Internal Rhymes as Evidence for Old Hijazi: Difference between revisions

Old Hijazi has two hallmarks that distinguishes it from classical Arabic and the Quranic reading traditions:

The loss of Hamzah (glottal stop) (in Arabic ء) and the loss of nunation (the addition of an "N" sound) and final short vowels except in the genetive (possession-showing) noun construct form. In classical Arabic, final short vowels and nunation are only lost when the word is in a pausal position, i.e., when the word is at the end of utterance. This would mean that unlike classical Arabic, the original language of the Quran entirely lacked noun-final nunation and final short vowels except in the genetive construct form.  This means that the last word in a sentence always lacks nunation and a final short vowel while all the words before it don’t lack them. A careful examination of the Quran reveals that if all words were treated in the same way as the words in pausal positions are treated, this would lead to the appearance of hundreds of hitherto unknown internal rhymes.

==The Grammar of Pausal positions==