Internal Rhymes as Evidence for Old Hijazi: Difference between revisions

Old Hijazi: aghnē wa aqnē (the difference in pronunciation of the final letter here reflects a difference between Classical Arabic and Old Hizazi as reconstructed by van Putten)<ref>{{Cite web| title = Dissimilation of ē to ā in the Qurʾānic Consonantal Text| author = | work = academia.edu| date = | access-date = 1 March2023|url=https://www.academia.edu/90427143/Dissimilation_of_%C4%93_to_%C4%81_in_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81nic_Consonantal_Text| quote = Dissimilation of ē to ā in the Qurʾānic Consonantal Text

“al-baʾsāʾi wal-ḍarrāʾi”. This example occurs three times: {{Quran|2|177|}},{{Quran|6|42|}}, {{Quran|7|94|}}. And occurs once in the nominative {{Quran|2|214|}} “al-baʾsāʾu wal-ḍarrāʾu”. In all these 4 occurrences, the two words were in context. In Old Hijazi, the two words in the four instances are pronounced as: ǝl-baʾsāʾ wal-ḍarrāʾ. Note that although Old Hijazi lost the use of Hamzah, the Hamzah is still retained in a word-final position that is preceded by a long 'a' vowel.  

As for the last word of the verse, it didn’t take the “in” suffix because the word is at a pausal position, and thus the word stayed in its original form: khāṭiʾah (instead of khāṭiʾatin).

Arab grammarians claim that this spelling is the result of the rule that every word is spelled in its pausal form. But what if these words were pronounced the same way they were spelled? In other words, what if each of these words was pronounced in the pausal form? The result is that the three words would rhyme with each other:

Based on the evidence of internal rhymes in the Quran, Van Putten and Stokes concludes that the original language of the Quran had the following features that sets it apart from classical Arabic<ref>Marijn Van Putten. [https://www.academia.edu/37481811/Case_in_the_Qurˀānic_Consonantal_Text_Wiener_Zeitschrift_für_die_Kunde_des_Morgenlandes_108_2018_pp_143_179 Case in the Quranic Consonantal Text]. p.13</ref>:

The verse is spelled in the Quran as: hum al-kafarah al-fajarh. The classical Arabic pronunciation turns the feminine ending of the word “al-kafarah” into a ‘t’. So the word should be spelled with a ‘t’ الكفرت . Yet the word in the Quran isn’t spelled with a ‘t’ in accordance with the claimed pausal spelling rule which justifies the mismatch between the spelling of the Quran and the Classical Arabic pronunciation. Note how if the verse is read the same way it’s spelled then the two words rhyme with each other. This observation applies on all Old Hijazi internal rhymes except the ones where the classical Arabic pronunciation only adds final short vowels on words that don’t end with the feminine ‘ah’. In this special case there’s no mismatch between the classical Arabic pronunciation and the spelling as short vowels cannot be spelled in Arabic. An example of this is:

The two words are spelled in the Quran as: raghabā wa rahabā. The classical Arabic nunation of the word “raghab” isn’t written (raghaban رغبن) in accordance with the claimed pausal spelling rule. Note how if the two words are read the same way they are spelled then they rhyme with each other.   

'''High quality:''' That’s when the two rhyming words share the same final vowel and final consonant. Such as:

'''Normal quality:''' That’s when the two rhyming words don’t share the same final consonant, but they share the same vowels and the same arrangement of consonants. Such as:

Note that in the rhyming of verse-final words (external rhymes), the Quran usually alternates between ūn and īn, which means that in the language of the Quran, ū rhymes with ī. So it’s natural to see internal rhymes such as:

'''1- individual instances.''' They include 76 unique high quality Old Hijazi internal rhymes. With repetition they are 94 ones. As for individual instances of normal quality internal rhymes, they were so many that only the strongest 22 unique ones were listed.

The majority of verse-final rhymes in the Quran fall under an easy type of rhyme that takes advantage of the fact that regular plural nouns and adjectives in Arabic end with ūn/īn and that verbs that are conjugated for masculine plural end with ūn. Since that in the language of the Quran ū rhymes with ī, Quranic rhymes freely alternates between ūn and īn. In this rhyming scheme, when a verse doesn’t end with a plural masculine noun or a plural masculine adjective or a verb conjugated for masculine plural, the Quran takes advantage of the fact that many emphatic forms in Arabic end with īC/ūC (C stands for consonant). So the Quran adds an emphatic attribute of God to the end of the verse and thus the verse ends with a rhyme that fits the surrounding verses.  

The word ʕalīm was used in the same manner in 44 verses. But the Quran usually doesn’t only use one word as an attribute of God in the ending of verses. The Quran usually uses a pair of two words that form an internal rhyme with each other while the second word of the pair forms an external rhyme with the final words of the surrounding verses. All the internal rhymes of verse-final attributes of God become absent if they were read in classical Arabic. Take for example حكيم عليم “Wise, Knower” which was used in the ending of 15 verses:

Hadith was written down in the second and third Islamic centuries, the same period that Arab grammarians wrote their first works. In their works there’s no mention of any variety of Arabic that lacks nunation and final short vowels. Yet the Hadith tradition has many internal rhymes that only appear if nunation and final short vowels were dropped. Which leads to the same conclusion that Van Putten reaches based on the study of pre-Islamic Arabic varieties and the early Arabic texts written in scripts other than Arabic. He says: