I’m no Sibawayh. That out of the wayh, let us take a moment to marvel at the classical Arabic grammar (nahw). I’ve once again delved into it in a proper language program after a four year hiatus littered with on and off classes, and continue to be awed by its simplicity in complexity.
Classical Arabic, or Qur’anic Arabic, has some differences from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in its syntax and lexicon. The former is concerned with early Arabic literature, and of course the Qur’an, and MSA refers to the standardized variety used today — and even then is usually used in writing, as there are multiple dialects across the Arabic-speaking world.
This article focuses on the typology of classical Arabic, particularly the order of subject, object, and verbs. Arabic has a more flexible word order, and it owes its flexibility to i’rab (the case marking system) (note, this isn’t necessarily true in all varieties of Arabic today as they’re often omitted when spoken out loud), and verb inflections.
What are Case Markings?
In English, how do we know who is doing the action and what the action is being done to? For example:
Fatima helped Zainab
Well, how do I how it’s not “Zainab helped Fatima”? How do I know for sure it’s Fatima who is doing the helping, and Zainab who’s being helped? You might say, duh, it’s because it’s Fatima who comes before the verb.
