Ajami Falab Bih
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- Ajami Falab Bih
Ajami Falab Bih (A‘jamiyy fa-I‘lab bihi, "It Is Foreign, So Play With It") is a linguistic treatise by the contemporary Saudi scholar Ibrahim bin Abdullah al-Mudayhish on the Arabicization of foreign loanwords and the linguistic rules governing borrowed vocabulary .
Background and Publishing History
The treatise was originally published as an article on 28 Safar 1436 AH in the cultural magazine of the Saudi newspaper Al Jazirah (Issue No. 456) . The author had previously written a related piece titled al-Ratana ("Speaking in Foreign Tongues") . The author subsequently expanded the text with additional material, issuing a revised second edition on 1 Jumada al-Akhirah 1440 AH .
Subject and Content
The treatise addresses the contemporary habit of affecting foreign accents and intonations when pronouncing loanwords while conversing in Arabic . Al-Mudayhish characterizes this affectation as a sign of psychological subservience and disregard for the Arabic language .
To refute this practice, the author expounds the traditional Arabic philological maxim, a‘jamiyyun fal‘ab bihi ("it is foreign, so play with it as you wish"), demonstrating that classical Arab grammarians and lexicographers routinely altered the phonetic structure, morphological patterns, and vocalizations of borrowed words to conform to the phonetic standards and dialectal norms of Arabic, rather than distorting Arabic speech to accommodate foreign phonology . Al-Mudayhish quotes modern scholar Bakr Abu Zayd on how classical authorities erected firm defenses against corrupted linguistic intrusions to safeguard the language of the Quran .
Sources and Citations
The treatise documents the rule of modifying foreign vocabulary through nineteen cited passages from classical and modern scholars, including:
- Sibawayh (d. 180 AH) in al-Kitab, explaining how Arabs assimilated or altered foreign nouns into native morphological patterns .
- Ibn al-Sarraj (d. 316 AH) in al-Usul fi al-Nahw .
- Ibn Khalawayh (d. 370 AH) in al-Hujjah fi al-Qira'at al-Sab‘ .
- Ibn Jinni (d. 392 AH) in al-Muhtasab, quoting Abu Ali al-Farisi .
- Salamah al-Anbari (d. 590 AH) and al-Ukbari (d. 616 AH) .
- Al-Qurtubi (d. 671 AH) in his Tafsir .
- Al-Radi al-Astarabadhi (d. 688 AH) in his commentary on Ibn al-Hajib's al-Kafiyah .
- Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati (d. 745 AH) in al-Bahr al-Muhit .
- Al-‘Isam al-Isfarayini (d. 951 AH) .
- Muhammad al-Tahir Ibn Ashur (d. 1393 AH) in al-Tahrir wa-l-Tanwir .
- Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i (d. 1356 AH) in Tarikh Adab al-Arab .
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