual kit¯ab¯ı: äúãàòñå êúîòðå êãéàú íàãàå ìâàìà êéùìà éàìåî à÷á äììà ìàèà úáúë ‘I wrote, may God prolong the life of my master the famous elder and make your support, your well-being and your happiness lasting’. The basmala at the very beginning of the letter occurs in only four letters.1 This is a significant difference from Arabic letter formulae as the basmala appears in almost all Arabic letters with very few exceptions, compare the letters edited by Diem.2 Of the Egyptian sources, only T-S J. and PER H  (by the same author) have a Judaeo-Arabic basmala, followed by the typical formula éàìåîàé éáàúë whereas the basmala in its Aramaic/Hebrew form êîùá (àðîçø) is used twice in Dropsie  and T-S Misc .. Dropsie  follows the basmala with the somewhat unusual éãééñ éìà éáàúë íã÷ú ã÷ ïàë êîùá ‘in Your name, a letter of mine had already gone to my master’. A slightly different letter introduction is found in T-S .:3 éëéù ïî ãàæå êðàëî àìëà àìå êà÷á äììà ìàèà éãì øéúà ìàå éìò æéæòìàå éñééøå

˙ô êì äðàñçàå äìö

‘my elder and leader, dear to me, excellent for me, may God prolong your life, and may he not deprive you of your place, and continue his grace and favour towards you’. Apart from this example, all

1 For a discussion of how the basmala came into the Jewish material, see Outhwaite and Wagner (). 2 Diem (), (), (a) and (b). 3 This letter is also exceptional within the Egyptian corpus because it is written on vellum and not on paper.

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



letters in th-century Egypt have kit¯ab¯ı (or katabtu in one case) at their introduction, sometimes preceded by the basmala, followed by a long series of good wishes for the addressee. b) th-century Maghreb In many of the Maghrebian letters, the style of letter introduction differs slightly from the Egyptian material. The introductory kit¯ab¯ı is absent more often than in the Egyptian material and the letters commence with the formula at. a¯la all¯ahu baq¯aka (Classical Arabic at. a¯la all¯ahu baq¯a"aka) sometimes preceded by the basmala, either in Hebrew or in Arabic. The formula at. a¯la all¯ahu baq¯a"aka was used as a blessing on the Abbasid caliphs when addressed at an audience and spread from there into letter writing.4 This introduction can be found with slight variations, for example, in T-S ., T-S J., T-S J., T-S K ., T-S J., Bod MS Heb. d. .: êà÷á äììà ìàèà (basmala) ‘may God prolong your life’. The introduction kit¯ab¯ı is a later addition to the formula at. a¯la all¯ahu baq¯a"aka. The Arabic papyri from the th century edited by Diem () reveal that the standard letter introduction is the basmala, followed by at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯a"aka or similar. The introduction kit¯ab¯ı starts to appear in the th century (compare the introductions in Diem , , a and b). The relative lack of kit¯ab¯ı as compared to the Egyptian letters in the Maghrebian corpus points to the general conservatism of the Maghrebian sources, also visible in script and writing material (see Khan b). In some letters, kit¯ab¯ı is placed before the introductory formula, and similar to its place in the Egyptian letters. This is used in T-S AS .– T-S J., T-S J., T-S ., T-S ., T-S J., T-S ., T-S NS ., T-S ., T-S ., T-S . and CUL Or  J.5 It is significant that these are the later letters of the Maghrebian corpus. The shift to include kit¯ab¯ı as observed in the Egyptian corpus thus appears to infiltrate Maghrebian letters of the later th century. Typical introductions are êà÷á äììà ìàèà éáàúë ‘my letter, may God prolong your life’; êà÷á äììà ìàèà éàìåîå éãéñàé éáàúë ‘my letter, my master and protector, may God prolong your life’; éãéñàéå éëéùàé éáàúë êà÷á äììà ìàèà éìéìâå ‘my letter, my elder and master and glorious, 4 5

Khan (b). This letter is written by three authors and starts with kit¯abn¯a.



chapter six

may God prolong your life’; êà÷á äììà ìàèà éøéáëå éñéøå éëéùàé éáàúë ‘my letter, my elder and leader and exalted, may God prolong your life’. One letter, T-S J., has an atypical introductory formula: óøòà äæò äììà íàãà óéøùìà éàìåî ‘I inform you, my noble protector, may God make your power lasting’. c) th century The epistolary introductions of the th century differ considerably from those observed in the th-century material. Flowery Classical Arabic introductory formulae are abandoned and the letters show a very different and somewhat more pragmatic introduction providing the name of the sender, often with the attribute al-maml¯uk ‘the servant’, (for example T-S ., T-S ., T-S J.) or the name of the addressee (T-S J.). The phrase al-maml¯uk yuqabbil al-ard. ‘the slave kisses the ground’ first appears in petitions to the Fatimid caliph al-Amir (–).6 From there, the phrase spread to letter writing and can later be found in all kind of letters, not only petitions. The phrase is not only a common formula in our th-century corpus, where it appears for example in family letters, but it is also a regular feature of th-century Arabic letters (see the letters edited by Diem). In these sources, the formula appears for example in a letter accompanying a consignment of wares.7 The term maml¯uk is regularly applied to the writers, regardless of their social standing in comparison with the addressee; ãâîìà åáà äëåìîî ãðò ïî î˙ åçø î˙ ùá T-S J. /  ‘in the name of the merciful, from his servant Ab¯u l-Majd’; ˙ øàìà ìá÷é ïñçìà éáà ïá ìö˙ ôìà éáà äìö˙ ô øëàùå äëåìîî T-S J. / f õ ‘his servant and thankful of his grace Ab¯u l-Fadl kisses . . b. Ab¯ı l-Hasan Q ïî ç˙ ø î˙ ùá T-S J. /  ‘in the name of the ground’; êúîò ãåàã íà the merciful, from Umm Da"¯ud your paternal aunt’; éìà 8äøöç ãàìåàìà ïéæéæòìà T-S J. /  ‘to the dear children’; éáøéá íäøáà øâöàìà êåìîîìà ˙ ö˙˙æ áøä äîìù T-S J. / ff ‘the humblest servant éìåîìà ééãé ìá÷åé ì Abraham b. Solomon the rabbi, of blessed memory, kisses the hands of the master’; é]ãé ïéá õ˙ øàìà ìá÷ú äéîåø ìà […] ìà ìçø äëåìîîìà î˙ çø î˙ ùá 6

Khan (b). Diem (b, no. ). 8 The inclusion of singular äøö ˙ ç ‘honourable, majesty’ in this plural phrase is probably a mistake due to its frequent use in letter introductions. 7

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



éìåîìà] T-S . / f ‘in the name of the merciful, the servant Rachel … of Byzantium kisses the ground before the master’; àìåîìà &ä˙ øöç éìà ñééøìà T-S J. /  ‘to the honourable, the master, the leader’. Letters may also start with a biblical or liturgical quotation, such as íééç õò ÷éãö éøô T-S J. /  ‘the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life’; also, for example, CUL Or  J, T-S J., T-S J. and T-S J.. This introduction is in many cases preceded by the basmala in Aramaic/Hebrew, as in T-S .; êú˙ ø˙ åú˙ éá˙ ä˙ åà˙ ì á˙ ø í˙˙åì˙ ù ç˙ ø ù˙ á T-S J. /  ‘Great peace have those who love thy law’ (Psalms :); ïäëä ãåã àðáøå àðøî úùåã÷ úìåãâ ãåáë úøãä ìà êåàøé øùà ìëì éðà øáç

T-S J. / f ‘I am a companion to all who fear Thee.9 To the great and holy prominent and honourable, our master and teacher David haKohen’. Rarely, the letters start without formulae but with a statement of information: éàìåîìà áàúë ìöå CUL Or  J /  ‘the letter of my master10 arrived’. In summary, the writers of the th-century letters use much more variety in their introductions than their th-century counterparts. There is no standard protocol to adhere to, instead, the writers can introduce their letters by biblical quotations, by giving their names or the name of the addressee first, or by immediately commencing the text, stating the reason for their letters. d) th/th century The th/th-century letters in which the beginning of the letter has been preserved11 show either biblical quotations (T-S .), ˇsa¯lom ˇsa¯lom (T-S J.), or an introductory formula: íìò äá èéçé éãìà íåãëîìà T-S NS J /  ‘(the letter) which encompasses the knowledge of the honourable (addressee) (i.e., what the addressee should know)’. The letters are, therefore, similar to those of the th century in that no fixed formula (as in the th-century letters) can be observed. The relative pronoun allad¯ı after the basmala introducing the letter also appears in ¯ edited by Diem, from the th century onwards.12 the Arabic letters

9

Psalms :. The article in front of the noun that is already made definite by the suffix is incorrect both according to Classical Arabic and Modern Egyptian Arabic rules. The author may have analysed mawl¯aya as a noun without a suffix. 11 The letter introductions of T-S ., GW XXVIII and GW XXX are missing. 12 Diem (a, no. ) and possibly Diem (b, no. f and g). 10



chapter six

e) th/th century Letters from the th/th century are usually introduced by íùä úøæòá in its abbreviated forms ùäòá or äòá ‘with the help of God’ followed by the date; RRSS úðù èáù T íåéä ùäòá T-S J. /  ‘with the help of God, ˇ t.  (Era of Creation =  ce)’; íåéä 䧧òá today is the fourth of Seva ˙èñ÷ íéîçø UV á˙ íåé T-S NS . /  ‘with the help of God, today is the Monday th Elul13 (+)  (=  Era of Creation =  ce)’; ˙ ÷˙ ù˙ ø˙ î˙ ì WR íåéä 䧧òá AIU VIIE  /  ‘with the help of God, today is æñ the th of Marheˇ . svan of the year (+)  (=  Era of Creation =  ce)’. This first line is followed by the name of the addressee in the second line: åøà÷˙ ˙éñ ìà åðéáäåàå åðéçà T-S AS . /  ‘our brother and beloved Mr Karo’; åøà÷ åã÷øî éñ ìà åðéçà AIU VIIE  /  ‘our brother Mr Mercado Karo’; åøà÷ åãà÷øî ˙éñìà T-S J. /  ‘Mr Mercado Karo’; éåìä íäøáà íééç åãà÷øî ˙éñìà T-S NS . /  ‘Mr Mercado Hayyim . Abraham ha-Levi’. The third line usually starts with åùãçà (abbreviated åîåìù úùéøã éøçà) ‘after inquiring after your (lit. his) health’ and then the letter begins.

.. Dating As with the letter introductions, the corpora use a variety of dating formulae. Whereas the th-century letters are dated at the beginning of the letters and show the Classical Arabic dating formulae, the date, if at all, occurs more often towards the end of the letter in the th-century. In these letters, the dating is also much less formulaic than in the thcentury sources. The th/th-century material, again, shows the dating in the beginning of the letter. The dating systems and use of numerals also differ considerably. a) th century14 The th-century letters use the Classical Arabic style of dating, which introduces the numerals by li- combined with the use of the verbs baqiya 13

The month of prayers for forgiveness and mercy. As no differences in the form of dating have been observed, the Maghrebian and Egyptian letters are grouped together for this section. 14

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



‘remain’ and hal¯a ‘pass’, see Wright (, II f). In contrast with the ˘ however, counted units seem to be days and not nights. Muslim calendar, The year is given only rarely; ìåìà ïî ïé÷á íééà äøùòì T-S . /  ‘ten days have remained from Elul (= th Elul)’ (C Maghreb); ïé÷á á˙ ì ïåùçøî ïî T-S . /  ‘two (days) have remained from Marheˇ . svan (= ˙ ìåìà ïî ïé÷á ä ì T-S J. /  ‘five th or th Marheˇ s van)’ (C Egypt); . (days) have remained from Elul (= th Elul)’ (C Maghreb); úìë ä˙ ì [ïå]éñ ïî T-S J. /  ‘five (days) have passed from Sivan’ (C Egypt); ˇ t.’ (C èáù ïî ïåìë ˙æì T-S . /  ‘seven (days) have passed from Seva Maghreb); ìåìà ïî ïåìë ä˙ T-S . /  ‘five (days) have passed from Elul’ (C Maghreb). Occasionally, the verb is used in the masculine plural: […] åéìë á˙˙éì ïî T-S J. /  ‘twelve days have passed from …’ (C Egypt). Only rarely, other verbs are used: øééà ïî úö˙ î íàéà ä˙ ì T-S . /  ‘five days have passed from Iyy¯ar’ (C Maghreb). b) th century The th-century dating formulae are much less sophisticated. In most examples it does not appear at the beginning of the letter but at the end, and some of the dates are formed with ordinal numbers;15 áúë ïñéð øäù ïî òáàñ T-S ./v. ‘it was written on the th of Nissan’; éðù øãà ïî ˙å àòáøàìà íåé áúë T-S J./vtopm.f ‘it was written on Wednesday, th of the Second Adar’; ïàåéñ ïî ïéøùòìà äúàìúìà íåé T-S J. /  ‘the th Sivan’; ç˙ ì˙ ÷˙ ú˙ à˙ øãà è˙˙é T-S ./v. ‘(th) of Adar  (of the Seleucid Era =  ce)’; èáù ïî ä˙ ë˙ T-S J. /  ˇ t.’. In the latter example, the date is part of the introductory ‘(th) of Seva formula, which is otherwise rare in the letters. li- is used only occasionally, and if the year is given, it is most often in Seleucid dating: úåøèùì ˙âî˙ ÷˙ ú˙ à˙ ïåùçøî øäù ïî ïîàú ìà ïéðúàìà íåé ïîàúì GW VIII/v.f ‘on the th, Monday, the th of Marheˇ . svan  of the Seleucid era (=  ce)’. Dating according to the Jewish calendar also ˇ t. occurs: äò÷ èáù ˙âë˙ áúë T-S J./v. ‘written on the th of Seva 16 ( +)  (=  Era of Creation =  ce)’.

15 For the possible origin of this dating formula from Hebrew documents see Outhwaite and Wagner (). 16 Written úúã.

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c) th/th century and th/th century The only example of dating in the th/th-century letters provides the weekday but not the date itself: ïéðúà ìà íåé áúë T-S ./v. ‘it was written on Monday’, which is similar to the dating observed in the th century. In the Late Judaeo-Arabic material from the th and th century, the date is usually given in the first line of a letter, as in Modern European letter writing. The number of the date is written with a Persian-Arabic numeral whereas the year is written with Hebrew numerals; èò÷ ïåéñ CUL Or .. /  ‘Sivan (+)  (=  Era of Creation =  ce)’; ˙ ñ÷ íéîçø WX íåéä AIU VIIE  /  ‘today is the th Elul (+)  (= è  Era of Creation =  ce)’; è˙ ñ÷ íéîçø UV á˙ íåé íåéä T-S NS . /  ‘today is the Monday th Elul (+)  (=  Era of Creation =  ce)’. Persian-Arabic numerals may also be used instead of Hebrew numerals in the numbers indicating the year: RRSS úðù èáù T íåéä T-S J. / ˇ t.  (Era of Creation =  ce)’; ïåùç UY íåéä  ‘today is the th of Seva RRSR úðù T-S NS . /  ‘today is the th of Marheˇ . svan  (Era of Creation =  ce)’. The dating in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters is always in Hebrew and never in Judaeo-Arabic.

.. Vocalisation Vocalisation signs are used in some letters but as with many other features, the use of these signs varies between the corpora. a) th-century Egypt No vocalisation signs occur in the Egyptian letters. b) th-century Maghreb In the Maghrebian letters, Tiberian vocalisation occurs occasionally. Most often indicated is the internal passive: úìî%ç T-S . /  ‘it was carried’; úøè%î T-S AS .–T-S J./v. ‘it rained upon’; åøëãô ˙ ìà ïá ïà … T-S J. / f ‘they mentioned … that Ibn alìúR àðîú Tumna has been killed’. Hebrew words may be vocalised, such as ñôà ¯

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



in T-S J. / . In Gil’s edition of T-S * Arabic vowel signs appear, which is misleading as the manuscript was lost in the second World War, and Gil’s transcription is taken over from Goldziher, who introduced the Arabic signs as an aid to reading. c) th century Tiberian vocalization is found in the th-century letters: øàäð àìå T-S J./v. ‘and no day’; äáçàö òî à÷úìà àìå T-S J./v. ‘he did not meet his partner’. In contrast with the th-century letters, many Arabic vowel signs and reading devices can be found, such as íëøëã Q T-S J./v.f ‘your memory’; úàéðá Q T-S . /  ‘small daughters’; äéé6 áö T-S J./v. ‘girl’; the double stroke of the tanw¯ın <àáàúë in T-S J. /  and the dots of the t¯a" marb¯ut. a written with dots as in ä¨ òàñ T-S J./m., with stroke above as in Zäãò T-S . /  or with strokes similar to those of the tanw¯ın as in T-S J. /  ä < øö˙ ç. d) th/th century and th/th century A few ˇsadda signs can be found in the th/th-century letters, e.g., T-S ./v. ‘time period’; ä6çö T-S NS J /  ‘validity’, but no other vocalisation signs occur in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th/th century.

ä6ãî

.. Numerical Value of Letters and Number Constructions The use of numerals, like many other features, varies in the corpora. Whereas the writers of the th-century corpus almost exclusively use Hebrew letters to express constructions with numbers, examples of written numerals can be found in the th-century century letters. Like the th-century letters, the th-century letters may also use Hebrew letters as numerals as do the th/th-century letters. In the th/thcentury corpus, the numerals used are predominantly Persian-Arabic numeral signs, although the years of the Jewish calendar may be given with Hebrew letters; ˙ðéã ù˙ íäéô øøö ˙â êì [úäâ]å ã÷å T-S ./v. ‘I just sent you  purses in them  dinars’ (C Maghreb); íàéà ˙â úñáúçàå T-S J. /  ‘they were held back for  days’ (C Maghreb); ã÷ úðëå ˙ … éáöìà òî úãôðà T-S J./v.ff ‘I had sent with the young êñð ã

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man …  copies’ (C); óàöðú ˙â úìîò GW XXX/ ‘I made  half-dinars’ (C/C); óöð ø˙ úøàö GW XXX/ ‘this made it  half-dinars’; R[ øã÷ ˙ ô˙ V[[ T-S ä÷åà T-S J. / f ‘ ounces in quantity’ (C/C); äö NS . /  ‘ fad. da’ . (C/C). The letters from the th century often exhibit an interesting use of letters in their numerical value. Instead of ø, the usual sign for ‘’, a double ÷ (the sign for ‘’) is used to indicate ‘’: áééèìà ìàìàîìà ˙ ÷˙ ÷˙ éìà ô˙ ÷˙ ÷˙ ïî íéã÷ìà T-S J. / f ‘the good old M¯al¯al-flax (values) ò from  to ’; ÷˙ ÷˙ éìà ë˙ ÷˙ ÷˙ ïî êìã øéâå T-S J. /  ‘and other from  to ’ (a letter from the th-century unassigned corpus) and ˙ ÷˙ äéô äøö T-S ./v. ‘a purse, in it  high quality ãàéâ äéáøâî ÷ Maghrebians’ (a letter from outside the corpus). This may be due to the fact that ø greatly resembles the much lower number ã ‘four’, and was, therefore, avoided.

.. Abbreviations and Ligatures Abbreviations are marked by a stroke or a dot above the letter(s) in the present corpus.17 The Hebrew abbreviations, eulogies, blessing or curses, often have dots but may also show strokes, while the Arabic abbreviations more often have a stroke at the end. Passages of Hebrew are also often marked with strokes or dots over all the Hebrew words, especially biblical quotations. Regular abbreviations of Arabic words are the singular of dinar ˙ðéã, for example in T-S J. /  and T-S J. / , and the plural of dinar ˙ððã T-S . /  and à˙ ðã ˙éìà T-S J. / . For the Hebrew phrase ‘whole of Israel’ there is ø˙ ùé ì˙ ë T-S J. / ; T-S . / . ‘Half ’ is often abbreviated õ˙ ð, e.g., T-S . / . This could easily be interpreted as vernacular nus. s. but the stroke of abbreviation over the two letters shows it is an abbreviated form. A number of abbreviations occur in the blessing formulae for people, e.g., ˙ðð T-S J./b.u., , ˙éé T-S J. / , ò˙ ð T-S J. /  and ç˙ ø è˙ ð T-S J. / , . The abbreviation ˙ï for ‘son’ only occurs in the material from the th/th century. Similarly, ò˙ for ‘value, sum’ is only found in the th/ th-century material. 17 Since there is a smooth transition between dot, stroke-like dot and stroke above the consonant, all these signs are indicated in the following with a dot above the consonants for practical reasons.

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



The words sal¯am, inˇsall¯ah and all¯ah are often written with ligatures, and resemble their Arabic word skeleton (rasm).

.. Lexical Features The lexicon varies considerably in the different corpora. The letters from the th/th century exhibit a large number of vernacular words, such as halbatt ‘probably’ or bit¯a # ‘belonging to’. The content of Hebrew words in the letters varies greatly according to the period and nature (private or business) of the correspondence. Some of the following selected lexical items may be used as criteria for the dating of manuscripts, while other items occur in all corpora and can be evaluated as general features of Judaeo-Arabic letter writing. ... ‘To Send’ In letters, the term ‘sending’ is a crucial and prominent feature. Letters, goods, and wares are sent and requested to be sent. Significantly, the use of terms for ‘to send’ in connection with letters differs greatly in the different corpora and the verbs used may act as a ‘shibboleth’ for the dating of a letter. In the th-century material, the verb nafada18 is used: äãôðé äìåöå ãðòå ¯ äéìà T-S ./rm.f ‘when it (the account) arrives, he should send it to him’; áéàúîìà àðúãàñ áúë ïî äãôðà àî ìåöå T-S J. /  ‘the arrival of what he sent from the letters of our masters the academies’; ãôðð éðà T-S J. /  ‘that I will send’;19 ñéðúì éì 20äö˙ ôðú ïà áçà Mosseri IV.. /  ‘I would like you to send it for me to Tinn¯ıs’. In the dated letters of our corpus, nafada almost exclusively appears in ¯ in th century documents the th-century letters,21 and it is also used from outside the corpus, thus the use of the verb nafada may be used as ¯ the th or th a factor determining that an undated letter comes from century.

18 While the word nafada is used for sending of letters and other light goods, the word ¯ for ‘shipping’ of heavier goods in the th-century letters is hamala. . 19 For the morphology of the verb, see under .... 20 The writer of the letter frequently writes d with ö ˙. ¯ letters. 21 It also appears frequently in th-century

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The writers of the th-century material use the verb sayyir/sayyara to express ‘sending’:22 áàúë éì øééñé íëðî ãçà [àî] T-S . / f ‘none of you sends me a letter’; äòøñ éì àäøéñúå T-S J./topm.f ‘send them to me quickly!’; ä÷øå àäì øééñ T-S J./v. ‘send her a note’; äì úì÷ô êéìà øééñð T-S J. / f ‘I told him: we will send to you’. In the th/th-century material, the verb arsala is used: úìñøà éúëà ˙ îìì ìñøà áàúë éì T-S NS J /  ‘my sister sent me a letter’; àãä áàåâ î áàúëìà T-S ./v.f ‘he sent me (lit. to the servant) the answer to this letter’. The verb arsala is also used in the th/th-century material: áåúëî íåäì äðìñøàå AIU VIIE  /  ‘we sent a letter to them’; íåëì ìéñøð T[ ìà T-S AS . /  ‘we will send you the ’; íëìö˙ ô˙ ïî äãë éô ìåöðå÷ìà åôøòú åìñøú T-S Ar. . /  ‘and so please send to inform the consul’. ... maml¯uk and mahd¯um ˘ The words maml¯uk (sometimes abbreviated î˙ î) for the writer of the letter and mahd¯um (abbreviated ë˙ î) for the addressee appear in letters ˘ of the th century, and are frequently found in the th-century and th/th-century material, whereas they are completely absent in the th-century material: âøôìà åáà äëåìîî T-S . /  ‘his servant Ab¯u l-Faraj’ (C); êúëåìîî ïî T-S J. /  ‘from your (female) servant’ (C); áúë [ä˙ ]ãò ë˙ îìì ìñøà î˙ îìà ïàë éãééñ íìòé íú T-S . /  ‘then my master should know that I (lit. the servant) sent a number of letters to you (lit. the served)’ (C/C); íåãëîìà íìò äá èéçé éãìà T-S NS J  /  ‘(the letter) which encompasses the knowledge of the honourable (i.e., what the addressee should know)’ (C/C). ... Other Lexical Peculiarities Other lexical features of note include the merged form of j¯a"a + bi- = ‘to bring’, which appears in all the corpora, e.g., éòî äáéâð T-S J. /  ‘I will bring it with me’ (C Egypt); éòî äáéâðå T-S J./v. ‘I will bring it with me’ (C unassigned); áàúë áàâå GW VIII/f ‘he brought a writ’ (C); êãðò øôåñìà áéâú ìñøú T-S . /  ‘send to bring the scholar to your place’ (C/C); íåäðî áàååâ äðì åáéâúå T-S J. / f ‘give us an answer about them’ (C/C).

22

One letter (T-S .) uses nafada but it is not clear where the letter was written. ¯

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



Similarly, q¯ala and the preposition li- often merge into one word. Again, this form is not restricted temporally but can be found in all corpora. It is, however, more frequent in the later letters, e.g., éìà÷ T-S J./v. ‘he told me’ (C Egypt); éìå÷éá GW XXVIII/ ‘he says to me’ (C/C); äììà÷ T-S . /  ‘he said to me’ (C/C); éì÷ GW XXX/ ‘he said to me’ (C/C); øåëãî ìà éìà÷ 23éô T-S AS . / f ‘the aforementioned said to me’ (C/C); ñéâøéâ ò˙ î ìà éìà÷ T-S AS . / f ‘the honourable Girgis told me’ (C/C). Another combined form j¯a-la ‘to come to’ appears in the th/thcentury corpus: íàééà Y éô ùø÷ óìà S åìàâå T-S NS . /  ‘. piasters came for him (to be redeemed) within  days’. A phrase that appears very frequently in the th-century letters is äììàô, which may have originated as a hypercorrect form of the exclamation wall¯ahi ‘by God’, in which the wa- was replaced with fa-. As fa- had been lost in the vernacular and was seen as a feature of Classical Arabic, it probably replaced the Classical Arabic wa-, which was part of the vernacular, in an attempt to create more ‘elevated’, ‘classical’ constructions. The form fall¯ah spread and was used in all kinds of sentences, especially in formulae but also in conditional clauses and other phrases that show fa- in Classical Arabic. E.g., éö˙ àøàìà äãä éô úðëñ ïàô ˙ àø éìò ïëé àì äììàô T-S J. /  ‘if I lived in these lands, by God, éö it would not be pleasant (voluntary)’; àðáåì÷ ïîèé äììàô T-S J. /  ‘may God calm our hearts’; çéçö äìòâé äììàô T-S . /  ‘may God make it right’. Classical Arabic fourth stem verbal forms may be changed into first stem forms in letters from the th century onwards, which is a phenomenon known from other Arabic substandard varieties.24 For example, whereas the th-century material frequently shows exclusively ad¯ama in the introductory formulae, d¯ama is found in material from the th century: äæò äììà íàã T-S . /  ‘may God make his strength lasting’ (C). Similarly, s. a¯ba is found instead of as. a¯ba: äùéòî àäéô àðáö àîå àìöà T-S J. /  ‘we did not find in it a livelihood at all’ (C); àðáöô áàúëìà ìîàç õëùì[à ä]ãàä àäéô T-S J. /  ‘and we met in it this person, bearer of the letter’ (C). The th/th-century letters show vernacular lexicon in abundance, for example, the lexemes h¯ . aga ‘thing’, halbatt ‘probably’ and bass ‘but, 23 In the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters, fa- is almost always written as an independent word, spelt éô. 24 For example in Christian Arabic, see Blau (–, f).



chapter six

however’, e.g., íåäðî äâàç 25éùåèá÷ ïàëðà T-S NS . /  ‘if you have received anything from them’; úáìä T-S J. /  ‘probably’; ñá T-S NS . /  ‘but, however’. ... Hebrew Content A central and prominent feature of Jewish religiolects is their Hebrew content. Hebrew elements are incorporated via many different strategies into the target Judaeo-X-language, e.g., in the form of borrowing, calques, or code switching. The way by which Hebrew is incorporated can shed light on how it came into the target language. For example, Gold () has proposed for Yiddish that the Hebrew component was borrowed through oral language contact on the basis of the periphrastic verbs26 and the integration of Hebrew morphemes into the Germanic component. Judaeo-Arabic does not show the same degree of interference of the Hebrew component as Yiddish but there is also a substantial Hebrew element in certain Judaeo-Arabic registers. Several scholars have dealt with this Hebrew component in Judaeo-Arabic. Hary () has written on Hebrew elements in Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic texts, for example, on how Hebrew words adapt to Arabic phonetics, how they may be supplied with an Arabic marker (declination, article, etc.) and how Hebrew roots are borrowed. Karen Almbladh () has investigated the Hebrew content of letters, while Cohen () has published on the interplay between Arabic and Hebrew. The incorporation of Hebrew into Judaeo-Arabic has also been discussed by Blau (, ff and appendix II), who rejects Halper’s (, f) proposal of a ‘marked difference in the use of Hebrew phrases between the generations preceding Maimonides and that of Maimonides himself ’. In light of the evidence from the letters, a change in the inclusion of Hebrew in letter writing after Maimonides through the influence of this great Jewish authority seems, however, probable. The th-century letters have a much higher Hebrew component than letters from the th-century. In the th century, religious leaders may write their correspondence wholly in Hebrew and incorporate Hebrew citations into their

25 The Classical Arabic root consonant d and the t of the suffix become -tt-, followed . .. by enclitic -ˇsay/-ˇse¯, possibly in analogy to the negation particle -ˇsi. 26 In these periphrastic verbs, Hebrew nouns, often participles, are combined with the Germanic verbs zayn ‘to be’ and hobn ‘to have’, for example moykhl zayn ‘to forgive’ and mezalzl zayn ‘to humiliate’.

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



epistolary Judaeo-Arabic but the Middle class of merchants rarely include any Hebrew elements in their letters. In the th century, however, all letters including business and family correspondence show a considerable Hebrew component. It may not only be the influence of Maimonides that brought about this change in attitude but the influx of Spanish Jews in general, who had a preference for Hebrew. According to Cesar MerchanHamann,27 Jews in Spain began switching from Judaeo-Arabic to Hebrew as a literary language in the th century. Therefore, it is likely that the growing penchant for Hebrew writing within the wider Egyptian Jewish population may be due to growing influence of Spanish Jews, such as Maimonides. The following section is less concerned with strategies of how Hebrew elements are incorporated into Judaeo-Arabic and focuses on a quantitative analysis of the lexical Hebrew content in different centuries of Judaeo-Arabic letter writing. Whereas the Hebrew content in the letters from th-century Egypt is negligible, a number of Hebrew words and phrases are used in the th-century Maghrebian letters. This may indicate a more religious atmosphere in the Maghreb that led to segregation of the Jewish part of the population. The lack of Hebrew in the Egyptian letters may also be due to the general secular nature of the mercantile correspondence, in which Hebrew had less of a role. The th-century letters use Hebrew to a great extent. In many letters, sections are written wholly in Hebrew, whereas within the Judao-Arabic passages many Hebrew phrases and words are incorporated. In most of the th/th-century letters, only a few Hebrew words appear, although one letter (T-S .) shows a very high proportion of Hebrew words and phrases. The th/th-century letters use a wide range of Hebrew words and extensive Hebrew formulae in the introduction. Significantly, many examples of code switching between Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew may be found, a feature that is also very common in Yiddish. a) th-century Egypt Hebrew words are rare in this corpus. Only occasionally do lexemes appear in a few letters: úøöò äáøò åäå T-S J. /  ‘and it is the evening ˇ of Semini As. eret’; çáøìà T-S . /  ‘the profit’. 27 Proposed in a lecture delivered at CRASSH, University of Cambridge, on rd November .



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b) th-century Maghreb In the Maghrebian corpus, there is a substantial proportion of Hebrew words, phrases, whole sentences or paragraphs written in Hebrew: ïàëå ˙ ç ùàø äòîâìà íåé äìåöå T-S J. / f ‘they arrived on Friday, the day ã of the new month’; úåøöìà äãäå T-S J./rm. ‘these troubles’; íåìùå áø T-S J./v. ‘much peace’; úåáø úåøö äãäô T-S J. /  ‘this is big troubles’. c) th century The th-century letters show a greater Hebrew element than the thcentury letters. This may reflect a move away from the Classical Arabic ideal as a result of the weakening of the bourgeoisie and the general economic impoverishment of Egypt (see also chapter .), or the influence of Spanish Jews, such as Maimonides (see above). th-century epistolary writing uses many Hebrew words, phrases or complete clauses, partly biblical quotation, partly self-composed prose, and large parts of the letters may be written in Hebrew. E.g., T-S J. is introduced by Psalms :, followed by an introductory formula in Hebrew: àðøî úùåã÷ úìåãâ ãåáë úøãä ìà êåà˙ øé øù˙ à ìë˙ ì éð˙à øá˙ ç ïäåëä ãåã àðáøå T-S J. / f ‘I am a companion to all who fear Thee (Psalms :). To the great and holy majesty of honour, our master and teacher David ha-Kohen’. Other examples include ÷ç éô ìîòð àî àðôøòé [í]éîåúéìà CUL Or  J/m.f ‘he should inform us what we should do regarding the legal claims of the orphans’; ä÷ôðì éù éô úðë åì òãåé àåäå àìöà éù êðî úáìè àî úáñìà T-S NS J / f ‘and you (lit. he) know if I had anything to spend for the Sabbath I would not ask anything from you at all’; íåìùìà àäðéáå êðéá çøè T-S J. /  ‘he made peace between you and her’; ïàçéø úñ äìö˙ àôìà äøéáâä éìò íìñúå T-S J. /  ‘and greet the gracious lady Sitt Rayh¯ . an’; éìåîìì áúëð ïà åãåä íåøé àðãééñ øîàô T-S J. /  ‘and our lord (may his glory be exalted) ordered that we write to our patron’; êçåøî êìà (sic!) àðà T-S J./v.f ‘Whither shall I go from thy spirit (Psalms :)’. d) th/th century Isolated Hebrew words occur in most letters, such as úéáø in GW XXX/ and íåìù GW XXVIII/, GW XXX/ and T-S J. / , but one letter, T-S ., written from Gaza to Cairo, uses a high percentage of Hebrew.

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



Its first  lines are written in Hebrew, with an introduction consisting of Biblical citations, and most of the latter part of the letter is written in Hebrew. In the Arabic text many Hebrew words may also be found. ìåãâ øòöá àìà äáúëà àî T-S ./v.f ‘I am only writing it in great sorrow’; äòåáùå ïéð÷á êìã ìîòà úáìè ïàå T-S ./v. ‘if you want me to do that with right of ownership and oath’. e) th/th century Much of the Hebrew of the th/th-century letters occurs in abbreviations, such as ùäòá or äòá (for íùä úøæòá) ‘with the help of God’ or åùãçà (for åîåìù úùéøã éøçà) ‘after inquiring after your (lit. his) health’, which are used formulaically. E.g., éðù íåé 䧧òá AIU VIIE  /  ‘with God’s help (on a) second day’; åùãçà AIU VIIE  / , AIU VIIE  / , CUL Or .. /  ‘after inquiring after your (lit. his) health’. Other examples use Hebrew words as loanwords: úàáù ìà íåé T-S NS . /  ‘the Shabbat’; íåëì åìñøð øçî T-S J. /  ‘tomorrow we shall send to you’; ïî úøåî úäâ28 ôñåé T-S NS . /  ‘concerning the wife of Joseph’. A letter from outside the corpus, CUL Or .., shows an extreme mixture of Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew,29 with intra-sentential code switching between the two languages. Intra-sentential code switching between Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic also occurs in one example in the corpus, in which Hebrew ˇs- introduces an Arabic relative clause: éâéù íåé äîéà÷ äéá íåëì åìñøð T-S J. /  ‘on the day that it will arrive, we shall send you an inventory of it’. Intra-sentential code switching is a common phenomenon in Yiddish30 but it is less common in Judaeo-Arabic. Both the phenomena in CUL Or .. and the ˇs- introduced relative clause are most likely not features of the Judaeo-Arabic vernacular but of written Judaeo-Arabic. Of special interest is this construction in the light of tanw¯ın-derived an constructions used with temporal expressions that appear in Judaeo-Arabic (see ..). This an appears in 28 In this example, úøåî probably shows the Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic shift from i to u. Standard Cairene has mir¯at for ‘wife of ’ (Hinds-Badawi , ), whereas the Jewish variety has murat. For the preference of u over i in Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic, see Hary (, f). 29 A sample of the letter (l. –): ìàì çáù éìà êéðôì íéðåðçúáå äù÷áá éúàá ïàá éë ˙ à àé

˙ á íùä êåøá íåëðò àðòîñ êøáúé éøùàå êøùà íéáåè íéùòîå úååöî áåçúå øéúë ä÷ãö ìà áåçúå øéë êúéá ïåëé ïàîéãå úååöîì äëæúå àáä íìåòä ééçì ïîåæî êøáúé åúãåáòì íéðùå íéîé øçàì 䧧òá ê÷ìç ïé÷àè ÷àè ìà éèòúå ú§§éù ìà êøã÷éå çåúôî. 30

For a typology of code-switching in Yiddish, see Szulmajster-Celnikier ().



chapter six

exactly the same construction as a relative particle, for example ïà íåé T-S . /  ‘the day your letter arrived’, and is a feature of written Judaeo-Arabic. The use of ˇs- in this context may reflect the dislike of the writer for an (which is incorrect according to Classical Arabic rules), and his intention may have been to replace it with the ‘correct’ Hebrew equivalent, or it may simply represent the Hebrew translation of an.

êáàúë ìöå

.. Summary The typical epistolary features found in the respective corpora are as follows: a) th century • Introduction: kit¯ab¯ı mawl¯aya wa-sayyid¯ı … at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯a"aka (CA transliteration), more typical in Egypt; basmala, at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯a"aka … (CA transliteration), more typical in the Maghreb. • Dating: according to Classical Arabic, after the introductory formula • Hebrew content: almost none (Egypt), some words and phrases (Maghreb) • Vocalisation signs: none (Egypt), occasional Tiberian vocalisation (Maghreb) • Numerals: Hebrew letters • Verb ‘to send’: nafada ¯ b) th century • Introduction: sender (maml¯uk) or addressee (mahd¯um), Hebrew ˘ quotations, no standard formulae • Dating: only rarely, often at the end, similar to Hebrew dating • Hebrew content: high • Vocalisation signs: Tiberian vocalisation and frequent Arabic vocalisation • Numerals: Hebrew letters • Verb ‘to send’: sayyara/sayyir • Occurrence of fall¯ahi • Occasionally first stem verbal form instead of fourth stem forms

letter style, presentation, and lexicon



c) th/th century • • • •

Vocalisation signs: none Numerals: Hebrew letters Verb ‘to send’: arsala Occasionally first stem verbal form instead of fourth stem forms

d) th/th century • Introduction: ùäòá, followed by dating in Hebrew with PersianArabic or Hebrew numerals, followed by name of addressee, followed by åùãçà • Hebrew content: high • Vocalisation signs: none • Numerals: Persian-Arabic numerals • Verb ‘to send’: arsala • Vernacular vocabulary

chapter seven SYNTAX

.. Demonstrative Pronouns ... Distribution and Usage of the Demonstrative Pronouns The demonstratives in the Judaeo-Arabic letters from the Genizah are employed in a very different way to Classical Arabic. In addition to the obvious differences that exist between the substandard variety and Classical Arabic, major variations in the use of demonstratives in the th-century and th-century letters can be observed in contrast with those from the th/th century. The th/th-century corpus has been excluded in this chapter as it contains insufficient examples of demonstratives for a reliable comparative study. Instead of the Classical Arabic system of near and far deixis, the letters of the th and th century show a clear differentiation between pronominal demonstratives and attributive demonstratives as well as a possible distinction between anaphoric and cataphoric demonstratives. The demonstrative h¯ad¯a is mainly used as an attributival demonstrative ¯ while d¯alika serves almost exclusively pronominally. However, if the ¯ pronominal demonstrative stands in a cataphoric position, h¯ad¯a appears to be preferred over d¯alika. In the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters, di¯takes over the function of h¯ad¯a¯ , while d¯alika, in contrast to the earlier letters, may ¯ ¯ also appear attributively. .... The th-Century Letters In the th-century letters, a clear distinction between pronominal and attributive demonstratives can be observed. There also appears to be a differentiation between anaphoric and cataphoric demonstratives in most cases.



chapter seven

a) d¯alika used pronominally ¯ The form d¯alika is used almost exclusively pronominally, certainly in all ¯ the demonstrative is anaphoric. It has shed its function as an cases when attributive demonstrative of the far-deixis: êìã øéâ ïàå T-S . /  ‘if (it is) not like this’ (C Maghreb); êìã ãòáå T-S J. /  ‘and after that’ (C unassigned); êìã íúåé êìö˙ ôúå äììà ìö˙ ôúá åâøàå T-S J. /  ‘I hope that in God’s grace and in your own this (matter) will be completed’ (C Maghreb); êìã éàìåî íìòà T-S J. /  ‘know, my master, this!’ (C Egypt); ìåàìà áàúëìà ãòá úáúë éãìà áúëìà ïî êìã êì óùëðà ã÷ ïà åâøàå T-S J. / f ‘I hope that this has already been revealed to you from the letter that I wrote you after the first letter’ (C Egypt); éáì÷ êìã ìâ˙ùàô T-S J. / f ‘this troubled my heart’ (C Maghreb); éô äîæàìà àðàå êìã T-S J. /  ‘I will force him concerning that’ (C Maghreb); ˙ øàúëú íì àã˙ àô T-S NS . / f ‘if àéìåë ìàá àäàøù òè÷ð àðà êìàã you don’t want this, I will stop buying it entirely’ (C Egypt). b) d¯alika used attributively ¯ Attributive d¯alika occurs only in very few examples: íåéìà êìàã˙ éô T-S ¯ that same day’ (C Egypt); ú÷åìà êìã éô àäàðòá àðë åì . / f ‘on øéë ïàë T-S J. /  ‘if we had sold them at that time, it would have been better’ (C Maghreb); éù ïàìåëìà êìàã˙ ïî òéáð øã÷ð íì àãä òîå T-S ./v. ‘still, I could not sell anything from that papyrus (succus lycii)’ (C Maghreb). In one example, the noun after the demonstrative unusually lacks the article: øîà êìàã˙ ïî êáì÷ éô ò÷é ïà úîìò åì àã˙ àä òîå àäúéøúùà àîì T-S NS . / f ‘nevertheless, had I known that this matter would go to your heart, I would certainly not have bought it’ (C Egypt). In the two last examples, d¯alika might have been used to contrast ¯ sentence. the pronominal h¯ad¯a earlier in the c) Attributive h¯ad¯a ¯ The demonstrative h¯ad¯a is predominantly used attributively and pre¯ cedes the noun it determines, which takes the article: òî íàéàìà äãä éôå ïéøëà âåéô T-S . /  ‘these days with other couriers’ (C Maghreb); ˙ àä éô õ˙ ôð ìàô T-S . /  ‘the hatching is this Friday’ (C äòîâìà éã Egypt); íåöìà àãä éô éðìîâé éàìåî ìàñà àðàå T-S J. / f ‘I ask my master to show his graciousness to me on this fast day’ (C unassigned); úøëãô áàúëìà àãàä úáúë àîàå T-S J. /  ‘and when I wrote this

syntax



letter, I remembered’ (C unassigned). Only when the noun is determined by an id¯ . afa construction or a suffix does the demonstrative follow, just as in Classical Arabic: àã˙ àä éîåé éô T-S NS . /  ‘on this day of mine’ (C Egypt); éìò ïáì áàúë àã˙ ä éáàúë òîå T-S ./v. ‘with this letter of mine there is a letter for Ibn #Ali’ (C Maghreb); and in a letter from outside the corpus àã˙ ä àðáàúë íåé àäìåöå ïàë Bod MS Heb d. . /  ‘it arrived on the day of this letter of ours’. d) Pronominal use of h¯ad¯a ¯ Although d¯alika is the preferred pronominal pronoun, h¯ad¯a also occurs ¯ a number of times. In some of these examples, h¯ad¯a is pronominally used cataphorically: úö˙ á÷ éàìåîì éáàúë íåé àìà áàúë äðî õ˙ á÷à íì úðëå àäçøù àãàäå øàòñàìà éô øëãé éìà … éìàë áàúë äðî T-S J./v.f ‘I did not receive a letter from him except when on the day of my letter to my master I received from him a (forwarded) letter from my uncle to me … in which he gives the prices, and this is their explanation: …’ (C Egypt); äéìà ìöé áàúë ìë ïåëé ïà äøéñ ïéç éô øîà àãäá ïàì [àä]úöá÷å éãéì ìöé ïà éçàåðìà éà ïî T-S J. / f ‘and I received them because he ordered this (the following) when he left: that any letter that arrives for him from anywhere should come to me’ (C Maghreb); äã˙ àä íìòà êñôð áééèô T-S J. /  ‘know this (the following) and calm yourself: …’ (C unassigned). In all these examples, the demonstrative is used cataphorically, with the referred statement following immediately; this is probably why it was employed instead of the pronominal demonstrative d¯alika, which is usually used anaphorically. ¯ In other examples, h¯ad¯a appears to be used as a presentative: éô åäô [éäú]ùð àðàå ÷øæàå õ˙ éáà àã˙ ä ïàì åàäúùà éãìà ïåììà åä ñéì äðëì ïñçìà úéàâ˙ ˙ åî T-S . / f ‘it is most beautiful but it is not the éìöá ÷øæàìà òö colour they ordered because this is white and blue and instead of the blue one I ordered an onion-coloured one’ (C Maghreb); óøòé àî éù àãäå ùà T-S ./v.f ‘this is a thing—one does not know what it is’ (C Maghreb); éìà ìöú äàìåî áúë äãäå T-S J. / f ‘these are the letters of his master which should reach me’ (C unassigned); éãìà äììà ãîçà óéøìà éô úðàå àãä ê÷çìé íì T-S J./rm. ff ‘praised be God that this did not happen to you while you were in al-R¯ıf (the provinces)’ (C unassigned); äðñ ìë ìúî éä àî äðñìà éã˙ àäå T-S NS . /  ‘this is a year unlike any year’ (C Egypt); àã˙ àä ïî ìâà êãðò [àð]à àìà éãðò ïàë àîå ˙ ìà T-S NS . / f ‘I would óñåé ìúî éåñìà íàìë éðò úòîñ äá éðúáúàë éã only have thought that I am in higher esteem with you than this man,

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concerning whom you wrote to me that you had heard unjust rumours about me from, (a man) like Joseph’ (C Egypt); äãðò éúâàç ìåà éãàä CUL Or  J /  ‘this is my first task with him’ (C unassigned). In contrast to the above examples, a number of examples with h¯ad¯a are used anaphorically and thus in an identical context to d¯alika. Seman¯ of d¯alika and tically, no differences of far and near deixis between the use h¯ad¯a can be observed in these examples: êìàã˙ ïî òéáð øã÷ð íì àãä òîå ¯ éù ïàìåëìà T-S ./v. ‘despite this I could not sell anything from that papyrus (succus lycii)’ (C Maghreb); äãä ãòá âøëú éäå T-S . / f ‘and it will go out after this’ (C Maghreb); àã˙ ä ìúî T-S AS .–T-S J./topm.f ‘like that’ (C Maghreb); éô ò÷é ïà úîìò åì àã˙ àä òîå ˙ ïî êáì÷ T-S NS . / f ‘still, had I known àäúéøúùà àîì øîà êìàã that this matter would go to your heart, I would certainly not have bought it’ (C Egypt); àã˙ àä ïî øúëà çøùð àî T-S NS . / f ‘I will not explain any more than this’ (C Egypt); àã˙ ä éô T-S J. /  ‘in this’ (C Maghreb); ïàë àã˙ äå T-S . /  ‘and this was’ (C Maghreb); ˙ ä øéâ T-S . /  ‘except this’ (C Maghreb); àãä ãòá Bod MS Heb. àã d. . / ,  ‘before that’ (C Egypt); àãä ìá÷ Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘after that’ (C Egypt). e) Other demonstrative pronouns Although plural nouns are usually refered to by singular demonstratives, examples for the Classical Arabic plural demonstrative h¯a"ul¯a"i may be found, which occur pronominally: òâàø ìàúò ìà øñé áøà÷ ïà àìåä åøëã T-S J./v. ‘these (people) mentioned that the boat of Yusr al-#Att¯al is about to return’ (C Egypt); óåö äéô ïàë àî éàìåàä äãéøé T-S ./v. ‘he wants those that have no wool in it’ (C Egypt). Even though the letter T-S J. was written in Alexandria, the writer Hall¯uf b. Zakariyy¯a came originally from Qayrawan.1 Thus it is not ˘ to find in his prose the feminine Moroccan Arabic demonstrasurprising tive d¯ık. Theoretically, it could also represent Modern Egyptian Arabic diha, which is, however, restricted in its use: àìåàìà áåúëìà êéã ãòá T-S ˘ J./rm.  ‘after this first letters’ (C unassigned). Occasionally the form d¯aka may be found, which is part of the Classical Arabic repertory for¯ the indirect deixis. It might have been preferred over d¯alika or h¯ad¯a because it was morphologically closer to the ¯ ¯ 1

See Stillman (, ).

syntax



colloquial pronoun da. Similar to the use of d¯alika and h¯ad¯a, d¯aka was ¯ but belonged ¯ to¯ the regmost likely not part of the spoken vernacular ister of written substandard Judaeo-Arabic: êàã àðää äì ñéì éáàúòìàå éùîìà T-S ./rm.f (C Maghreb) ‘and the #Att¯ ab¯ı is not going this well here (lit. there is here not this going)’; êàììà êàã T-S AS .– T-S J. /  ‘this lacquer’ (C Maghreb). Pronominally it occurs in êàãá T-S . /  ‘with this’ (C Maghreb). .... The Letters from the th Century The examples in the corpus of th-century letters from Egypt confirm the findings observed in the th-century corpus: d¯alika is very rarely ¯ in an anaphoric used attributively, but almost exclusively pronominally context. On the other hand, h¯ad¯a is mainly used as an attributive and ¯ appears in pronominal position when used cataphorically. In other examples it appears to serve as a presentative. In addition to the Classical Arabic demonstratives, a number of other demonstrative pronouns, such as d¯a and d¯aka, occur in the th century. ¯ ¯ a) d¯alika used pronominally ¯ d¯alika serves as a pronominal demonstrative. It is most often used to ¯express anaphoric reference: áàúë éìåîìì áúëð ïà åãåä íåøé àðãééñ øîàô äòøñ Q íä Q àðòî éô à < éôàù àáàúë àðì áúëéì êìã äôøòð T-S J. /  ‘and our lord (may his glory be exalted) ordered that we write to our patron a letter to let him know this so that he would quickly write us a decisive letter about their affair’; êìãá øñà äéôàòå øéë éô íëðà úòîñ àãà T-S J. / f ‘when I hear that you are healthy and well, I am very happy about that’; êìã éô êì ìöôìàå T-S J./margin ‘thank you for that’. b) d¯alika used attributively ¯ As an attributive demonstrative, d¯alika (or its feminine form tilka) ¯ úàåìëìàå úàøôñ ìà êìú úìàè ïàå occurs only in two examples: úøö÷å äøôñìà äãä T-S J. / f ‘if these travels (to) deserted places were dragging on, I would shorten this journey’; òéè÷ú àìò íäéàø òîúâàô àð÷úìà êìàã T-S J. / f ‘their opinion(s) agreed about the abolishment of this regulation’. The second example appears in a text in which a statute is discussed that forbids non-Arabic speakers from holding certain positions in the community. The demonstrative d¯alika ¯



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might have been deliberately used here to express an emotional detachment and dislike for ‘that regulation’. c) The demonstrative h¯ad¯a ¯ As in the th-century letters, the attributive demonstrative h¯ad¯a usually precedes its noun, which is supplied with the article: àãä ¯áàåâ ãéøàå äòøñ áàúëìà T-S J. / f ‘I would like to have an answer to this Q éô øåîàìà äãä ïàë ïàå letter soon’; øåëãîìà áå÷òé øåöç ïò àåðâúñúô íëøëã T-S J./v.f ‘if you remember these matters, then dispense with making the above mentioned Jacob appear’; úòîúâà íàéàìà äãä éô ïàë äì úì÷å éîò ïá éôàöá T-S J. / f ‘it was then that I met S¯ . af¯ı, my cousin, and I told him’; óéøùìà øäùìà àãäá T-S J. /  ‘in this noble month’; äéìòôú àì éùìà àãä àäì ìå÷à T-S ./v. ‘I tell her: don’t do this thing’. d) Pronominal h¯ad¯a ¯ When a pronominal demonstrative is used cataphorically, the writers of the letters often use h¯ad¯a as opposed to constructions with d¯alika ¯ åîà÷î äãä ïàë T-S J. /  ‘this ¯ (the in anaphoric position: àäòî following) was his position with her: …’; àäåáàå àäîà êúìàë ïî àæâ˙ äãä ˙ ˙âáé ïî úòáúå T-S J. / f ‘is this (the following) íäéá àðåúøä÷ ã÷ àäö the reward from your aunt, her mother, and her father (that) you send one who hates them? You have already irritated us with them’. As in the earlier material, h¯ad¯a appears occasionally to be used as a ¯ àãä òîå T-S J. /  ‘neverthepresentative: àäòî êìàòôà ïñç ìòôà less, do your utmost with her’; áøà÷î àãä åìà÷ T-S J. / f ‘they said: this is mediocre (quality)’. In a few cases, h¯ad¯a is simply used as an alternative to d¯alika: ìîòðé ¯ ¯ àãä T-S . /  ‘this will be done’. e) Other demonstrative pronouns In the th-century corpus, examples of d¯aka may occur. In some cases, for instance the first example below, it ¯might have been used in preference of h¯ad¯a in order to stress a particularly far deixis or to deliberately make¯ the expression sound more classical and poetic, and less mundane. In other cases, it might have simply been used because of its morphological closeness to the vernacular pronoun: éðééçé äììàô

syntax íåéìà êàãì



T-S ./v. ‘may God keep me alive until that day’; êàãå T-S J./v. ‘and this in the lack of pious

äééëæìà ìàòôàìà íãòá

deeds’. Another demonstrative that occurs is êéãä/êéãàä, apparently a blend form of h¯ad¯a and the demonstrative element -ka, though it could also ¯ colloquial feminine demonstrative pronoun h¯ad¯ık, which represent the occurs for example in Palestinian and Syrian dialects: äâ˙àçìà¯êéãàä T-S J. /  ‘this thing’; àéàáâ˙ìà êéãä T-S J. /  ‘these taxes’. The vernacular demonstrative, d¯a/d¯a, possibly reflecting da known ¯ from Modern Egyptian Arabic, appears in a number of examples, both pronominally and attributively: ïò éèáð àî éðà úìîà éðàá àã˙ úìîò àîå äéøãðëñà T-S J./v. ‘I did not do this because I was hoping that I would not stay away from Alexandria’; ïàîæìà àã˙ éô T-S J./v. ‘in this time’; úåëåæìà àã éô T-S J./v. ‘in this privilege’. .... th/th Century The use of the demonstratives in Late Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic documents differs quite considerably from the use in the earlier material. Neither attributival nor pronominal h¯ad¯a appears in the th/th¯ by di, used both pronomcentury letters; instead, it has been replaced inally and attributively. The demonstrative d¯alika is used pronominally ¯ be combined with di for and occurs attributively, though rarely, and may an attributive demonstrative d¯alika di. Still, there appears to be a distinction between pronominal¯ d¯alika and di. The latter is used as pre¯ as anaphoric pronoun, similar to what sentative, while the former serves has been observed in the earlier letters. Due to the paucity of examples, it is difficult to analyse the attributively used demonstratives, d¯alika, di and d¯alika di, and no clearly discernible pattern of distribution¯could be ¯ established. An investigation of a larger corpus might yield more conclusive results. a) di(l) and dol in attributive use The demonstratives di(l) and dol appear attributively in: ïéèë˙ ìã ááñ áåúëî íëì äðáúë ÷áàñ ïî ïàá äðáçî àé íëôøòð AIU VIIE  / f ‘the purpose of these lines, our beloved, is to let you know that we wrote you a letter earlier’; ç˙ ø˙ íåé ïà íåëôøòð ïéèë˙ ìéã ááñ íåëéìò íàìñìà ãéæî ãòá íåëì äðáúë T-S J. / f ‘after many greetings to you, the purpose of these lines is to let you know that on the first of the month we wrote

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to you’; äøàî ìéã T-S J. /  ‘this time’; éú÷å ìéãå T-S J. /  ‘this time’; ïéèë˙ ìéã ááñ T-S NS . /  ‘the purpose of these few lines’; äééëøù ìéã T-S NS . /  ‘this partnership’; äåáø÷ú íì íåëì äðìå÷ äãëå ˙ ìéãá T-S NS . /  ‘thus we told you that you should not approach ò it at this value’; éú÷åå ìéã T-S NS . /  ‘now’; éìåã ïéîåé ìà ïàá íëôøòðå íëôøè àìà ïàùåù çìàö äâåúî AIU VIIE  / f ‘we are informing you ˇ uˇsa¯n is soon (lit: these days) coming to you’. that S¯ . alih. S¯ b) di in pronominal use Similar to h¯ad¯a in the th-century corpus, di may also occur with a ¯ presentative function, as the subject in nominal clauses: âàñ éã ïéà ìà÷å àäøéâ ïî ïñçà T-S AS . / f ‘and he said that this is metal which is better than any other’. There may be a single example of a¯ preceding the demonstrative used pronominally, a phenomenon Spitta (, ) observed in thcentury Egyptian: òéá ìà äìò ïéìâòúñî äðçà éãìà ááñ ìà éãà AIU VIIE  / f ‘this (?) is the reason that we are in a hurry to sell’. c) Attributive d¯alika ¯ Occasionally, d¯alika is used attributively: íæåø òáøà ïàë˙ åã ìà êìàã˙ ïî ãë˙ à AIU VIIE¯/ f ‘he took from that tobacco  bundles’; íäàøã ìà êìàã˙ T-S NS . / f ‘that kind of money (lit. those dirhams)’. d) Pronominal d¯alika ¯ Pronominal d¯alika appears in similar anaphoric constructions to those in the earlier¯ letters: êìàã˙ øéâå T-S NS . /  and êéìàã˙ øéâå T-S AS . / , ,  ‘apart from that’; ê˙ éìàã˙ ìéëàã T-S AS . / f ‘inside that’. e) d¯alika di ¯ Occasionally d¯alika is combined with di-, forming the compound demonstrative¯d¯alika di: âìáî ìéã ê˙ éìàã˙ éô T-S AS . /  ‘in con¯ sum’; ÷éãàðá ìéã êéìàã T-S AS . /  ‘those bunnection with that duqs’.

syntax



... Evaluation of the Findings a) The literary demonstratives h¯ad¯a and d¯alika and the emergence of ¯ ¯ da, di, dol The data in the three corpora shows that di mainly occurs in the th/ th-century letters, the th-century corpora attest almost exclusively h¯ad¯a and d¯alika and the th-century material displays only a few exam¯ of da¯ and other demonstratives beside the Classical Arabic proples nouns. Does this reflect the actual use of demonstratives in the vernacular? The answer has to be no. Blau2 noted the use of the pronouns d¯a ¯ (d¯a), d¯ı (d¯ı)3 and dol in mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic documents. Similarly, ¯ the letters from the th century show the demonstrative da. This means that di and da were probably established as demonstratives at the time when the letters were written. The lack of alternative pronouns to h¯ad¯a ¯ and d¯alika in the letters from the th century in particular is, therefore, ¯ conspicuous. It should be assumed that h¯ad¯a and d¯alika are in fact liter¯ ones. ary demonstratives used in place of actual ¯vernacular Davies (, ff) also finds di in material reflecting colloquial varieties of Arabic that range from the th to the th centuries, among them Muslim and three Judaeo-Arabic sources, which he uses ˇ ın¯ı’s Hazz al-Quh¯ for comparison in his investigation of Y¯usuf al-Sirb¯ . uf ˇ h. Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ ˇad¯uf from the th century.4 Accordingly, the Late f¯ı Sar Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th/th century show h¯ad¯a ¯ being replaced by the colloquial form di. A number of constructions contain d¯alika, but there are none with h¯ad¯a, whose functions have been ¯ taken over by di. ¯ completely The th/th-century letters only show di and no case of masculine da as in Modern Egyptian Arabic. Blanc (, ), Rosenbaum (b, ) and Hary (, ) have shown evidence for the masculine form de in Jewish Egyptian varieties. The examples in Willmore (, ) demonstrate that dih and deh were well-attested in the older Standard Cairene dialect. This also becomes apparent in fixed expressions such as Modern Egyptian Arabic dilwaqti (dilwa"ti) ‘now’, which proves that di

2

Blau (–, f) and (, ). He renders d according to Classical Arabic as d in his transcription of d¯a and d¯ı, but ¯ ¯ ¯ leaves the d unaspirated in dol. 3

4 These Judaeo-Arabic sources include a th-century Judaeo-Arabic Geniza fragment edited by Goitein (), a vernacular story and testimonies before the courts.

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must have been used in older stages of the Egyptian vernacular when the phrase first became a fixed expression. Also, in the compound demonstrative d¯alika di only di occurs. Fischer (, ) has suggested that ¯ this phenomenon is a result of vowel elision in da5 and its replacement with the i of the definite article. Davies (, ), however, rejects Fischer’s suggestion on the grounds that, ‘in Egyptian, elision of a preceding by a following vowel is rare, and elision of /a/ even rarer still, while elision of /i/ is commonplace’. He believes that ‘it is more likely that we have to deal with a single form /di/ of common gender, i.e., with a form retaining a characteristic of Proto-Semitic demonstratives, which were differentiated according to a principle that remains unknown but which at all events was not that of a gender’. This is in accordance with the observed forms in older substandard Egyptian, in which di(h)/de(h) occurs as the masculine demonstrative. The demonstrative di in the th/th-century letters, therefore, appears to represent the masculine demonstrative in older stages of spoken Egyptian Arabic. Davies (, f) states that in the colloquial parts of the thˇ h. Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ ˇad¯uf, there is no strict corcentury Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar relation between the form of the demonstrative and the gender of the noun, with di especially being frequently preposed. The same can be found in his comparison sources from the th century to th/th century, judging by his examples. According to Fischer (, f and ), all Semitic demonstratives were originally genderless. The fact that this indifference is kept in many dialects, for instance in Yemen and Marocco, leads Fischer to assume that vernacular Arabic originally had genderand number-indifferent d¯u d¯ı d¯a. Only in Classical Arabic, the literary ¯ ¯ ¯ to gender and number was made. The variety, a distinction according indifference towards number also occurs in the letters. In the th/thcentury letters, di can stand before the dual. This phenomenon, as well as di + plural, can also be found in the Muslim and Judaeo-Arabic comparison sources mentioned by Davies. b) Far and near deixis vs. pronominal and attributival The Classical Arabic system for demonstrative pronouns describing near and far deixis appears to have undergone alteration in the JudaeoArabic of the th- and the th-century letters. The demonstratives

5

Fischer assumes a process of d¯a—pausal dah, weakening of a to e—deh.

syntax



are no longer used to describe different kinds of local deixis but possess cataphoric vs. anaphoric properties. While the Classical Arabic neardeixis pronoun h¯ad¯a is predominantly used as an adjectival demonstra¯ tive, and, as it appears, as a cataphoric pronominal demonstrative, the occurrence of d¯alika is restricted to constructions with the demonstra¯ tive as an anaphoric pronoun. A similar dichotomy may be found in the Modern Egyptian vernacular with the demonstratives da/di/dol and dukha/dikha/dukham; see Mitchell, and also the examples of Olmstead Gary and Behnstedt,6 where the far deixis is usually used pronominally.7 Accordingly, Davies (,  and f) points out that Modern Egyptian, and probably also its earlier stages, employs no binary deixis. He characterises the main functions of the /-k/ demonstratives (C /dak/ /dyk/, modern dukha/dikha/dukham) as being used in a contrastive or allusive sense, introducing objects that in fact need no introduction and as a deixis ad oculos. None of the above mentioned scholars, however, has explicitly formulated the clear distinction that can be found in the letters. Therefore, one should be cautious to apply the results of this analysis to the contemporary varieties spoken by the letter-writers. For example, in the mediaeval material analysed by Blau (–, f), da and di are used for both pronominal and attributival demonstratives. This may be an indication that the differences shown in our material are in fact, again, epistolary conventions. H¯ad¯a was presumably chosen as an ¯ attributive demonstrative since the presentative h¯a, which is part of it, 8 was and is still used in the modern dialects, whereas the ‘weaker’ d¯a ¯ took over the function of the pronominal presentative.9 It is of interest to note that in some South Arabian dialects, which use both h¯ad¯a and d¯alika as attributive demonstratives, h¯ad¯a precedes the noun while¯d¯alika ¯is always postpositioned,10 probably again ¯ caused by the presentative ¯ particle, which pushes h¯ad¯a to the beginning of the phrase. This difference in construction might¯have also played a part in the emergence of this renewed system of deixis. 6

See Mitchell (, ) and (, f), Olmstead Gary (, ff) and Behnstedt in Fischer and Jastrow (, ). Although it is not clear whether Behnstedt’s statement that far deixis is mainly used anaphorically actually refers to its pronominal use. 7 As described by Mitchell and, judging by his examples, Behnstedt. Olmstead Gary, however, cites one example of adjectival dukha, but as her (posthumous) study is not text based, its evidential value is dubious. 8 See in Fischer (, ), who produces examples from Kwayriˇ s, Damascus, Algeria and Morocco. 9 As described by Fischer (, ). 10 See Fischer (, ).



chapter seven

c) The positioning of the demonstrative in respect to its noun In contrast to the modern Egyptian vernacular, which employs the order noun-demonstrative,11 the adjectival demonstrative in all the letters stands before the noun it refers to, unless its noun is determined by a suffix. This includes the examples with di in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters. In her diachronic inquiry into the demonstrative, Doss () states ˇ h. that in the colloquial parts of the th-century Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar ˇad¯uf the word order of the demonstrative-noun was still Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ dominant. She counts the number of occurrences and finds  cases of demonstrative-noun ( occur in verse, which tends to be more conservative)12 and  occurrences of noun-demonstrative (in five cases the noun is followed by a suffix and therefore requires the demonstrative to follow also in Classical Arabic). She proposes that the preposed demonstrative is used to express special emphasis in the sense of focus or foreground. Following Doss, Davies (, ff) has refined the observations made for the same material and suggests that preposed di/da acquired a specialised function in the th-century material: ‘the marking of extra intensity, within either the psychological or the grammatical composition ˇ h. of the utterance’. The preposing of da and di in the Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar ˇad¯uf, however, can be found in a much wider context and Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ range than in Modern Egyptian. For Late th-century Egyptian Arabic, Spitta (, f) remarks that the order noun-demonstrative is common, while the order demonstrative-noun is only used by ‘a few peasants’ and in certain provincial towns. Doss (, ), however, has shown that the examples Spitta uses to support his claim in fact all stem from the Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı ˇ h. Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ ˇad¯uf.13 She goes on to count the demonstratives used Sar in the B¯asim al-Hadd¯ ad, a popular tale edited by Landberg in , . 11

This, of course, excludes fossilized forms like dilwaqti. A recount conducted by Davies (,  fn ) yields  examples of di/da of which three are in verse. The number of demonstrative-noun in uncompromised (nonpoetic) occurrences does not change much, though, with  given by Doss and  by Davies. 13 This is actually the opposite of Spitta’s alleged method of gathering material, which he outlines in his methodology: he claims to have heard every single phrase of his examples under conditions where he could be sure that the speaker felt free to speak ‘unspoilt’ vernacular. 12

syntax



which probably stems from the th century. In this work, she finds  occurrences of noun-demonstrative quotations versus  occurrences of demonstrative-noun. Finally, Doss investigates a text from the end of the th century, consisting of four tales gathered by Dulac in . Among many examples of demonstratives only one shows the order demonstrative-noun, which the editor apparently failed to interpret correctly. This is evidence for Doss that the order demonstrative-noun ‘was no longer common in the dialect’. Following her argument, one would assume that between the th and the end of the th century, the order noun-demonstrative became the dominant one in the Egyptian dialect. This matches with Fischer’s (, ) description that in most Modern dialects only one word order for the demonstrative has been preserved. Considering Doss’s material from the th century, the order demonstrative-noun does not seem very unusual in the th/th-century documents. However, the almost absolute14 lack of any noun-demonstrative constructions, which must have been in use in the Muslim varieties at that time according to the sources given above, is very conspicuous. Also, it would seem unreasonable to explain all the examples as cases of ‘special emphasis’. The resulting assumption that the order demonstrative-noun employed in the letter corpus cannot be representative of the contemporary spoken variety is reinforced by further examples given by Blau15 in which he shows that the order noun-demonstrative may already be found in mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic documents. From the evidence given above, we have to assume that the strict adherence to the order demonstrative-noun in the letters is a literary convention. This is supported by an observation made by Doss (, ) for modern vernacular poetry. There, the order demonstrative-noun occurs in great number, most likely due to the influence of Classical Arabic as ‘poetic language’. Thus the convention of the order demonstrativenoun appears not to be restricted to the substandard varieties of literary Judaeo-Arabic. d) The syntactic environment of the attributive demonstrative The usual order in Classical Arabic, and also the one observed in the letters, is that of demonstrative—noun. However, in Classical Arabic 14 The only construction that shows a postponed demonstrative is also the only example of the plural attributival demonstrative in the corpus, éìåã ïéîåé (AIU VIIE / ). 15 Blau (–, ) and (, ).



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when h¯ad¯a is used with a referential noun determined by a suffix or ¯ construction,16 it follows after. The examples in the letters a genitival are in accordance with the rules of Classical Arabic: àãàä àðîåé éô T-S J. /  ‘in this our day’ (C unassigned); àãä éáàúë âøã åäå T-S J. /  ‘and it (is) inside of this letter of mine’ (C unassigned); ˙ ôú T-S J. /  ‘God may please (us) with àãä éîåé éô äá äììà ìö it on this day of mine’ (C unassigned); àãàä éáàúë íåé äú÷öåàå T-S J. /  ‘and I loaded them on the day of this letter of mine’ (C Egypt). In the two different constructions, the first with a simple noun, the second with a construct, the character of the demonstrative changes. In the first construction (h¯ad¯a l-kit¯abu ‘this book’) the demonstrative is, ¯ the noun in the same way as an article. unlike an adjective, put before It nevertheless corresponds to the noun in gender and number like an adjective, at least in Classical Arabic. Additionally, the article has to be set in front of the noun. This double marking of definiteness on the noun is interesting, especially as it appears that the demonstrative cannot be set in front if no article is attached to the noun it refers to, as is the case in constructs of nouns (h¯ad¯a l-kit¯abu ‘this book’ vs. kit¯ab¯ı h¯ad¯a ‘this book of ¯ ¯ Sabaic where mine’). Parallel constructions can be found, for example, in the noun after the demonstrative also receives the article which is suffixed to the noun,17 e.g., dt hqytn ‘this offering’ or dn s. lmn ‘this statue’. The ¯ article in this construction is kept in almost all¯the Arabic vernaculars.18 In the second construction (kit¯ab¯ı h¯ad¯a ‘this book of mine’), how¯ adjective, in a similar way, ever, the demonstrative functions like an for example, to the demonstratives in Hebrew.19 However, it does not receive the article, as regular adjectives do, probably because it is already recognised as definite.20 This change in character is peculiar as both the article and the suffix or genitive are supposed to perform the same function: making the noun definite. So why does the demonstrative behave differently with nouns that have the article in contrast to nouns 16 No examples in the letter corpus show the demonstratives constructed with nouns that are naturally determined, such as names, in which the demonstrative must stand after the noun in Classical Arabic, e.g., Zaydun h¯ad¯a ‘this Zayd’. 17 In opposition to the emphatic state in Syriac,¯which—although originally denoting the definite state—serves for both definite and indefinite nouns, the Sabaic definite state still has an active indefinite counterpart. 18 Exceptions can be found in Moroccan vernacular where some demonstratives require the article before the noun while others do not; see Abdel-Massih (, ). 19 See, for example, Weingreen (, ). 20 The presentative h¯ a in h¯ad¯a, which is also related to the article in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, still appears¯ to have been recognised as a ‘determinizer’.

syntax



determined in other ways? One explanation could be that there is an enduring internalised perception that a demonstrative needs to be followed by an article. When the noun is determined by a suffix or genitive and lacks the article, this prevents the demonstrative from occuring before the noun. This rule must be quite rigid as most dialects21 that have the order demonstrative-noun, for instance Yemeni,22 Gulf23 and Baghdadi Arabic,24 reorder demonstrative-noun phrases into noundemonstrative phrases if the demonstrative qualifies a construct noun. It is possible that nouns put into a definite state by suffixes, or naturally definite nouns such as names, originally occurred much more frequently together with the demonstratives when the latter served as subjects in nominal clauses, e.g., h¯ad¯a kit¯ab¯ı ‘this is my book’ and h¯ad¯a Zaydun ‘this ¯ kit¯ab¯ı h¯ad¯a ‘this book of mine’ ¯ and Zaydun is Zayd’ versus less frequent ¯ h¯ad¯a ‘this Zayd’. Therefore, when the demonstrative was used in con¯ nection with nouns determined by other circumstances than the article, it marked the phrase as a nominal clause. To denote the difference between a nominal clause and a demonstrative noun phrase, the demonstratives in the noun phrase had to be devised in a different way. On the other hand, we might simply be dealing with different degrees of definiteness. The phrase kit¯ab¯ı ‘my book’ is already more definite through the personal suffix than simple al-kit¯ab ‘the book’. As Doss and Davies have proposed (see above), there is special emphasis or extra intensity in preposed demonstratives in contrast to those following the noun. Possibly, the definiteness of kit¯ab¯ı restricts the use of a preposed demonstrative through its connotation of special emphasis. In addition, it is likely that there would have been analogical pressure in the spoken form of the language to level the syntactic differences between the preposed and the postposed demonstrative. This could be the reason why the two different constructions did not survive in many Arabic vernaculars.25 For instance, in modern vernacular Egyptian, the demonstrative follows its noun,26 e.g., ilmuftaah- da ‘this key’. When the 21

The vernaculars of the Maghreb apparently differ from the other dialects in this regard as they can have constructions like had weld emmi ‘this cousin of mine’; see Harrell (, ). This is due to the fact that they have made preposed demonstrative the standard construction. 22 See Qafisheh (, ). 23 See Qafisheh (, ). 24 See the examples in McCarthy (, ). 25 Fischer (, ) describes that most dialects only preserve one order, no matter how the noun is determined. 26 See Olmstead Gary (, ff). This excludes expressions like dilwaqti and similar,



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demonstrative stands before the noun, it means that the demonstrative is the subject of a nominal clause, e.g., da lmuftaah- ‘this is the key’. This solves the problem regarding the lack of clarity in Classical Arabic, where h¯ad¯a l-mift¯ah. can mean both ‘this key’ as well as ‘this is the key’. Other ¯ dialects have made a distinction between these two constructions. For instance, in colloquial Syrian Arabic, while the demonstrative precedes its noun just as in Classical Arabic, e.g., h¯ad¯a l-mahzin ‘this store’, ¯ the demonstrative as subject of the nominal clause has˘ to be followed by a personal pronoun of the rd person, e.g., hâdôlîk hinni huddâm ˘ illukandâ27 ‘these are the servants of that hotel’. According to Haywood and Nahmad (, f), this also holds for written Modern Standard Arabic, e.g., h¯ad¯a huwa l-waladu ‘this is the boy’, if the predicate is ¯ case where the adjectival and pronominal use would defined, i.e., in the otherwise be identical.

.. Negation ... Introduction .... The Negation in Classical Arabic The varieties of Arabic use various negation particles for different functions. Some particles are reserved for the negation of the past and for the negation of present or future actions, whereas others express a prohibition or a negative wish, or function as nominal negations. Classical Arabic possesses a very intricate system28 of negation particles. For example, l¯a with the acocopate expresses the prohibitive, with perfect it negates a negative wish, with the indicative the negative future, with the energetic the negative future that is certain to occur, and it also appears in subsequent negation, ‘neither … nor’ constructions and nominally for general denial. The particle m¯a is used with the perfect (in rare cases with the apocopate) to negate the past tense and with the indicative

and also emphatic expressions that can be found in older stages of the Egyptian dialect; see the discussion under ..a above. 27 As described by Driver (, ). 28 A good overview is given in Fischer (, ff), see also Wright (, II ff) and Brockelmann (, ff). For the distinctions between lam and m¯a see Wehr ().

syntax



to negate the present, and it occurs in nominal clauses. The particle lam + apocopate is used to negate the past, while lan + subjunctive negates the future. Laysa in inflected form is mainly used to negate nominal clauses, but it can also occur with verbs. Uninflected laysa negates single elements of nominal clauses, and post-classically also precedes verbs. Additionally, nominal g˙ayru and the rarer particles in and l¯ata may be found. In postclassical and ‘Middle’ Arabic, many of the distinctions have been blurred; for example, negation particles may negate other tenses than those that they were restricted to in Classical Arabic or may be used nominally. Uninflected laysa may appear with finite verbs, or certain particles may be completely missing. To give a comprehensive overview of the negation particles used in Judaeo-Arabic, this chapter has been divided into three major parts. At first, general trends in the use of negation particles in Judaeo-Arabic letters are discussed under .., followed by an evaluation of the negation particles lam, m¯a, l¯a and laysa in .. and ... The last section .. is devoted to a discussion of the examples with negation particles in each of the corpora used for the analyses. .... Methodological Remarks The earliest attested Judaeo-Arabic documents, the papyri from the th century (published by Blau and Hopkins ) are of particular relevance for the study of the diachronic development of the negation in JudaeoArabic, which is why they have been included in this chapter. In Classical Arabic (and also in our corpus), the negation particle l¯a can be used as second negation in a chain of consecutive negations irrespective of the temporal or modal context of the first negation, or whether there is a nominal negation preceding. These second negations with l¯a have, therefore, been excluded in the statistical analyses of the following chapters. The examples quoted are cases of genuine ‘first’ negations. The particle l¯a also serves in the constructions of ‘neither … nor’, e.g., l¯a ra" a¯ wa-l¯a sami#a ‘he neither heard nor saw’, which have not been included in the analyses as they present fixed expressions. In Classical Arabic, some negation particles attract certain moods according to their function. For instance, lam occurs with the apocopate to negate the past, and l¯a with the apocopate for the prohibitive. This, however, is not the case in Judaeo-Arabic where the moods have disappeared in favour of a general imperfect with a mixed morphology, which

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takes the form of the indicative in the singular (as evident in the hollow roots) and the subjunctive/apocopate in the plural forms. Only occasionally forms occur which take the morphological form of the apocopate or subjunctive in the singular, often hypercorrectly. For this reason, in the evaluation of Judaeo-Arabic negation phrases all the imperfect forms in connection with a negation particle are termed ‘imperfect’ without any further specification. The protasis of most conditional clauses in Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic requires a past tense verbal form,29 similar to English ‘if he saw the man, he would recognise him’. Thus these verbal forms have been evaluated as past even when the translation into Indo-European languages renders them as present action. ... The Distribution of Negation Particles in the Letters a) Negation particles of past actions In Classical Arabic, the past is negated by lam + apocopate or m¯a + perfect.30 In our letters, the use of negations is more varied, as the following table of the distribution of negations in a past tense context shows. Table a. Negation Particles of Past Actions lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

C

 

 

–

–

C Maghreb

 

 

 

–

C Egypt

 

 

 

–

29 In Classical Arabic, the verb in the protasis is usually a perfect or, rarer, the apocopate, and if negated, lam + apocopate, see Fischer (, ). In Modern Standard Arabic, the verb in the protasis is most often the perfect, see Cantarino (, III ). 30 According to Fischer (, ) and Wehr (), there is a difference in the use of m¯a and lam in Classical Arabic. Whereas lam appears to negate resultative actions (according to Fischer ‘the general realization of an action or something that has become a fact’), m¯a negates the simple past.

syntax



lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

C

 

 

 

 

C/C

 

 

– 



C/C

–

–

–

 

The table shows that the construction lam + imperfect can be found in the majority of negations of past actions in the material from the th and th century, while m¯a + perfect is less common. In the thcentury letters, lam + imperfect is less widely used, instead m¯a is used as the main negation particle. Of the th-century letters, the Maghrebian letters show a much higher percentage of lam + imperfect constructions than the Egyptian letters. The reason for this phenomenon is probably that the Maghrebian material in general is more conservative than the Egyptian sources, and because lam was perceived to be more ‘Classical Arabic’ than m¯a it was used more frequently. The construction lam + imperfect is rarely used from the th century onwards. Instead, the phrase is being replaced by lam + perfect in the th- and th-century letters. The overwhelming use of m¯a in the th-century material may be due to the move away from Classical lam to the more ‘vernacular’ particle m¯a in the Egyptian material, which already manifests in the thcentury Egyptian letters as compared to the Maghrebian letters. Another reason might be the slightly more private nature of the th-century letters as compared to the th-century corpus that mainly consists of business letters within a defined group of traders. The decline in the use of lam in favour of m¯a from the th to the th centuries seems, however, not to be a phenomenon of Jewish letters alone. If one compares the negations used in a selection of contemporary Muslim Arabic letters, as edited by Diem,31 the results show surprising parallels.

31

Diem (), (), (a) and (b).



chapter seven Table b. Negation Particles of Past Actions in Muslim Letters lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

C Business letters





C Private letters





C Business letters





C Private letters

–



In the Muslim Arabic letters, a difference may not only be observed between those from the th century and the th century, with the latter strongly favouring the negation m¯a, but there is also a remarkable distinction between business letters, i.e., written in a more formal and stylised language, and letters of a private nature, with the former using lam considerably more extensively than the latter. This can be attributed to the stylistic necessities of presentation in a more formal context, the desire to write in a higher, more classical register. In private letters this need for presentation may not have applied to the same degree and the writing style may have been more relaxed, i.e., forms that were deemed vernacular could be used more freely. The fact that the th-century letters show less forms with lam than with m¯a in the negation of the past could reflect the general departure of the Egyptian society from Classical Arabic ideals. For this phenomenon, see the discussion in chapter .. In the sources from the th and th century, m¯a + perfect is prefered for the negation of the past and lam is rare. However, the corpus is very small and not many examples of negation can be found. Neither lam + imperfect nor m¯a + perfect occur in the th- and th-century material, but they have been replaced by lam + perfect. This is a surprising find given that lam is not a regular negation particle found in vernacular speech. The circumstances that have lead to this development will be examined below under ... In comparison, a striking difference can be observed in the Egyptian and Maghrebian material from the th century: while the construction m¯a + perfect is used in the Egyptian material almost as frequently as lam + imperfect, there are far fewer examples of m¯a + perfect in the Maghrebian letters. The explanation could be that the style of letters employed in this more peripheral area of the Arabic-speaking world orientated itself much more towards what were considered Classical Arabic stan-

syntax



dards. The writers thus avoided the construction m¯a + perfect, although a perfectly Classical Arabic phrase, simply because it also occurred in the vernacular and perhaps had acquired a taint, rendering it unsuitable for the high literary register. A similar phenomenon can be observed today in the literary language of Modern Arabic newspapers where m¯a as a negation is only rarely used.32 In the th- and th-century material, a few examples of l¯a + perfect may be found, used hypocorrectly to negate past events. The construction l¯a + perfect, which expresses the optative in Classical Arabic, appears in the letters as a more literary version modelled on m¯a + perfect, which would have been used in the vernacular, with the l¯a supplanting m¯a as a more ‘classical’ or supposedly literary form. Letters from th-century Egypt and from the th century show the most variety in negating the past. The th- and th-century letters use constructions that would most likely be expected in the vernacular, where lam has almost completely disappeared in favour of m¯a as the standard negation particle. Whether this is due to the nature of the letters itself or because of the limited corpus cannot be stated with any certainty. The th- and th-century material exhibits least variety, with lam + perfect used exclusively for the negation of the past. lam + perfect does not occur in Classical Arabic, where lam is always combined with the imperfect (the apocopate) to negate the past. In the more analytical postclassical varieties of Arabic the present tense in this construction may have seemed illogical for the negation of the past, and was thus replaced by a past tense form. Hence, lam + perfect probably reflects colloquial m¯a + perfect, with the replacement of ‘vernacular’ m¯a by ‘literary’ lam, which goes on to become the main negative particle in the th- and th-century epistolary style. b) Negation of present actions The present in Classical Arabic is usually negated by m¯a + imperfect, whereas l¯a + indicative or subjunctive is used in certain subordinate constructions, e.g., #arafa l-Hasanu Qaysan l¯a yuw¯afiquh¯u ‘Hasan knew . . that Qays did not agree with him’ or li-kay l¯a tahzan¯ u ‘so that you are . not sad’.33 Inflected laysa occurs in some verbal clauses, e.g., lasn¯a nas. ilu

32 33

See Wehr (, ). Similarly, Holes (, ). Reckendorf (,  and ).



chapter seven

ilayka ‘we do not come to you’,34 which, according to Wright (, II ) is used to ‘express a strongly denied present’. This variety of negations of the present can still be found in the letters, as can be seen in the table below, with the exception that laysa is never inflected and lam + imperfect constructions occur in addition. Table . Negations of Present Actions m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

C

–

 

–

–

C Maghreb

 

 .

 .

 

C Egypt

 

–

 

 

C

 

 

 

 

C/C

 

–

–

–

C/C

–

 

 

–

The table shows that (especially in the th century) a number of examples can be found in which laysa occurs with the imperfect to negate the present. In many cases, the Classical Arabic restriction of this construction to ‘strongly denied’ actions cannot be observed anymore. The Classical Arabic past negation of lam + imperfect can be found in all corpora, except in the th- and th-century corpus, for negations of the present. This construction is rare in the th-century and th-century letters, but it becomes more common in the letters from the th century, and is the predominant construction in the th and th centuries. It is probably not coincidental that the number of laysa + imperfect constructions decreases in proportion as the number of lam + imperfect constructions increases. A small number of examples (greatest in the th-century Egyptian letters) of the construction l¯a + imperfect does not conform to the rules

34

Fischer (, ).

syntax



of Classical Arabic, as they do not express optative or negated future but negation of the present. As observed with the negation of the past, the letters from thcentury Egypt and from the th century use the widest range of negation particles whereas the letters from the th and th centuries show the least variety, with only one construction type, lam + imperfect, used almost exclusively. This construction, which occurs in Classical Arabic only in past contexts, appears to have undergone re-analysis as a general negation used for the present. c) Prohibitive and optative For prohibitive and optative constructions, in letters from the th to the th centuries l¯a is the only negation particle used. In the th- and thcentury material, lam predominates. The only example with l¯a in the th- and th-century letters comes from an unusual letter written in very colloquial language.35 In literary Late Judaeo-Arabic lam has become the standard negation particle, to the degree that it even permeates the realm of negative wish and prohibition, hitherto exclusively negated with l¯a. Table . Negation Particles of the Prohibitive and Negative Wish

35

CUL Or ...

l¯a

lam

C

 

–

C Maghreb

> 

–

C Egypt

> 

–

C

> 

–

C/C

 

–

C/C

 

 



chapter seven

In Classical Arabic, l¯a + perfect is used for the optative while l¯a + apocopate is used for the prohibitive. This separation has become partly blurred in Judaeo-Arabic letters. While l¯a + perfect is still used exclusively for the optative, l¯a + imperfect may be found used for both optative and prohibitive (see the examples under ..a). d) Nominal negation particles The particles m¯a and laysa are the most commonly used nominal (or predicate) negation particles from the th to the th/th century. In the th- and th-century letters, lam is the exclusive nominal negation particle apart from one example of laysa. Interestingly, quite a difference can be observed in the use of m¯a and laysa in the Egyptian and Maghrebian th-century corpora: whereas in Egypt, m¯a is the preferred nominal negation particle, it is laysa that commonly occurs in the Maghrebian corpus. This agrees with the observations made about the negations of the past, in which m¯a is also used considerably less than lam when compared to the Egyptian corpus. Again, it seems that the Maghrebian writers endeavoured to avoid m¯a, which was probably considered more colloquial and thus less literary. Table . Nominal Negation Particles m¯a

lam

laysa

C

–

–



C Maghreb







C Egypt



–



C



–



C/C











C/C

–

36

36 The unusually-colloquial letter (CUL Or ..) from outside the corpus, which shows l¯a in place of lam in the prohibitive, has two examples with the phrase m¯af¯ıˇs¯ı. If these forms appeared within the corpus, they would not have been included in the analysis because the whole phrase is written as a fixed expression in one word.

syntax



... The Negation Particle lam a) lam in the Judaeo-Arabic letters The negation particle lam occurs with perfect and imperfect forms in the following functions: Table . The Negation Particle lam of which with lam with past lam past present/future prohibitive lam perfect meaning imperfect meaning nominal C

–

–







–

CM

–

–



CE

–

–



–





–





–

–

–

C



all







–

–

C/C



all





–

–



C/C



all



–







Overall, lam is the most frequent negation particle in the letters. However, no demonstrable linear development of lam becoming the major negation particle can be found in Judaeo-Arabic letter writing. While lam predominates in the th-century and th-century letters, the commonest negation particle in the th-century letters is m¯a. In both corpora of the th-century and th-century letters, lam does not occur with the perfect and can be found just in one nominal clause. It expresses present meaning in only  examples (  of all lam cases) in the th-century corpus and in  examples (  of all lam cases) in the th-century corpus, and is still overwhelmingly used in its Classical Arabic function of negating the past. Also, it cannot occur in prohibitive constructions. This means that, whereas lam seems to have been adapted as a literary negation particle in utility prose, it is still subjected to a number of Classical Arabic restrictions. In the th- and th-century letters, lam has superseded all other negation particles and is used to negate past, present, future and prohibitive as well as nominal clauses. Whereas the writers of the thcentury and th-century letters adhere to the Classical Arabic construction of lam + imperfect (though not the apocopate due to the loss of the moods in Judaeo-Arabic), lam takes the perfect in the th- and thcentury corpus to convey past negations. The phrase lam + imperfect is



chapter seven

used for present, future and prohibitive meanings, and lam has developed into a universal negation particle. The question that immediately arises when looking at the data is how lam could become the almost exclusive means of negation in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters from Egypt? Are there parallel developments in Muslim or Christian sources? To address these questions, it is necessary to examine the use of lam both in the vernacular and in literary substandard Arabic. b) The negation particle lam in spoken varieties of Arabic Any absolute statement about lam in the spoken varieties of the early Islamic period and the Middle Ages is bound to be flawed because, as is self-evident, all the evidence must by necessity come from literary sources. Still, certain features of the distribution of negation particles in the literary sources, if interpreted correctly, can give us some insight into the negation structures that were in use in the vernacular language contemporary to the letters. Blau37 deduces from the evidence of his corpora of both Palestinian Christian Arabic and mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic that in spoken Jewish and Christian counterparts of Arabic, lam had disappeared in the colloquial. Davies (, f) suggests that in spoken Arabic lam had been in retreat in favour of m¯a since at least the late pre-Islamic period. It is problematic, however, that neither of the two works he cites as sources for this information (Brockelmann –, II  and Wehr ,  f) actually expresses this view. Brockelmann states that lam has been lost in modern dialects while Wehr merely explains the semantic differences in the use of negations with m¯a and lam. Bearing in mind that Classical Arabic, as we know it, has always been a prescriptive literary standard rather than an actual spoken language, it may be better to question whether lam has actually ever been part of the vernacular, in particular of those colloquial varieties that came into existence after the Muslim conquests. This is corroborated by the fact that in one of the earliest sources for vernacular Arabic, in Palestinian Christian Arabic material from the th/th century, m¯a is used as the basic negation particle.38 The assumption that this indeed mirrors its extensive use in the vernacular is supported by the change of the original 37 38

Blau (, § ) and (–, ff). Blau (–, f).

syntax



m¯a ‘what’ to ayy shay.39 The assignment of m¯a as the main negation particle might have triggered the transfer of the meaning ‘what’ to a different form. ˇ ın¯ı’s ‘Hazz alAnother source for Muslim vernacular is Y¯usuf al-Sirb¯ ˇ h. Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı S¯ ˇad¯uf ’, a work from the th century.40 In the Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar colloquial passages of this work, lam occurs only in a few examples whereas m¯a is widespread. In this light, it seems very interesting that Spitta (,  fn ) describes lam as being used in th-century Egyptian Arabic in the sense of a firm negation. He restricts this use, however, to those people with some education and a penchant for old words and, therefore, disqualifies it from the actual colloquial speech of the time. Yet, his own example of a boy using it towards another youth (‘I am not coming!’) disproves this assessment. In his study of th-century Egyptian Arabic negations, Woidich (, ) does not mention lam in such constructions. He describes its use as a means whereby uneducated people can ‘refine’ their language, i.e., adopt a higher register, which means it is often used hypercorrectly. This might also explain the occurrence of lam in the colloquial passages ˇ ın¯ı’s ‘Hazz al-Quh¯ ˇ h. Qas.¯ıd Ab¯ı of the th century Y¯usuf al-Sirb¯ . uf f¯ı Sar ˇS¯ad¯uf ’. Davies (, f), however, tries to show for a number of examples ˇ ın¯ı, the work of with lam from an array of sources such as Y¯usuf al-Sirb¯ Bayram al-T¯unis¯ı and those in Woidich that it would be too simplistic to just dismiss them as an attempt to elevate the speech. Instead, he suggests that it is a “ ‘living asystemic form”, i.e., a form borrowed from the literary language but regularly or formulaically used, even (perhaps especially) by the uneducated … for special emphasis’. This explanation of lam being used for emphatic expressions would fit very nicely with the observations and the example of Spitta described above. Considering the Jewish material, Rosenbaum (, ) has gone one step further and evaluates lam in written Egyptian Arabic as actually reflecting the state of colloquial Jewish Egyptian Arabic. This should, however, be viewed with caution. From the evidence of our letters it seems indisputable that m¯a or a m¯a derived particles were the major negator in spoken Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic from the th century to the

39 40

Blau (–, ). For a further details and background of the work, see Davies ().



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th century, as well as in Christian or Muslim varieties. Negation particles derived from m¯a were also the major negators used in early th-century Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic. Moreover, all the evidence in Rosenbaum’s investigation, albeit rendering colloquial texts, comes from written sources,41 or from poems and proverbial sayings, which are liable to different grammatical rules than those used in ordinary prose. There is no example that actually demonstrates the creative use of lam in the colloquial speech of one of Rosenbaum’s informants, if poems and sayings, which draw on different linguistic traditions, are excluded. On the contrary, Rosenbaum’s examples of the use of lam in a poetic environment emphasize its literary status. Arnold (–, ff) has described the use of lam in a peripheral dialect of Arabic, in the language of the Jews of Iskenderun (in the Hatay province of Turkey), where it is used as an emphatic negation of the present and future. This is consistent with what Spitta and others have observed, and it also fits with Hinds and Badawi’s (, ) translation of lam as ‘never’. Interestingly, Arnold also states that lam cannot precede the perfect or bi-imperfect but can only be combined with the imperfect, sometimes with the extra particle am- to express continuity. It seems possible that on a morphological level, the normative influence of Classical Arabic prohibits the use of any other tenses but the imperfect in connection with lam, although it is—contrary to its main function as past negation in Classical Arabic—used to negate present and future. The fact that lam still appears as an emphatic negation, both in JudaeoArabic and Muslim Arabic, is probably due to its perceived higher register, which allowed it to be taken up in colloquial speech and used as an emphatic negation. To conclude, irrespective of the question of whether lam ever was a part of the vernacular, it seems safe to assume for the spoken forms of Arabic contemporary to our letters that lam never functioned as a regular negation particle. It may have been part of the colloquial, however, as a ‘living asystemic form’, used for emphasis (‘never’) or surviving particularly in a quasi-literary environment, for example in poems, songs and proverbial sayings.

41 Rosenbaum states that the passages in Tantavy’s book are in fact not ‘pure’ colloquial. Tantavy’s example should thus be treated with caution and may well be due to literary influence.

syntax



c) The particle lam in written substandard varieties of Arabic The same distinction that marks lam as a typical literary and refined means of negation, and which may have led to its occasional emphatic use in the colloquial varieties of Egyptian Arabic, appears to have contributed to its emergence as the major negation particle in certain varieties of substandard literary Arabic. In his corpus of pre-th-century Arabic papyri, which are predominantly of Muslim Egyptian provenance, Hopkins (, ) describes the very frequent use of lam as ‘contrary to one’s initial expectation’, with one example even showing lam + perfect. This is in accordance with what we have observed in the Judaeo-Arabic papyri from the th century. These observations lead him to believe that lam ‘still belongs to living speech’, i.e., the contemporary vernacular. I would treat this assumption with caution, especially since in Hopkins’ corpus the negation particle m¯a is conspicuously absent,42 in contrast to the contemporary Palestinian Christian Arabic, and certainly in the light of the general development of lam in colloquial speech as described above. What we have here may indeed be the earliest case of lam as literary negation, a development that is reflected in the th-century Judaeo-Arabic papyri but, for different reasons, not in the th/th-century Palestinian Christian Arabic. Why m¯a predominates and lam was not used in the Christian literary traditions of Arabic remains a mystery, though perhaps a contributing factor may have been the influence of the Greek negation particle μ, and its phonetic similarity to m¯a (pronounced m¯e under the influence of the im¯ala) may have allowed it to achieve an elevated status in the literary language.43 A look at the use of lam and m¯a as negations of the past in the thcentury Maghrebian letters as opposed to the th-century Egyptian material, reveals another interesting phenomenon: while the ratio of lam vs. m¯a is about half and half in the Egyptian material, the majority of examples in the Maghrebian letters show lam whereas only   of examples are negated with m¯a. One explanation, already mentioned, could be that in the Maghreb, a more peripheral area of the Arabicspeaking world, the epistolary language was more conservative than in Egypt and emulated Classical Arabic standards to a larger degree. The 42

Hopkins (, ). Of course, in contrast to m¯a, μ is only a non-factual, prohibitive and subjunctive negation but the mere existence of such a negation particle might have helped m¯a to the literary status that it did not have in Muslim and Jewish writing. 43



chapter seven

writers, therefore, avoided the construction m¯a + perfect because of its perceived association with the vernacular. As shown above, lam is by far the most commonly used negation particle in the letters of the th and th centuries and frequently used in the th century too. This, together with the evidence from the Muslim and Christian material, indicates that already by the th century lam must have been established as a regular literary negation particle in Judaeo-Arabic because the normative influence of Classical Arabic alone would not warrant the predominant use of lam as past negation particle and certainly not its use as present negator. The literary negation lam may have remained lively enough to infiltrate utility prose through the continued presence in certain genres of spoken vernacular, such as sayings and poetry, which may have led to its use for emphasis. In this light, the negations in Ibn al-Muj¯awir’s Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir,44 an early ˘ are quite informative. th-century work of substandard Muslim Arabic, For the purpose of comparison, an analysis of the negations used in a sample of about  pages of this text gives the following results.45 For the use of the negation particles, see also the examples in Rex Smith (, f). The distribution of negation particles in the Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir is as ˘ follows: Table . Negation Particles in the Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir ˘ m¯a l¯a laysa lam m¯a nom. nom. nom. C Muslim











The most frequently used negation particle is lam, and it always appears with the imperfect. It is not, however, used according to Classical Arabic rules but instead appears to follow practises similar to those found in the Judaeo-Arabic letters.

44

For more information about the author and the manuscript, see Rex Smith (). The analysis follows Loefgren’s edition (), which is based on several manuscripts of which the earliest, however, only comes from the year . It can thus be assumed that by that time a number of features had already been ‘corrected’ by later scribes. For instance, as obvious from hollow and weak roots, the apocopate is used after lam, which is quite conspicuous as in most of these cases it serves to negate the present tense, against Classical Arabic rules. 45

syntax



Table . lam in the Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir ˘ lam + imperfect used to express C Muslim

past

present

future







We can see that the main function of lam + imperfect is to express the present, in accordance with the analytical tense of the imperfect, which is contrary to Classical Arabic rules. This begs the question: how is the perfect negated? The answer can be seen in the following table, representing the distribution of the negation particle m¯a: Table . m¯a in the Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir ˘ m¯a with perfect to m¯a with imperfect to express C Muslim

express past

present

future

 

 

 

The numbers in the tables demonstrate that in this early th-century Muslim manuscript m¯a is used with the perfect to negate past actions, while lam + imperfect negates the present. l¯a serves as prohibitive negation (), to negate formulas (), as the second or third negation particle in chains of negations (), in nominal clauses () and with the verb z¯ala both in the past () and present (). In the use of verbs within the negative constructions the Ta"r¯ıh al˘ as Mustabs. ir follows to a certain degree the norms of the vernacular, the perfect forms are used to negate the past while the imperfect is used to negate the present. Nevertheless, lam is restricted to preceding the imperfect, though it has to a large degree given up its Classical Arabic function of negating the past and is mainly used for the present. This work of substandard Muslim Arabic writing correlates well with contemporary Judaeo-Arabic letters from the Genizah. A difference can be observed in that the Muslim source makes a rough differentation between the negation of the tenses, using mainly m¯a for the past and lam for the present, whereas lam may still be used as a negation of the past in the contemporary Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th century (although the majority of examples show m¯a negating the past). To summarise the discussion, both the Muslim papyri and the Ta"r¯ıh ˘ al-Mustabs. ir display lam frequently, a usage that is mirrored by the



chapter seven

Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th, th and th centuries. As a literary negation particle for mediaeval substandard writing lam appears, therefore, not to be a purely Judaeo-Arabic phenomenon but its use corresponds to contemporary literary writing traditions of a substandard character. Differences show themselves, however, in the different time periods. Whereas both in the earlier Muslim and Jewish material lam + imperfect is used almost exclusively for the negation of the past, it is used in the th-century Muslim source predominantly as negation of the present and only in a secondary function to negate the past. In contrast, the thcentury Jewish sources still use lam + imperfect mainly as negation of the past, with only a few examples negating the present; the predominant negation particle is m¯a. This is even more obvious in the th- and thcentury letters, in which hardly any traces of this literary lam can be found. In the Late Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th and th centuries, however, the literary lam for the present appears again and, moreover, its distribution is wider than in any other period. As far as Late Judaeo-Arabic literary texts are concerned, Hary (, f) has noted the widespread use of lam in a th-century Purim scroll and described it as a ‘hypocorrection that [has] undergone standardization’. In the th- and th-century corpus, lam is not only a frequently used negation particle but, with very few exceptions, the standard negation, occuring in both verbal (past and present) and nominal constructions. This differs from what has been observed in the earlier Muslim and Judaeo-Arabic writings. While the use of lam for writers of the thcentury and th-century Judaeo-Arabic letters was optional, it became the only negation particle in Late Judaeo-Arabic. The reasons for this development in Late Judaeo-Arabic—and the lack of a similar process in Muslim writing—probably lie in the literary status of lam and the existence of a broad substandard literary Judaeo-Arabic writing tradition. d) The emergence of lam as the standard negation particle in Late Judaeo-Arabic letters The question that arises looking at the data is why lam (and not, for instance, m¯a) became the main negation particle in Late Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic letters, even though m¯a and l¯a (see the table above) still played an important, if not the main, role in the negation phrases of earlier letters. Also, why did lam evolve in this way in Judaeo-Arabic

syntax



whereas it did not become a regular negation particle in later Muslim dialectal texts?46 Two features that are relevant for answering these questions are the distinct literary nature of lam and the linguistic ambiguity of m¯a. As we have seen from the evidence of the Egyptian papyri in the th century, lam emerged early as a distinct literary feature. At the same time, it may have been used for special emphasis in the spoken language and would, therefore, have been present in the minds of the speakers as a means of negation. Nevertheless, the restrictions imposed by the grammar of Classical Arabic on the syntactic environment of lam were maintained, and it appears almost exclusively with the imperfect, the only concession being the loss of the apocopate due to the general loss of the moods. From this basis, aided by the fact that m¯a may be ambiguous in places as it is also used in its Classical Arabic functions as an interrogative or relative particle, lam slowly became the preferred and finally the standard negation particle in literary texts, taking over the negation of all temporal forms, the prohibitive and even the negation of nominal clauses. It can be compared to the pseudo-classical relative pronoun éãìà for äldi, which also emerged from a Classical Arabic form and was used as the almost exclusive relative pronoun in written substandard Arabic. Another factor contributing to the emergence of lam as the standard negation particle may be that, whereas m¯a and l¯a were still used regularly in living speech, lam was already marked out as distinctly literary. When the negator m¯a became combined with the particle -ˇs in vernacular speech, this tainted m¯a as a distinct colloquial form, again enforcing lam’s position as the dominant literary negation. This is supported by the already mentioned fact that today the negator m¯a is rarely used in the literary language of modern newspapers.47 As to why lam did not penetrate the later Muslim varieties of substandard Arabic, it can only be speculated that the constant normative influence of Classical Arabic restricted it to its use with the imperfect and thus hindered it from becoming the standard literary negation. In ˇ h. Qas.¯ıd the colloquial passages of the th-century Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar ˇad¯uf by Y¯usuf al-Sirb¯ ˇ ın¯ı, lam only plays a marginal role. Yet again, Ab¯ı S¯ these passages render colloquial speech and do not present a literary Middle Arabic Muslim work, such as the Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir. In general, ˘ 46 47

See Khan (, ) and Davies (). See Wehr (, ), and similarly, Holes (, ).



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it was certainly more difficult to develop a genuine writing tradition of literary Muslim substandard Arabic under the constant pressure to use Classical Arabic, a pressure which was less exerted on the Jewish writers. This lack in compulsion to adhere to the prescriptive ideal of al#arabiyya in addition to a desire to segregate themselves linguistically from the Muslim population and to create their own sociolect probably led to the emergence of a broad Jewish substandard writing tradition, whereas Muslim substandard writing presented always more of a fringe than a mainstream literary genre. Yet, from the th-century papyri and the th-century Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir we can infer that the extended use of the negator lam was˘not a feature that was restricted to Judaeo-Arabic but that has its roots in a broader tradition of substandard literary Arabic. ... The Negation Particles m¯a, l¯a, and laysa .... l¯a In Classical Arabic, l¯a is used in several functions: with the perfect, it expresses the optative; with the imperfect, it is used in future negation and in certain subordinate present constructions; with the apocopate or the energetic it expresses the prohibitive; and with the subjunctive it appears in final or complement subordinate clauses. It also appears in certain nominal negative constructions, in ‘neither … nor’ constructions, and importantly, as the second negator in negation chains. It can also be found with all these functions in the Judaeo-Arabic letters, disregarding the moods and replacing the apocopate and subjunctive with the imperfect. The constraint against using l¯a + imperfect (and subjunctive) for the negation of present action in Classical Arabic appears to have been abandoned in the mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic texts. In general, not many examples of l¯a + imperfect (or bi-imperfect) may be found for the negation of the present, and most of these occur in a subordinate structure, for example ä÷úçú àì àî éðéî úã˙ ëàå T-S J. /  ‘she took from me what she has no claim over’ (C). A few cases can be found in which l¯a + imperfect negates the present in a simple main clause: éùá äáìàèàá àìå GW VIII/ ‘I am not claiming anything from him’ (C). Additionally, l¯a can be found with the perfect as a negation of the past, for example áàúë âåéôìà òî äðî âøë àì T-S . /  ‘no letter has come from him with the couriers’ (C Maghreb). As discussed above, l¯a +

syntax



perfect seems to be modelled after m¯a + perfect, with the l¯a supplanting m¯a as a more ‘classical’ or ‘literary’ form. The particle l¯a also appears in its Classical Arabic roles, for example, with the imperfect to negate future actions: ïéðúàå ˙ðéã ãéàæá éìàáð àìå T-S . /  ‘I will not care about one or two dinars more’ (C Maghreb), and possibly in48ãá ïåëé àì T-S ./v. ‘surely, it will not happen’ (C Maghreb), although the example is rubbed and very hard to read. As in Classical Arabic, l¯a + perfect is used for optative only, but contrary to Classical Arabic, l¯a + imperfect can be used both for the prohibitive and the optative; l¯a + perfect for the optative: éàìåî ìö˙ ôú úîãò àìô T-S J. /  ‘may I never be deprived of my master’s graciousness’ (C Egypt); äììà êáé6 éë àì T-S NS J /  ‘may God not disappoint you’ (C); l¯a + imperfect for the prohibitive: êéìà ÷åùìà úäâ˙ ïî ìàñú àì GW XXVIII/f ‘do not ask about the intensity of my affection toward you’ (C/C); l¯a + imperfect for the optative: àãáà àððéá ÷øôé àì T-S ./v. ‘and may he (God) not separate us ever’ (C). l¯a is also the particle used as second negator in negation chains: éøúùà àî ïéîé éðî àøâ äá òéáà àìå éù ãçàì CUL Or  J/v. ‘I have sworn I will not buy anything for anyone and I will not sell with him’ (C); àìå äúáåàâ íì áàåâ äì ú[éà]ø T-S . / -v. ‘I did not answer him and I did not see an answer from him’ (C/C). .... m¯a The particle m¯a is used both in Classical Arabic and in the vernacular. Overall, it is one of the most used negations in the Judaeo-Arabic letters, but it is largely absent in the th-century papyri and in the th- and th-century letters, which both employ the literary negation lam in its place. It occurs as the main nominal negation particle and is the predominant present tense negation in the letters from the th to the th/th century. For past and nominal negation it is much rarer in the th-century Maghrebian letters than in the th-century letters from Egypt, where it is used in the majority of cases. In the th-century and th- and th-century letters, m¯a is the main verbal negation particle for both past and present and is used in most examples expressing negation. For examples with m¯a, see ...

48 In contrast to Standard Arabic, l¯ a buddu is separated here, and buddu is constructed in the same way as abadan.



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.... laysa In Classical Arabic, laysa is mostly used as an uninflected nominal (or predicate) negation. It also appears in verbal clauses, in conjugated form, in combination with the imperfect but, according to Wright (, II ), this is limited to a ‘strongly denied present or future’. In the Judaeo-Arabic letters, laysa in a verbal clause is not inflected but appears in an uninflected form: êá àìà äðî éöàìë íìòð ñéìô T-S ./rm.ff ‘I do not know (how to) get rid of him except through you’ (C Maghreb). As in Classical Arabic, most examples of laysa appear to express a strongly denied present or future: çøù éððëîé ñéìå T-S . /  ‘I (really) cannot explain’ (C Maghreb). While laysa is common as a verbal negation particle in the thcentury letters, it only occurs once in this role in the th-century letters and cannot be found in the th- and th-century or th- and thcentury material as a verbal negator at all, occuring only as a negation particle of nominal clauses. ... Synchronic Description of the Verbal Negations .... The th-Century Papyri The th-century papyri are a small corpus and contain only a few examples of negation. What is obvious from the little evidence available is the general orientation towards Classical Arabic in the use of lam + imperfect for the negation of the past. This is surprising considering the deviations from the Classical ideal we can observe in their orthography.49 A possible example of a negated present action is expressed by lam + imperfect: äðî éì ãåëú àî äøà íì Vienna H Verso E  ‘I do not see what you take from him for me’. The example, however, is dubious. Blau and Hopkins (, ) translate it according to its form as past ‘I did not see’50 but it is hard to reconcile this tense with the imperfect in the complement clause.

49

See Blau and Hopkins (). Based on the possible interpretation of possible. 50

äøà

as ‘I see’, which is orthographically

syntax



lam + imperfect for past: ééù ééìà òôãé íì P. Berol  / f ‘he did not pay me anything’; äéá äâåú íìå P. Mich. Inv.  Verso/f ‘you did not send him’. m¯a + perfect for past: ïëîà àîå Vienna H / f ‘it was not possible’. .... The th-Century Letters from the Maghreb In the th-century letters from the Maghreb, the negation particles are distributed as follows: Table . Negations of Past Actions in th-Century Letters from the Maghreb

C Maghreb

lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

 

 

 

–

Table . Negations of Present Actions in th-Century Letters from the Maghreb

C Maghreb

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

 

 .

 .

 

The predominant negation particle of the past is lam. It appears mainly in its Classical Arabic construction and function, though obviously with the imperfect in place of the apocopate due to the loss of the moods. Its main function is to negate the past but in one example it is used to negate a present action. The lack of m¯a negating the past due to its association with the vernacular has been discussed above, where it is explained as a reflection of stricter conformity to the ideals of Classical Arabic. This may also explain the common occurrences of laysa for strongly denied present or future. lam + imperfect for past: éù àäéìò à÷áé íìå T-S J. /  ‘nothing remained on it’; êáàñç éô úðà àäøëãú íì T-S ./v. ‘you did not mention them in your accounts’. m¯a + perfect for past: éù äðî ãëàð ïà úøã÷ àîå T-S ./topm.ff ‘I could not retrieve anything from him’; äðåì éðáâò àî ìöå éãìà øôöàìà ïàì



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T-S . /  ‘as for the yellow [garment] that arrived: I did not like its colour’. l¯a + perfect for past: áàúë âåéôìà òî äðî âøë àì T-S . /  ‘no letter has come from him with the couriers’. m¯a + imperfect for present: èøôé àî äðà íìòð éðà T-S . /  ‘I know that he is not negligent’. lam + imperfect for present: àðåä äðñìà äéô éðìîçé íì ïàì T-S . /  ‘because it does not sustain me here this year’. The writer of T-S . complains about his meagre income as a teacher and expresses the desire to move away. éðìîçé íì possibly expresses a present action but it could also be interpreted as present perfect ‘it has not supported me here’. laysa + imperfect for present: çøù éððëîé ñéìå T-S . /  ‘I (really) cannot explain’; íåéìà øéñð ñéì ìà÷å T-S . /  ‘he said: I am (certainly) not travelling today’. .... The th-Century Letters from Egypt In the th-century letters from Egypt, the negations are distributed as follows. Table . Negations of the Past in th-Century Letters from Egypt

C Egypt

lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

 

 

 

–

Table . Negations of the Present in th-Century Letters from Egypt

C Egypt

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

 

–

 

 

As we can see, lam is used in the majority of examples with negation of the past, but m¯a also features prominently. The present may be negated by m¯a + imperfect (most common), l¯a + imperfect or laysa + imperfect.

syntax



lam + imperfect for past: äâàç øáìà éìò àäì à÷áé íìå T-S J. /  ‘nothing remained left to do for them on land’; åéìëé íì àéîçàìà áëàøîå ìãò ãçàì T-S J. /  ‘and the warships did not make space for a single bale’. m¯a + perfect for past: øéðàðã ˙æ àåñ àãàä éîåé éô éòî é÷á àîå T-S NS . /  ‘now I have only  dinars left’; áëøî ãâ˙å àî T-S . /  ‘he did not find a ship’. l¯a + perfect for past: éù àäá íäì úéøúùà àìå T-S J./v. ‘I did not buy anything for them with it’. m¯a + imperfect for present: êìàã˙ éäúùð àî T-S . /  ‘I do not want that’; áø÷ìàá äììàù ïà áëàøîìà ïà êåùà àîå T-S J. / f ‘I do not doubt that the ships—God willing—are near’. l¯a + imperfect for present: éðáúàëé àì óéë éøãð àîô T-S J./v.f ‘I don’t know how he does not write to me’. laysa + imperfect for present: éðî àäãëàé ñéì âéì[ë éô] éö˙ îð ïî ìëå T-S J. /  ‘no one I passed by in Hal¯ıj would take them from me’. ˘ .... The Letters from the th Century In the letters from the th century, we can observe the following distributions of negations: Table . Negation Particles of the Past in the th-Century Letters

C

lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

 

 

 

 

Table . Negation Particles of the Present in the th-Century Letters

C

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

 

 

 

 

In the th-century letters, m¯a is the predominant negation particle. It serves to negate both past and present actions. The past may also be



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negated by lam + imperfect, although it is less common. In a few rare examples l¯a + perfect and lam + perfect are used to negate the past; it appears that in both constructions the particles l¯a + perfect and lam replace m¯a because they enjoy a more ‘Classical’ and literay status. lam is also used with negations of present meaning beside the main particle m¯a. Tables  and , above, show that prohibitive and future actions as well as formulas are negated with l¯a while nominal clauses primarily use m¯a. lam + imperfect for past: íäìàåçà ïî ÷÷çð íìô T-S J. /  ‘we did not examine their affairs’; éä ïî íìòð íìå T-S J. /  ‘I did not know who she was’. m¯a + perfect for past: éùá úîìò àî ìà÷ô T-S J. /  ‘and he said: I did not know anything’; úáúë àî êãðò ïî àðâøë ãî T-S ./v. ‘since we left you you have not written’. l¯a + perfect for past: äáçàö òî à÷úìà àìå T-S J./v. ‘he did not meet his partner’. lam + perfect for past: reached me’.

éù éìà ìöå íì

CUL Or  J/v.f ‘nothing

m¯a + imperfect for present: éù àåñé àî ãð÷ìàå CUL Or  J /  ‘the candy is worth nothing’; éù ãçàì éøúùà àî ïéîé éðî àøâ CUL Or  J/v. ‘I have sworn I will not buy anything for anyone’. lam + imperfect for present: ñàø àäì çøñú ìòôú íì T-S J. /  ‘she does not comb her head’; àî êîàô ìâ˙ù ìîòú íì àäðà àìåîìà ìå÷ ïî àîàå àäìâ˙ù óøòú T-S J. / f ‘concerning the saying of the master that she does not work, your mother does not know her work!’. In this letter, the writer answers the complaints of a husband regarding his wife, the writer’s niece. In previous letters, the husband had written how she never combs her hair or wears make-up anymore, and how little work she does. Another example occurs in the following letter where witnesses, being asked about the state of a certain affair, deny any knowledge of it: íìå ùéà íìòð T-S J./v. ‘we do not know anything’. l¯a + imperfect for present: éùá äáìàèàá àìå GW VIII/ ‘I am not claiming anything from him’; ä÷úçú àì àî éðî úã˙ ëàå T-S J. /  ‘she took from me what she has no claim over’. laysa + imperfect for present: à÷éø àäéô òøâúð ñéì éãìà ä6ééðãìà àéðãìà äãä T-S J./v. ‘this world is the (lower) world in which we do not swallow pleasant saliva’.

äééðä

syntax



.... The Letters from the th and th Century In the th- and th-century letters, the negation particles are distributed as follows. Table . Negation Particles of the Past in the th/th-Century Letters

C/C

lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

 

 

–

 

Table . Negation Particles of the Present in the th/th-Century Letters

C/C

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

 

–

–

–

The th- and th-century letters are closest to what would be expected of vernacular material, with m¯a being used in most negations. We can also find, however, one example in a th-century letter of lam + perfect, which anticipates the forms used in the th- and th-century epistolary style. lam + imperfect for past: êìàã øéâ éù ìà÷ ïåëé íì åäðà äøåîâ äòåáùá éì óìçå T-S . / f ‘he swore to me with a “complete oath” that he did not say anything else but that’. m¯a + perfect for past: éù úìîò àî GW XXX/f ‘I did not make anything’; äììà úðåòî òî äãáà íä ééìò à÷á àîå GW XXX/f ‘there is no sorrow left for me with the help of God’. lam + perfect for past: áàåâ äì ú[éà]ø àìå äúáåàâ íì T-S . / -v. ‘I did not answer him and I did not see an answer from him’. m¯a + (bi-)imperfect for present: ùééà êìàã åìòô àãà óøòàá àîô T-S ./v. ‘I do not know when they did this’; óöð ë˙ àììà ãëàð àî åìà÷ ïàìà GW XXX/ ‘they said: we only take  half-dinars now’. The ùééà at the end of the sentence of the first example might be a trace of the negation particle -ˇs (as in m¯a ba#rafˇs ‘I do not know’) disguised



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in pseudo-classical Arabic writing. This is not the only example of a vernacular negation creeping in: there is also a form of miˇs + imperfect: ˇ ıl: “I do ˙ ðà ùî ìéîùì ìà÷ T-S . / f ‘he said to Sam¯ ìîò[éá] ùéà øö not see what he is doing”’. This construction is particularly interesting in connection with an observation made by Brustad (, ) in which she states that in Modern Egyptian ‘/miˇs/ is becoming increasingly inseparable into its component parts. The increasing frequency noted by el-Tonsi of the construction /miˇs + indicative imperfective/ suggests that it may eventually replace the normative /m¯a + indicative imperfective + ˇs/’. Since the miˇs + imperfect construction can be found as early as in the th century, it suggests that the two forms have been serving in the same function for a long time and the question should be asked why they have been competing for so long and why neither form has prevailed over the other. .... The Letters from the th and th Century The distribution of negations used in the th- and th-century letters to negate past, present and future actions is as follows: Table . Negations of the Past in the th/th-Century Letters

C/C

lam + imperfect

m¯a + perfect

l¯a + perfect

lam + perfect

–

–

–

 

Table . Negations of the Present in the th/th-Century Letters

C/C

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

–

 

 

–

Table . Negations of the Future in the th/th-Century Letters

C/C

m¯a + imperfect

lam + imperfect

l¯a + imperfect

laysa + imperfect

 

 

–

–

syntax



In the th- and th-century letters, lam is the only negation found in the documents, with l¯a occuring only once with the verb h¯afa ‘to fear’ and twice as second negation particle in a negation chain.˘ It serves to negate all verbal forms including prohibitive and nominal clauses. The circumstances which have led to lam becoming the standard negation in Late Judaeo-Arabic have been extensively discussed under .., above. To negate the past, lam combines with the perfect, whereas for present and future actions as well as the prohibitive, it takes the imperfect. With the bi-imperfect, it negates continuous or habitual actions. Three constructions with m¯a + imperfect can be found, which are used to negate the future. It would certainly be of interest to investigate a wider corpus to see whether m¯a is used in particular for future negation. lam with perfect for past: íëì ìå÷ð íæìé ïàë íìå AIU VIIE /  ‘it was not necessary that we tell you’; íåäì áúëð àðéáç íì éô AIU VIIE  / f ‘we did not want to write (it) for them’; äðéô åúøëô íì T-S NS . /  ‘you did not think of us’; äôéö˙ ð äòàö˙ åá äðà÷ì íìå T-S J. / f ‘we have not found clean merchandise’. lam with imperfect for present: áééè ìà øéâ àìà áåçð íì äðçà ïéëàìå AIU VIIE  / f ‘we do not want anything but the best’; ãåâååî ìàå ˙ ðá ìéô T-S J. / f ‘what is available in town ñàéëú øùò éâé íì øö does not exceed  bags’; äééëøù ìéã äðòôðé íì äðçà T-S NS . /  ‘this partnership does not benefit us’. lam with bi-imperfect for present: ìàééø W[ ò˙ åòéáé åö˙ øééá íìå T-S J. /  ‘they do not want to sell at the rate of  riyy¯al’; åáâòééá íì ïàì ìàç ìà T-S J. / f ‘since he does not like the situation’. lam with imperfect for prohibitive and negative wish: íåëì äðìå÷ äãëå ˙ ìéãá äåáø÷ú íì T-S NS . /  ‘thus we told you that you should ò not approach it at this value’; ìàøñé òè÷é íì äðåáøå AIU VIIE /m. ‘our lord shall not cut off (his love towards) Israel’; äùøô ìà øéâ ïî äðåìë˙ ú íì ïéìàù ìàå T-S J. /  ‘do not leave us without the brush and the two shawls’. lam in nominal clauses: äðãç äìò äååä íìå AIU VIIE  /  ‘he is not on our side’; äðì èøôé éö˙ ø ïãçà íìå T-S J. /  ‘nobody agreed to sell to us at a low price’; åìåë˙ ãé åáåçé äðøéâ ïàì äðåôøòú ìéáà÷ íåëì íì ïàë ïàå T-S NS . / f ‘and if you do not have the inclination, let us know because there are others than just us who would like to go into (a partnership)’. m¯a (-ˇs) with imperfect for future: àî ïñçà íëìèåò íãòì äééðàú ìàå õìàåá åäðî íëì çåøé T-S Ar. ./m. ‘and secondly, to avoid your loss because no bill of exchange will go to you from him’; and in an unusually colloquial letter that was not taken up into the corpus ïî çéø ìà åáéâ ïá àðçà



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ñàð ìà éùðåáéàòé àî ïàùéá àðìáå÷

CUL Or .. / f ‘we are bringing the spirit from our side so that the people will not blame us’; ìà åúòáéð àî åðàñøå ÷çöé ãé äìò àì CUL Or .. /  ‘we will only send (it) with Isaac Varsanu’. l¯a + imperfect for prohibitive: in a letter from outside the corpus ãòá øåöé÷á íåëéì àðáúë åëéøú ñîà ïàá íåëàôëé àì íåëéìò íàìñìà ãéæî CUL Or .. / f ‘after many greetings to you, it should not be hidden from you that we wrote to you yesterday in short’. In one example l¯a is used after the verb h¯afa. In Classical Arabic, l¯a can be inserted after verbs signifying ‘fear’ or˘ ‘forbid’ without affecting the meaning. Because this is a case of restricted phraseology, l¯a has probably survived in this position and has not been substituted with lam: àì ôéàë˙ å òâøé íìå çåøé T-S J. / f ‘I am afraid that he will go and will not come back’.

.. The Bi-Imperfect and the Participle ... The Origin of the Bi-Imperfect Certain genres of substandard Arabic, in particular those found in letters, employ verbal forms in which the normal imperfect is preceded by the prefix bi-. This so-called bi-imperfect does not occur in Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, but it plays an important role in the spoken dialects. In the Levant dialects, for example, it has superseded the unmarked imperfect and is now being used as the regular imperfect form. Several theories have been proposed about the origin of the bi-imperfect. The most convincing explanation is that it derived from constructions with the preposition bi-. One of the first to address this, Spitta (, ) suggested that b- + verbal forms express that ‘somebody is in the course of the action and that he will continue to do so’.51 The origin of the bi-imperfect from the preposition bi- is supported by its use in negated constructions with the participle (see Fischer , f), such as lastu bi-f¯a #ilin or m¯a an¯a bi-f¯a #ilin ‘I am (certainly) not doing, I will not be doing’, which, similar to the bi-imperfect, also express a certain notion of continuity. 51

wird’.

‘… dass jemand jetzt bei einer Handlung ist und diese in Zukunft noch fortsetzen

syntax



Nöldeke (, ) thought the origin lay in constructions of the type k¯ana bi-yaf#al, with a preceding auxiliary verb and a following imperfect introduced by b-. He pointed out similar use of prepositions in constructions such as the jussive li-yaf#al. Both Davies (, f) and Blau (, f) have argued that, to corroborate Nöldeke’s theory, the earliest examples would have to be what Blau calls ‘asyndetical prepositional clauses’. As this is not the case, Blau assumes it to be ‘possible that … [by the time it appears in the sources] the biimperfect had already become a fixed form’. This proposal will be discussed below. Beginning from a discussion of the functions that the bi-imperfect holds in the Modern vernacular, the emergence of the bi-imperfect in substandard writing will be investigated. This will enable us to establish the functions of those early forms through comparison with its modern use. Additionally, the relationship of the bi-imperfect to the participle and the general use of the participle in the letters will be examined. ... The Bi-Imperfect in Modern Egyptian Arabic Since most of the material in the letters comes from Egypt, the natural reference of comparison is the bi-imperfect as used in the Modern Egyptian Arabic. The Modern Egyptian bi-imperfect has been discussed in various publications.52 Davies (, ff) has described its functions and noted that the Egyptian bi-imperfect is used for a) continuative and b) habitual actions, and to convey c) general facts. Summing up his results, he proposes the term ‘actuality’ to distinguish the function of the bi-imperfect in contrast to the unmarked imperfect. Davies’ separation of the second and third point seems unnecessary. Habituality includes both general fact and characteristics since habitual verbs in combination with generic subjects express general facts and characteristics. The term habitual as used in the following investigation will therefore include general facts and characteristics. Woidich (, ff) has pointed out that in Modern Egyptian the bi-imperfect of inchoative verbs can never convey individual actions; in these cases the participle has to be used. Compare his examples of habitual vs. individual actions expressed by the same verb: bas. u¯ m 52 Apart from the works mentioned in the following, see also Mitchell (, ), Abdel-Malek (, ) and Spitta (, ).

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Ramad¯ . an ‘I usually fast in Ramad¯ . an’ vs. an¯a s. a¯yim ‘I am fasting’, Sayyid adbaˇ s ma-biˇ s ufˇ s i bil-l¯ e l ‘Sayyid has nightblindness and does not see in the . night’ vs. ana ˇsayfu ‘I see him’, bas¯afir kit¯ır min sanat¯en ‘for two years, I have been travelling a lot’ vs. hiyya msafra Tan . t. a ‘she is travelling to Tan t a’ , ana bar du n¯ a zil a s ayyif ya t ara btinzili f¯en ‘I will be going on a . . . . . summer holiday, where do you usually go?’. Woidich’s observations have been elaborated by Eisele (), who has developed a system of lexical aspectual classes for Cairene Arabic. He investigates the functions of the bi-imperfect and the active participle for all verbs within his system and comes to instructive results. His findings suggest that the bi-imperfect not only of inchoative verbs but also of noninchoative momentaneous verbs is restricted to express habituality, while the bi-imperfect of certain inchoatives, namely the interval non-stative group, can only express present processive meaning. Additionally, he postulates a class of ambiguous verbs which can be both stative and inchoative, such as #araf ‘know’ or ‘come to know, learn’ or habb ‘love’ or ‘fall in love’ as well as a further number of subclasses . within each category. His system classifies each verb into one of the following categories: I stative (including agentive statives)—bi-imperfect characteristic only (general fact) II non-stative (change of state) a) momentaneous i. inchoative ii. non-inchoatives

bi-imperfect habitual only bi-imperfect habitual bi-imperfect habitual

b) interval . telic i. inchoative ii. non-inchoatives . non-telic

bi-imperfect present processive only bi-imperfect present or ‘becoming, trying, getting’ bi-imperfect present processive meaning bi-imperfect present processive meaning

It is worth asking whether his results can be applied to the older examples in Middle Arabic sources. This leads us to the issue of when the earliest examples of the bi-imperfect in Middle Arabic occur. And, when it starts occuring in writing, may it be assumed that the bi-imperfect was already established in speech? To answer these questions the chronology of the bi-imperfect’s emergence in the substandard varieties of written Middle Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic in particular will be established in the following section.

syntax



... The Emergence of the Bi-Imperfect in Substandard Arabic .... The Bi-Imperfect in Christian and Muslim Sources The main bulk of the Christian Arabic sources used for Blau’s grammar (–) comes from the th and th century. It is therefore not surprising that no examples of bi-imperfects can be found as at that time neither Jewish nor Muslim sources show bi-imperfects; the examined material is simply too early to contain the forms. There is, however, one possible example which Blau (, ) believes to be a bi-imperfect. It occurs in a gospel from the th century, in the direct speech of Jesus: \ %B ] B ‘do you believe that I am able to’. This example is unconvincing for several reasons. First, it is the only example and can easily be interpreted otherwise. Blau admits this (calling it ‘asyndetical prepositional clause’) but finds such a translation ‘rather forced’. Although the Greek original has a verbal form, τι δναμαι τουτο ποιησαι ‘that I am able to do this’, the phrase need not necessarily have been translated with a finite verbal form, in particular as the bi-imperfect is not a word-for-word translation of δναμαι ποιησαι. It seems easier to interpret the clause as a nominal clause, or, as bi- + defectively written active participle, similar to Classical Arabic m¯a an¯a bi-f¯a #ilin (Ibn Hiˇsa¯m ,) ‘I am (certainly) not doing this’.53 This bi- + participle occurs frequently with the negations m¯a and laysa,54 but it is not hard to imagine it spreading into positive sentences. Additionally, the participle in clauses introduced by inna is very common,55 for example in fa-#mal bi-m¯a anta #alayhi inn¯a #¯amil¯una bi-m¯a nahnu . #alayhi Ibn Hiˇsa¯m , ‘do what you think, we do what we think’ or wa-waqa#a h¯ yadayhi bil. ına walattuh¯u wa-innah¯u la-w¯adi#un . ard. r¯afi#un ra"sah¯u il¯a s-sam¯a" Ibn Hiˇsa¯m ,– ‘it happened, when I gave birth to him, he stretched his hands on the earth and raised his head toward the sky’. Secondly, if this is indeed a bi-imperfect, why are there no further examples in the abundance of letters from the th and early th century

53 See also the example in the letters: àäá íàé÷ìà éìò àøãà÷ øéâ äðàå T-S J./v. ‘and that he was not able to support her’. 54 Fischer (, ). 55 A similar function of the active participle has been described for Egyptian Arabic by Woidich () who calls it ‘Gewissheitsfunktion’ (expressing certainty).

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even though some of them are written in a colloquial style and include other vernacular elements? Thirdly, it is hard to believe that of all speakers this very colloquial construction in Christian Arabic is attributed to Jesus. Because of general pejorative attitudes towards the vernacular language in written form it would be expected that scribes rendering the sayings of a religious leader are rather careful to use what they would consider ‘high standard’ language and to avoid colloquial phrases. For these reasons, it is difficult to accept Blau’s example as early evidence of the bi-imperfect. Davies (, ) mentions the existence of a few possible early Egyptian Muslim examples with bi-imperfect but doubts their reliability. Among these is a th-century example mentioned by Nöldeke (, ). He also presents a small number of bi-imperfects in the Muslim comparison sources he uses from the th to th century, and cites examples from the th-century Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf. Davies points out that in many examples in which Modern Egyptian Arabic has a bi-imperfect the unmarked imperfect occurs in the thcentury Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf. This leads him to believe that in the th century the bi-imperfect was not yet completely established in the functions that would become its primary use in Modern Egyptian Arabic. He also discusses the results of research on the bi-imperfect presented in an unpublished paper delivered by Madiha Doss at the University of Berkeley. According to Davies, Doss claims that in the Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf the bi-imperfect was more constrained than in Modern Egyptian Arabic because it could not occur in relative and circumstantial clauses and after k¯an. Davies rejects this interpretation on a number of grounds, including evidence of the bi-imperfect in exactly those clauses in the Hazz alQuh¯ . uf (see pp. –). There, the bi-imperfect appears in one circumstantial and two relative clauses, respectively, while the unmarked imperfect is used in all other similar constructions. Davies’ examples, however, need some examination. The example with bi-imperfect in a circumstantial clause, () W#LA MN JTW QS#H WHW: BYHRT56 ‘and ˘ happy is he who is brought a bowl (of food) while he is ploughing’ , differs quite considerably from the contrasted example with the unmarked ˇ imperfect, () ¯DK"RTWNY NSYD MLYH QLTW WANA AHRT ‘you have reminded me of a nice song I made˘up while ploughing’.˘ The first sentence is circumstantial but it also has a conditional connotation in it, 56 All the examples from Davies (chapter ....) are quoted in his own transliterations and enumeration.

syntax



which is completely lacking in the second example with the unmarked imperfect. The contrast is generic (‘whenever he is ploughing’) vs. specific subject (‘I was ploughing’). It could, for example, be imagined that the conditional element lifts the constraint that prevents the bi-imperfect from occuring in this circumstantial clause. However, Davies is probably right in rejecting Doss’ idea that the bi-imperfect might have developed in independent clauses and only later seeped into the subordinate clause (with the th-century sources being in the middle of a transition period). Evidence from th/th-century Judaeo-Arabic material shows that in some of the earliest examples the bi-imperfect appears asyndetically in final and consecutive clauses as well as in circumstantial clauses.57 One of the two relative clauses with bi-imperfect given by Davies (p. ) needs to be examined for different reasons: () AKLT ALKNAFH AL:TY BTAKLHA ALAMARH ‘I ate the kun¯afa that the princes eat’ is compared with a similar clause, using the unmarked imperfect: () ALT#AM ALLY YAKLWH ALAMARH ‘the food which the princes . eat’. The presence of the verbal forms in these examples requires an explanation. In the first instance, the animate plural uses the rd feminine verbal form while the second example uses the more Classical Arabic form of the rd plural. This begs the question of whether the second clause is actually on a different, i.e., more elevated level of language, and therefore avoiding the bi-imperfect. As Davies (, ) has also remarked in the cases of other examples, specificity may play an important in the use of the bi-imperfect; compare the generic vs. specific subject in the examples above. In the first example, the food indicated is certainly more specific than the general term food, which may also account for the use of the bi-imperfect in this example. .... The Bi-Imperfect in Judaeo-Arabic According to Blau (, f), examples of the bi-imperfect start to appear in Judaeo-Arabic at the end of the th century, and he considers it ‘quite possible that Judaeo-Arabic texts reflect a relatively late linguistic stage in which the bi-imperfect had already become a fixed verbal form’. The examples in his grammar date from the late th century to the th century, with the earliest appearing, as may be expected, in utility prose

57

Blau (, ).

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(letters and witness statements) from around the time of Maimonides, and in the literary writings of Maimonides and his descendants himself. As writing systems are typically conservative and diverge from their corresponding spoken language, it has to be assumed that written Judaeo-Arabic language only reflects the contemporary spoken Jewish religiolect to a small degree. For a vernacular form such as the biimperfect—non-existant in Classical Arabic—to penetrate the literary variety would have probably taken a certain period of time, even in substandard writing. On the other hand, it is important to note that examples of bi-imperfects are relatively scarce in th- and th-century material, a point also acknowledged by Blau. To address the question whether the bi-imperfect in the th century was already established as a regular form, it seems prudent to investigate the functions it performs in these early examples. The first investigation concerns whether the bi-imperfect is used in the functions it holds in Modern Egyptian Arabic, namely habituality and the expression of present progressive meaning. For the present progressive meaning, a number of examples can indeed be found,58 for example: éðòâ˙åúá éðéò àðà ‘my eye is hurting me’ (David Maimonides, middle th century) or ˙ êøã íäîìòéá äðàì ‘because he is teaching them the righteous way’ ä (Abraham Maimonides, early th century); and for habitual meaning: ˙ àåúìà íäëìñéá éãìà êéàìåà ‘those who are led by humility’ (Abraham òö Maimonides, early th century); and in a th-century letter: íéäøãà ç˙ á àäåøéñééá ÷ùîã ïî øäù ìë ‘with  dinars, which they send every month from Damascus’ (T-S . / f). However, beside habitual and present progressive usage a number of examples can be found in which the bi-imperfect appears in functions that it cannot hold in the Modern vernacular. For example, there are clauses in which the bi-imperfect appears in purpose clauses or consecutive clauses: áìàèá ïéãîìà øö˙ çå ‘and the creditor came to demand’ (Abraham Maimonides, early th century), åìöéá ö§§ù áåéì÷ ìäà øö˙ àç íú˙ ïàëå ‘then came the inhabitants of Qaly¯ub to pray’ (witness statement )59 and éðéò äá éì ìñâúðá ïáì éì áàâ ‘he gave me milk to wash my eye with’ (letter, end of th century).60 These examples appear to contradict the ‘actuality’ that has been proposed by Davies as a function of the bi-imperfect. 58

Examples from Blau (a, f). In the edition of the document, åìöéá is superscripted above the verb øö˙ çô, which introduces the next clause. 60 T-S ./ . 59

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The examples may indicate that, at least for a certain time, the biimperfect was used in a wider range of functions than in today’s vernacular, possibly as a form co-existing with the unmarked imperfect and sharing a large part of its functions. This is a very likely scenario. A newly emerged form often competes with older, similar forms for their functions. There is usually a time during which forms become highly polyfunctional before the functions are redistributed.61 Many of Blau’s examples come from literary sources, which raises the question whether the forms in the letters show a similar distribution of functions. .... The Bi-Imperfect in the Letters The temporal distribution of findings in the letters is in accordance to what has been observed for literary Judaeo-Arabic: none of the thcentury letters62 shows an example of bi-imperfect, while the thcentury corpus has a few examples. In the letters from the th/th century and th/th century the bi-imperfect seems well established. Two further selected letters from the th century and th century have been included in this chapter as they seem of interest for the emergence of the bi-imperfect. a) th century A possible early example from a th-century letter can be found in a letter63 from Jerusalem to Egypt, which contains the following sentence: íäãçà ìú÷àá àìàå àäæåâà íì ãà ‘if I don’t marry her, I will kill one of them!’. If the dating by the editor of the letter on historical and genealogical grounds to the th century is right, it might be one of the earliest examples of the bi-imperfect. The orthography, morphology, and syntax is very similar to other th-century/th-century letters. However, there are a number of features which are more typical for later letters, such as the use of the genitive particle bit¯a #, the bi-imperfect and the verb jwz for zwj ‘marry’.

61

For the same phenomenon in Yiddish, see Kühnert and Wagner (, ff). No example can be found in the th-century papyri edited by Blau and Hopkins. 63 From the Genizah-collection in the National library in Jerusalem. Published in Qiryat Sefer  (), pp. –, but no siglum is given. 62

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The writer seems to hail from Egypt and accounts a dispute between two men in Jerusalem who want to marry the same bride. With the above sentence he renders the angry direct speech of a man trying to marry the woman who is not willing to take him. This is very important as the occurrence of the bi-imperfect may be a means to indicate direct speech within the letter, and may even have been used in a derogatory function. The speaker mentioned in the letter was probably not of Egyptian origin, thus the function of the bi-imperfect cannot be compared to Modern Egyptian Arabic. It seems, however, to be in accordance with Modern Palestinian Arabic, where the bi-imperfect can indicate the future as well as the present, the latter being its main function.64 It could also be argued that shortly after the emergence of the bi-imperfect, its use in Egypt and Syria did not differ and that the distinctions present today only developed later. b) th century In the th-century corpus, six examples of bi-imperfects can be found. Present progressive meaning is expressed in: éùá äáìàèàá àìå GW VIII/ ‘I am not claiming anything from him’; øåîàìà ïéáú óéë íìòàá àîå T-S J./v.f ‘I do not know how you will explain the matters’; ìå÷éá ïéøäù éãðò ä÷éòà éñò T-S J./v.f ‘he is saying: It is possible that I will keep him away from me for two months’. With habitual meaning we find: âåæúá åäå T-S J./rm.f ‘he is getting married’; øéñéá äðà øëãå àäú÷ôð àäì T-S J./rm.ff ‘he mentioned that he is (regularly) sending her her alimony’; âååæúéá äðà àðâìá ã÷å T-S . /  ‘it reached us that he is getting married’. In all examples, the bi-imperfect appears in functions known from Modern Egyptian Arabic. c) th century In a letter from the Gaster collection, Gaster , which is not dated but probably comes from the th century,65 we find what seems almost like 64 Note the functions of the bi-imperfect in the Palestinian dialect described by Blau (b, ). 65 The dating has been discussed by Goitein and Ashtor, and the letter has been assessed to originate in the th century according to the terms of coinage fiorino. Ashtor believes the letter to be late th century, Gotein simply refers to it as late. According to Hinz (, ), there is a letter from an Italian trader who describes the exchange rates of

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an exercise in the bi-imperfect, with  examples in just  short lines. The writer might not have been a native speaker of Arabic. Some constructions in the letter are certainly questionable, such as the phrase àì äðà ‘it is not that’ (used twice) which sounds more European than Arabic, or the use of the verb h¯afa without a following negation. Alongside an ˘ abundance of the bi-imperfect, it is possible to imagine a foreigner writing this way in Arabic. However, most of the forms with the bi-imperfect appear to be used according to Modern Egyptian Arabic rules: éâéá äåä àîå áàåâ àäì úòáéá àìå BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘he does not come and he does not send her an answer’; ä÷ôð àäì úòáéá äðà àìå àä÷ìèéá äðà àì BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘it is not that he would divorce her and not that he would send her (any) support’; éâéá äðà àìå BritMuseum Gaster  /  ‘it is not that he is coming’; ìå÷úá äøîìà ïàì ïåòìà àãä ïî õìëúå êãéñì úòá[à] äòàñ ìë éì BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘she shall be saved from this evil because the woman tells me all the time: send to your lord’. In this letter, the bi-imperfect can stand in the protasis of conditional clauses: äòôðîìà éô äåäå äéìò ùåùéá éøëæ ïáà ïà óàëéá äåäå BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘he is afraid (that) if Ibn Zikr¯ı is causing disturbance, he has the advantage’; áàçöà åìå÷é åãåòé ùéà ñàðìà ïéá éðçö˙ ôé äòàñ ìë øàãìà éô éðåòù÷éá ïéãìà BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘every hour he embarasses me in front of the people; what will the people from the court continue to say to take away the house from me?’; éù éì úòáúá àî ïàë ïàå ˙ øàã ãëà éðà áàúë äì úòáà àìåå ñåìô BritMuseum Gaster ïéðñ ñîë éúáù ø  / f ‘if you don’t send me any money, I will send him a letter that ˇ I will take the house of R. Sabbatai for  years’. In the last conditional clause, àìåå introduces the apodosis in the conditional clause, see Blau (, § ). In some of the examples, the use of the bi-imperfect does not accord with the rules laid down for Modern Egyptian Arabic. Following Eisele, the verb harag belongs to the ‘translocative’ group of the ‘momente˘ nous non-inchoative verbs’, whose bi-imperfect can only express habitual meaning. In the following sentence, however, a habitual meaning would not make much sense. The writer talks about a fugitive husband, who refuses to divorce his wife and does not make any contact with her nor send her any support. ñëøéáå âøëéá 66àìåå äáì÷ áééèúå äì úòáúá àî úðåë ïà êðàñçà ïî äãëàéáå äééù àìò BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘if you don’t the fiorino in Egypt in the year . Thus the term must have been used in Egypt already by that time, so the letter might also have to be dated to the early th century. 66 àìåå in this sentence seems to introduce the apodosis in the conditional clause, even

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keep sending to him and calm his heart, then he will leave and refuse (to sign or pay) anything and abuse your goodness’. Several things may explain these examples. The system described by Eisele for Cairene Arabic may not yet have been implemented, Eisele’s system could be flawed, the letter may indeed have been written by a non-Arab speaker or possibly by a person of Syrian/Palestinian origin, places where the bi-imperfect was already used in different functions, or any combination thereof. Eisele’s grouping of words, indeed, seems to be problematic for some verbs. For instance, he assigns ˇsirib ‘to drink something’ and akal ‘to eat’ to ‘interval non-inchoatives’, and adds that they can also be nontelic. If this system is applied, it would restrict the bi-imperfect to present progressive meaning. Yet, both verbs can be used habitually in Modern Egyptian Arabic, as in the sentences bakul tuff¯aha . kull y¯om ‘I eat an apple every day’ and baˇsrab #as. ¯ır kull y¯om ‘I drink juice every day’. Similarly atal (qatal) ‘to kill’ is listed as interval non-telic change of state verb (entailing bi-imperfect to present progressive meaning), yet Modern Egyptian Arabic has examples with the verb mawwit ‘to kill’, compare biymawwit farha kull y¯om had . ‘he kills a chicken every Sunday’ ˘ or biymawwitu nas kull sana ‘they kill people every year’. Some of Eisele’s results may need to be revised. d) th/th century The examples found in the th/th-century letters all express present progressive meaning and thus conform with the bi-imperfect in Modern Egyptian Arabic, e.g.: äéàø÷ìô ìâúùá ìéìáå GW XXVIII/ ‘at night I am busy reading’; øâ˙øâ˙ éô íéøåô ìîòàá éðàå T-S J. /  ‘I am spending Purim in Jirjir’; êðà úéáìà éô êãðò åäúéñð úðë ïà ë˙ îìà ìö˙ ô ïî ãö÷ìàô íäááñá ÷ååòúàá éðàì äòøñ äòøñ éì íäìñøú T-S . / f ‘and (my) intention from the grace of the master is: if I forgot it at your place in the house, that you should send them to me quickly because I am delayed because of them’; ìîò[éá]67ùéà T-S . /  ‘what he is doing’; ìàñú àìå äìòôéá éãìàéô äðãééñ àé T-S ./v.f ‘do not ask, oh our master, what he

though it is not the protasis particle that is negated but the verb itself, contrary to Blau (, § ). 67 The bi- is not very legible, but other suffixes such as t- or y- are impossible because of the shape of the half-erased letter.

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is doing’;68 ùééà êìàã åìòô àãà óøòàá àîô T-S ./v. ‘I do not know anything (about) when they did this’.69 The ùééà at the end of the sentence of the last example is peculiar but probably belongs to the negation. e) th/th century The functions expressed by the bi-imperfect in the th/th-century documents are in accordance with Modern Egyptian Arabic, for example with present progressive meaning äãàäù ìåöå íëðî åðúñðáå AIU VIIE /  ‘we are awaiting from you the arrival of the statement’; ˙ ìà ìåöðå÷ ìà àìà áåúëî äìò øë˙ ô˙ éìéöá äâàåë˙ ìà íìëéá äðôåùå AIU éåñðøô VIIE / ff ‘and we saw the doctor Bas.¯ıl¯ı Fahr talking about a letter ˘ ìéîòééá é’’ä äàåô ñ˙ ìàå to the French consul’; äéøàòé íì äååä ïà ïàùìò éá T-S J. / f ‘Mr Puwwa, may God comfort him, is working at his behest so that he will not expose him’; ìéã àìò äðì åìå÷úéá éú÷åå ìéãå ˙ ìà äééëøù T-S NS . / f ‘now you are telling us éàùá äðòôðú íì éã about this partnership which does not profit us at all’; ìéì éâúéá äö˙ ô˙ ìà ñàð T-S NS . /  ‘the fad . da . (money) is coming to the people’; ìàå ˙ àú ïéçéàø åìå÷úéá éã˙ ìà äðì åãë˙ àú íì ìàç T-S NS . / f õô÷ú U[ åãë ‘and now, you have not take anything for us of which you keep saying you are going to take  baskets’; øéøç ìéô åúôøöúà åìå÷úáå T-S NS . / f ‘you are saying that you traded in silk’. Habitual70 meaning is expressed in ìàééø S[ ò˙ åòéáé åö˙ øééá íìå T-S J. /  ‘they do not want to sell at the rate of  riyy¯al’ (could possibly also be present progressive); íì ìàç ìà åáâòééá íì ïàì êàðä ãàòå÷ åãðò ä÷àá T-S J. /  ‘he no longer resides there since he does not like the situation’; äåòå÷øðá äòàñ ìåë ïàì T-S NS . / f ‘because every hour we are (trying to) mend it’; äåôåùðáå ˙ ô˙ ìà T-S NS . /  ‘we are securing the fad. da äö . (money) for him’. ... Conclusions The bi-imperfect starts to emerge in sub-standard writing in the th century. The first sources to employ it are of Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic origin while it only appears in Muslim sources from the th century onwards. In the earliest examples, the bi-imperfect appears to have a 68

Literally: ‘do not ask about that which he is doing’. According to Eisele, #rf ‘to know’ belongs to an ambiguous class of verbs, which can be both stative and inchoative. 70 As mentioned above, habitual includes general fact and characteristics. 69

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wider range of functions than in the Modern Egyptian spoken variety. While the modern functions such as habituality and the expression of present progressiveness can be discerned in some of the oldest examples, a number of asyndetic bi-imperfects occurs in asyndetic purpose clauses and consecutive clauses. As mentioned earlier, new forms rarely emerge with a clearly defined function but often start to compete with similar forms for their usage. In the middle of the reformation of a verbal system, there is usually a time when all forms, old and new, become polyfunctional before the functions are redistributed. This process may take even longer if the language variety in question is only considered sub-standard, and therefore not uniform in itself, as uniformity of a language usually develops out of scholarly and literary writing, which determines the prescriptive standard use71 of language. From the examples presented, it may be assumed that, while the form itself started to emerge in sustandard writing in the th century, the Egyptian bi-imperfect was only determined in its present-day functions from the th/th century onwards. This would also explain why the earliest examples in Muslim writing come from that period of time, as the unmarked imperfect could still be used in the respective constructions. Given a choice between two forms, opting for the Classical Arabic unmarked imperfect would have been natural. Even in the th-century vernacular, the unmarked imperfect still appears to have been acceptable in modern bi-imperfect functions as Davies has shown with his research on the Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf. It is also quite possible that the functions of the bi-imperfect in Egyptian and Palestinian/Syrian varieties in the first centuries after its emergence were identical and that in both dialects the biimperfect competed with the unmarked imperfect for several functions. The distinction between the two dialect groups could have developed later, with the bi-imperfect specifically conveying habituality and present progressiveness in Egypt, while it became the standard imperfect form in the Palestinian/Syrian dialects, superseding the unmarked imperfect. This takes us back to the question whether the bi-imperfect had already become a fixed form by the th century, as proposed by Blau. It can certainly be assumed that the morphological form was available and used 71 This has been demonstrated on numerous examples, such as the extermination of the double negation in standard varieties of certain Indoeuropean languages, caused by orientation along Classical Latin, or on the emergence of klal-shprakh Yiddish in the th century following the first editions of works written in a closer representation of the actual spoken Yiddish instead of an artificial, germanised Yiddish that had been prevalent for centuries.

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in the dialects, but not necessarily, and certainly not exclusively, in its present functions. ... The Functions of the Participle and Bi-Imperfect As mentioned before, certain verbs in Modern Egyptian Arabic stand with the participle and not with the bi-imperfect when a continuative action is expressed. These verbs, such as an¯a ˇsa¯rib ‘I have drunk’, receive their contemporaneousness through a resultative. Woidich () has shown that although in a number of verbs the resultative is not recognisable at first glance, it is actually disguised by its translation into Indoeuropean languages. These verbs are inchoative and thus receive their present meaning as a resultative, for example an¯a n¯a"im ‘I am sleeping = I have fallen asleep and therefore I am asleep’, an¯a ˇsa¯"if ‘I have caught sight of and thus I see’ or an¯a r¯a"ih. ‘I have started walking and therefore I am walking’. However, Woidich has also pointed out that there is no interchangeability between the participle and the bi-imperfect. He proves that the bi-imperfect of those verbs that use the participle to express resultative continuative action can never carry individual present action meaning. Thus these verbs use the active participle to express present progressive meaning while the bi-imperfect is limited to habitual or iterative actions. Eisele () has consolidated these findings with the development of his system of lexical aspectual classes, described above. It may be inferred that the complementary system suggested by Eisele might already have been implemented in th/th-century Egyptian, from examples such as äö˙ ô˙ ìà äåôåùðáå T-S NS . /  ‘we are securing the fad. da . for him’ (C/C). Here, the root ˇswf ‘see, watch, secure’, is an inchoative, non-stative verb. According to Eisele and Woidich, these verbs are used in Modern Egyptian Arabic in the participle to express present action, while their bi-imperfects are used to convey habitual meaning. In the example above, business partners are fulfilling the task of regularly looking after someone’s money, thus the use of the biimperfect for the verb ˇswf seems to be in accordance with its Modern usage. Similarly, rdy . ‘want’ is a stative verb. According to Eisele, the biimperfect of stative can only express characteristics, with a non-specific time reference only. In the following example, the bi-imperfect is used in that sense: the traders generally refuse to sell their product for  riyy¯al: ˙ åòéáé åö˙ øééá íìå T-S J. /  ‘they do not want to sell at the ìàééø W[ ò rate of  riyy¯al’ (C/C).

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Fischer (, ) distinguishes three main functions of the participle in Classical Arabic: a) as a perfect participle to represent an action that has begun and still continues; b) as an imperfect participle to represent an action that has not yet begun but is expected to be taken; and c) as a circumstantial accusative. Many examples for the participle in the first function may be found in the letters and it can be identified as the resultative described by Wild () for Syrian Arabic and by Woidich () for Egyptian Arabic, see the discussion above; ïçð ãàå ˙ èðî T-S ./v. ‘and so we are waiting for a reply’ (C); éáì÷å áàåâ ïéøö áéáèìà éøëæ éáà éãéñ ääâ ïî ÷ìòúî T-S . /  ‘my heart is worried because of my master Ab¯u Zikr¯ı al-Tab¯ . ıb’ (C Maghreb); ó÷àå ìàçìàå T-S J. /  ‘at the moment it is waiting’ (C/C); íé÷î ïàìà àðàå äæâ éô T-S ./v.f ‘right now I am staying in Gaza’ (C/C); ïé÷øô íåäéô ôøöúð íì ïé÷àá T-S NS . / f ‘two parts have remained, we do not have authority over them’ (C/C). Examples of the second construction, which indicates an action that has not yet begun but is expected to take place, can also be found in the letters, showing a continuity of the functions of the participle from Classical Arabic to the th/th-century Judaeo-Arabic examples: ïéìöàå êúâåæå êðàá àëçàå T-S J. /  ‘he said that you and your wife are about to arrive’ (C); íàù ìà éìà âøàë ãâî éàìåîàé àðà T-S J. /  ‘I, oh my master, am busy, about to go out to Syria’ (C Egypt); âøàë àðà ìçø òéáð T-S ./v. ‘I am about to go out to sell (my) luggage’ (C Egypt); òâàø ìàúò ìà øñé áøà÷ ïà [é]àìåä åøëã T-S J./v. ‘these (people) mentioned that the boat of Yusr al-#Att¯al is about to return’ (C Egypt); ãéòà÷ ñåìéô˙ êì éèòé êãðò éàâ åðéà äéìò ìå÷úá éìà éãåäé ìà ˙ T-S AS . / f ‘the Jew about whom you are saying that he øöî éô will be coming to you to give you money, is (actually) staying in Cairo’ (C/C); íëôøè àìà ïàùåù çìàö äâåúî éìåã ïéîåé ìà ïàá íëôøòðå AIU ˇ uˇsa¯n will be going VIIE / f ‘we let you know that these days S¯ . alih. S¯ to you’ (C/C). The participle in its third function as circumstantial accusative is a frequent form in Classical Arabic, and the participle also occurs in such constructions in the letters, although the accusative has become redundant: êúîàìñ ïîöî æéæòìà êáàúë éàìåîå éëéùé ìöå T-S . /  ‘your treasured letter, my elder and master, arrived, assuring (us about) your health’ (C Maghreb); ïà éìà ïàîèî ïîà àðàå … éúéá éô éðàë úîðå àîàé÷ìà úîà÷ T-S J./v.ff ‘and I slept as if I was in my (own) house … feeling safe and calm until disturbance broke lose’ (C unassigned).

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An early example of what Wild () calls a performative participle, in which the uttering of the verb completes the action, such as () ana mista#fi ‘I am sorry’, () ana mitˇsakkre ‘I am thanking’, appears to occur in àìåîìà äøö˙ çì éðäî àðà T-S J. /  ‘I congratulate the dignity of my master’ (C). The main functions that the participle holds in Classical Arabic are all found in the Judaeo-Arabic letters, indicating a continuity in the use of the participle from the early literary Arabic writing down to early modern substandard written varieties. At the same time, participles and bi-imperfects of momentaneous and interval verbs complement each other in the verbal system to express habituality and present progressivity, although it cannot be proved that the system Eisele has described for Cairene Arabic holds for mediaeval and post-mediaeval epistolary Judaeo-Arabic.

.. Vestiges of the tanw¯ın ... Introduction Classical Arabic possesses a case system, in which the indefinite forms have the suffix -n attached to the case endings, i.e., Nom. -u, Gen. -i and Acc. -a, creating the indefinite case endings -un, -in and -an. In traditional Arabic grammar, these suffixes are called after the linguistic process that moulds them: tanw¯ın, which is the infinitive of the verb ‘to attach an -n’. With the loss of cases in post-Classical Arabic, such indefinite case endings did not disappear altogether but were retained in a few forms. In literary sub-standard varieties, this is most obvious in the retention of the accusative spelling -an. But there are also other phenomena which trace their origins back to the original tanw¯ın. Both Baneth (–) and Blau (, ff) have dealt extensively with these vestiges of the tanw¯ın in Judaeo-Arabic. While Baneth focusses on the emergence of the independent Judaeo-Arabic attributive particle an and the mechanisms that led to the separation of the ending into a detached word, Blau investigates several phenomena that can be traced to the tanw¯ın, such as the adverbial morpheme -an, the optional indefinite morpheme -an used regardless of case, an as particle of attribution, and the morpheme -an in constructions influenced by Classical Arabic grammar, for example following anna/inna and in h¯ . al-clauses.

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In the letter corpus, the only vestige of the tanw¯ın–ending found regularly througout all time periods is the adverbial ending -an (see ..), which originated in the accusative tanw¯ın. In these adverbial endings, the tanw¯ın derived -an is a productive element and widely used throughout the letters. In post-Classical Arabic literary texts, another very common orthographical vestige of the tanw¯ın can be found in the spelling of the indefinite accusative with alif, both in prescriptively correct and hypercorrect constructions. This phenomenon, which is also a frequent feature of Judaeo-Arabic literary writing, is mostly absent in certain parts of the letter corpus, as for instance in the th-century Egyptian material. The lack of this orthographical feature marks one of the most obvious differences in spelling practise between literary writing and utility prose. Apart from the adverbial ending -an, another productive vestige of the tanw¯ın can be found in some of the corpora under investigation: the independent Judaeo-Arabic attributive particle an, which Baneth first described extensively. This tanw¯ın-derived particle separates nouns from succeeding attributive adjectives, other nouns, or attributive clauses. In the following section, the diachronic distribution of these particular constructions is investigated, together with a description of the syntactic environments in which they occur. ... The Independent Particle an in the Judaeo-Arabic Letters Blau (, ) has described the emergence of independent an from the original indefinite accusative ending. He states that while the tanw¯ın ending was ‘omitted at the end of every breath-group’, it was ‘retained in the middle of it’ and therefore, due to general language change, was ultimately ‘no longer apprehended as an indefinite article, but as a morpheme indicating that an indefinite noun is followed by an attribute’. This led to the development of an independent particle positioned between the noun and its attribute. To what extent this is also the case in constructions with postnominal an before attributive clauses will be investigated below. According to Blau (, ), this independent an before an attribute is not attested in Muslim or Christian Middle Arabic texts. It does, however, occur in Bedouin poetry, in certain Tunisian dialects and in Spanish Middle Arabic.72 The suffix an attached to the noun followed by 72

See Blau (, ff and  fn).

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attributive adjectives, prepositional phrases and clauses is common in Bedouin dialects.73 In the Judaeo-Arabic letters analysed for this investigation, independent an occurs from the eleventh century through to the nineteenth century. Three different an constructions can be broadly discerned in the sources: a) an preceding an adjective, b) an preceding an attributive noun, and c) an preceding an attributive clause. Marking a clear distinction between adjective and attributive clause is problematic because both are simply attributions residing on opposite ends of the scale of attributivity. They can, however, be clearly separated here because constructions of the form a) NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE closely mirror the Classical Arabic constructions in which the original tanw¯ın appears. Constructions of type b) NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE constructions, on the other hand, show a development of an that goes beyond its Classical Arabic syntactic environment. Construction c) NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE is the most common throughout the letters, while only very few examples of type b) NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN can be found. The usage and distribution of all three types of an constructions differ greatly within the corpora. ... NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE Constructions where an occurs between a noun and its attributive adjective are those closest to the constructions in which the original tanw¯ın appears. While in Classical Arabic the tanw¯ın ending was omitted at the end of a breath group in pause, it was retained medially. Thus a clause like: qataltu rajulan w¯ahidan ‘I killed one man’ would be ren. dered as qataltu rajulan w¯ahid . in pause. As the Neo-Arabic dialects emerged following the Muslim conquest and the case system vanished,74 the accusative ending -an appears to have undergone re-analysis as a result of which it arose as an attributive marker for indefinite constructions. Subsequently, it developed into a separate word, probably influenced by the homophonous conjunction an. The character of the original tanw¯ın environment was retained in these constructions. It was, 73

Blau (, ff). This is, of course, a simplified statement; the question remains to what extent there already was a diglossia between the literary and the spoken Arabic language in pre-Islamic times and to what extent the case system was in used in the spoken Arabic. 74

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however, no longer restricted to the accusative but was also used for what would have been genitive or nominative forms in Classical Arabic. It is interesting that the construction NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE seems to be restricted to the th-century letters from our corpus, and in particular to the letters from Egypt. There is only one example from one of the other corpora, and it is from a much later period, the th/thcentury letters. a) th-century Egypt Many examples of this construction75 may be found: íéö˙ ò ïà ìàç úçú ïçðå T-S J. /  ‘while we (were) in a terrible state’; âäø ãìáìà éô ïàëå ˙ ò ïà T-S J. /  ‘there was great confusion here in the city’; åä íéö ˙ ò ïà èìâ˙ … ïàë T-S ïñç ïà øâòî T-S J. / f ‘it is a pretty bonnet’; íéè . /  ‘it was a really big mistake’; ìàãòàìà ïî ãçàå ïà ìãò úãâå ïàì Bod MS Heb d. . /  ‘because I found one of the bundles’; ïà áåúå øëà T-S J. /  ‘and another piece of clothing’;76ïà ïéðñ äéìò äãàòàå àøéúë T-S J. /  ‘may he grant him the return of many years’; ˙ ò ïà áòú ãòá T-S J. /  ‘after immense work’; äðî ú[ã]ëà úðë íéö ˙ øã T-S . /  ‘I had taken from him one dirham’; äðî òéáð ãçàå ïà ä øëà ïà éù T-S ./v.f ‘we will buy another thing from him’; úéöàë äëøàáî ïà T-S . /  ‘a blessed principle’. There is also an example preceding a negated demonstrative pronoun: øéâ ïà áàú[ë êéìà úá]úë àãàä T-S Misc . /  ‘I wrote you another letter (= a letter other than this)’. In all the examples, the original indefinite character of the tanw¯ınconstruction is retained, with both the referent and the whole phrase indefinite, though the construction may follow a preposition which in Classical Arabic requires a genitive and not an accusative, e.g., in the first or eighth of the examples above. Likewise, it appears in constructions that would have been nominative in Classical Arabic, e.g., in the third and fourth example.

75 A few more examples can be found in two letters that have been excluded from the Egyptian corpus due to the unsure provenance of the writers: áòö ïà ìàç éô ñàðìàå T-S J./  ‘and the people are in a difficult state’; áòö ïà ìàç úçú T-S J./  ‘in a difficult state’; ïñç ïà øö˙ àùð CUL Or  J/  ‘good ammonia’. 76 The spelling à- is not an accusative ending but reflects an alternative orthography for the feminine ending ä-.

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b) th-century Maghreb, th century, th/th century In contrast to the Egyptian corpus, the th-century Maghrebian corpus shows no constructions of the type NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE. Two examples, however, occur in a letter from the th-century unassigned corpus, which was written in the Maghreb: ãçàå ïà ìãò ïî àìë àî òéáð íìå áééèìà ïàúëìà ïî T-S J. / f ‘we did not buy anything but one bundle of good cotton’ and ãçàå ïà íäøã éù éô ìçé ïî àì T-S J. /  ‘(there is) no (one) who could make a dirham in anything’. This lack of examples points to a phenomenon that has already been noted in our examinations of orthography and negations: in many regards, the Maghrebian letters are written in what was probably regarded as a more conservative style, and adhered more closely to the rules of Classical Arabic. c) th/th century In the th/th-century letters, only very few examples of independent an can be found, but in contrast to the th-century and th/thcentury material, there is one example of type a) NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE. This in turn raises the question as to whether the Arabic style used in these late letters may be partly referring back to older writing traditions, as noted in the use of the negation lam. ãéãù ïà áàãò àðéô åáãòå AIU VIIE  /  ‘they punished us a great punishment = they imposed on us a heavy fine’. ... NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN constructions are limited to the th-century Egyptian letters. Only few examples of this type can be found in this corpus, and they occur mostly with the noun #idda ‘a number of, a lot of ’:77 äãò ïà áúë êéìà úáúë Bod MS Heb e. . /  ‘I wrote you a number of letters’; ïà ïàñðà íëç ïá ïàøîò éáà éãéñì éäå éåâ T-S J. /  ‘it is for my master Abu #Imr¯ an b. Hukm, a gen. tile’. 77 Other examples can be found in T-S . and T-S J., which have been excluded from the Egyptian corpus because of the uncertain provenance of the writer: äãò ïà áúë êéìà úáúë ïà êîìòà T-S ./ f ‘I inform you that I wrote you a number of letters’, and äãò ïà áúë àäâøã T-S J./  ‘inside them a number of letters’.

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No examples of NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN can be found in the Maghrebian letters. Instead an example of #idda using Classical Arabic syntax occurs: áúë äãò êéìà éðî úîã÷ú T-S . /  ‘a number of letters from me to you preceded (this one)’. This means that the lack of examples in the Maghrebian corpus is probably not accidental, and that the writers chose to adhere to the Classical Arabic construction. Similarly, none of the later letters shows examples of NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN, which makes these constructions a phenomenon limited to writers from Egypt in the eleventh century. Even within this time period and geographical region, the construction NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN was mostly limited to the noun #idda, and did not occur very frequently. ... NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE The most common of the an constructions is the use of an preceding attributive clauses. Here, an seems to function as a relativizer. This raises the question how this an is related to the tanw¯ın and how it emerged in the relative constructions. If an had become reanalysed as an attributive particle, its use in constructions of the type NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE becomes plausible, and it was perhaps facilitated by the existence of homophonous complementizer an. This connection was already pointed out by Baneth who regarded this an as identical to the conjunction an. Typologically, it is a very common phenomenon for complementizers to assume the function of a relative particle. For example, in Yiddish letters of the th and th century we find the complementizer az (that later becomes the standard complementizer in Modern Yiddish) used as relativizer.78 Although the referent is always formally indefinite, two different constructions occur. The first is a construction with a formally and semantically indefinite noun preceding an + relative clause. The second shows nouns of temporal connotation preceding an, which receive their definiteness from the following relative-temporal clause similar to a mud¯ . afa construction.

78

Kühnert and Wagner (, f).

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.... INDEFINITE NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE Within this group, two sub-types emerge: One in which the referent is a non-generic noun (e.g., ‘garment’, ‘news’) and the other in which the noun is generic (e.g., ‘every house’, ‘every direction’). Constructions with non-generic referents occur only in the th-century Egypt material. All examples in the later material have a generic referent. The question is, what makes these attributive clauses different from the asyndetic relative clauses that usually follow indefinite referents? Why was there a need to mark the attributivity with an? Can any differences be observed between the asyndetic relative clause and the an relative clause? The evidence in the letters provides clues to answer these questions. a) th-century Egypt and th-century Maghreb In the Egyptian material, the following examples occur:79àúðæå ïà éù T-S J. /  ‘a thing that I weighed’; êðàúë òî èìúëú ïà éù éä àîå T-S NS . /  ‘it is not a thing that could be confused with your flax’; àîå ˙ øô éìò àã˙ àä äøîòúé ïà éù åä T-S NS . /  ‘this is not a thing which õ is going well for him naturally’; ñáìð ïà áåú éì àî T-S ./v. (written above the line) ‘I don’t have any garment to wear’; [ìéîâ] éìà ìéîâìà àæâ àîå äìúî ïà T-S J./rm.ff ‘only a favour similar to it will suffice’; ïàì ÷åöìà éô øéë äéô ïà éù ò÷é àî T-S J./rm.f ‘because there is nothing of any good (quality) to be found in the market’; àðòîñéå … äììà ïî ìñà äá øñð ïà øáë áøâìà ïò T-S J. / f ‘I asked God … to let us hear news from the West that make us happy’. In the last two examples, a resumptive pronoun makes an anaphoric connection to the main clause, just as in regular relative clauses. In all the examples, the referents are indefinite, as would be expected in 79

The suffix is ambiguous. The context points to the writer being the agent of the action but the alif might also be read as mater lectionis for the nd person in Classical Arabic. A surprising parallel occurs in another Genizah letter, Mosseri Ia., which shows a similar form êåúãôðà àî òéîâá êúîìò àúðë ã÷å ‘I had informed you about everything that I sent you’, which is undoubtedly to be read as a st singular. It is possible that there was confusion about the proper vowel of the st singular form because in Modern Egyptian Arabic the nd person has no final vowel, instead the form would be identical for the st and nd person masculine (wazant). An alternative explanation for the example in the corpus (which does not fit the Mosseri example, however) is that alif represents the rd feminine suffix, wazanth¯a > wazant¯a, although both in Classical Arabic and in Modern Egyptian Arabic the suffix retains the h¯a" (Classical Arabic -h¯a and Modern Egyptian Arabic -ha).

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constructions derived from an original tanw¯ın environment. All the examples, however, also show a non-specific referent in a restrictive relative clause. The an connection could, therefore, possibly have been used to express restrictive relative clauses. A comparison with the data from the th-century Egyptian corpus yields an astonishing result: no unambiguous asyndetic relative clauses may be found. This lack of asyndetic relative clauses following indefinite nouns in the th-century Egyptian letters makes it conceivable that for a limited period of time in the epistolary language, constructions with an replaced the asyndetic clause after indefinite nouns. By comparison the Maghrebian letters show no an clauses of this type, but many asyndetic relative clauses. In the th-century Egyptian letters, therefore, constructions of the type NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE seem to have replaced the asyndetic relative clause. An alternative explanation is that the relative particle an denoted the tighter connection between the referent and the relative clause that exists in restrictive clauses, as opposed to non-restrictive clauses still expressed by asyndetic relative clauses. Compared with the Egyptian material, the absence of an in relative constructions with an indefinite referent in the th-century Maghrebian material raises further questions. Is an in relative constructions an Egyptian phenomenon? It is most likely not a phenomenon that occured in the spoken language, but seems to be a feature of the written register. So is it absent from Maghrebian letters due to the more conservative Maghrebian style of writing? As already mentioned, the Maghrebian corpus shows many examples of asyndetic relative clauses following an indefinite antecedent, which is in contrast to the lack of these constructions in the Egyptian corpus. Probably, the conservatism of the Maghrebian letters prevented the clauses with an from spreading into attributive constructions, whereas in the more progressive Egyptian letter-writing, NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE replaced the asyndetic relative clauses. b) th century, th/th century and th/th century In the two examples from the th-century corpus, the antecedent expresses a generic concept (e.g., ‘every direction’, ‘every example’). These generic constructions are semantically more definite than indefinite, even though they cannot be made definite by an article and would have been given the tanw¯ın in Classical Arabic. These constructions could thus be remnants of the original tanw¯ın. Taking the evidence from the th-

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century Egyptian corpus into account, however, there is another explanation. As seen in the Egyptian letters, the construction NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE was used for a certain time as the default relative construction following an indefinite antecedent, or possibly to express restrictive relative clauses. It is conceivable that this construction, in non-generic constructions abandoned in favour of Classical Arabic syntax, survived in attributive clauses with a generic referent because an asyndetic relative clause seemed incorrect due to the certain definiteness expressed in generic concepts. A relative pronoun was needed in these attributive constructions but since allad¯ı was restricted to referents with the article, an continued to be used as a¯ relative particle in connection with generic nouns, supported by the homophonous conjunction an. What is most striking is that the two following examples are also restrictive relative clauses. The relative particle an might have been used to mark the tighter connection between referent and relative clause as opposed to the more lose connection in non-restrictive clauses: àäàðéùî ïà úéùî ìë ïçð T-S J. /  ‘every direction that we went’; äéô àðà ïà øéë ìë íìòà T-S J. /  ‘I know all good (fortune) that I have’. Similarly to the finds in the th-century corpus, the th/thcentury corpus shows one example of a generic noun followed by a restrictive relative clause: äéì çåøà ïà úéá ìëì éòî êãëàå GW XXVIII/ ‘I will take you with me to every house I go into’. One example can be found in the th/th-century corpus which shows a restrictive relative clause following a generic antecedent: äãë éô ˙ ïà éùìåë äðçà T-S J. / f ‘then, anything we have íåëì åìñøð äðãë taken, we will send to you’. Another example might reflect a construction similar to those written with independent an: äðì èøôé éö˙ ø ïãçà íìå T-S J. /  ‘there was no one who agreed to sell to us at a low price’. The form could, however, also be a hypercorrect use of the Classical Arabic accusative. In contrast, asyndetic non-restrictive relative clauses occur in the th-century, th/th-century and th/th-century letters: ïéç äðçå ˙ ø äö˙ ô˙ ôìà W[[ äðàèçå êñî ïàøáåâ äòî äééëøùìà äðìîò T-S íåëéìò äðàö NS . / f (C/C) ‘when we established the partnership with Jubran Misk we put down , fad. da . 80 which we returned to you’; äììà éìà éìà äéìà ãðúñú ãðñ àäì àî T-S J. / f (C) ‘she has no support, which she could lean upon, except God’. Since asyndetic relative

80

A currency commonly found in the Late Judaeo-Arabic letters.

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clauses occur in the later corpora, which means they were at the writers’ disposal, the examples with an as relative particle may have been used because of the generic nature of the referent. .... NOUNS OF TEMPORAL REFERENCE + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE The construction with ‘temporal’ nouns as referents should be analysed differently to those in the preceding chapter. In addition to the temporal connotation of the relative clause, these constructions are definite. The referents are the head of a mud¯ . afa construction, which receives its definiteness from the following clause. This analysis is confirmed by the fact that úòàñ occurs in the construct state, indicating that the whole expression was evaluated as a construct by the speaker. Constructions in which the referent and following relative clause form a mud¯ . afa construction are frequent in Semitic languages, like Akkadian paras iprus¯u ‘the decision they made’ or d¯ın id¯ın¯u ‘the judgement they passed’. In Classical Arabic, however, they are restricted to relative nouns with a temporal connotation. In these clauses, the noun of temporal reference stands in the accusative and receives its definiteness from the following clause; see the examples from Reckendorf (, § ): yawma l¯aqaw Du"aybata ‘on the day they met with Du"ayba’, sanata g˙az¯a #Amm¯uriyyata¯‘in the year he went on a campaign¯ against #Am¯uriyya’, zam¯ana huwa l-#abdu ‘when he was a servant’. The constructions in the letters are very similar. With the loss of the accusative, however, it seems the connection needed an additional marker. The tanw¯ın-derived an, reassigned with an attributive function in other constructions, took on the role and functioned like the accusative of time in Classical Arabic. That ‘temporal’ nouns behave differently from other nouns is not restricted to Arabic. In Yiddish, for example, nouns with temporal connotation have shown that they are very susceptible to the change of conjunctions and relatives that follow them.81 A later regular language change can often first be observed in their context.

81 This was one of the findings in syntactical analyses within a joint project between the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany, and the Hebrew University Jerusalem on Yiddish subordinate syntax. The results still await publication.

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

a) th-century Egypt In the th-century Egyptian corpus the following examples may be found: àãçàå àìå úéøúùà àî àäøîà øëã˙ ú êáàúë ìöå ïà íåé ïî ïà äììàáå T-S . / f ‘by God (I swear) that from the day your letter mentioning their business arrived, I have not bought a single one’; àäúãôðà ïà íåé ïî Bod MS Heb e. . /  ‘from the time I send them’; éìò úô÷å ïà úòàñ äúëñð êéìà úäâå áàñçìà úâøëà êáàúë T-S NS . / f ‘the very hour I read your letter I took out the account to send you a copy’; ú÷å ˙ î ïà T-S Misc . /  ‘the time you went away’; éô ìâùå äîàìñ ïò úéö êáàúë éìò úô÷å ïà úòàñ ïî éáì÷ éìò ãøå àîî áì÷ìà T-S NS . / f ‘(I am writing in a state) of good health but with a laden heart from what descended upon my heart from the moment in which I read your letter’. b) th-century Maghreb In the Maghrebian letters, an cannot be found in indefinite relative clauses. The only examples of the relative particle an preceding an attributive clause occur in connection with nouns of temporal reference; ú÷å ïî åø[ä]àöúà ïà T-S . /  ‘from the time that they became related by marriage’; éìà åìëã ïà ú÷åå T-S . /  ‘and when (lit. the time that) they came in to me’. In the following example, a definite noun follows a temporal noun and an, in what looks like a ‘regular’ Classical Arabic mud¯ . afa construction between two nouns, with the difference that an is used as a connector: ˙ éô ìöú ïåëé àì T-S . /  ‘they (the goods) should øôñìà ïà ú÷å ÷éö not arrive too shortly before the departure time’. The lack of constructions of the type INDEFINITE NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE combined with the occurence of examples of NOUNS OF TEMPORAL REFERENCE + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE might suggest that an originally spread into temporal clauses first, before it was used to follow indefinite referents. This is a very likely scenario given the special nature of temporal nouns. c) th century The th-century Egyptian letters show a great number of ‘temporal’ nouns as referents in an constructions: ìöå ïà ú÷å ïî CUL Or  J/m.ff ‘from the time he arrived’; íôìàá äìá÷à äàø÷à ïà ú÷åå T-S



chapter seven

./vmargin ‘when I read it (your letter), I kiss it with (my) mouth’; úìöå ïà ú÷å ïî T-S J. / f ‘from the time I arrived’; òî úøöçà ïà ú÷å ¨ òàñô áúëìà T-S J./m. ‘the time I was finished with the letters’; ä êéùìà áàúë øöçà ïà T-S J./m. ‘the (very) moment I finish the letter of the elder’; úøôàñ ïà äìéì äì àäúòôã T-S J./m. ‘I paid them to him the night I left’; êåìîîìà ìöå ïà íåé T-S J. / f ‘the day the servant arrived’. d) th/th century Similar constructions may be found in the th/th-century corpus: íåé T-S . /  ‘the day that it arrived’; ïà íåé ïî éì àøâ˙ àî ìàñú àì øöî ïî úòìè GW XXX/ ‘don’t ask what happened to me from the day that I came up to Cairo’.

ìöå ïà

... Conclusions The distribution of independent an in attributive or attributive-temporal constructions is as follows: a) noun an attributive adjective

b) noun an attributive noun

c) noun an attributive clause ‘non-temporal’ nouns non-generic

generic

‘temporal’ nouns

C Egypt







–



C Maghreb

–

–

–

–



C

–

–

–





C/C

–

–

–





C/C



–

–



–

It can be seen that an in all attributive constructions features most prominently and shows its broadest application in the th-century Egyptian material. In the contemporary Maghrebian material only examples with ‘temporal’ nouns can be found, which may be owed to the more conservative letter writing style cultivated in the Maghreb. In letters from the th century onwards, an only survives in constructions where it stands between a generic noun and an attributive clause, probably as a marker of a restrictive relative clause, or between a noun of temporal conno-

syntax



tation and an attributive-temporal clause. Still, an retains a property of its tanw¯ın-derived origins, never appearing with formally definite referents. These four different constructions can be differentiated as follows. All of them were probably only part of literary Judaeo-Arabic, and it is doubtful whether they ever entered the actual spoken vernacular. . NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVE These constructions appear almost exclusively in the th-century Egyptian letters. They are closest to the original tanw¯ın constructions in Classical Arabic. The antecendent is still formally and semantically indefinite. The accusative an was retained in the middle of a breath group in the most common indefinite constructions, those with an accusative, and developed into a marker of attributivity, spreading into indefinite constructions that were originally nominative or genitive. . NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN Constructions of this type are rare. It seems that the use of an as a marker of attributivity originated in the complex NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVE and later penetrated the constructions of the type NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN. They are limited to the th-century Egypt corpus and may have been used there in letter writing for a limited time only. . INDEFINITE NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE Semantically and formally indefinite nouns followed by an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE only occur in the th-century Egyptian letters. The construction also appears in later letters in connection with formally, but not semantically definite nouns, where it is restricted to nouns expressing a generic concept. The function of this construction might have been to temporarily replace the asyndetic relative clause following an indefinite referent, or, to express the restrictive relative clause as opposed to the non-restrictive relative clause, which was still written asyndetically.



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. NOUNS OF TEMPORAL REFERENCE + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE These constructions use an as a substitute or marker for the original Classical Arabic accusative.82 After the loss of the accusative, these constructions required another marker of attributivity and thus an was used to denote the close connection between the referent and its relativetemporal clause. These clauses may be the origin of the emergence of an in type () INDEFINITE NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE. If this type () had been developed after construction () with temporal nouns had already been established, it would explain the occurrence of the latter construction in the th-century Maghrebian letters, which is the only construction with the relative particle an encountered within this corpus.

.. Numerals: Cardinal Numbers ... Introduction In many languages, numerals and numeral constructions are one of the first groups to be affected by language change. From the change of substantival to adjectival numerals in Old Indian to the modifications of the character of certain numerals in Sabaic, some general language change phenomena manifest themselves first in numeral constructions.83 Accordingly, Blau (, ) states for Middle Arabic: ‘The most far reaching changes have affected the numerals. Being different from the other parts of speech in many regards, they were not, unlike the other classes, protected by analogy’. Classical Arabic numeral constructions show a number of characteristic peculiarities. First, the numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’ are adjectives, while all higher numerals are nouns. Thus the numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’ follow their counted in the manner of adjectives, while the higher numerals precede it in the manner of nouns, e.g., qaryatun w¯ahidatun ‘one village’ vs. . hamsu qary¯atin ‘five villages’. ˘ 82 In the equivalent Classical Arabic construction, the accusative did not have the tanw¯ın because the referent received its definiteness from the following clause in a mud¯ . afa construction. 83 See Wagner (, ff).

syntax



Secondly, the number of the counted is not determined by the actual number of individual counted items but according to the value of the preceding numeral. While the counted item follows in the singular and dual after numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’, e.g., rajulun w¯ahidun ‘one man’, it . stands in the genitive plural after numerals  to , e.g., ‘arba"atu rij¯alin ‘four men’. After numerals –, the counted follows in the accusative plural, e.g., tal¯at¯una rajulan ‘thirty men’ whereas it appears in the genitive ¯ hundreds and thousands, e.g., ‘arba"u mi"ati rajulin ‘ plural after¯even men’. Several explanations for the different behaviour in the counted have been brought forward. Some scholars have suggested that the singular after – stems from the numbers –, in which an originally genitive construction, for example, ‘’ = ‘four of the ten’ rules out another following genitive construction.84 Another (possibly more plausible) explanation is that, although the notion of natural individuum or individual objects is still tangible in numbers of –, higher numbers lend themselves to more of a collective idea of the counted. This may be based on finger counting, and there is evidence for differentiation between – and higher numbers in many languages.85 Thirdly, numerals occur in two forms, a longer and shorter form, historically termed feminine and masculine according to their ending. The form ending in -h (the feminine numeral) will hereafter be called ‘long form’, whereas the form without ending (the masculine numeral) will hereafter be called ‘short form’. There is gender agreement with numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’, but with numerals –, the long form is used with masculine nouns, and the short form numeral precedes feminine nouns, e.g., ‘arba"atu ban¯ına ‘four sons’ vs. ‘arba"u ban¯atin ‘four daughters’. This phenomenon is known as gender polarity and is a common feature of ancient Semitic languages. Fourthly, compound numerals made up of single digits, tens, hundreds and thousand can be constructed either in ascending or descending order, with the restriction that the single digits always precede the 84

See Reckendorf (, f). For instance, Japanese has over  different counting words for numbers from – depending on which category the counted noun belongs to. The different categories are made up of round/flat objects, long/thin objects, thin/flat objects, measures, houses, steps, minutes, birds, mammals, insects, people, etc., and for each category there are special counting words from –, of which most share a morphological base from the numeral itself (an exception here are the counting words for people). Higher numbers than ten, however, are expressed uniformly for all categories. 85



chapter seven

tens. The number of the following counted is constructed according to the last numeral before the counted item, e.g., there are two possible constructions for ‘ years’: #arba"un wa-tis#¯una wa-tam¯an¯ı mi"atin wa¯ una sanatan.86 alfu sanatin and alfun wa-tam¯an¯ı mi"atin #arba"un wa-tis#¯ ¯ With regard to the first of these four peculiarities, in the epistolary language the numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’ usually follow their counted, with very few exceptions. Similarly, a remarkable conformity to Classical Arabic rules regarding the second point, the syntactic construction of the counted according to the preceding numeral, can be observed. In accordance with Classical Arabic, the nouns after numerals from – stand in the plural while the nouns following numerals from  to  and even hundreds and thousands are written in the singular. However, following the loss of the case endings, however, no differences in the numbers – (Classical Arabic with accusative singular) and the even hundreds and thousands (Classical Arabic with genitive singular) can be observed. This compliance with Classical Arabic rules regarding the number of the counted is found, with very few exceptions, from the earliest letters of the th century to late letters from the end of th/early th century. The conformity to Classical Arabic rules in the Judaeo-Arabic letters, which cannot be observed in all Middle Arabic language strata,87 may be explained by the nature of many of the letters where numerals are most likely to occur and their writers: they were traders, in their profession in constant contact with Muslim authorities and traders, and thus very much exposed to the Classical Arabic way of constructing numbers. The form of the numeral itself (described for Classical Arabic under the third point above) does, however, vary considerably in the different letter corpora. This phenomenon will be examined in detail. To give a comprehensive view over the numeral construction in the Judaeo-Arabic letters, the examination of the material will first focus on indefinite and then on definite numeral constructions. In each part, numbers ‘one’ and ‘two’,  to , – and even hundreds and thousands will be investigated separately. As the forms from th century papyri are of interest for the diachronic comparison of numeral constructions, they have been included in this chapter.

86 87

See Brockelmann (, ). See the deviations in Christian-Arabic in Blau (/ , ff).

syntax



... Indefinite Numerals .... The Numbers ‘One’ and ‘Two’ In Classical Arabic, the only regular numeral adjectives, ‘one’ and ‘two’, are accompanied by the singular and dual, respectively, and in most cases the whole construction is expressed solely by singular or dual forms without numerals. In the letters, gender congruence is observed in all examples in which the numeral adjective follows the counted noun: ìãò ãçàå T-S J. /  ‘one bale’ (C Egypt); ãçàå ãìá éô êòî ïëàñ úðë åì àìöà ê÷øàôð úðë àî T-S ./v.f ‘if I lived together with you in one country, I would never leave you!’ (C); ïàì äúîàìñ éìò äììà àðøëùå äãçàå øàãá éìåîìà ãðò ïëàñ êåìîîìà T-S J. / f ‘we thanked God for his recovery because the servant is staying with the master in one house’ (C); ãçàå áàñéç äåîìòð ïàîë éù äðì ãâé àî áåøá T-S J. / f ‘if we should have anything additional, we shall put it into one account’ (C/C). In one example, however, the numeral occurs before the counted noun and in addition, the short form numeral is used with a feminine88 noun, so that both Classical Arabic rules of gender agreement and word order are violated: àåô ãçàå õ˙ ôðé àîå T-S . / f ‘he does not hatchel a single madder plant’ (C Egypt). This may be an example of a common Judaeo-Arabic phenomenon described by Blau (, § ) in which w¯ahid . can replace ahad . ‘one of the …’, which stands before the noun. The example shows the short form w¯ahid due to the loss . and not w¯ahida, . of many feminine forms89 in Judaeo-Arabic letters. Still, while this may account for the unusual word order, it does not explain the lack of the definite article before fuwwa in the example. It is possible that w¯ahid . is fronted before the noun to express intensity: ‘a single madder plant’. In another example, w¯ahid . is used as an indefinite article:90 íëàðôøòå ˙ å äðöìåë˙ àððà AIU VIIE  / f ‘we informed you that we paid éåâ ãéçàå àðòö our part payment to a gentile’ (C/C). No observations can be made of the numeral ‘two’, as constructions involving two things of a kind are expressed by the simple dual without a numeral. This indicates that in written substandard Arabic, the dual was The orthography for madder plant in Classical Arabic is fuwwa '^. For example, allat¯ı has been replaced by allad¯ı in most examples, or in numerals ¯ of feminine. –, the single digit numbers are masculine instead 90 Also see Blau (, § ). 88 89



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still very much alive and in use: ïéåì÷øá T-S J. /  ‘two barqallos’ (C Egypt); ìåìà ïî ïé÷á ïéîåéì T-S J. /  ‘two days remain of (the month) Elul’ (C unassigned); ïéìãò T-S J. /  ‘two bundles’ (C Egypt). .... Numerals – ..... Introduction In Classical Arabic, numerals from – are composed with gender polarity, i.e., the long form numeral with masculine nouns and the short form numeral with feminine nouns. The counted items following numbers –, as well as those following compound numerals with higher number and numbers – (e.g., ‘’ or ‘’), stand in the plural as in Classical Arabic. Most numbers in the th- and th-century sources are actually written with number signs, while in later sources many of the numerals from  to  are written in full orthography. This is important to consider when observing the gender polarity of numerals. ..... The th-Century Letters In the th-century corpus, most numerals are written with Hebrew letters as number signs, supralineated with a dot or a stroke above the letter: ˙â ˙ 91àãéå Vienna H /  ‘also  robes’; ìéàìâ Vienna H /  ‘ robes’; ìéàìâ ã èéøø÷ ˙å Vienna H /  ‘ carat’. In few examples the numerals are written in full. The first two examples show the numeral in gender agreement, i.e., the short form numeral in combination with masculine nouns, which is contradictory to Classical Arabic rules of gender polarity, while the third shows the form in Classical Arabic gender polarity with the long form: òáøòá […] ïà êîìòàå 92 øéððã[à] P. Mich. Inv.  Recto/f ‘I inform you that … at  dinars’; èéøø÷ øùòå øðéã 93ãá÷ Vienna Inv. Ar. Pap.  /  ‘he received a dinar and ten carats’; ççéö äøùò Vienna H  /  ‘ten undamaged94 ones (sc. dinars)’. This indicates that, while the number of the counted noun in the mediaeval vernacular still followed Classical Arabic rules, classical gender polarity was already abandoned by the th century. Modern dialects show 91 92 93 94

d. is represented by ã in the th-century papyri. For the form adn¯an¯ır see below .... This is another example of d. spelled ã. s. ih¯ . ah, . pl. of s. ah¯ . ıh. .

syntax



a similar phenomenon, with plural nouns95 after – and singular from –, while gender polarity is no longer observed. Is it also possible that Modern Egyptian may shed light on why some nouns take the short form numeral and others the long form. In Modern Egyptian Arabic, as described by Mitchell,96 nouns are normally combined with the short form cardinal while nouns of ‘value or measurement’,97 i.e., certain nouns perceived to be collective, are constructed with the long form, followed by the singular. Davies (, ) describes the system similarly, stating that the long form is used ‘to enumerate nouns of value and measurement … the following noun is in the singular’ while the short form ‘is used, with following plural noun, in all other cases’. The usage of numerals in the papyri, while not Classical Arabic, are the exact opposite of today’s usage. In the thcentury examples, the short form cardinals are used in combination with the counted nouns ‘carats’ and ‘dinars’ (value or measurement), while the example with ççéö shows the long form numeral. Additionally, the counted noun stands in the plural opposed to the counted in the singular in Modern Egyptian Arabic in all given examples. In contrast, however, Spitta-Bey (, f) evaluates the use of either long form or short form cardinals as completely arbitrary, whereas the use of singular or plural in the counted after – seems to be similarly random. It is not clear whether a different use of the numerals was established in th-century Egypt or whether the differences in the descriptions are due to analyses of different dialects or even sociolects. In comparison, Maghrebian dialects also show arbitrary use in the gender of the cardinal.98 Many modern dialects, however, are very strict about the use of the plural after – and the singular with higher numbers. The examples indicate that the system employed in the th century differs from both Classical Arabic and Modern Egyptian Arabic. To shed light on the issue, gender polarity will next be examined in the letters from the following centuries. For the classification of examples with numeral written in full, the following eight categories are set up:

95 96 97 98

For exceptions in the use of collectives see below. Mitchell (, ) and (, ). Mitchell (, ). See Heath (, ff); Singer (, ff).



chapter seven a) short form numeral with feminine noun

CA

MEA

b) short form numeral with feminine noun

CA

non-MEA (value/measurement99)

c) short form numeral with masculine noun

non-CA

MEA

d) short form numeral with masculine noun

non-CA

non-MEA (value/measurement)

e) long form numeral with masculine noun

CA

MEA (value/measurement)

f) long form numeral with masculine noun

CA

non-MEA

g) long form numeral with feminine noun

non-CA

MEA (value/measurement)

h) long form numeral with feminine noun

non-CA

non-MEA

The examples from the th-century papyri thus belong to classes d) [nonClassical Arabic, non-Modern Egyptian Arabic] (st and nd example) and f) [Classical Arabic, non-Modern Egyptian Arabic] (rd example). They are not constructed according to Modern Egyptian Arabic norms, and only in one example follow Classical Arabic rules. ..... The th-Century Egyptian Letters As in the th-century papyri, the majority of examples have the numeral expressed only as a number sign in the form of a Hebrew letter, while the counted follows in the plural: ìàãòà ã˙ úãù ïà éëéùàé êîìòðå T-S . /  ‘I inform you, my elder, that I have packed  bales’; áúëìà úé÷á ãùà àðàå ˙ éô àäãôðàå T-S J. /  ‘and I will bundle the rest of the áëàøî ä letters and send them in  ships’; øéðàðã ˙æ àåñ àã˙ àä éîåé éô éòî é÷á àîå T-S NS . /  ‘at this day of mine, I have only  dinars left’. Only few examples with the number fully written can be found, one of type c) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, MEA) is òéáìà íåé ìá÷ øåëãîìà øéøçìà ñîë ãëåà ïà ãéâ ïàë êìãëå øéúë íàéàá T-S J. / f ‘and thus it would be good if  of the aforementioned satin (bales) would be taken many days before the sale 99 The group of ‘value and measurement’ includes for example all terms for coinage and weights but interestingly not day, month or year.

syntax



day’. In this example, the numeral does not stand in an ordinary numeral construction but rather in a standard genitive construction, meaning that if the expression was to be rephrased into a definite construction, it would result as: al-hams min al-har¯ . ır al-madk¯ur. The numeral could ˘ also be in gender polarity or agreement with ¯an omitted term such as bale or another measurement. With the scarcity of examples, it is hard to evaluate the rules of gender polarity or agreement in th-century Egyptian letters. ..... The th-Century Letters from the Maghreb The situation is similar in Maghrebian letters. The bulk of examples shows number signs, with the counted noun following in the plural: úñáúçà[å] ˙ íàéà ˙â T-S J. /  ‘they were held back for  days’; éô ïàúë ìàãòà ã éðàðâ˙ìà áëøî T-S . / f ‘ bales of flax in the ship of al-Jin¯ an¯ı’; ˙ððã ä˙ äéòàáåø T-S . /  ‘ dinars in quarter dinar coins’. Similarly to the th-century Egyptian material, written numerals occur only in few examples in the Maghrebian letters, and they take the form of type f) long form numeral with masculine noun (CA, non-MEA): éáò äúñ T-S . /  ‘ mantles’; ìåìà ïî ïé÷á íééà äøùòì T-S . /  ‘ten days are remaining from (the month) Elul’. As in the Egyptian examples, written numerals may be found outside of numeral-noun construction: äøùòá Bod MS Heb. d. . /  ‘for ten’; àäúàìú [äîìò]îìà áàéúìà T-S . / f ‘the … clothes, all three of them’. In the latter example, the numeral is used in the short form, following masculine tawb/tiy¯ab. Due to the unusual word order, the ¯ for the discussion of gender polarity or example is not very ¯suitable agreement. However, another example of a numeral written in full in a definite numeral construction is found, of type e) long form numeral with masculine noun (CA, MEA value/measurement): øéððã äøùò ìà Bod MS Heb d. . /  ‘the ten dinars’. All examples with normal numeral-noun order are constructed according to Classical Arabic rules. As only few examples may be found, however, these findings must be supported by further material. ..... The th-Century Letters In contrast to earlier sources from the th and th century, letters from the th century show few numerals with number signs and the majority is written in full. Number signs: êñð ã˙ … éáöìà òî úãôðà ã÷ úðëå T-S J./v.ff ‘I had sent with the young man …  copies’; àãä ïî íàéà ˙é éìà äéìò úìäîàå



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êéøàúìà

GW VIII/v.(upside down)  ‘she has granted him (a respite of) ten days from today’; íéäàøã ˙éå äéàî äðî úöá÷ GW VIII/v.(upside down) f ‘she has received of that (sum)  dirhams’. Written in full: type a) short form numeral with feminine noun (CA, MEA) ïéðñ úìú ä < ãî T-S J. /  (above the line) ‘the period of three years’; of type c) short form numeral with masculine noun (nonCA, MEA) øäùà ñîë CUL Or  J /  ‘ months’; øåã÷ òáøà TS J. /  ‘and four pots’; of type d) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, non-MEA value/measurement) àåñé àî … ãð÷ìà ˙ î øùò äììàå CUL Or  J / f ‘the candy … is not (even) ìé÷àú worth, by God,  mat¯aq¯ıl’; áãàøà ñîë T-S J./v. ‘five irdabb’; ¯ íäàøã øùò T-S J. /  ‘ten dirhams’; of type e) long form numeral with masculine noun (CA, MEA value/measurement) øéðàðã äúñ CUL Or  J /  ‘ Egyptian dinars’; of type f) long form numeral with masculine noun (CA, non-MEA) éìò êìîà ïàë éãìà õëùìà ïî àåìöôðàå øäùà äéðàîú äãî ïî äéáöìà T-S J./m.f ‘they separated her from the person who had been engaged to the girl for the period of eight months’; øéðàðã äøùòá êì äúòáà åì éì óåë ïàë ïà íìåò àøåá íìò ã÷å T-S J. /  ‘God knows that I would have been afraid, had sold it to you for  dinars’; øåäùà ä¨ ñîë T-S J. /  ‘five months’; äòñúå íäøã ä¨ éàî íäðîú íäàøã, T-S J. /  ‘their price is a hundred and nine dirhams’.100 To add to the number of examples, those constructions with definite numeral are examined in the following: of type d) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, non-MEA value/measurement) ïáà àöéàå ìé÷àúî ñîëìá àìà éð÷øàô àî íéäàøáà ïåîàä CUL Or  J / f ‘and also: Ibn H¯am¯un Ibr¯ah¯ım left me with only the  mat¯aq¯ıl’; of type e) long ¯ àîå form numeral with masculine noun (CA, MEA value/measurement) ãð÷ìà éô äì éãìà äñîëìà àåñú CUL Or  J / -m. ‘and it is not worth the  (mat¯aq¯ıl/dinars?), which were his from the candy’. ¯ all kinds of forms are present. Some forms follow the It is evident that prescriptive Classical Arabic and/or Modern Egyptian Arabic constructions, but a number of examples may be found which do not accord with neither Classical Arabic nor Modern Egyptian Arabic rules. Although the majority of examples follows Classical Arabic rules, there also seems to be a certain freedom to use both genders of the numeral with all nouns, both long form and short form. 100 In this example, the counted noun appears twice, following the even hundred in the singular and ‘nine’ in the plural. Apparently, the writer was not sure about the ‘correct’ number after ‘’.

syntax



..... The th/th-Century Letters In the th/th-century letters, numerals can be written both as a number sign or in full. The counted follows in the plural. Before continuing the examination of gender polarity and agreement, another phenomenon that has emerged in the th/th-century material will be discussed. A number of examples show a t-prefix attached to the counted: ä˙ úò÷ íàéàú GW XXX/ ‘I stayed  days’; óàöðú ˙â úìîò GW XXX/ ‘I made three half-dinars’; óàöðú ä˙ úìîò GW XXX/ ‘I made  half-dinars’; óàöðú òáøàá [ú]ìîò GW XXX/f ‘I made  half-dinars’; óàöðú øùò äáäå GW XXX/ ‘and a gratuity of  half-dinars’; óàöðú òáñ íàùì éòî øáò GW XXX/f ‘ half-dinars came with me to Damascus’. A t-infix appears in Modern Egyptian Arabic in numeral constructions of numbers – when the following noun begins with alif. Not every noun starting with alif, however, shows this t-linking but it commonly occurs with nouns of the pattern af#¯al. These constructions have the form hamast iyy¯am ‘ days’ or talatt"al¯af ‘,’, i.e., the short form ˘ followed by -t before the counted item.101 In addition, edunumeral is cated speakers also use hamsit ayy¯am or hamas ayy¯am. ˘ The t-infix in all the˘above Judaeo-Arabic examples stands in places where in Classical Arabic a long form numeral would have been required, with the construct ending -t. At first impression, this t- seems to have become reanalysed as part of the counted after numerals, thus resulting in it being attached to the counted noun in writing. The form of the numeral, however, both in Modern Egyptian Arabic and in our examples, is that of the short form hamas, with the -t- of -tiyy¯am being part of the ˘ of the numeral. This also manifests in writing counted noun rather than in the letters, with t- as part of the noun. Thus the t-infix could be a secondary development, and need not necessarily have emerged from the loss of the long form numerals as a remnant of the feminine construct form -t. It may only be coincidence that the nouns of value and measurement in our examples are combined with the short form numeral. From the morphological form of the numerals, it could be assumed that the use of the short form numeral in numeral constructions was fully established in the vernacular by the th century. Only afterwards, the t-infix was inserted in the constructions concerned, perhaps under the influence of the use of long form numerals in similar constructions in Standard Arabic or by analogy with the forms of the numerals –.

101

See Mitchell (, f) and (, f).



chapter seven

Evidence in favour of the latter is that the t-infix in numeral – can already be found in the th-century letters. Examples of the counted noun without the t-infix after number signs and numerals written in full are, for example of type c) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, MEA) òáøà äúàìúá ìîòð íåé ìëå óàöðà T-S J. / f ‘everyday I make four half-dinars out of three’; íàéà òáøà úò÷ GW XXX/ ‘I stayed for  days’; áúë úìú ïéö÷àð íäúãâå T-S . /  ‘I found that three letters were missing’; óàöðú øùò äáäå GW XXX/ ‘and a gratuity of  half-dinars’; of type d) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, non-MEA value/measurement) äéôøùà òáøà ïéã ééìòå íëãðò ïî úòìè GW XXX/f ‘I went out from you, owing a debt of aˇsraf¯ıs’. An example with definite numeral of type c) short form numeral with masculine noun (non-CA, MEA) occurs in […] åøñëðà éãìà øäùà ñîë˙ ìà T-S NS J / f ‘the  months (in) which they broke …’. Even though the majority of the examples is in agreement with Modern Egyptian Arabic rules, there is also an example contradicting both Classical Arabic and Modern Egyptian Arabic rules. All examples do, however, use the short form numeral in numeral constructions. As already inferred from numeral constructions with the t-infix, the short form numeral was fully established in numeral constructions by the th century. Yet, counting nouns of value and measurement with the long form numeral appears to be an innovation not yet established by the th century. Independent counts, however, are conducted with the long form numeral, just as in Modern Egyptian Arabic and Classical Arabic: íåé ìëå óàöðà òáøà äúàìúá ìîòð T-S J. / f ‘everyday I make four halfdinars out of three’. ..... The th/th-Century Letters As in the th/th-century letters, numerals in the th/th-century material are written both as a number sign and in full, although the majority of examples shows number signs. Hebrew letters used as number signs in the earlier letters have been supplanted by Persian-Arabic number signs in th/th-century letters. The counted noun appears in the plural. In a number of examples the t-prefix/infix is attached to the counted: éã˙ ìà äðì åãë˙ àú íì ìàç ìàå ˙ àú ïéçéàø åìå÷úéá T-S NS . / f ‘and now, you have not õô÷ú U[ åãë taken anything for us of which you said you were going to take  baskets’; ñàéëú V ìà åðî äðãë˙ å äðéàçå T-S J. / f ‘and we greeted

syntax



and took from him the three bags’; ñàéëú øùò éâé íì øö˙ ðá ìéô ãåâååî ìàå T-S J. / f ‘what is available in town does not exceed  bags’. This t-prefix/infix also appears in constructions in which numerals – are combined with another numeral, in these cases ‘thousand’, as its counted noun: ìàééø ôìàú ñîë˙ øã÷á ïéãë˙ å äðà÷á éú÷å ìéãå T-S J. /  ‘this time we were taking the amount of , riyy¯al’; ìàå ˙ ô˙ ùø÷ ôìàú U[ øã÷ äðì åìñøú ïà íåëôøòð ìàç T-S NS . /  ‘and äö now we inform you that you should send us the quantity of , silver piasters’. Examples with number signs are íàééà Y éô ùø÷ ôìà S åìàâ T-S NS . /  ‘, piasters came for him to be redeemed within  days’; ˙ äðãðò ïà äøåã ìà ìá÷ ïî éøæò ˙éñìàå íåëôøòðå T-S J. / f ùåø÷ UU[ ò ‘we inform you and Mr Ezri concerning the maize that we have (some) in our possession to the value of  piasters’ Numeral phrases in which the numeral is written in full are, for example, type b) short form numeral with feminine noun (CA, nonMEA value/measurement) ïéãà÷ò ìà ãðò äìà äååñ úà÷åà øùò ãéâåú íìå T-S J. / f ‘there are not (even) ten ounces except in the possession of the trimmers’; type c) short form numeral with masculine noun (nonCA, MEA) íæåø òáøà ïàë˙ åã ìà êìàã˙ ïî ãë˙ à AIU VIIE / f ‘he took from that tobacco  bundles’. As in the th/th-century letters, only the short form occurs in numeral constructions. ..... Summary for Numerals – Counted noun: In all examples, the counted noun behaves as in Classical Arabic and stands in the plural. No constructions with the counted in the singular can be found, which in contrast is common in Modern Egyptian Arabic. Gender polarity: In earlier letters from the th and th century, the Classical Arabic gender polarity is largely abandoned. A large number of examples are not constructed according to Classical Arabic, although some follow Classical Arabic rules. Additionally, most of the nonClassical Arabic numeral phrases may not be in accordance with Modern Egyptian Arabic norms. It appears that various constructions were acceptable in substandard literary writing during that period. The Classical Arabic forms showing gender polarity were widely used, writers also adopted the Modern Egyptian Arabic default construction in which the short form numeral appears with masculine nouns. The short form



chapter seven

numeral may even occur with nouns of measurement and value which would require a long form numeral in Modern Egyptian Arabic. The letters of the th/th-century corpus reflect a different situation. In these, the short form is used as the standard numeral in numeral constructions, while the long form may be used for counting and independent numbers. It should, however, be noted that the th-century letters seem to be written in a language closer to the vernacular than the earlier letter corpora and conform less closely to literary substandard writing. Consequently, it is expected that the modern default use of the short form in numeral constructions occurs more frequently. In the th/th-century letters, a similar situation prevails, and all the numerals used are short forms. It may, therefore, be assumed that the short form numeral was used in numeral constructions in the spoken language and from there spread into letter writing. As in the letters from the th and th centuries, no evidence for special treatment of nouns of value and measurement in both the th/thcentury and th/th-century letters can be found. Thus the phenomenon described by Mitchell may be a relatively recent feature of Egyptian Arabic, and Spitta’s observations for th century vernacular Egyptian (as discussed above) may indeed be correct for that time period. t-infix: From the th/th century onwards, the t-infix appears in numeral constructions between the numeral and the counted. It is written as a prefix to the counted and was probably also analysed as such. Because of its form, the t-infix appears to be a secondary development and should not necessarily be regarded as having emerged from the loss of the feminine construct ending -t. Rather, this phenomenon may be viewed as an independent development, inserted after the short form numeral in numeral constructions had become fully established in vernacular language by the th century, possibly under the influence of Standard Arabic or by analogy with numerals –. .... The Numerals – ..... Evidence from the Letters In Classical Arabic, the gender polarity and agreement rules for numerals – are complex. In numerals ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’, the single digits and tens agree in gender with the counted, e.g., ahada #aˇsara rajulan ‘eleven . men’ and itnat¯a #aˇsrata bintan ‘twelve daughters’, while all numerals from –¯ show gender polarity in relation to their counted noun in

syntax



the single digits and gender agreement in the tens, e.g., sab#ata #aˇsara rajulan ‘seventeen men’ and tal¯ata #aˇsrata bintan ‘thirteen daughters’. All ¯, are¯ also uninflected. numerals, apart from ‘twelve’ Only few examples with numerals – can be found in the letters. In all examples, the counted is a masculine noun. In two of the examples, a tinfix is attached to the counted noun. A th-century letter has ïéúàìúìà íäøã øùòú ñîëìàå T-S J. / f ‘the thirty and the  dirhams’. In an example from the th/th-century corpus, the -t- is emphatic under the influence of the neighbouring #Ayn: íåé øùòèñîë úò÷ GW XXX/f ‘I stayed for  days’. These forms of numerals – provide further support for the independent development of the t-infix. In Modern Egyptian Arabic, gender indifferent numerals – are formed by adding t¯aˇsar to the short form single digit numeral, e.g., #arba"t¯aˇsar ‘fourteen’, saba#t¯aˇsar ‘seventeen’, tamant¯aˇsar ‘eighteen’. It is possible that this form originates from a construction of long form numeral + #aˇsar, in which the vowel of the feminine -at ending is then omitted. The form for ‘sixteen’, however, is sitt¯aˇsar. Similarly, ‘thirteen’ is talatt¯aˇsar. Unless a haplological syllable ellipsis (sittat¯aˇsar → sitt¯aˇsar) took place (as in the fifth stem verbs), it seems that the t- was infixed only after the short form numeral had become standardised. One example, however, can be found in which the t- is not < ñîë T-S affixed to #aˇsar, and the long form numeral is used: àîåé øùò ä J. /  ‘ days’ (C). This may be explained as a Classical Arabic form, or may show that the long form was used in the single digit numerals –. The t-infix in numerals – attached to #aˇsar appears in thcentury letters, whereas t- affixed to counted nouns can only be found in th/th-century letters, suggesting that the t-infix has its origins in the long form numeral used in – and later spread to counted nouns. ..... Summary Counted noun: The counted noun behaves as in Classical Arabic and stands in the singular. Gender polarity: In one of three examples, the long form numeral is used in the single digit with a masculine counted noun. As the majority of counted things are masculine, it is possible that the long form numeral became the standard in the fixed numeral constructions of numbers – . However, the form for ‘sixteen’ sitt¯aˇsar may also suggest that the short form numeral was used before a t-infix became standardised.



chapter seven

t-infix: The t-infix affixed to #aˇsar emerged already in the th century, and appears in two of three examples of fully written numerals – in the letters. .... The Numerals – ..... Introduction In Classical Arabic, numerals composed of single digits and tens have a single digit numeral in gender polarity to the counted noun. The counted noun follows in the accusative singular. In all letters from the th to the th century, with few exceptions, nouns following numbers – or compounds of single and double digit numbers with hundreds and thousands stand in the singular in accordance with Classical Arabic grammar rules. Most numbers are written in digits, but a few numerals are written in full. ..... th-Century Egypt Number signs: ìãò è˙ ò˙ ÷˙ éäå T-S J. /  ‘and it is  bundles’; ãäòá T-S J. /  ‘(after) the time of  days from Tobruk’.

˙ ë˙ ÷øáè ïò íåé ä

Written in full: óéð äãîìà éã˙ àä ìåè éô àäðî úéøúùà ã÷ô úàåôìà àøù àîàå T-S NS . /  ‘concerning the purchase of the madder plants, I had bought of them throughout this period more than  madder plants’.

àåô ïéúàìúå

..... th-Century Maghreb Number signs: ˙ðéã ë˙ éáàúòìà äîæøìà éô òôã àîìë T-S ./rm.f ‘all that he paid for the bundle of the #Att¯ab¯ı was  dinars’. Written in full: øðéã ïéøùòå äéàî T-S . /  ‘ dinars’; ïéòáøàá êàììà T-S ./v. ‘lacquer is at  because of its scarcity’.

äúì÷ì

..... th Century Number signs: äñëðìà øéâ íåé î˙ éäå T-S J. /  ‘and it (lasted)  days without the recurrence’. Written in full: òáøå íäøã ïéñîëå äòáøà øàãìà éìò àðøöë ã÷å CUL Or  J / f ‘we just spent on the house  dirhams and a quarter’; øàðéã ïéòñú åçðá äðî éãðò äììàå CUL Or  J / f ‘by God, I have with me of it (candy) about  dinars (worth)’; àîäøã ïéúìú T-S

syntax



J./vm. ‘ dirhams’; àîäøã ïéúñå äéàî GW VIII/v.(upside down) f ‘ dirhams’. One example has the numeral followed by the counted in the plural: íäàøãà ˙ð åîñ T-S J. / f ‘they set  dirhams’. The plural in this example is similar to the plural of dirham used in th century papyri (see below under ...). The plural after ‘’ cannot really be explained but the reading ð may be incorrect. ..... th/th Century It should be noted that a number of number signs are arranged in the order they are spoken and not arranged according to decreasing value. Number signs: íåìù éô íàùì àðøáò 102àúä íåé î˙ ä˙ ÷éøèìà éô àðãò÷ GW XXX/f ‘we stayed on the way for  days until we crossed over to Damascus safely’; óöð ò˙ ä˙ ãëà àî ìúî åãëà GW XXX/ ‘now they have taken as he took:  half-dinars’; íåé ë˙ ä˙ úìàèá ãòá GW XXX/f ‘after a rest period of  days’. ..... th/th Century In the th/th-century letters, numerals – are written both as number signs and in mixed forms, composed of number signs and fully written numerals. Number signs: ä÷åà R[ øã÷ òéàôøå ÷éà÷ã øéøç úéååù äðãðò ïàë äãëå T-S J. / f ‘and then, we had some fine quality silk of  ounces in quantity’. W[ äéðîúå ôìàá äñìåô äðàèòå T-S J. / f ‘we gave him a money order of one thousand and twenty eight (?) French riyy¯al for after its arrival in your hands in ten days’. Mixed:

íåëãééì àäìåñå ãòáì äñðøô ìàééø

íàééú øùòá

..... Summary Counted noun: The counted noun behaves as in Classical Arabic and stands in the singular. Gender polarity: Because of the scarcity of examples written in full, little can be said of gender polarity regarding numerals between  and  that consist of single digit and tens. In an unambiguous example 102

See ...

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available, òáøå íäøã ïéñîëå äòáøà øàãìà éìò àðøöë ã÷å CUL Or  J / f ‘we just spend on the house  dirhams and a quarter’ (C), the long form numeral is used in the single digit with a masculine counted noun.103 t-infix: As expected, the t-infix is not found as it only appears in contact position of numbers  to  with the counted. Because the order of complex numerals normally starts with the lower numbers and proceeds on to the higher, the numerals – and the counted are separated by the multiples of ten in numerals –. Ascending and descending order: In the th- to th-century letters a few examples with descending order of compound numerals may be found, both in written out numerals and in number signs. In the majority of examples, however, numerals are written in ascending order. .... Even Hundreds and Thousands ..... Introduction Even hundreds and thousands, which stand with the genitive singular in Classical Arabic, are followed in the letters by the counted noun in the singular. Most are written with number signs but examples of the numerals written in full also occur. ..... th-Century Egypt Number signs: àåô ÷˙ ìà ïéøðéã øéöåáá õ˙ ôðìà ïà éðâìá T-S NS . /  ‘it reached me that the thrashing in B¯us.¯ır costs two dinars per  madder plants’. ..... th-Century Maghreb Number signs: ˙ðéã ù˙ íäéô øøö ˙â T-S ./v. ‘ purses, in them  dinars’; ïñç òàúî øéúë äçìàö ä÷ù ÷˙ êì àøúùàå T-S . /  ‘he bought for you a hundred excellent garments of very fine quality’. Mixed and written in full: ˙ðéã

˙ óàìà ã

T-S . /  ‘, dinars’;

ã÷å

˙ øã óìà êéìà úäâå ïà áàúëìà äãä øéâ éô êì úøëã éãéùøìà øëá åáà òî ä

T-S . / f ‘I had written to you in another letter than this one that I had

103 Similarly, the long form occurs in àìãò ïéñîëå äòáøà Bod MS Heb d. ./  ‘ bales’ (C) in a letter from outside of the corpus.

syntax



sent you , dirhams with Ab¯u Bakr al-Raˇs¯ıd¯ı’; àøàðéã äéàî òôãá T-S . /  ‘with paying  dinars’; ˙ðéã ïéúéàî Bod MS Heb d. . /  ‘ dinars’. ..... th Century Number signs: íäøã ù˙ äì äúòáà T-S J. /  ‘I will send him  dirhams’; íäøã ø˙ ú˙ øàèð÷ ìë T-S J. /  ‘ dirhams per qintar’. Written in full: íäàøã äòñúå íäøã ä¨ éàî íäðîú T-S J. /  ‘their price is a hundred and nine dirhams’. ..... th/th Century Number signs: øöî ïî àäá úâ˙øë éãìà óöð ÷˙ ééìòå óöð ÷˙ äìîâ˙ìà GW XXX/f ‘the total is  half-dinars and I owe  half-dinars with which I went out from Cairo’; óöð ø˙ úøàö GW XXX/ ‘this made it  half-dinars’. Written in full: óöð úéîá úéñúëà äìë äãàä ãòá GW XXX/f ‘after all this, I clothed myself for  half-dinars’. ..... th/th Century In the th/th-century letters, number signs are exclusively written with Persian-Arabic signs. Arabic number signs: äöô T[[[[ äö˙ ô˙ ñéâøéâ ò˙ î ìà øåëãî ìà ïî äðìéöå T-S AS . / f ‘, fad. da . have reached us from the aforementioned honourable Girgis’; äö˙ ô˙ R[[ … éúìë˙ ì 104åòôúú íåëôøòðå T-S J. / f ‘I instruct you to pay my aunt …  fad. da’; . äö˙ ô˙ V[[ 105àäåèòè íåëðôøò T-S NS . /  ‘we informed you to give her  fad. da’ . . Mixed and written in full: äö˙ ô˙ ôìà UXW àìò äðì ÷ìâå T-S J. /  ‘he closed with us on  thousand fad. da’; . àìò äðì ÷ìâéå äñìåô ìà äðéèòé çéàøå ˙ ô˙ ôìà úéî T-S J. / f ‘he is going to give us the money order and äö close with us on a hundred thousand fad. da’; . ôìà S[ øã÷á åãë˙ àú íåëðôøò ˙ ˙ äöô T-S NS . / f ‘we told you to take the quantity of , fad . da’; . ùø÷ ôìà S åìàâå T-S NS . /  ‘, piasters came for him’. The t-infix occurs with the numeral alf ‘thousand’: äðà÷á éú÷å ìéãå ˙ øã÷á ïéãë˙ å T-S J. /  ‘this time we were taking ìàééø ôìàú ñîë the amount of , riyy¯al’; ôìàú U[ øã÷ äðì åìñøú ïà íåëôøòð ìàç ìàå 104 105

See ... See ...



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˙ ô˙ ùø÷ T-S NS . /  ‘and now we inform you that you should send äö us the quantity of , silver piasters’.

..... Summary Counted noun: The counted noun behaves as in Classical Arabic and stands in the singular. Gender polarity: In this corpus no examples of written out single digit before mi"a ‘hundred’ or alf ‘thousand’ may be found. t-infix: The t-infix occurs with the numeral alf ‘thousand’ in th/thcentury letters. ... Definite Numbers .... Introduction The definite numeral constructions seem to present some difficulties. Due to the nature of numbers, standing somehow between nouns and adjectives, and the rare occurrence of definite numeral constructions, there are several ways to form such phrases. In Classical Arabic (as well as in other Semitic languages106), numerals undergo a change in their character when they become definite. The indefinite construction has a numeral as a noun followed by a counted noun in the genitive or in apposition. The phrase can be made definite in the following ways: a) The first construction is formed by analogy with the indefinite construction: tal¯atatu r-rij¯ali. According to Wright (, III f) and ¯ f), ¯ Mörth (, this is the most ‘Classical’ way to express a definite construction, even though the phrase is ambiguous and could be interpreted as ‘three of the men’ and ‘the three men’. Modern Standard Arabic distinguishes between these two different expressions. b) The number stands in apposition to the noun and both receive the article: ar-rij¯alu t-tal¯atatu. According to Mörth, this construction ¯ ¯ ¯ language. It is also the standard means of is frequent in vernacular determination in Modern Written Arabic, as noted by Haywood and Nahmad (, ) and Buckley (, f).

106

For Sabaic see Wagner (, f).

syntax



c) As a third possibility, Mörth presents Classical Arabic at-tal¯atatu r¯¯ ¯ rij¯ali/u107 following Reckendorf. d) Reckendorf (, ) notes that the construction at-tal¯atatu rij¯alin ¯ ¯ and ¯ Wright is very frequent in Classical Arabic, although both Mörth consider it to be post-classical. This is the most usual form in all dialects,108 and it also occurs in Modern Written Arabic.109 .... th- to the th-Century Letters In Judaeo-Arabic letters from the th to the th centuries, all examples of definite number are surprisingly uniform. They almost exclusively110 follow the pattern found under d). This is the most vernacular form of the four definite numeral constructions (in which only numbers receive the article) whereas the counted follows as an indefinite apposition either in the plural (with numerals –) or in the singular (with higher numerals). The use of this pattern implies that the numerals have lost their adjectival character, as they have in definite constructions in Classical Arabic and Modern Written Arabic (= construction b). The numerals function solely as nouns, although the whole construction of numeral and noun may also be viewed as a complex rather than analysed by its parts. .... th-Century Egypt –: àðã ˙éìà úãëàå T-S J. /  ‘and I took the  dinars’; úëøú úðëå ïàøôòæìà èàôöà ˙âìà ìéìâ ìà êéùìà éàìåî ãðò T-S J./rm.ff ‘and I had left with my master the venerable elder the three baskets of saffron’; ˙ å T-S . / f ‘and he mentioned that he would ìàãòà ˙éìà íúé äðà øëã finish (weighing) the ten bales’. –: ˙ðéã è˙˙å ìà ÷åô äììàáå úôìñúàå T-S . /  ‘I borrowed, by God, more than the  dinars’. –: åì÷øáå ìãò òìà åéòàøé ïà äììà àîäîìñ àðáàçöà òéîâ úéöåàå T-S J. / f ‘I advised all our companions to heed the  bundles and

107 108 109 110

The correct case ending is not clear according to Arab grammarians. See the examples in Mörth (, ff). See Haywood and Nahmad (, f) and Buckley (, ). There is one example that is different: ïàåéñ ïî ïéøùò ìà äúàìú ìà íåé T-S J./ 



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the barqallo’; ìãò è˙ ö˙ ìà äì çøùà T-S J./rm.f ‘I will explain to him (the contents of) the  bales’. Even hundreds: àåô ÷˙ ìà ïéøðéã øéöåáá õ˙ ôðìà ïà àðâìáå T-S NS . /  ‘we have been told that the threshing in B¯us.¯ır costs two dinars per  madder plants’. .... th-Century Maghreb –: ˙ðéã ä˙ ë ïî ãçàå [øò]ñ á˙ ìà ïåëé T-S . / f ‘the two (robes) should be of one (= the same) price of  dinars’. –: áçàöì äöç ìôìô ïéì÷øáìàå éåàîè ïàúë ìàãòà ã˙ ìà éô úìòâ˙ ïà úøëã ˙ ìà T-S . / f ‘you mentioned that you assigned a share of éòàáø ù the  bundles of Tam¯ . aw¯ı flax and the two barqallos of pepper to the owner of the  ruba#iyyas’; äé÷àá úìöå éãìà ïàúë ã˙ ìà ïà íú T-S . /  ‘then, the  (bales of) flax that arrived are remaining’; äìîâ˙ ïî úìîç ã÷å ˙ ìà T-S . /  ‘I just sent one of the four bundles àñåî éìà ìãò ìàãòà ã to M¯us¯a’. –: àøàðéã ì˙ ìà äãä àäö˙ åò êì úôøöô T-S . / f ‘I sent to you in their place those  dinars’. Even hundreds: ìôìôìà ïî äúöç éô éòàáø ù˙ ìà óöð äì éãìà éðáìèå T-S . / f ‘the one who owned half of the  ruba#iyyas demanded from me his share of the pepper’; ïî éàøäð ø˙ êðî áìè ïà éì úøëã íú ˙ ìà T-S . / f ‘then you mentioned to me that R. Nahray éòàáø ÷ demanded from you (a share) of the  ruba#iyyas’; øðéã äéàî ìà òôã T-S . /  ‘the payment of the hundred dinars’. .... th Century –: ìé÷àúî ñîëìá àìà éð÷øàô àî íéäàøáà ïåîàä ïáà àöéàå CUL Or  J / f ‘and also: Ibn H¯am¯un Ibr¯ah¯ım left me with only the  mat¯aq¯ıl’; ¯ ãð÷ìà éô äì éãìà äñîëìà àåñú àîå CUL Or  J / -m. ‘and it is not worth the  (mat¯aq¯ıl/dinars?), which were his from the candy’. ¯ –: íäøã øùòú ñîëìàå ïéúàìúìà T-S J. / f ‘the thirty and the  dirhams’. ‘the rd Sivan’ but here the cardinal numerals functions as ordinal numerals, just as is the case in numerals from  onwards in Classical Arabic.

syntax



–: íäøã ïéñîëìà äö˙ éàå T-S J. /  ‘and also the fifty dirhams’. .... th/th Century –: […] åøñëðà éãìà øäùà ñîë˙ ìà T-S NS J / f ‘the  months (in) which they broke …’. .... th/th Century –: ñàéëú V ìà åðî äîãë˙ å äðéàçå T-S J. / f ‘and we greeted and took from him the three bags’. .... Discussion and Summary Although the character of the numeral does not change as in Classical Arabic, the construction itself appears to change. After the numerals –  and those with even hundreds the counted noun can no longer be considered as standing in a genitive construction (id¯ . afa) since the phrase does not conform to the rules for the construct state. Rather, the numeral expression takes the form of a nominal compound of the form article[numeral + counted item]. Moreover, the constructions with numerals –, which are constructed with an accusative singular in the indefinite state in Classical Arabic, undergo the same determination process, as seen in examples from the th century. These are constructed in exactly the same way as numeral expressions with lower numbers. While the numbers –, even hundreds and – form different constructions with their counted noun in the indefinite state in Classical Arabic and, following that, show different number (plural after –, singular with higher numeral) in the letters, they are treated in the same way when the counted objects are definite, see in schematic form: definite: article + [numeral + noun (sing./plur. depending on numeral)]. indefinite: (a) numerals –: numeral + noun (pl.) in construct (id¯ . afa), (b) numerals –: numeral + noun (sg.) in apposition, (c) numerals even hundreds: numeral + noun (sg.) in construct (id¯ . afa). Definite numeral constructions in letters from the th to the th centuries are, therefore, expressed uniformly by the pattern article-[numeral + noun]. Unlike Classical Arabic, numerals do not change their character



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according to whether they are definite or indefinite. Instead, they keep their nominal character in both constructions. Moreover, the definite numeral expressions from – are constructed the same way as those of higher numerals, although there is a syntactic difference when the numerals are indefinite. .... The th-Century Corpus and the Problem of idn¯an¯ır and idr¯ah¯ım All th-century examples of definite numerals initially appear to be constructed in a different way to later material. While the numeral has the article, it appears that also the counted, øéððãà, is given the article, written in assimilation; øéððãà øùò ìà òî P. Berol  /  ‘together with the ten dinars’; øéððãà øùò ìà äééìà òôãô P. Berol  /  ‘pay him the ten dinars’; øéððãà øùòìå çî÷ìéá àìéà øéãçðé àìå P. Berol  / f ‘he should only come with the grain and the ten dinars’.111 The interpretation of øéððãà as definite is, however, questionable if the following example is considered: øéðð[ã]à òáøàá … ïà êîìòàå P. Mich. Inv.  Recto/ ‘I inform you that … (is) at  dinars’. In this phrase, a definite counted can be ruled out as the whole construction is indefinite. Similar phenomena are found in later letters. For example, the form íäàøãà appears in the th-century íäàøãà ˙ð åîñ T-S J. / f ‘they set  dirhams’; and a th-century letter (T-S . / f) has §çá àäåøéñééá ÷ùîã ïî øäù ìë íéäøãà ‘with  dinars, which they send every month from Damascus’. In both cases, the counted must be interpreted as indefinite, and there are also no other examples in th-century letters of an article written in assimilation. Thus the form must be interpreted as indefinite. A possible explanation is the omission of the short /a/ in dar¯ah¯ım and dan¯an¯ır with compensation by a prosthetic vowel, leading to the forms idn¯an¯ır and idr¯ah¯ım.112 Thus the definite numeral construction of the th century may be in accordance with those of later letters after all.

111 There is one more (corrupt) example of a definite numeral in ùéùãà äé[..]à ñîëìà P. Berol /  ‘the five … of pounded wheat’. 112 Blau (, ) also analyses the form like that. However, there is one problem. Papyri H /  shows in Arabic script  \5 _K _ ‘three dinars’ with the article attached. This form might have been wrongly reanalysed by the scribe analogous to the forms with assimilated article.

syntax



.. Subordination: Relative Clauses ... Subordination in Written and Spoken Language Although certain types of subordinate clauses are used in vernacular speech, subordination as defined by hypotactic clauses or less finite hypotactic structures is generally considered to be a feature of written language varieties. Because of the structural complexity and lexical density that comes with formal subordination, speakers and listeners generally find it a lot easier to produce or follow co-ordinated clauses. Chafe (, f) remarks that whereas ‘speakers appear to be under the constraint to produce no more than one clause at a time, writers have the leisure and editing ability which allows them to produce multiclause units’. Co-ordinated clauses in speech also show subordination but this subordination is only functional and often not formally marked. Instead, hypotaxis is expressed by dynamic complexity,113 through means such as tone, stress, particles etc. A good example for the differences in spoken and written language are conference papers that are ad-libbed and those that are read out from a prepared script. The ad-libbed papers are much easier for the listener to take in and understand, there can even be interaction between speaker and listener if the speaker senses puzzlement in the audience, but usually such talks cannot incorporate as much information as a pre-written paper. On the other hand, papers read from a prepared script in written language feature complex clauses, avoid repetitions and incorporate more information in shorter, subordinate constructions, which help to express matters more precisely and effectively than a sequence of coordinate sentences. This, however, often leaves listeners bemused as they find it much harder to take the information in without being able to reread it (in particular in conference sessions just after lunch!). Some subordinate structures are largely limited to the written language, such as certain types of adverbial clauses, in particular embedded clauses, dependent clauses with nonfinite verb forms, and non-restrictive relative clauses.114 For example, a sentence like ‘At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented from tenants in S–y lane, walked out to the street, and

113 114

Halliday (, ). Thompson (, ).

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slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the K–n Bridge’115 is perfectly acceptable in the written language and considered grammatically correct. It is, however, doubtful as to whether its lexical density would be immediately understood by an unsuspecting listener in an oral conversation. Subordination, including non-finite hypotactic structures, can also be deliberately used to create certain registers of a language. For example, in some works of academic German in the th and th centuries subordination is used as a means against ‘popularity’, to make the language impenetrable to all but the most educated readers.116 Some of the protagonists in the emergence of this German ‘Wissenschaftsprache’ were scholars like Kant, who composed in such a dense, nominalised written language that it is not unknown for German speaking philosophy students and scholars alike to prefer the English translations of philosophical books to those in the original German. When people use subordinate clauses orally, they are often emulating written standards of language. People deliberately switch into registers of written language for all kind of purposes, for example, in academic circles, where the lexical density helps the speaker to convey a complex idea in relatively short time. Or, in situations where speakers try to convey their social standing, the degree of their education or general mental capacities. By the same token, complex sentences can also help a great deal to disguise lack of actual knowledge to the overwhelmed listener. The fact that subordination occurs mainly in the written language means that people less familiar with the prescriptive literary standards may have problems to compose certain kinds of subordinate clauses that conform with the prescribed rules set by the Standard language. These grammatical rules that define standard languages are in themselves arbitrary. For example, while double negation was perfectly acceptable in older German, it was completely extinguished from Standard German by scholars imposing Latin grammatical thought (‘two negations equalling a positive statement’) on it. Thus double negation would be judged as ungrammatical in High Standard German, whereas it occurs freely in some German dialects. Similarly, there are subordinate structures that have been sanctioned by Arab grammarians and are therefore part of

115 The first clause of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and punishment as translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (). 116 For the attitude of German scholars such as Kant, Schleiermacher and Schlegel towards the Verständlichkeit (‘comprehensibility’) of philosophical writing or academic writing in general, see Göttert (), in particular pp. –.

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the ‘canon’ of Classical Arabic grammar, whereas others are described as ‘post-classical’ Arabic or vernacular Arabic. Three major groups of subordinate clauses can be discerned: complement clauses (e.g., that-clauses), adverbial clauses (e.g., causal, final, consecutive, temporal and concessive clauses) and relative clauses.117 Within the corpora of Genizah letters, we can observe that the complement and adverbial clauses follow to a large degree the rules of Classical Arabic and do not show a great deal of variability, apart from a few exceptions such as indifference between an and anna or slight semantic changes in the use of conjunctions. About some adverbial clauses it is difficult to make any kind of statement because of the lack of suitable, unambiguous examples. Within the group of relative clauses, however, the letters display a remarkable mix of Classical, post-classical and vernacular structures side by side. The relative clauses in the letter corpora will thus be examined in a more detailed fashion in this chapter. ... Relative Clauses in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Two different kinds of relative clauses have to be distinguished in Arabic. The first kind are attributival or adjectival clauses, also termed qualificative clauses, which depend on a referential noun, e.g., the house that cried murder or the man who wasn’t there. The second type are free relative clauses, also termed headless, conjunctive or, rather unfortunately, substantival118 relative clauses, which do not depend on a referential noun, e.g., what women want. .... Attributival Relative Clauses Attributival relative clauses are further subdivided into different constructions depending upon whether the antecedent is definite or indefinite. The relative clauses following definite antecedents are, in Classical Arabic, normally introduced by the relative pronoun allad¯ı and related forms. Relative clauses following indefinite antecedents are¯in most cases constructed asyndetically.

117 This follows the system developed in the DFG-funded project ‘Konkurrenzsyntax’ at the University of Jena under the supervision of Prof Rosemarie Luehr. 118 The term ‘substantival’, as used by French linguistics, could suggest that they are a kind of complement (content) clause.

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..... The Definite Attributival Relative Clauses Relative clauses of definite antecedents in Classical Arabic are usually introduced by the relative pronouns m. allad¯ı, f. allat¯ı, the inflected ¯ dual pronouns m. allad¯ani/alladayni, f. allat¯ani/allatayni, and the plural ¯ ¯ pronouns m. allad¯ına, f. allad¯ati/allaw¯at¯ı. The pronouns accord with ¯ their antecedent in¯ number, gender and, with instances of dual and plural nouns, in case. By contrast with Classical Arabic grammar, the letters show almost exclusively the Classical Arabic masculine singular form éãìà which appears as relative pronoun following masculine, dual and plural antecedents. As will be explained later, this probably reflects the use of the vernacular pronoun illi, which is also indifferent as to gender and number. The traditional Classical Arabic grammars119 also mention definite relative clauses that can be formed by attaching the article to the additional information that is given to a noun, e.g., ra"aytu Zaydani l-hasana . wajhuh¯u ‘I saw Zayd whose face was beautiful’ and hak¯ . a ab¯u l-Fut¯uhi . l-mutaqaddimu dikruh¯u ‘Ab¯u l-Fut¯uh, . who had been mentioned before, ¯ cases should, however, not be considered as equal to related (…)’. These relative clauses with relative introduction. Rather, l-hasana wajhuh¯u and . l-mutaqaddimu dikruh¯u stand in the place of regular determined adjecti¯ val attributes following their names that are naturally definite. The examples are probably the postnominal equivalent of the so-called prenominal relative clauses in German and English, e.g., ‘der schöngesichtige Zayd’ (vs. ‘Zayd, dessen Gesicht schön war’), ‘the before mentioned man’ (vs. ‘the man who had been mentioned before’), ‘ich schlug den von ihm gegangenen Weg ein’ (vs. ‘ich schlug den Weg ein, der von ihm gegangen wurde’), or ‘the beautifully modeled house’ (vs. ‘the house which was beautifully modeled’). On a scale of attributivity, these kinds of attributions are much more explicit than regular relative clauses (compare Lehmann , ), which build an additional nucleus. Yet, of the two examples, l-mutaqaddimu dikruh¯u would probably be judged as leaning ¯ than l-hasana wajhuh¯u because of the use more towards a relative clause . of a participle. In the letters, a similar example, äìöàåìà éòàáø ÷˙ ìà, can be found in ïî êéìà äìöàåìà éòàáø ÷˙ ìà ïî éàøäð ø˙ êðî áìè ïà éì úøëã íú øàîò ïá íééç T-S . / f ‘then you mentioned to me that R. Nahray demanded from you (a share) of the  ruba#iyyas that had arrived to

119

For example, see Fischer (, f) and Brockelmann (, ).

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you from Hayyim b. #Amm¯ar for me’. These clauses would certainly merit . a comprehensive investigation into their use across the whole of JudaeoArabic literature. a) Relative clauses introduced by the relative pronoun allad¯ı and its ¯ derivates The relative pronoun allad¯ı is used following nouns of all genders and ¯ numbers. allad¯ı following masculine nouns: éðøúñå éðìîùà éãìà íëìéîâ óéëå CUL Or ¯ J /  ‘like your good deed that wraps me and protects me’ (C  unassigned). allad¯ı following feminine nouns: éúáçö úìöå éãìà äøöìà êìãëå Bod MS Heb¯ d. . /  ‘likewise the purse which arrived with me’ (C Egypt); êàììà ÷åç ïî áàñçìà éô úé÷á éãìà äé÷áìà ïî è÷ñðú T-S J. /  ‘it will be retrieved from the rest which remains from the account of the box of laquer’ (C Maghreb); éãìà ìú˙ î ÷ôúú ìòì àäéô êúìàñ úðë éãìà äìçìà äãåäé àéøëæ éáà [é]ìà äúäâå T-S . / f ‘the festive costume which I had asked you about, could it maybe resemble the one you sent to Ab¯u Zikr¯ı Judah?’. allad¯ı following dual nouns: éúöàëì úãôðà éãìà úéæ ïéôøö˙ ìàá êîìòà úðëå T-S¯J. /  ‘I informed you about the two containers of olive oil that I sent on my own expense’ (C Maghreb); âàáñìà ïá ãðò éãìà ïéúééèá÷ ìàå T-S J. / f ‘the two Egyptian linens that are with Ibn as-Sabb¯ag˙ (the son of the dyer)’ (C). allad¯ı following plural nouns: éãìà áúëìà ïî êìã êì óùëðà ã÷ ïà åâøàå ¯ T-S J. / f ‘I hope that this had already been revealed to you from the letters that I wrote after the first letter’ (C Egypt); íåëãðò ïî úàâ éãìà øàáëàìà T-S J. /  ‘the news that came from you’ (C Maghreb); àäì éãìà úåéáìà àäðî åãë˙ à íäðàì T-S NS J / f ‘because they took the houses, which belong to her, from her’ (C/C). Very rarely, the writers will orientate themselves along the lines of Classical Arabic and use the feminine relative pronoun allat¯ı after feminine antecedents: àòáøàìà äìéì éä éúìà äáåøòìà äìéì íëãðò øö˙ çð àîáø T-S J./rm.ff ‘possibly we will stay with you for Hosha#na Rabbah which is the fourth night’ (C). There are very few examples in which this Classical Arabic form allat¯ı is used hypercorrectly with a masculine

ìåàìà áàúëìà ãòá úáúë

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antecedent: âéôìà òî éúìà êáàúë íú T-S . /  ‘concerning your letter which (arrived) with the messenger’ (C Maghreb). The use of both allad¯ı and allat¯ı does not reflect the actual use in the ¯ vernacular. The relativizer allad¯ı is a phenomenon of written Judaeo¯ Arabic, whereas the actual pronoun used in spoken Arabic was probably something like the Modern vernacular relative pronoun illi. This is also reflected in the fact that, as mentioned above, allad¯ı is used for both ¯ genders and all numbers just as illi is in the Modern dialects. The occasional appearance of allat¯ı should be interpreted as deliberate usage of a Classical Arabic form, and in some cases as a hypercorrect form. It could also be evaluated as a devoiced derivative Ãlt¯ı from Ãld¯ı, which appears in a vocalised texts (such as a letter120 from the th/th century) in Tiberian vocalisation ald¯ı/äld¯ı. Pseudo-archaic Ãldi also occurs in the written Arabic koine of the Arabic-speaking Jewish communities as described by David Cohen in his article on Judaeo-Arabic in the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Following this it is unsurprising that even in the th-/th-century letters of our corpus, which show many colloquial forms, éãìà has been maintained as a relative pronoun in written Judaeo-Arabic. The pronunciation could be similar to Ãldi but we can also find the vocalisation illadi in the vocalized literary Late Egyptian text T-S Ar. .. This may either present another artificial literary form or it may resemble the actual pronunciation within the Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic reading tradition, which may qualify the pronunciation Ãldi as a characteristic Late Maghrebian Judaeo-Arabic form; éã˙ ìà âìáî ìéã ê˙ éìàã˙ éô˙ ìéëåå øåëãîìà ïéà [ìà÷ ï]àîëå äéìò áåìèî T-S AS . / f ‘and also he said that the aforementioned has appointed an agent in connection with this sum which was requested from him’ (C/C); íëòúá äîæåø ìà åúáçåö éã˙ ìà ñééø ìà ˙åö íåäìæðå AIU VIIE / f ‘he sent them down with the leader with whom your bundles are’ (C/C); äñìåô ìà ñåìô àìò åòî åðàë éã˙ ìà ñåìôìà åðî äðîìúñå T-S J. /  ‘and we received the money which was in his possession from him in accordance with the sum of the money order’ (C/C); ˙ ìà äééëøéù ìà òàúéá ìà[..] ìéã äðì åáúëú ôéë íåëéìò äðáâòúñå àäåúìîò éã ˙ åø øéâ ïî T-S NS . / f ‘you astonished us by the way you wrote to äðàö us this … of the partnership, which you established without our agreement’ (C/C).

120

Published by Blau and Hopkins ().

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The actual vernacular form illi may also appear instead of allad¯ı in a ¯ ìà few rare examples: ãéòà÷ ñåìéô˙ êì éèòé êãðò éàâ åðéà äéìò ìå÷úá éìà éãåäé ˙ T-S AS . / f ‘the Jew whom you say is coming to you to give øöî éô you money, is (actually) staying in Cairo’ (C/C). It should thus be stressed again that the relative pronouns found in the letters are almost exclusively pseudo-classical pronouns, which have derived from the Classical Arabic forms and are used in substandard writing. The actual spoken relative pronoun illi appears only in very few examples. b) allad¯ı as complement introduction ¯ Aside from its use as a relative construction, allad¯ı can also introduce ¯ the th century complement clauses. It occurs in this function from onwards. The close relationship between complement and relative introduction is not unusual, as it also becomes apparent in the complement clause introduction particle an ‘that’ and the homophonous relative particle an derived from the Classical Arabic tanw¯ın.121 A similar phenomenon can be found in English where the homophonous that functions as an introduction particle for both relative and complement clauses, for example, I think that you know vs. the things that you know. In most cases in which allad¯ı introduces complement clauses, the ¯ connotation: äðçà éãìà ááñ ìà éãà clauses have an additional causal òéá ìà äìò ïéìâòúñî AIU VIIE  / f ‘this is the reason that we are in a hurry to sell’ (C/C); éãìàå ãçàå ïàëî éô àðìîù äììà òîâ éãìà àðçøôô íåìùìà àäðéáå êðéá çøè T-S J. / f ‘and we were happy that God united us altogether in one place and that he made peace between you and her’ (C); äøàâö ïî ÷øúôà éãìà êìã éìò æòå T-S J. / f ‘he was in pain about this that/because he was separated from his little ones’ (C). c) Asyndetic clauses after definite antecedent A large number of examples occur in which a definite antecedent is followed by an asyndetic relative clause. That these clauses have to be evaluated as true relative clauses, and not as mere parataxis, is evident in the examples. The explicit definiteness of the antecedent, in two of the examples emphasized by the demonstrative pronoun, only receives

121

Compare chapter ..

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its relevance through the relative clause: éìà ìöú äàìåî áúë äãäå T-S J. /  ‘these are the letters of his master that should arrive to me’ (C Maghreb); ñôðìà éå÷ú ïàë äúãøà ú÷åìà àãä ìúî éô ééá òè÷ ã÷å T-S J. / -rm. ‘he left me at the very time in which I wanted him to support me’ (C Maghreb); âøëàå óéøùìà éìà úéö˙ î ïà éàìåîàé úøëã êúèìë ˙å˙é øéøç ìèø ˙æ˙é íéäøáøàå éñåî íñàá òàá ïà äéô ãâå øúôãìà T-S ˇ ıf, and J. /  ‘you mentioned, oh my master, that you went to al-Sar¯ he brought out the file in which he found that he had bought  rat. l of satin,  of your share, in the name of M¯us¯a and Abraham’ (C Egypt); ˙ øî äì øëãé óåìëì éãð÷øîñìà ïá áàúë éìò úô÷å íú T-S . / f ‘then I êö read the letter of al-Samarkand¯ı to Hall¯uf which mentions your illness to him’ (C Maghreb); and in letter ˘from outside the corpus ìàãòà ã˙ ìàå ïàåøé÷ìàì àä÷ñåá êæò äììà íàãà úéöåà ã÷ úðë ìôìôìà Bod MS Heb d. . / f ‘the four bundles of pepper which you, may God preserve your honoured position, had instructed to send to Qayrawan’. Some Arabic grammars, like Brockelmann, fail to mention this construction. Wright has described these relative clauses, restricting them to nouns that indicate ‘not a particular individual (animate or inanimate) but any individual bearing the name’.122 This explanation seems not to cover all cases; as in the example in Fischer (, ) li-mani d-day¯aru g˙aˇs¯ıtuh¯a ‘whose are the dwellings that I have come to?’. Fischer classifies this example and the qur"anic ka-mitli l-him¯ asf¯aran ‘like the . ari yahmilu . ¯ mentioned by Wright, as ‘apposiass which carries books’, which is also tional circumstantial clauses’. However, a clause can only be circumstantial to a proposition, not to a noun. As these asyndetic relative clauses occuring after definite antecedents appear both in Classical Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic, they seem to be a general Arabic linguistic phenomenon, which has yet to be treated extensively. d) m¯a as relative pronoun in definite and indefinite relative clauses m¯a as a relative pronoun in attributival relative clauses occurs in thcentury letters. In Classical Arabic, m¯a can only appear as relative in free relative clauses123 and in constructions with generic qualifiers like kul m¯a or jam¯ı# m¯a, although m¯a and man could be used as attributival relatives in pre-classical Arabic.124 In the th-century letters, this function seems 122 123 124

Wright (, II ). Fischer (, ff). Fischer (,  note ).

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to have resurfaced; as in the following examples, where the relative particle m¯a follows in the first case a definite and in the latter two cases a formally indefinite, but semantically definite, antecedent: êôøò äúîçøá äéìé àî äúãàòñå äúëøá äììà T-S . /  ‘may God let you experience his blessing and his help which he bestows in his mercy’ (C Maghreb); úçøá àî í[å]é T-S . /  ‘the day that she left’125 (C); äéèò ïá ïî àøúùà àî øòñ éðî äàøúùà éúç äìàñàå äîùçà ìàæà íìå T-S J. / f ‘I did not stop to shame him and to ask him until he bought it from me (for the) price (of) which he bought from Ibn #At.iyya’ (C). With this further expansion of the semantic spectrum, m¯a in postclassical Arabic takes over the following functions: . negation, . free relative, . attributival relative, . wh-word, . complementizer.126 This is quite a wide spectrum for one particle. Diachronic studies in Yiddish have shown that connectives127 in times of intensive language change128 initially enlarge their semantic spectrum considerably and become highly polyfunctional. Then a new system is finally developed, applications are narrowed again and connectives are assigned to certain functions.129 The dichotomy between colloquial and written Arabic, in addition to sociolectal phenomena and the everyday life familiarity with Hebrew, might have led to a similar situation in Judaeo-Arabic. As m¯a only appears as a relative in th-century letters, this may be an indication of more intensive language change during that period, which fits well with the historical processes happening from the late th century onwards. By coincidence, in the letters from the same period ayˇs has taken over the wh-word function. It is also the time when a number of other grammatical features emerge such as the bi-imperfect.130 125 The antecedent is formally not definite. It is similar to those structures in certain Semitic languages in which the relative clause works like a genitive and puts the antecedent in a construct. An example is Akkadian b¯ıt ¯ıpuˇsu ‘a house he had built’, see von Soden (, § ). 126 Hitherto, no occurences in this function could be found in the letters. In Classical Arabic, examples given by Fischer include #ajibtu mimm¯a darabtah¯ u ‘I am astonished that . you beat him’ and yasurru l-mar"a m¯a dahaba l-lay¯al¯ı ‘one is happy that the nights go by’. ¯ It can also occur in this function in Modern Egyptian Arabic, see Spitta-Bey (, ). 127 The term is used here as a hyperonym for both conjunctions and relatives. 128 The term ‘intensive language change’ describes language change forced by a large number of external factors like rapid migration, development of sociolects within a diaspora and repeated language contact, as opposed to ‘slow’ change within a relatively settled, static group of speakers. 129 See Kühnert and Wagner (). 130 See chapter ..

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..... The Indefinite Attributival Relative Clauses a) Asyndetic clauses after indefinite antecedent Relative clauses with indefinite antecedents are normally introduced asyndetically. In the case of asyndetic relative clauses following a definite antecedent the examples make it quite clear that these are actual subordinate relative clause. However, it is often much harder to prove the subordinate connection between indefinite antecedent and its asyndetic relative clause. Many examples could simply be taken as paratactic, asyndetic clauses. In some cases, the relative clauses could also be interpreted as complement clauses, or could have connotations of an adverbial clause (especially purpose or final). However, in the first four examples the relative connection between antecedent and the asyndetic relative clauses is quite tight: úéáøìá àäúôìñà úàîàá GW XXX/ ‘with sums I borrowed with interest’ (C/C); éìà äéìà ãðúñú ãðñ àäì àî äììà éìà T-S J. / f ‘she has no support to lean upon (literally: support which she could lean upon), except on God’131 (C); éù åä àî úãçé T-S J. /  ‘it is not something that one could describe’ (C unassigned); éöøç ïî øú˙ ëà éì øôåúé ä˙ øã éô õøçú äììà êãéà êðà íìòà éðàô T-S . / f ‘I let you know that you, may God help you, are more concerned about dirhams to be saved for me than saving me’ (C Maghreb); êì óöð àî óøòð àî éù ïàë ã÷å T-S J. / f ‘there is a thing which I don’t know how to describe to you’ (C unassigned); òôøð äéãä íëðî äáñçðå äáì÷ äéá CUL Or  J /  ‘we will put on your account a present with which to lift his heart’ (C unassigned); êìö˙ ôå äììà ìö˙ ô ïî éãö÷ úáñìà éô ä÷ôðà éù éô éðøáãú ïà T-S NS J / f ‘my endeavour from God’s grace and your grace is that you will arrange for me something that I (can) spend on the Sabbath’ (C); ïá áøà÷ éô ˙â˙ð äðñ êéìà àäìîç äøö äéô úãâåô ìé÷ò éáà T-S ./v. ‘I found in it a purse which he sent to you in the year  in the boat of Ibn Ab¯ı #Aq¯ıl’ (C Maghreb); òôãé íì êììà úö˙ øòàå åìà÷ àìà ãøô íäøã äéô T-S J. /  ‘I offered the laquer for which one could get a single dirham but they said’ (C); äééëøùìà äðìîò ïéç äðçå ˙ ø äö˙ ô˙ ôìà W[[ äðàèçå êñî ïàøáåâ äòî T-S NS . / f ‘we, íëéìò äðàö when we established the partnership with Jubran Misk, put down . fad. da, . which we returned to you’ (C/C); äðì èøôé éö˙ ø ïãçà íìå T-S J. /  ‘there was no one who was willing to sell to us at a low price’ (C/C).

131

… ill¯a il¯a ll¯ahi.

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b) The particle an as relative introduction after indefinite antecedent In many examples an, which is derived from the original tanw¯ın ending, works as a kind of relative introduction. This has probably been facilitated by the existence of the homophonous complementizer an. The connection was already pointed out by Baneth who regarded an to be identical with the conjunction an. Typologically, it is a known phenomenon for complementizers to take over the function of relative introductions. For example, in Yiddish letters of the th century the complementizer az, which later becomes the standard complementizer in Modern Yiddish, may be used as relative introduction in relative clauses.132 In the following examples, an seems to function as a relative pronoun after an indefinite antecedent, even though in many cases there is an adverbial connotation, mainly final (purpose) ‘in order that’ or consecutive ‘so that’: éä àî êðàúë òî èìúëú ïà éù T-S NS . /  ‘it is not a thing that could be confused with your flax’ (C Egypt); ñáìð ïà áåú éì àî T-S ./v. (written above the line) ‘I don’t have any garment to wear (literally: that I [could] wear)’ (C Egypt); øñð ïà øáë áøâìà ïò àðòîñéå … äììà ïî ìñà äá T-S J. / f ‘I asked God … to let us hear news from the West which gladden us’ (C Egypt); êéùìà éàìåî éìà äéá áúëà ïà éù éì àîå T-S J. /  ‘and I do not have anything else to write to my master’ (C unassigned). In each of the examples above, the antecedents are indefinite, as we would expect in constructions derived from an original tanw¯ın environment. This is, however, different with nouns of temporal reference. Here, the constructions, although not formally definite, are certainly semantically definite, specifying ‘the day’, ‘the hour’ and ‘the time’. Whereas the above constructions seem to be ordinary relative clauses, the clauses with nouns of temporal reference are also quasi-temporal subordinations: ïò êáàúë éìò úô÷å ïà úòàñ ïî éáì÷ éìò ãøå àîî áì÷ìà éô ìâùå äîàìñ T-S NS . / f ‘(I am writing in a state) of good health but with a laden heart from what descended upon my heart from the hour in which I read your letter’ (C Egypt); êéìà úäâå áàñçìà úâøëà êáàúë éìò úô÷å ïà úòàñ äúëñð T-S NS . / f ‘the very hour I read your letter I took out the account books to send you a copy’ (C Egypt); ïà íåé ïî ïà äììàáå ˙ ú êáàúë ìöå T-S . / f ‘by God (I àãçàå àìå úéøúùà àî àäøîà øëã swear) that from the day your letter mentioning their business arrived, I

132

Kühnert and Wagner (, ff).

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have not bought not a single one’ (C Egypt); åø[ä]àöúà ïà ú÷å ïî T-S . /  ‘from the time (in which/when/that) they became related by marriage’ (C Maghreb); êåìîîìà ìöå ïà íåé T-S J. / f ‘the day the servant (= I) arrived’ (C); ìöå ïà ú÷å ïî CUL Or  J/m.ff ‘from the time he arrived’ (C); øöî ïî úòìè ïà íåé ïî éì àøâ˙ àî ìàñú àì GW XXX/ ‘do not ask what happened to me from the day that I came up to Cairo’ (C/C); íåëì åìñøð äðãë˙ ïà éùìåë äðçà äãë éô T-S J. / f ‘then we will send to you anything we have taken’ (C/C). It is interesting to note the general high proportion of ‘temporal’ nouns like ú÷å ‘time’ or äòàñ ‘hour’ within the examples of relative an. These ‘temporal’ nouns and conjunctions and relatives following them are susceptible to language change, as has been shown in other languages, for instance Yiddish (see ...). Changes that become regular in later stages of a language may often first be observed in their context. What makes the examples in our Judaeo-Arabic corpus particularly instructive is the fact that with temporal nouns the original indefinite nature of tanw¯ın constructions vanishes and an seems to work like a regular grammaticalised form to introduce relative clauses. c) Indefinite nouns followed by allad¯ı ¯ Only one example has been found for this category in Judaeo-Arabic letters. This example appears in a letter that was not included in the corpus because it is from the th century. It shows a not only formally but also semantically indefinite antecedent followed by allad¯ı: àãä ïàå ¯ äáàøë úðàë éãìà äéååæ ˙â BritMuseum Gaster  / f ‘these are three corners which were desolate’ (C Palestine). d) Formally indefinite, but semantically definite nouns followed by allad¯ı ¯ Another group is formed by the formally indefinite but semantically definite antecedents that are followed by allad¯ı. In some cases, the lack ¯ nature with the hur¯uf aˇsof the article may simply be of an orthographic . ˇsams¯ıya written in assimilation, but as the latter phenomenon generally occurs only very rarely in our letters, especially in the letters from the th and th century, it is unlikely: êáàúë éô úáúë éã˙ ìà íñøá äéìò úáúë T-S . /  ‘I wrote the mark on it which you had specified in your letter’ (C Egypt); äãä ïî äöëé éãìà ïîú ïî äììàù ïà äì àäàìîà ìòì äøöìà T-S J. /  ‘perhaps I will fill it, God willing, with (the share

syntax



of) the price that belongs to him from this purse’ (C Maghreb); àðàå éù àìå úôö éìà äá éøëð éù àì àðòî àì äéô ïçð éãìà óòö ïî äæâ éô íé÷î ïàìà äììà úîçø àåñ äìéç àðì àìå äéô ááñúð

T-S ./v.f ‘right now I am staying in Gaza because of the (an?) illness which we (I) have, we (I) do not have anything go with it to Safed and nothing to sustain us (me) with and (there is) no power for us (me) except the mercy of God’ (C/C);

˙ îìà äììà÷ àî íàìë ë˙ îìà ïò ì÷ð åäðà éëà úäéâ ïî ë˙ îìà ë˙ ã àîå ìà÷ éãìà ë áúë êìàã êì T-S . / f ‘what the master mentioned concerning my brother that he brought news about the master, which the master did not tell him, which that letter told you’ (C/C). These kind of constructions have parallels in other Arabic substandard varieties. In Khuzistani Arabic, for instance, all definite head nouns of relative clauses, both those followed by the relative pronoun allad¯ı or Ãll¯ı and asyndetic ones, lose the definite article.133 This is probably ¯induced by language contact with Persian. Compare the following example from Shabibi (, ): mara ll¯ı ˇsÃfn¯aha amÃs xabarat ‘the woman we saw yesterday called’. In the case of Judaeo-Arabic, the possible ‘contact’ language, Hebrew, could not be responsible for the loss of the article as it forms its relative clauses similarly to Classical Arabic regarding definite head nouns and relative pronouns. The origin of this construction thus remains obscure.

... Free Relative Clauses Like attributive relative clauses, free relative clauses are divided into definite and indefinite clauses. They are introduced by the relative pronouns man, m¯a and allad¯ı. In Classical Arabic, the former two are used for indefinite clauses, ¯and, rarely, definite clauses.134 In the letters only allad¯ı ¯ is reserved for definite clauses, while man and m¯a introduce indefinite free relative clauses, man denoting animate subjects or objects while m¯a represents inanimate things. a) Definite free relative clauses all¯ad¯ı: íæø ä˙ úàåôìà ïî éãðò éã˙ ìàå T-S . / f ‘what I have with me is  ¯ of madder plants’ (C Egypt); äúéôåúñà ã÷ àðà äì úòôã úðë éãìàå packs 133

See Shabibi (, ). See Reckendorf (, ) who cites examples in which there is no difference in the use of m¯a and allad¯ı for indefinite free clauses. ¯ 134

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ïéîäøã éåñ äðî éì ÷áé íìå äðî T-S J. / f ‘that which I had paid him,

I demanded from him and he owes me only  dirhams’ (C Maghreb); ˙ ìà óöð äì éãìà éðáìèå T-S . / f ‘the one ìôìôìà ïî äúöç éô éòàáø ù who owned half of the  ruba#iyyas demanded from me his share of the pepper’ (C Maghreb); êìàã øéâ éù ìà÷ ïåëé íì åäðà äøåîâ äòåáùá éì óìçå ˙ îìì ì÷ð éãìà ïàå T-S . / f ìä÷ä ãåáë ìò ñç äìîò íàìëìà êìàã ë ‘he swore an absolute oath to me that he was not saying anything but that, and that the one who spread those rumours about the master—his work is “far from the honour of the community”’ (C/C). b) Indefinite free relative clauses Denoting people with man: àìëåìà ïî äàøú ïîì äòôãúå T-S ./v. ‘pay it to whom you see (fit) from the agents’ (C Egypt); äîãàë àðà ïî àé T-S NS J /  ‘oh the one whose servant I am’ (C); àäôøòé ïî àðìàñå T-S J. /  ‘we asked one who knows her’ (C); ìà÷ ïî ìúîë àìà ïàë ïàå T-S . /  ‘that it was only like the one who said …’ (C/C). Denoting inanimate things with m¯a: ïî àäìåöå éô àøð àî äì àðçøùå øëð ìà T-S J. /  ‘our explanation to him of what we see during its (i.e., the ship’s) arrival of loathsome things’ (C Maghreb); úôøòå ˙ ôú ñàðìà T-S J. / f ‘and people knew of your àäì ìöúà àîå íëìö courtesy and what had come to them’ (C); òéîâ˙ éô ãö÷ú àî êìåàðéå êìàòôà GW XXX/f ‘may he give you what you seek in all your doings’ (C/C). c) Generic quantifiers: jam¯ı# m¯a, kul m¯a, ayˇs m¯a and others In a number of examples man and m¯a follow ùéà, ìë and òéîâ. These are probably best interpreted as indefinite free relative clauses modified by ùéà, ìë and òéîâ. kul m¯a: äãðò ïàë àî òéîâ äðî úö˙ á÷å T-S J. / f ‘and I received from him everything that was with him’ (C Egypt). kul man: øàãìà éô ïî ìë úîàìñå T-S J. / f ‘and the safety of everyone in his house’ (C Egypt). jam¯ı# m¯a: éìò ãñôðé àì øñëìà äéâåú éô êúåçé êéìà á÷òé éáöìà äâåð ïà úéàøô äúìîò àî òéîâ T-S NS . / f ‘so I thought that I would send the young man Jacob to you to urge you to forward the balance so that everything that I have worked for should not be spoilt for me’ (C Egypt).

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ayˇs m¯a: äá éðáúàë úòîñ àî ùàå T-S J. / f ‘write me anything that you heard’ (C); éðôøòú àøâ àî ùéàå T-S J./v. ‘let me know anything that happens!’ (C). k¯amil m¯a: àðéìò ïåëé ô˙ ìëúé àî ìîàë AIU VIIE /m.f ‘everything that remains behind shall be on us’ (C/C); àðîåìòî øàö åúçøù àî ìîàëå T-S Ar. . / f ‘everything that you explained became known to me’ (C/C).

chapter eight GENERAL TRENDS IN THE JUDAEO-ARABIC LETTERS FROM THE GENIZAH

.. Differences between th-Century Letters from the Maghreb and Egypt The th-century letters were divided up into two corpora to investigate possible differences in the epistolary writing of the two regions. The analysis brought to light a number of phenomena which illustrate the more conservative nature of Maghrebian letters in comparison with their Egyptian counterparts. In Maghrebian Arabic material this conservative nature expresses itself, for example, in the script in general, which is more conservative than the Egyptian as Khan (b) has pointed out.1 In the Judaeo-Arabic corpus, differences between Egyptian and Maghrebian letters start with the writing material itself, where vellum continued to be used in Maghrebian letters at a time when paper had completely replaced vellum in Egyptian letters. The linguistic conservatism of Maghrebian letters also manifests itself in the emulation of an older Classical Arabic writing style and Classical Arabic conventions.2 This becomes visible in letter introductions. The Maghrebian show a preference for more conservative phrases. In Muslim Arabic letters, kit¯ab¯ı starts to be regularly added to the introductory formula from the th century onwards,3 and it has caught on in th-century Egyptian letters where it is the most frequent introductory word. Most of the th-century Maghrebian letters do not

1 This concerns for example the old diacritics of f¯ a" and q¯af in Arabic script. The mediaeval Maghrebian sources show one dot under the letter for f¯a and one dot above the letter for q¯af, an old system that can for instance also be found in Egyptian papyri, while the contemporary Egyptian sources employ one dot above the letter for f¯a and two dots above the letter for q¯af as in Modern Arabic writing. 2 See the chapter on letter style, .. and .. 3 See all the works by Diem in the bibliography.

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exhibit this ‘innovation’ but instead show the older introduction at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯a"aka. Orthographically, the Maghrebian sources emulate Classical Arabic to a greater extent than the Egyptian documents. The use of à for Classical Arabic t¯a" marb¯ut. a, for instance, is much more common in Egyptian material than in Maghrebian letters (see ..). Similarly, alif derived from the Classical Arabic accusative -an is found only in adverbial constructions in Egypt. In Maghrebian material it appears after numerals, in place of a Classical Arabic h¯ . al accusative and other accusatives, often set hypercorrectly (see ..). Superscribed alif is written plene in Egyptian letters, but it follows Classical Arabic non-plene writing convention in the Maghreb (see ..). Morphologically, the internal passive is found more often in Maghrebian letters than in Egyptian letters (see ..b). On the syntactic level, the negations lam and m¯a for the negation of the past are distributed differently in the two corpora (see .). The phrase lam + imperfect, which is evaluated as the more ‘classical’ form, appears much more often in the Maghrebian (in   of past negations) than in the Egyptian letters ( ), while m¯a + perfect, considered less ‘classical’, is used in only   of the examples in the Maghreb but in   of examples from the Egyptian letters. The Maghrebian corpus also exhibits no examples of the tanw¯ınderived constructions, such as NOUN + an + ADJECTIVE, NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN and NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE CLAUSE with non-generic referent, while in the Egyptian sources these construction types are attested frequently (see .). The above described phenomena show that the Maghrebian letters are in many regards closer to Classical Arabic, partaking of a set of features which together show the conservative nature of the Maghrebian material. Yet, at the same time, there is also a stronger Jewish element in the Maghrebian letters. This shows itself in Tiberian vocalisation signs and in the use of Hebrew words and phrases, which are hardly ever used in Egyptian letters. The conservatism thus has to be seen as twofold: On the one hand, the Maghrebian letters followed writing traditions, which are reflected in a stricter adherence to Classical Arabic norms. On the other hand there seems to be a stronger religious influence on the language, which becomes visible in the Hebrew element and vocalisation.

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.. The Weakening of the Bourgeoisie: Social Changes Mirrored in the Language between th- and th-Century Genizah Letters Social changes inevitably lead to changes in language. This is even more so the case with many Jewish languages, because they are by nature sociolects, dialects defined by a certain social environment. The JudaeoArabic used in documents from the Ottoman period th and th century is fundamentally different, for instance, from the language written in mediaeval times. Even for the less initiated observer, the vocabulary, orthography and morphology are very different from mediaeval JudaeoArabic and contain many vernacular features. This is not surprising considering that these documents were written under Ottoman rule, during which the social environment was much changed from the one of mediaeval times, in which the whole society was suffused with the ideals of Classical Arabic writing. However, changes within the so-called Classical Judaeo-Arabic period are not so obvious at first glance. But even within this supposedly homogenous period, subtle differences in the use of the Arabic language can be detected. Goitein described one such phenomenon which reflects social change from the th to the th century. In the th century, the names of wives or generally women’s names do not appear in letters. When a writer wants to send greetings to a man’s spouse, he will send regards to the ahl or the bayt, ‘the people’ or ‘the house’. In the later half of the twelfth century, however, women’s names start to appear in letters. Goitein’s explanation for this phenomenon is that it is ‘one of many expressions of a social transformation caused by the generally worsening economic conditions and the subsequent weakening of the bourgeoisie, which had endeavored to keep up standards of dignified behaviour inherited from the ruling classes and the court’.4 If Goitein is right, it would be expected that the emulation of the Arabic ruling classes and the court up to the th century would have resulted in a closer adherence to the rules of Classical Arabic and to the formulaic language of the courts. The weakening of the bourgeoisie from the end of the th century onwards, on the other hand, should have led to the abandonment of Classical Arabic forms. This can, for example, be found in Muslim Arabic after the Seljuk conquests, as Fück (, ff)

4

Goitein (–, III ).

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has described. The Judaeo-Araic letters display a similar result, which confirms these patterns and supports Goitein’s analysis. A good example of the differences between th- and th-century letters is to be seen in the introductory formulae. The th-century material shows certain standard formulae such as kit¯ab¯ı y¯a sayyid¯ı wamawl¯aya or at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯a"aka at the beginning of all letters. This changes towards the end of the th century. It is the time of the Seljuk conquests, during the course of which the Turcomans (of whom the Seljuks were the most prominent family) conquered Palestine, destroyed large parts of the country and killed many of its inhabitants, followed by raids into Egypt.5 A few decades later the Crusaders arrive, bringing further turmoil to the area, and at the end of the th century the Fatimid empire is overthrown by the Ayyubids. So it is not surprising that in the th-century letters, the Classical Arabic form of introduction has been abandoned. The letter writers completely dispense with the introductory formulae but produce in many cases a somewhat more pragmatic introduction with the name of the sender (often with the attribute al-maml¯uk ‘the servant’) or the name of the addressee given at the beginning. Other letters start with a biblical or liturgical quotation. The flowery formulae in the beginning of the letters that were part of letter style in the th century have been abandoned in favour of Hebrew quotations or pragmatic introductions of the writer and addressee. Just as the introductory formula has changed, so has the dating of the letters (see .). The th-century letters use the Classical Arabic style of dating, introduced by li- with the verbs baqiya ‘remain’ and hal¯a ‘pass’. In ˘ contrast to the Muslim calendar, the units counted seem, however, to be days rather than nights. The th-century way of dating, on the other hand, is much less sophisticated, with the date indicated by ordinal numbers and/or simple numerals. In accordance with the observations made for the introductory formulae, it is obvious that the dating too is more removed from Classical Arabic in the th century than in the th-century material, which conforms closely to Classical Arabic conventions. A comparable phenomenon can be found in the use of wish-formulae such as ‘may he live to long age’ or ‘may God make his strength lasting’.

5

See Gil (, ff).

general trends in the judaeo-arabic letters



While the th-century letters favour forming these constructions with the perfect, the more analytical imperfect is used widely in the thcentury letters, especially in less common phrases; the perfect survives only in standard formulae. The move away from Classical Arabic norms also becomes obvious in the much higher Hebrew content of the th- century letters (see .). This extends to basic words and phrases such as the use of ˇsalom instead of sal¯am. One of the most obvious differences in spelling when we compare th- and th-century material is the double spelling of y (see ..). While it already occurs occasionally in the earlier letters, it becomes standard in the th-century material. This was certainly influenced by the spelling conventions of post-Biblical Hebrew. Not only is geminated y spelled with double yy, but consonantal y as well. Similarly, many examples showing double spelling of w¯aw may be found. No examples of bi-imperfect can be found in the th-century letters but a number of examples show bi-imperfects in the th-century letters (see .). The question is whether the bi-imperfect was already part of the vernacular in the th century and did not appear because of the influence of Classical Arabic, or whether it actually only emerged in the th/th century. The issue is not an easy one. The very occurrence, however, of bi-imperfect forms shows that the ideal of Classical Arabic, still emulated to a certain degree in the th-century letters, held less sway over the th-century letter writers. Similarly, the th-century letters contain only demonstrative pronouns known from Classical Arabic, while the th-century material, on the other hand, contains more vernacular demonstratives, such as da (see .). Equally, the appearance of m¯a as a relative particle in the th-century letters is also an indication of intensive language change (see ...d). An interesting syntactic phenomenon can be observed in connection with the use of negation particles (see .). The classical Arabic particle lam is considered a negator characteristic of elaborate style, which does not occur in the vernacular, at least not as a regular negation particle. The form m¯a is a Classical Arabic form as much as lam but in contrast to lam it is part of the vernacular language as well. In other words, whilst both lam + imperfect and m¯a + perfect can be used in Classical Arabic, in the vernacular, only m¯a + perfect is acceptable. This has led to the evaluation of the negation as a ‘less Classical’ form. This can for instance be seen in the Modern Standard Arabic used in newspapers, where m¯a, though

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undoubtedly Classical Arabic, is hardly used.6 In the letters, the move away from the Classical Arabic norm can be observed in the use of the two negative particles for negations of the past. In Maghrebian letters, which are more conservative than the Egyptian letters in many regards, lam is used in almost over   of examples and m¯a only in  . In the Egyptian letters from the th century, lam ( ) and m¯a ( ) are used in roughly similar numbers, although lam is nevertheless used more frequently. In the th-century letters, lam is only used in  , while the majority of examples use m¯a ( ). Goitein has observed that the appearance of women’s names in letters in the late th/th century, which started this investigation, was not restricted to the Jewish part of the population; this is supported linguistically by evidence relating to the use of negation from Muslim letters. A look at the use of negations in th- and th-century Muslim Arabic letters published by Diem7 shows that lam was less used than m¯a in private letters compared with business letters—a sign of the prestige of lam and its evaluation as ‘good style’. In the th-century letters, however, lam appears only in very few examples, even in business letters. This shows that as is the case with the Jewish letters, the Arabic in Muslim letters had moved away from what were considered the norms of Classical Arabic. In addition to the change in the frequency of use between the negation m¯a and lam, we also find change in the negations with lam itself. In Classical Arabic, lam can only be used with the imperfect and always expresses a past action. This rule is obeyed in the th-century letters. In the th-century letters, however, examples of lam + imperfect are used to express present action. There are even cases in which lam is constructed with the perfect. This is impossible in Classical Arabic but such forms commence to appear more frequently in the th-century material and become the norm in Late Judaeo-Arabic letters. The findings can be summarized as follows. The letters from the th and th centuries differ in many points. The formulae of letter introduction and the dating system used in the th-century letters are similar to Classical Arabic forms, while the th-century letters construct both introduction and date in much simpler, more pragmatic ways. The thcentury letters also have a higher Hebrew content, and exhibit orthographical, morphological and syntactical features that differ from the th-century material, which follows the Classical Arabic norms more 6 7

See Wehr (, ). Similarly, Holes (, ). Diem () and (a).

general trends in the judaeo-arabic letters



closely. This supports the observations made by Goitein concerning the social changes that took place between the th and the th centuries. In the th century, the social elite of the country upheld the conventions of Classical Arabic as a part of their cultural heritage. To a certain degree, this also permeated the Jewish part of society. The weakening of the bourgeoisie and the general economic impoverishment of the Egypt towards the th century led to the abandoning of Classical ideals in the Muslim part of the population, which then also spread to Jewish writing.

.. Vernacular and (Pseudo-) Classical Arabic Forms in the th/th-Century Letters The later letters from the th/th century show a break from Classical Judaeo-Arabic norms. This is most obvious in the ‘hebraized’ orthographical norms, which are partly reminiscent of orthographic conventions of the th-century letters, and in the lexicon, which takes in many elements from the vernacular language, such as the relative pronoun illi (see .), and a t-infix between numeral and counted (see .). There are, however, certain conservative, i.e., ‘Classical Arabic’, features that reappear in stark contrast to the vernacular elements of the letters, and have to be evaluated as markers of letter language. Many of these phenomena are hypercorrect according to the rules of Classical Arabic, but have become grammaticalised within the language of substandard Judaeo-Arabic writing of the th and th centuries. One of these elements is lam, which is originally a negation particle used in Classical Arabic for the negation of the past. In later JudaeoArabic, it loses its syntactical constrictions, broadens its functions and is finally used as a universal negation particle expressing even nominal negation (see .). Another conservative feature is the spelling of the article al- in nouns with initial sun letters, which may be due to the normative influence of literary Late Judaeo-Arabic where the article is retained, see Hary (, ). To a certain extent this also concerns the demonstratives, as di d¯alika occurs beside regularly used di (see .). Probably the addition of ¯d¯alika was used to elevate the construction into a more Classical form. ¯ Similarly, éãìà has been maintained as relative pronoun in written Late Judaeo-Arabic, although only the form and not the pronunciation are identical with Classical Arabic. The pronunciation could be similar to

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that of the pseudo-archaic form Ãldi/aldi that occurs in the written Arabic koine of the Arabic-speaking Jewish communities. This form also appears in the th/th-century vocalised letter published by Blau and Hopkins (). In the vocalized Late Egyptian text T-S Ar. ., however, it is vocalized as éãìà illadi, which may be an artificial literary form or reflect the Egyptian reading tradition. The pronunciation Ãldi may be characteristic of Late Maghrebian Judaeo-Arabic. It is not only Classical and pseudo-Classical Arabic features that are specifically used in the Late Judaeo-Arabic epistolary language. Revived phenomena known from the Classical Judaeo-Arabic period may also be found, for example the relative particle an in NOUN + an + ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVE constructions that are derived from the Classical Arabic tanw¯ın construction (see .). This relative particle an is a feature of substandard writing and appears in letters from the th century, in particular in those of Egyptian origin. It then reappears in the th/thcentury corpus. To sum up, the letters are written in Hebraized orthography with many vernacular elements but also show older, partly Classical Arabic conventions. There is a great deal of variability between the letters, and a few phenomena appear to be exclusive to the epistolary register.

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INDEX abbreviations, – Abraham Gabriel,  Abraham b. Joseph,  Abraham b. Solomon,  ab¯u, – ˙ al,  Ab¯u l-Barak¯at, uncle of Sitt Gaz¯ Ab¯u l-Barak¯at b. al-#At.t.a¯r,  Ab¯u l-Barak¯at al-Har¯ . ır¯ı,  Ab¯u l-Faraj, – Ab¯u l-Fadl, . brother-in-law of Elijah the judge,  Ab¯u l-Hayr b. #Aw¯ad. b. Hananel, , .  ˘ Ab¯u l-Majd,  Ab¯u l-Rab¯ı#,  Ab¯u l-Tan¯a,  ¯ ı b. Elijah,  Ab¯u Zikr¯ actuality,  #Af¯ıf b. Ezra,  ald¯ı/äld¯ı, ,  alif, – alif for CA alif maqs. u¯ ra spelt with y¯a", –, – y¯a" for CA alif maqs. u¯ ra spelt with alif, , – alif for CA t¯a" marb¯ut. a, –, –,  for accusative, –, ,  t¯a" marb¯ut. a for CA alif maqs. u¯ ra spelt with y¯a", –, – t¯a" marb¯ut. a for CA alif, –, – otiose alif, , – superscribed,  allad¯ı, –, –,  ¯ an (tanw¯ ın-derived), –, , –, ,  arsala, ,  article, –,  assimilation, 

#Aw¯ad. b. Hananel,  . ayˇs,  ayˇs m¯a, – #Ayy¯aˇs b. Nissim,  Ayyubids,  Barh¯un b. Isaac Tahert¯ı,  basmala, –, , – bass,  Bedouin dialects,  Benayah b. Moses, , ,  Benjamin,  biblical quotations,  bi-imperfect, , –,  bil- without alif, – cardinal numbers (definite), –  cardinal numbers (indefinite), –   and , – –, – –, – –, – even hundred and thousands, – cases, – Christian Arabic, – consonants, – continuative actions,  continuglossia,  d, . –,  da, ,  d¯a/d¯a,  ¯d¯aka, – ¯d¯alika, – ¯d¯ama,  ˇ ama,  Daniel b. al-S¯ dating, –, –



index

Da"¯ud b. Judah,  Da"¯ud (muqaddam of Bilbays),  Da"¯ud (Qaly¯ub),  David Kohen,  David b. Na#¯ım,  demonstratives, – word order, – devoicing, d for t, ,  di, – dichotomy, – di d¯alika,  ¯ diglossia,  d¯ık,  dol, – double spelling, –,  dual, 

Ãldi, ,  Elijah the judge, – elision of glottal stop, – Ephraim b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Jawhar¯ı,  Ephraim b. Shemariah,  fall¯ah, ,  Faraj, the freed slave of Barh¯un,  Fatimids, ,  f¯ı + article,  gender polarity, –, –, ,  gender agreement, ,  general denial,  general fact,  general trends, – generic, nouns, – quantifiers, – subject,  glottal stop, – h for h, .  h¯a", for CA alif, –, – for CA alif maqs. u¯ ra spelt with y¯a", –, – habituality, –, –

h¯ad¯a, –, – ¯ h¯ . aga,  halbatt,  Hall¯uf b. Zechariah,  ˘ Hananel the judge,  . ˙ al,  H¯ar¯un b. Joseph al-Gazz¯ h¯a"ul¯a"i,  Hayyim,  . ˇ h. Qas. ¯ıd Ab¯ı Hazz al-Quh¯ . uf f¯ı Sar ˇad¯uf, , ,  S¯ Hebrew content, – Hebrew words (spelling of),  homogeneity,  Ibr¯ah¯ım b. Farr¯ah, .  idn¯an¯ır,  idr¯ah¯ım,  illadi, ,  illi, , ,  im¯ala,  inchoative, –,  individual actions,  interchangeability of u and i, –  internal passive, – introductory formulae, – Isaac b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı,  Ism¯a#¯ıl b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı, – j¯a"a + bi,  Jacob b. Salman al-Har¯ . ır¯ı, ,  Jacob Yu#bas. ,  jam¯ı# m¯a, – Joseph b. #Awkal, , – Joseph b. Berehyah, – Joseph b. Jacob˘ ha-Kohen,  Joseph b. M¯us¯a Tahert¯ı,  Joseph b. Nad¯ıv the cantor,  Joseph b. Yeˇsu#ah,  Joseph Yu#bas. ,  Judah #Amm¯an¯ı,  Judah b. Joseph,  Judah b. Joseph b. Simha, .  k¯ana bi-yaf#al,  kit¯ab¯ı, –,  kul m¯a, –

index l¯a, –, , – lam, –, , – langue,  laysa, , –, , – lexicon, – li- (introducing date), –,  ligatures, – lil- with alif,  li-yaf#al,  long vowels, – m¯a, negative particle, –, – , , – relative pronoun, –, ,  Maghrebian Arabic,  Maghrebian features, –, , – in Egyptian,  mahd¯um, ,  ˘ uk, ,  maml¯ Mamluks, – al-maml¯uk yuqabbil al-ard, .  man, relative,  Me#ir b. Na#¯ım,  Mercado Hayyim Abraham ha-Levi,  . Mercado Karo y Frances,  Middle Arabic, – Moses Bibas,  al-Mu"ayyad,  multiglossia,  M¯us¯a, nephew of the judge Elijah,  M¯us¯a b. Ab¯ı l-Hayy Hal¯ıla,  . ˘ ı, – M¯us¯a b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ M¯us¯a b. Is. h¯ . aq b. Hisd¯ . a,  M¯us¯a b. Yahy¯ . a al-Majj¯an¯ı,  M¯us¯a Tahert¯ı,  n-stem (passive), – Nahum b. Joseph al-Bard¯an¯ı,  ˘ da, ,  nafa ¯ay b. Nissim, , – Nahr¯ Nathan ha-Kohen (nagid),  negation, – in Classical Arabic, –



nominal,  of past action, – of present action, – negative wish, ,  Nissim b. Berehyah, – ˘ ,  Nissim b. Halfon, . Nissim b. Isaac Tahert¯ı,  number signs, –, – numerals, –, – Classical Arabic, –, –  compound, –,  definite, – feminine. See long form indefinite, – long form,  masculine. See short form Modern Egyptian Arabic, –  short form,  value and measurement, – omission of l¯am, – optative, – otiose alif, , – Ottomans, – oxytone stress,  paper,  parchment,  parole,  participle, – passive, – internal, –,  performative,  periodization, of Judaeo-Arabic, – Pre-Islamic Judaeo-Arabic,  present progressive, , –  prohibitive, , – pronouns, – demonstrative, –, – independent, – personal, – relative,  suffixed, –



index

q¯ala + li-,  Rachel of Byzantium,  Raham¯ . ım b. #Imr¯an,  reading tradition, ,  reflexive (passive), – relative clauses, – asyndetic, –, , – ,  attributival, –, – free, – non-restrictive, ,  restrictive, –,  religiolect, –, , , ,  resultative, – ˇs for j, –,  ˇs for s, ,  -ˇs (negation particle), , – s. a¯ba,  Sahl Tustar¯ı,  sal¯am,  Sali . h. b. Barh¯un Tahert¯ı,  ˇsalom,  Samuel,  Samuel b. Hofn¯ ı,  . sayyara, ,  Sedaqah b. #Ayy¯aˇs,  . separation of words, – shewa,  short vowels, – Simeon Frances,  Simha . Kohen (son-in-law of Elijah the judge),  ˙ al, daughter of Ab¯u l-Faraj, Sitt Gaz¯  social changes, – sociolects, –,  Solomon b. Elijah, – Solomon Hayyim Abraham Chizana, .  Spanish Jews (influence of),  specification,  spelling of Hebrew words,  spoken languages, – subordination, – superscribed alif, –

t¯a" marb¯ut. a, in construct state,  tafh¯ım, ˘s for s, –,  . s. for z, – d. for d, ,  t. for t,  z. for d,  Tahert¯ı ¯family, ,  Tanw¯ın, –, , –,  Ta"r¯ıh al-Mustabs. ir, – tarq¯ı˘q, d for d, .  d for z. , – d for d, . ,  ¯s for s, –,  . ‘temporal’ nouns, – t-infix (numerals), – Tuviah Ab¯u Mans. u¯ r,  . Umm Da"¯ud,  Umm Halaf,  ˘ a#¯ıl,  Umm Ism¯ Umm Mak¯ın,  -¯un/-¯una,  union of words,  utility prose, – verb, – agentive,  conjugation, – continuative,  geminate,  habitual, –, – hamza in root, – inchoative,  interval,  moods,  momentaneous,  non-inchoative,  non-stative,  non-telic,  passive, – stative,  stems,  telic,  vocalisation, –

index w¯aw as first radical,  weak third radical, – vocalisation, –, –, –  voicing, d. (ö˙ ) for t. ,  t for d, ,  vowels, – im¯ala,  long a¯, – long e¯,  long ¯ı, – long u¯ , – short a, –

 short i, –,  short u, –,  superscribed alif, –

weak verbs, – (see also under verb) writing systems, ,  written languages, – Yeˇsu#ah b. Ism¯a#¯ıl al-Mahm¯ur¯ı, – ˘  Yiddish, –, ,  z. , –, 

CLASSMARKS AIU VIIE , , , –, , , , , , , , , , ,  AIU VIIE , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , , ,  AIU VIIE , , , –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , fn, , , , , 

CUL Or .., , , –, , , , , , , , , , ,  CUL Or .., , , , ,  CUL Or .., ,  CUL Or .., , fn, fn, –

Bod MS Heb d ., , , , , , ,  Bod MS Heb d ., , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Bod MS Heb d ., , , fn, fn, , , fn Bod MS Heb e ., , , , , , , , , , , ,  BritMuseum Gaster , –, 

GW VIII, , , , , , , , , , , –,  GW XXVIII, , , , , , , –, –, , , fn, , , , ,  GW XXX, , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, – , , –, , fn, , , , , , –, , , , , , 

CUL Or  J, , , , , , , ,  CUL Or  J, , , , , , , , ,  CUL Or  J, , fn, , fn, ,  CUL Or  J, , , ,  CUL Or  J, , , ,  CUL Or  J, , , , , , , , , ,  CUL Or  J, , , , – , , , , , –, , , ,  CUL Or  J,  CUL Or  J, , , , , , , –, , , , ,  CUL Or  J, , , , , 

Mosseri Ia.,  Mosseri IV.., , , , , , , , –, , 

Dropsie , –, –, , , 

PER H , , , ,  P. Berol , , , fn P. Mich. Inv.  Recto, , ,  Qiryat Sefer  (), p. –,  T-S *, , , , ,  T-S ., , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S ., , , , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S ., , , , , 



classmarks

T-S ., , , –, , , , ,  T-S ., , , , fn, , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , ,  T-S ., , , , , , –, , , , , ,  T-S ., fn T-S ., , , , –, , , , , ,  T-S ., , , ,  T-S ., , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , – T-S ., , , , , , , ,  T-S ., , , , –, , , –, , –,  T-S ., , , , ,  T-S ., , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S ., , , –, –, , ,  T-S ., , , , , fn, fn T-S ., , , , , , , , , , –, ,  T-S ., , , ,  T-S .,  T-S ., , , , , –, , , fn, ,  T-S ., , –, , , ,  T-S ., , –, –, , , , –fn, , , , , – , , –, , , , , , –, , ,  T-S ., , , –, , , , fn, , , , , , , , fn, , –, , – , –, , , –,  T-S ., fn, ,  T-S ., , , , , , –, , , , –, – T-S ., , , , , , 

T-S ., , , fn, , , , , , , , , – , ,  T-S ., , , –, , , , , , – T-S ., , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –,  T-S ., ,  T-S ., fn T-S J.,  T-S J.,  T-S J., , ,  T-S J., , , –, , , fn,  T-S J., , , , , , – , , , –, , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , –, , –, , , , , , ,  T-S J., ,  T-S J., , ,  T-S J., , , , , –, , , , , , ,  T-S J., , –, , , – , , –,  T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., , , , , fn T-S J., , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J.,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –  T-S J., , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , –, , , , ,  T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , – T-S J., , –, , , , fn, , , ,  T-S J., 

classmarks T-S J., , fn, , , , , , ,  T-S J.,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , – T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , –, , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , –, ,  T-S J., , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , –, , , , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , –, , – fn T-S J., , , , , –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , ,  T-S J., , , , –, , –, , , , , , – , , fn, , –,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , –, , , –, , , , –, , , –,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., ,  T-S J., , –, –, – , , , , , , –, , –, , – T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , , , –



, , , , , –,  T-S J., , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., ,  T-S J., , , , ,  T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., , , , –, , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , –, , , , , , –, –, , ,  T-S J., , , –, –, , fn, , , , , , – T-S J., , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S J., , –, , , – , , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , , , –, , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , , –, –, ,  T-S J., , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , ,  T-S J., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , – , –, ,  T-S J., , –, , , – , , ,  T-S J., , , , , ,  T-S Ar. ()., , , ,  T-S Ar. ., , , , , –, , , ,  T-S Ar. ., ,  T-S AS ., , , –, –, , , , , , , –



classmarks

T-S AS ., , –, , – , –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, , , , –  T-S K ., , , –,  T-S Misc ., , , , , , ,  T-S Misc ., , , , , ,  T-S Misc .,  T-S NS ., , , , –, , , –, –, –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , – , , , , , , , –, –, , 

T-S NS ., , –, , –, , , , , , , ,  T-S NS ., , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , ,  T-S NS ., , , ,  T-S NS J, , , ,  T-S NS J, , , ,  T-S NS J, , , , ,  T-S NS J, ,  T-S NS J, , , , , –, , , , , , ,  Vienna H,  Vienna H Verso,  Vienna H,  Vienna Inv. Ar. Pap. , 

PLATES

Figure . T-S J.. A very typical Egyptian th-century letter, in the common cursive hand used for epistolary Judaeo-Arabic, with both the top and side margins entirely filled with text ( ce).



plates

Figure . T-S Misc. .. An Egyptian letter from around the year  ce.

plates

Figure . CUL Or  J. An Egyptian letter from about  ce.





plates

Figure . T-S .. A Maghrebian letter written on parchment (dated February ).

plates

Figure . T-S .. A Maghrebian letter written on parchment from around the year .





plates

Figure . T-S J.. A Maghrebian letter from around  with the early introduction formula at. a¯la ll¯ahu baq¯aka.

plates

Figure . CUL Or  J. A letter from the early th century, with the typical formula indicating the sender in the left hand top corner.





plates

Figure . T-S .. A typical th century letter, with the common formula indicating the sender (maml¯ukuh Ab¯u l-Faraj) and no marginal writing.

plates

Figure  (continued).





plates

Figure . T-S J.. A letter from the early th century, commencing with a Biblical quotation ( Kings :), followed by the sender introduced by both Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic formulae, without marginal writing.

plates

Figure . T-S J.. A letter from the early th century, with the typical formula indicating the sender in the left hand top corner.





plates

Figure . T-S .. A letter from the end of the th century.

plates

Figure . T-S J.. A letter originating from the second half of the th century.





plates

Figure . T-S J.. A Late Judaeo-Arabic letter written in three columns, which is only found in letters from the th and th centuries, and the standard Late Judaeo-Arabic introductory formulae and signature by the sender (dated ).

plates

Figure . T-S NS .. A typical th/th-century letter, with the standard Late Judaeo-Arabic introductory formulae and signature by the sender (dated ).





plates

Figure . CUL Or ... A short letter from the year .

plates

Figure . T-S NS .. A typical th/th-century letter, with the standard Late Judaeo-Arabic introductory formulae and signature by the sender (dated ).





plates

Figure . CUL Or ... A short letter from the year .