Mawt al-Alfaz fi al-Arabiyya
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- Islamic University of Madinah
Mawt al-Alfaz fi al-Arabiyya (The Death of Words in Arabic) is a linguistic study by Abd al-Razzaq bin Faraj al-Saidi that examines lexical obsolescence and obsolete vocabulary (al-mumāt) in Classical Arabic.
Scope and Objectives
The work investigates vocabulary that fell out of usage during the era of linguistic protestation (ʿuṣūr al-iḥtijāj), collecting scattered notices recorded by early lexicographers regarding words that had become defunct during the period of classical eloquence. The author explicitly excludes words abandoned after the end of the fourth century AH by later post-classical generations (al-muwalladūn), whose abandonment stemmed from social change, urban lifestyle, and modern shifts rather than classical obsolescence.
The study differentiates between two primary facets of linguistic death:
- Death of words (mawt al-alfāẓ): The complete obsolescence and abandonment of the lexical form itself, which constitutes the central topic of the book.
- Death of meanings (mawt al-maʿānī): Cases where a word survives in usage while its archaic meaning disappears due to semantic shifts, such as early pre-Islamic terms adapted into Islamic technical vocabulary (e.g., al-ṣalāh, al-zakāh, al-ṣawm, and al-kufr), which falls outside the scope of the study.
The author argues that dead words are akin to archaeological artifacts that help fill gaps in the history of Arabic and illuminate the social life of early Arabs. Furthermore, the work maintains that lexical death is not irreversible; obsolete words may be revived and re-employed either with their original meanings or with new connotations.
Structure
The book is organized into an introduction, a preliminary section (tamhīd), four main parts (abwāb), a conclusion, and reference indexes:
- Preliminary Section (Tamhīd): Terminology of Obsolescence: Analyzes classical Arabic terms used for defunct vocabulary—such as al-mumāt (dead/extinct), al-matrūk (abandoned), al-ʿuqmī (archaic/obscure), and al-istighnāʾ (dispensation)—as well as related stylistic descriptors and modern designations.
- Part One: Obsolete Nouns (al-Mumāt min al-Asmāʾ): Divided into five chapters covering obsolete pre-Islamic names of days; obsolete names of months; miscellaneous obsolete nouns; plural nouns whose singular forms fell out of use; and diminutive nouns whose base non-diminutive forms became obsolete.
- Part Two: Obsolete Verbs (al-Mumāt min al-Afʿāl): Divided into five chapters treating verbs whose forms and conjugations were entirely abandoned; verbs whose obsolescence is subject to scholarly disagreement; verbs whose bare root forms (al-mujarrad) died out while their augmented forms (al-mazīd) survived; verbs of which only specific conjugations ceased to be used; and passive verbs whose active forms became obsolete.
- Part Three: Causes of Lexical Obsolescence (Asbāb Imātat al-Alfāẓ): Divided into two chapters analyzing phonetic factors (al-ʿāmil al-ṣawtī) and semantic factors (al-ʿāmil al-dalālī).
- Part Four: Lexical Revival (Iḥyāʾ al-Mumāt): Divided into three chapters addressing the contemporary need for reviving obsolete terms; classical and modern scholarly attitudes toward lexical revival; and the role of modern Arabic language academies in rehabilitating archaic terms to coin technical terminology and curb foreign borrowings (al-dakhīl).
The work concludes with general findings and indexes for vocabulary, sources, and subjects.
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