DIACHRONIC AND SYNCHRONIC ASPECTS OF THE CONCEPT 'SPEECH'. LANGUAGE CONTACTS BETWEEN SEMITIC/ARABIC AND INDO-GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Abstract

This article presents a comparative study of Arabic among the Hamito-Semitic languages and German among the Germanic languages. We focus on the semantic aspect and the historical linguistic perspective of the comparison of these languages. The language contact study of L1 German and L2 Arabic as the language, which is the potential language for the intrusion into the German language required a diachronic study of the language contact situation among the languages within a long range of time. While we can clearly state that the Germanic and the Arabic languages belong to different language families, this article will focus on the examples of semantic similarities, which allows us to talk about the linguistic communication and language contact situation(s) between these languages Arabic and German/English. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract

This article presents a comparative study of Arabic among the Hamito-Semitic languages and German among the Germanic languages. We focus on the semantic aspect and the historical linguistic perspective of the comparison of these languages. The language contact study of L1 German and L2 Arabic as the language, which is the potential language for the intrusion into the German language required a diachronic study of the language contact situation among the languages within a long range of time. While we can clearly state that the Germanic and the Arabic languages belong to different language families, this article will focus on the examples of semantic similarities, which allows us to talk about the linguistic communication and language contact situation(s) between these languages Arabic and German/English.

Keywords: speech, diachronic and synchronic aspects, concept, language contacts, semitic/arabic languages, indo-germanic languages.

Rezumat

Articolul Înglobeaza un studiu comparat, atât În domeniul semantic, cât si În cel istoric, al arabei - o limba din familia de limbi hamito-semitice - si al germanei - o limba din grupul germanic de limbi indo-europene. Cercetarea interferentelor limbii germane cu limba araba aceasta din urma fiind În stare, potential, sa patrunda În prima, necesita un studiu diacronic al contactului dintre limbile date Într-un interval de timp considerabil. În pofida faptului ca limba germana si cea araba apartin unor familii de limbi diferite, În articol, se supun analizei asemanarile lor semantice, care ne permit sa vorbim despre contactul dintre limbile În cauza.

Cuvinte-cheie: vorbirea, aspect diacronice si sincronice, concept, contacte glotice, limbile semitico-arabe, limbile indo-germanice.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)

1. Introduction: The Topic of the Article and the Research Positions

1.1. The State of Research of Language Contacts Between Arabic and German: Research in the Synchronic Perspective and the Diachronic Perspective

In this article, we shall discuss, based upon the scientific history of the comparative and contrastive studies between the Indo-Germanic languages and the Semitic languages and, in this specific case, the German/English language and the Arabic language, the speech contact situation between the two language families. We shall argue that besides the separation of the two language family strands, there also existed an exchange between both language families. While this study discusses topics that fall in the field of historical linguistics and language contact studies, we argue that the correct terms for such studies should be 'linguistic communication' in speech contacts, since the impact of one language on another can only be studied within speech situations. The synchronic approach to comparative linguistics can be traced back to the discipline of 'comparative grammar' in the 19th century. Since that time, we find a continuous thread of research, which demonstrates at the level of word semantics similarities between the Arabic and the Germanic languages, dominantly the English language. This research has given rise to an amount of research literature, which indicates and lists the similarities between the two languages. The State of Research in the Diachronic Perspective must be described from a cultural perspective taking into account the language contact situations during a long historical perspective. The diachronic approach starts actually in the prehistoric time. Its speculative character is best expressed in the assumption of Proto-Semitic and Proto-Germanic languages. Here also systematic aspects of comparative linguistics between the two languages arise. Havel wrote in "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World": "Today, this state of mind or of the human world is called postmodernism. For me, a symbol of that state is a Bedouin mounted on a camel and clad in traditional robes under which he is wearing jeans, with a transistor radio in his hands and an ad for Coca-Cola on the camel's back". Archaeological research at sites in Mesopotamia, Bahrain, and Oman has led to the recovery of artifacts traceable to the Indus Valley civilization, confirming the information on the inscriptions. Most of the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley was indirect. Shippers from both regions converged in Persian Gulf ports, especially on the island of Bahrain (known as Dilmun to the Sumerians). Alexandra is a place, where Hamito-Semitic and Indo-European languages met. This language contact situation is characterized by the Afro-Asiatic ancient Egyptian language of the local native Egyptians, the Persian, Indian and other languages brought to the country through travelling scholars, and the Greek and Latin as administrative languages. Sankoffstated in "Linguistic Outcomes of Language Contact": "In virtually every country in the world at the inception of the 21st century, linguistic minorities can be found. These have arisen both through immigration and through the adoption - often, but not always, imposition - of languages not previously not spoken by local populations. Though this has led in hundreds of cases to language loss and to a reduction of linguistic diversity (as documented in the Wolfram chapter in this volume), language contact is part of the social fabric of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people the world over". Sankoffadds that "language contacts have, historically, taken place in large part under conditions of social inequality resulting from wars, conquests, colonialism, slavery, and migrations - forced and otherwise." Sankoffalso mentions that "this schema neatly brings together the macro level of the language and the micro level of the individual speaker. Its tacit assumptions are that (a) individual speakers can be characterized in terms of native and second languages, and (b) that groups or communities, as collectivities of such individual speakers, are relatively homogeneous in this regard - or at least, that one can abstract away from differences internal to the speech community." Sankoffasserts that "the Norse invasion of England provides a case in which language shiftby newcomers led to morphological change in the receiving language - a rare type of change that seems only to have been possible because of the massive numbers of Scandinavians involved, and the intimacy of their contacts with the preexisting population. The third person plural pronouns with initial th- forms were borrowed into English at that time, though during the 13th century they were in competition with the English h-initial forms." According to Sankoff, "the massive migration of foreign workers into northern European countries, where most languages have relatively rich inflectional morphology, has led to a fertile field of investigation into the new varieties of these languages as spoken by immigrants and their children. However, it has been less easy to document substrate influences on morphological regularization given that similar results can be explained by, e.g. universal processes of simplification". Elst wrote in "Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question": "When evidence from archaeology and Sanskrit text studies seems to contradict the theory of the entry of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family in India through the so-called "Aryan Invasion" (Aryan Invasion Theory, AIT), we are usually reassured that "there is of course the linguistic evidence" for this invasion, or at least for the non-Indian origin of the IE family".

1.2. A Short History of Research of Contrastive Linguistics

The assumption of language exchange between the Indo-European languages and the Semitic languages is here discussed in order to find an implementing solution to the question and phenomenon under research, which shows that Indo-European and Semitic languages are related. This kind of research we find in the Western research since the second half of the 19th century and this kind of research is argumentatively and evidentially backed up using the comparative method of 'comparative grammar', which later was continued within the field of 'comparative linguistics'. The way we are here now presenting our hypothesis, we clearly state that this hypothesis cannot be proved due to lack of any literary documents of the contacts between the Semitic and the Indo-European languages at the speculative time of the existence of the Proto-languages of both language families. The research regarding language contacts between the Semitic languages and the Indo-European languages based upon the 'comparative method' of grammarians of the 19th century and linguistics of the 20th century is based upon the findings within corpora of different languages. Athanasius Kircher's book "Turris Babel, Sive Archontologia: Qua Primo Priscorum post diluvium hominum vita, mores rerumque gestarum magnitudo, Secundo Turris fabrica civitatumque exstructio, confusio linguarum, & inde gentium transmigrationis, cum principalium inde enatorum idiomatum historia, multiplici eruditione describuntur & explicantur" (1679) followed the concept of the creation of the languages and their confusion as a religiously based event of the Abrahamic religions. Drechsler's "Grundlegung zur wissenschaftlichen Konstruktion des gesammten Wörter- und Formenschatzes zunächst der semitischen, versuchsweise und in Grundzügen auch der indo-germanischen Sprachen" (1830) is among the first works of philologists that discuss relationships between Indo-germanic and Semitic languages. Delitzsch (1873) in "Studien über indogermanischsemitische Wurzelverwandtschaft" discussed relationships between Indo- Germanic languages and Semitic languages. Abel (1886) in his "Einleitung in ein aegyptisch-semitisch-indoeuropaeisches Wurzelwörterbuch" was one of the first scholars to compare Indo-Germanic and Semitic languages. Cuny (1935) also studied in «Études prégrammaticales sur le domaine des langues indo-européennes et chamito-sémitiques» those relationships like Parrat in "Novum Specimen quo Probatur iterum Linguarum Indo-Europæ arum Origo Semitica" (1855), Raabe in "Gemeinschaftliche Grammatik der arischen und der semitischen Sprachen voran eine Darlegung der Entstehung des Alfabets" (1874), McCurdy in "Aryo-Semitic Speech: A Study in Linguistic Archaeology" (1881), Möller in "Semitisch und Indogermanisch" (1906), Möller in "Vergleichendes indogermanischsemitisches Wörterbuch" (1911), and Munro in "Essays towards a Comparative Grammar of Semitic languages such as has already been obtained for Indo-European" (1912). Essays are among the earliest contributions to the comparisons between the two language branches in the 19th and 20th centuries. Brunner (1969) published "Gemeinsamen Wurzeln des semitischen und indogermanischen Wortschatzes. Versuch einer Etymologie" as a etymological claim of the relationship between Indo- Germanic and Semitic languages. Fellman28 discussed Semitic and Indo- European language approaching them with a comparative and historical grammar. Dundes29 compared Indo-European and Semitic worldviews. Daube30 made a contrastive linguistic study of the word-formation in Indo- European and Semitic. Bomhard (2011) discussed in "Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis" the idea of the Nostratic language family. Levin contributed in "The Indo-European and Semitic Languages" (1971), "Studies in Comparative Grammar: III. "Snow", an Early Indo-European Loan-word in Semitic" (1994, p. 77-84), "Studies in Comparative Grammar: II. The Prehistory of the Indo-European Thematic Declension, in View of the Semitic Cognates" (1992, p. 111-144), "Semitic Evidence on Some Problems of Indo-European Prehistory" (1992, p. 249-265) and "Comparative Grammar of Indo-European and Semitic: Is this the Right Time?" (1990, p. 152-164) to the contrastive linguistic studies on the Indo-Germanic and the Semitic languages. Rundgren (2003) published "Semitic and Indoeuropean: A Linguistic Study in Comparative Aspectology". Vennemann's claims in "Europa Vasconica, Europa Semitica" (2003) were refuted by the scholarly community. Elst wrote in "Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question": "In the 18th century, when comparative IE linguistics started, the majority opinion was that the original homeland (or Urheimat) of the IE language family had to be India. This had an ideological reason, viz. that Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire were eager to replace the Biblical tradition with a more distant Oriental source of inspiration for the European culture. China was a popular candidate, but India had the advantage of being linguistically and even racially more akin to Europe; making it the homeland of the European languages or even of the European peoples, would be helpful in the dethronement of Biblical authority, but by no means far-fetched". Recently, the Black Sea Area was considered to be the 'Urheimat' of the Proto-Indo-European language. Elst wrote in "Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question": "The contact between Tokharic and Chinese adds little to our knowledge of the Urheimat but merely confirms that the Tokharic people lived that far east. The adoption of almost the whole range of domesticated cattle-names from Tokharic into Chinese also emphasizes a fact insufficiently realized, viz. how innovative the cattle-breeding culture of the early IE tribes really was. They ranked as powerful and capable, and their prestige helped them to assimilate large populations culturally and linguistically. But for Urheimat-related trails, we must look elsewhere". Contemporary Hindu and Urdu are languages that show the difference between an Indo-European language and a Semitic language (Arabic), which is highly lexically influential for the Indo- Germanic language Hindu. Sahala wrote in "On the Sumero-Indo-European Language Contacts": "Albeit the genetic affinity of the Sumerian language is still lacking consensus, some vocabulary related to Sumerian may be found from various language families including Indo-European, Kartvelian, Semitic, Dravidian and Uralic. Where the Semitic contacts are well attested, contacts to other families have often regarded controversial". According to Sahala, "Sumerian language was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the 4th millennium BC to the Old Babylonian period (1900 BC) during which the Sumerians gradually assimilated into Akkadian speaking Babylonians. By the end of the 17th century BC Sumerian was no longer spoken as a first language but it was still studied by Akkadian scholars as a classical language and its literary tradition continued for almost two millennia". For Sahala, "regardless of numerous attempts to connect Sumerian with Caucasian, Semitic, Ural-Altaic, (Elamo-) Dravidian, Basque and Indo- European languages, by the vast majority of scholars it is still regarded as a language isolate with no known relatives". Sahala mentioned that "where the Proto-Indo-European sound system is completely based on reconstruction and thus reflects the pronunciation on an abstract level, also the exact quality of the Sumerian phonemic inventory is uncertain". According to Whorf, Indo-European type of language is a carrier of scientific thought: "What we call "scientific thought" is a specialization of the western Indo-European type of language, which has developed not only a set of different dialectics, but actually a set of different dialects. These dialects are now becoming mutually unintelligible. The term "space," for instance, does not and cannot mean the same thing to a psychologist as to a physicist. Even if psychologists should firmly resolve, come hell or high water, to use "space" only with the physicist's meaning, they could not do so, any more than Englishmen could use in English the word "sentiment" in the meanings which the similarly-spelled but functionally different French utterance le sentiment has in its native French".

2. A Historical Perspective of the Language Contact Situation between Indo-European and Semitic Languages. Research on Relationships between Indo-European and Semitic Languages

2.1. A Case Study: Historical Linguistic Relations of the Concept 'Speech' and Related Concepts between Indo-European and Arabic

Studying the Proto-languages for the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic language branches, we can soon conclude that only a few similarities of the branches representing the concept 'speech' exist. Nevertheless, they will be here presented as a case study of the material available for the Proto-Semitic and the Proto-(Indo-)Germanic language in the research database "Tower of Babel". Levin (1995) mentions several examples for etymological relationships between Indo-European and Semitic languages. Levin mentions the relationship between the Arabic word for 'eye' and Old English e(a)gan for 'eye'. Sanskrit asWn has the meaning 'bone'. In the Indo- European family Greek χρ/n is related to Semitic Hebrew qar' for 'call'. Semitic Arabic isman is related to Indo-European Slavic im for 'name' and Avestan nam for 'name'. Indo-European (-)λε/0χ- refers to Semitic Hebrew - leg- for 'lie'. (Levin). Etymological relations exist; examples are musara 'inscription' related to Indo-Iranian *mudra for 'seal' and igi 'eye' related to PIE *h3ekw- for 'eye'. (Sahala) Jagodzinski mentioned in Indo-European and Semitic Languages several equivalent forms within the etymology of the Indo- European and the Semitic languages. Arabic lisanun 'tongue' and 'language' is related to lahwasa 'lick', Hebrew lason 'tongue' and 'language', laqaq 'lick', Englisch tongue, Gothic tungo, Latin lingua, Old Latin dingua, Sanskrit juhu-, jihva-, Avestan hizu, hizva, Polish jezyk, Prussian insuwis, Lithuanian liezùvis, Greek glõtta, glõssa, glátta, and maybe also Latin gingiva 'gum of a tooth', Greek gamphelaí 'muzzle' and 'mouth'; Polish lizac 'lick', Lithuanian lie?zti, Greek leíkho, Latin lingo, and English lick. Arabic qala 'speak', English call from Nordic kalla, Briton galw, Polish glos 'voice' are related. (Jagodzinski) Levin mentions that "long prehistoric experience, in IE and in Semitic, must likewise have weeded out many erstwhile collocations of consonants, and lefteither language group (or its individual languages) with certain patterns that were readily compatible with the verb-inflections"31. Jagodzinski wrote in "Indo-European and Semitic Languages": "There was time in the science when it was thought quite seriously that the first proto-language - or the language from which all the others originated - was Hebrew. A specific reminiscence of that view is the opinion that a special close genetic relation exists between Indo-European (IE) and Semitic languages. Such a view can still be found in some works. Newer investigations suggest very strongly that that view is not correct and that those previously demonstrated similarities of both language families are the result of the connections between them during over thousands of years rather than of their common origin. Nevertheless those similarities are odd, and the circumstances of their development are not clear in all respects."

2.2. The Theory of the Common Ancestor of the Indo-European and Semitic Languages

Jagodzinski wrote in "Indo-European and Semitic Languages": "And so, if the Indo-European and Semitic languages had a common ancestor, it was only in the very distant past. The IE protolanguage surely existed ca. 4,000 BC. It is supposed that the Nostratic commonwealth must have existed 11,000-15,000 BP. At the same time, the common ancestor of, among others, the Indo-European and Semitic languages, should have existed ca. 25,000 BP. It is not strange that traces which have remained of that distant ancestor until today are very scarce, and the prevailing part of the similarities of both groups should be explained with the parallel development and mutual interactions". Jagodzinski mentioned that "it is interesting that in the Semitic languages we can find not only almost all counterparts of the IE ablaut, but also the function of particular alternations seems to be similar in some cases. Qualitative alternations (originally in the shape a:i:u) and quantitative alternations (reduction and lengthening) are so frequent in this group of languages that only consonantal skeleton of words is considered to be the root (it consists of 3 consonants as a rule)". Armitage and colleagues wrote in "Pre-historic Arabia Crossroads for Early Humans (and Neanderthal Hybrids?). The Southern Route "Out of Africa": Evidence for an Early Expansion of Modern Humans into Arabia": "The timing of the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa is a fundamental question in human evolutionary studies. Existing data suggest a rapid coastal exodus via the Indian Ocean rim around 60,000 years ago"32. Armitage and colleagues mentioned that "Arabia and its fierce deserts have long been seen more as obstacles than conduits to human migration, and most archaeology here has focused on historical times. Recent studies, however, show wetter periods such as one that began around 130,000 years ago. And a spate of findings in the past 25 years show that hominins were in the region during the Middle Paleolithic"33. The main question for the comparison of Hamito-Semitic and Germanic roots is, if an influence between the Indo-European languages and the Semitic languages exists and if yes. At which time an exchange between them was happening. The Indian languages, categorized as parts of the Indo-Germanic languages, e.g. Sanskrit, have according to today's knowledge no influence on the Semitic languages at an earlier state and time of languages exchange. So we have no indication that the Semitic languages might have been influenced by at an earlier state (e.g. during the time of Proto-language configuration and existence) of the languages now considered to be part of the Indo-European languages. It is a speculative approach to assume that an exchange between the languages of the territory now related to the Semitic languages and the languages now related to the territory of the Indo-European languages existed. In our theory the language is created in a speech contact situation, when L1 and L2 speakers adapt in their communication and thus create a new linguistic vocabulary. We must not forget that oral language was always a way to communicate in a spoken way; the language was not fixed or coded, and the language had to serve as a tool for communication and was only transmittable from one person to another person. Thus, language extended in an applied manner either in relation to the person speaking or in relation to an issue or thing. Thus, the grammatical aspects as the structural elements of the language could only arise at a point, when this structural changing of a material, the world, which refers to concept, was applicable to a set of words. The parts of speech are the background of the first Proto- Grammar, when language as speech was able to describe different forms of objects and qualities in the real world.

3. The Historical Perspective on Semitic Impact on Indo-Germanic Languages

3.1. Contrastive Studies of Indo-European and Semitic Proto-Languages

The hypothesis of the prehistoric speech contact between Semitic and Indo-European languages can be proved by the comparison of Pokony's Proto-Germanic and the Arabic roots in the semantic field of speech in the German/English and the Semitic Arabic language. Semitic languages are assumed to be limited to the Arabic Pensinsula and Africa. In Europe Maltese is the only contemporary Semitic language spoken. It has been assumed34 that Reatic is a Semitic language now extinct, which had been spoken in Central Europe. Here are no Semitic languages know on the Indian subcontinent. A comparision of Pokony's Proto-Germanic and the Arabic roots shows no direct equivalences between the stems/roots listed and Arabic. The semantic field of the concept 'speech' has some very basic similarities at the level of the Proto-Language families of both language branches. The hypothesis of the pre-historical Semitic influence on the Indo- Germanic Language is connected to the distribution of Semitic vocabulary into the languages of the Indo-Germanic language family. This hypothesis is not accepted as standard assumption in linguistics. Vennemann argued that in Europe after the Ice Ages 'Semitidic' and 'Atlantic' people had settled that imported the Semitic heritage to Europe. This Vasconic hypothesis has been refused by the absolute majority of linguists, historians, and archaeologists.

Case studies in Indo-European and Proto-Semitic roots related to the Concept 'Speech' with the roots 'call' and 'kol' and Dok and d-r-s - can arise the question of the distinction between 'false friends' or cognates in both language families. The Proto-Semitic root *kVwVl- has the meaning 'voice', 'say, speak', speech, and 'word'. Related are Ugaritic kl, Phoenician kl, Hebrew kol, Syrian Aramaic kal-, Mandaic Aramaic kala, Arabic kwl [-u-], Epigraphic South Arabian kwl for 'speaker', Ge?ez (Ethiopian) kal, Tigre kal, Tigrai (Tigriñña) kal, Amharic kal, and Gurage kal. Eurasiatic *kä[lH]ä has the meanings tongue and speak. Related are Indo-European *kel- for call, scream, shout, Altaic *kali, Uralic *kele (kele), Kartvelian kel-, and Dravidian *kil-. Eskimo-Aleut *qilava- is related to Proto-Indo-European *(s)kale-, *kla- /*kle- with the meanings shout and call. Old Indian kra?ndati has the meanings neigh, roar, sound, cry'; kalakala- is used for 'any confused noise'. Related are Old Greek kaleo, Slavic *kolkolb, Baltic *kal?ba Germanic *xill-a-, Latin calare for call, call together, and Celtic Old Irish cailech. An example for the speculative exchange between Indo-European and Semitic languages is the Proto-Indo-European root *dok- and the Semitic root d-r-s-. As an example for the speculative exchange between Indo-European and Semitic languages we take here the Proto-Indo-European root *dok- and the Semitic root d-r-s-. Between the early language Avestan with the root daxs- for 'teach' and the Semitic root d-r-s- or any earlier language construct in the area of Proto-language a contact situation might have taken place. Proto-Indo- European *dok- has the meanings 'teach' and 'show'. Related are Avestan daxs- for 'teach' and New Persian daxs- for 'business' and 'efford'. Old Greek dokeuo means 'face' and 'observe', dokei moi means it seems to me'. Do?gma means 'opinion', 'conclusion', 'dogma'. Latin doceo means 'make clear', 'teach', 'instruct', 'exercise'.

3.2. Contrastive Studies of Existing Indo-European and Semitic Languages. Types of Linguistic Speech Contact Situations. Pathways of Genuine and Historical Relationships and Speech Contact Situations between Arabic Semitic and Indo-Germanic Languages

(I) The Historical Phases of the Implementation of Linguistic Material of Semitic Language into Indo-Germanic Language

The Nostratic family tree is a recently built family tree, which consists of the familt tree of the Indo-European languages, the Semitic languages, and the Afro-Asiatic languages. The Sanskrit language is an old Indo-Germanic language, which had speech contact situations in contacts with both the Arabic peninsula and the continental area reaching up to northern Europe. Both the maritime route to the Arabian peninsula and the continental route to Europe were open for language contacts, which blur the line of strict separation between the Semitic Arabic language and the Indo-European languages. The impact of the lexicon of Sanskrit on the Semitic languages exists. Already dictionaries like the "Rajavyavaharakosha" from 1675 A.D. contained words from Persian, Arabic, Turkic, Hindustani and local origins with Sanskrit equivalents. This is a list in chronological order of status factors and related impact factors upon the distribution of Semitic language contacts on the Germanic languages:

1. 'Prehistoric Contacts at Proto-Language-Level' through Common Origin

Status Factor: Hypothetical Contact

Impact Factor: The Language Contact at Proto-Language Level between the Semitic and Indo-European Languages

2. 'Prehistoric Contacts at Proto-Language-Level' through Contacts

Status Factor: Linguistically Constructed Contact

Impact Factor: The Language Contact between the Semitic Languages and the Indo-European Language

3. 'Prehistoric Contacts' of both Language Branches through Migration

Status Factor: Hypothetical and Partially Archeologically Documented

Impact Factor: The Contact of Moving Cultures to Europe (Phoenicians, Reatic in Europe)

4. 'Historic Contacts' through Migration of Semitic People to Europe

Status Factor: Documented

Impact Factor: The Impact of the HebrewWriting Culture

5. 'Scholarly Translations of Greek Authors to Arabic'

Status Factor: Documented

Impact Factor: Knowledge of Arabic Educational Sources

6. 'Arab Expansion to Europe'

Status Factor: Documented

Impact Factor: The Impact of the Arab Expansion to Southern Europe

7. 'Missionary and Political Interests of Europe in the Near East'

Status Factor: Evidential Trade and Political Structures

Impact Factor: Middle Ages to Post-2nd World War Political and Economical Status

8. 'Scholarly and Educational Exchange in the 20th and 21st Century'

Status Factor: Research, Education and Referring Tools

Impact Factor: The Educational Development in the 3rd and 2nd World

9. 'Islamic Missionary Interests in Europe'

Status Factor: Actions and Writings with Arabic-Islamic Impact

Impact Factor: Missionary Interest of Islam and Islamic Activities

Status Factor: Language

Impact Factor: Global English Education

Diachronic Listing of Status and Impact Factors for Semitic Influence on the European Languages

If we look at the vocabulary of Arabic words in the Indo-Germanic languages we must distinguish between (1) genuine etymologically related words in both language families existing as cognates and (2) loanwords with a background in the Arabic language. These words entered at a specific time the thesaurus of the Indo-Germanic languages. The Greek philosophers were known in the Middle Ages through sources in the original language in Alexandria in Egypt. After the Islamic conquest these writings were translated in Baghdad and also were sent back and arrived in Europe via Spain as Arabic translations of original Greek writings that were partly not longer known in their original language. Trade routes from the Arab peninsula to Europe were influential for the import of Arabic words used as loanwords in the European languages. The words Zucker/sugar in the German and English language can be traced back to the Arabic word. The Arabic word also can be tracked back etymologically to a Sanskrit word. In the 16th century the collection "A Thousand and One Night" was an influential tool for the implementation of the Arabic vocabulary of this book into the German and other European languages. Especially the implementation of the vocabulary as loanwords was here practiced. The "Quran" was known in modernity in Europe. But it was only translated and known by scholars. So the vocabulary never leftacademic fields.

(II) Genuine and Historical Relationships between the Arabic Semitic and the Indo-Germanic Language

We must distinguish between genuine and historical relationships between the Arabic Semitic and the Indo-Germanic language.

L1 Common Ancestor Language

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L2 Semitic Arabic German/English

Example: "Sugar/Zucker"

Type of Speech

Contact Document: Cognate

Type of Speech Contact:

Genuine Relationship

L1 Semitic Arabic

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L2 German/English

Example: "Kaffee/ Coffee"

Type of Speech

Contact Document: Loanword

Type of Speech Contact:

Historical Relationship

Genuine Relationship and Historical Relationship between Arabic and Indo-European Languages

The words Zucker/sugar in the German and English language can be traced back to the Arabic word ... (sukkar). The Arabic word also can be tracked back etymologically to a Sanskrit word. The Sanskrit language can be a potential ancestor language for both the Semitic Arabic language and the German and English Indo-Germanic language. In the case of the nonexistence of an Indo-European ancestor word, e.g. "Kaffee'/Coffeee", we have a historical relationship between the Arabic word for coffee and the European loanwords. Another example is the word 'crimson' a s a derivate from Old Spanish cremesin via Medieval Latin cremesinus from Arabic ... (qirmiz) for a kermes, which is reklated to Sanskrit ... krmi-ja, which means literally 'red dye produced by a worm'. The colour lilac / lila entered the English/German language via the Arabic ... lilak and Persian ...nilak with the meaning 'bluish'. It has the equivalent t ... (nila) in Sanskrit with the meaning 'dark blue'. A good example for the implementation of a whole concept from Sanskrot to Arabic are the still today existing Arabic numerals, which are the numerals written in Sanskrit by the ancient Hindus. So the Sanskrit language has influenced the Arabic language. So we can say that the origin of cognates is a common ancestor word of two similar words in two languages, while in the case of the historical import of a word in a foreign language the resulting type of speech document is a loanword. But these examples must not lead to the impression that the language Sanskrit was the language implemented into Arabic and the Arabic language later was implemented into the European language via trade. Furthermore, we have here a speech situation with the exchange of words as cognates between the Indian continental language Sanskrit and the Semitic language Rabic. Also other languages in the areas of the Arabic peninsula and the Indian subcontinent might have been participating languages within the speech contact exchange within this area in prehistorical and historical times. The speech contact situations and the impact of one language on the other could have been taken place in various directions. The documentary material that has been come down on us covers only the Sanskrit and the Arabic language. So we must state that other carriers and participating languages within this speech contact situation are unknown to us. We can assume that the etymological strands of paths within the exchange of words could have been taken place on both the maritime pathway across the Indian Ocean and the continental pathway between India and Europe. In the case the word lilac/lila entered the English/German language via the route of the continental pathway, it is to be considered a cognate of the Arabic word. In the case that the English and the German word derived from the Arabic and were 'traded' from the Arabic language to the European languages, the German and English words are to be classified as loanwords derived from the Arabic language.

4. Towards a Theory of Literary Forms and Speech in Indo-European and Semitic Language Contact

4.1. Theoretical Discussion about the Impact of Speech Contact Situations on a Language through Dispersion

While this study discusses topics that fall in the field of historical linguistics and language contact studies, we argue that the correct terms for such studies should be 'linguistic communication' in speech contacts, since the impact of one language on another can only be studies within speech situations. The speech contact situations we discussed here are predominantly speech contact situations with the exchange of the spoken language or parole. Also based upon our diachronic study of the impact of the Arabic language of the Indo-Germanic language we can say that the impact of the Arabic spoken language on the thesaurus of the German/English language is higher than the impact of written Arabic documents. The thesaurus of a language represents the words of a language with specific meanings. The speech contact situation here is characterized by the impact of a foreign thesaurus on the thesaurus of another language. The linguistic framework of the syntax, the morphology and other standard features of the language is already established; the new language brings single words, which can be realized as any part of speech, into the new language. With these new words also new concepts are imported into the language. The words implemented refer to a foreign semantic concept, which obviously had not been previously a part of the thesaurus of the other language. Words for traded items explain this need for a new word for a new item very practically, but also at the level of abstraction such loanwords assist to fill out 'gaps' of knowledge in the language that implements such a new abstract concept using the word from a different language. For example, in Arabic there is no original term known, which reflects the concept 'democracy', so the loanword, which is simply the transcription of the Western term in Rabic letters, fills a gap within the Arabic language.

4.2. Types of Linguistic Speech Contact Situations: the Effect of Dispersion and Conglomeratisation of Linguistic Features in Speech Contact of Different Languages

Dispersion is the undirected extension of linguistic features of one language into another language within a speech contact situation. The dispersion can be across language families or stay within a language family. But the rule we can derive from our studies is that linguistic dispersion is more likely to happen within a language family and is the grounding factor for the establishment of a language or language family with clear contrasts to another language or language family. We can use the phenomenon of dispersion also to describe the relative homogeneity among the members of one language family in contrast to languages of another language family; here the exchange among the family is higher than the exchange between a member language of the family and the member of another language family. We can describe the types of linguistic speech contact situations among languages as follows as a speech contact situation with the effect of addition, the effect of subtraction, the effect of transposition, and the effect of substitution between two languages L1 and L2:

Case 1

Changes from L1 to L2 by Addition of Linguistic Semantic Contents

A word, which has a background in L1, is added with a new meaning to L2

Case 2

Changes from L1 to L2 by Subtraction of Linguistic Semantic Contents

A word, which has a background in L1, is subtracted from L2

Case 3

Changes from L1 to L2 by Replacement (Substitution) of Linguistic Semantic Contents

A word, which has a background in L1, is a substitution for a word from L2

Case 4

Changes from L1 to L2 by Transposition of Linguistic Semantic Contents

A word, which has a background in L1, is implemented into the vocabulary of L2

Types of Linguistic Speech Contact Situations for L1 and L2

Our theory for language exchange says that language exchange as language contact arises from the necessity of a need of words in a Language L1. When a speaker of L1 meets a speaker of L2 and the speaker of L2 has a word with the quality of knowledge, the speaker of L1 will implement this word; the L1 speaker will implement the word not for the sake of the word, but for the effect of the word as a carrier of meaning and knowledge. According to our semiotic triangle, the word communicated in speech is a carrier of knowledge. All languages are dispersed, they sprinkle, and when in a language contact situation, which is energetic and precedes always a dynamic linguistic communication, a semiotic unit is transferred from one language L1 to the other language L2, the linguistic unit now entering the new language produced 'sparkling', the little enlightenment for the speakers of the language, that now has the knowledge of the language L1. As mentioned above, this process takes place in situations the speakers are not aware of the language contact situation, it is an energetic situation, and so here the process of language dispersion and the effect of a 'sprinkle & sparkle'-dispersion is not planned or rules. In cases the effect is planned or ruled, it is an exchange in a dynamic state of linguistic communication. The specific concepts of a language and/or a language family contribute to the specific 'world view' of the performers of a language. The semantic content of the languages is the grounding factor of this differentiation between languages. In the case of the Germanic Indo-European and the Semitic languages a genuine relationship is not common; so we can assume that the conceptual background of the both language families is different without a common origin or the relationship was at such an early prehistoric time that the impact of similar or related forms on the development of the languages is low. The language contact situation in the historical time shows that the impact of the Semitic languages on the Indo-Germanic languages was both oral and literal: The literary writing and the orally communicated vocabulary for goods traded within the Arabic world arrived in Europe since the Middle Ages had an impact of the thesauri of European languages with their non-genuine Indo-European vocabulary. The conceptual range of the vocabulary entering the Germanic language refers to general products and items with an origin in the Arab region of Northern Africa and the Middle East.

Footnote

28Fellman, 1978, p. 51-53.

29Dundes, 1992, p. 257-312.

30Daube, 2000, p. 15-17.

31Levin, 1995, p. 167.

32Armitage et alii, 2011, p. 454.

33idem, p. 454.

34Toth et alii, 2007.

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