#EveryDayArabic February 14th 2024
The Clues Are "Scattered" Before Our Very Eyes
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The Clues Are "Scattered" Before Our Very Eyes
Feb 15
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Like a broken record, I always emphasize the importance of pattern recognition in language learning and this is goes doubly so for Arabic. Here’s another short but sweet example of Qur’ānic Arabic and so-called everyday Arabic matching up. Well, ok, it’s from a book written by an academic - in this case, the Irāqī grammarian Hāmish ṬaHa Shalāsh (هاشم طه إسماعيل شلاش النعيمي) entitled Awzān al-Af'āl wa Ma'ānīhā (أوزان الأفعال ومعانيها), which translates to The Morphological Forms of Verbs and Their Corresponding Meanings, but it’s still a good example. In it, Shalāsh writes,
ومن الملاحظ أيضاً أن قسماً من أبنية الأفعال ومعانيها قياسيّة ولكن اللغويّين لم يضعوا لهذه الأمور باباً يجمعها, وإنما ذكر القياس فيها كلٌ في بابه ومكانه, لذا لزم وضع فصلٍ في القياس الخاصّ بأبنية الفعل يجمع هذه الأمور المتناثرة
“It is also noteworthy that some verb structures and their meanings are standardized, but linguists have not dedicated a section to consolidate these matters (in other books). Instead, they mentioned each case separately in its relevant context. Therefore, it became necessary to create a chapter specifically addressing the standardization of verb structures, bringing together these scattered elements.”
So where, might you ask, does the word متناثرة/mutanāthirah dovetail with the Qur’ān? I thought you’d never ask:
وَإِذَا ٱلْكَوَاكِبُ ٱنتَثَرَتْ
“And by the celestial bodies when they are scattered far and wide!”
This verse, the second verse of Sūrah al-Infiṭār, shares a commonality with our example from Shalāsh with one twist: in the first case, our word is constructed on Form VI (تَفَاعَلَ, مُتَفَاعِل/tafā’ala, mutafā’il) whereas in the second case our verse from the Qur’ān is constructed on Form VII (اِنْفَعَلَ). Some inflections to note:
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Mutanāthirah is the feminine of mutanāthir (hence the tā’ marbūṭah (ة);
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Mutanāthirah is constructed in an active voice (فاعِل) and so it is describing the “elements (أمور)” which is a broken masculine plural (hence the need for a feminine adjective);
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Intatharat is expressed in Form VII, a passive form, which conveys a sense of the action being completed. What’s even more cool is that if you combine it with the ṭharf zamān (ظرف زمان) it can convey a sense of dread or doom about the future when combined with a past tense verb (ظَرْفٌ لِمَا يُسْتَقْبَلُ مِنَ الزَّمَانِ/a term/word for what lies ahead in time);
So what we have here is an instance where we have an active voice (Shalāsh) and a passive voice (the Qur’ān). And while in colloquial speech the passive voice is not commonly used, there’s a benefit in reading and studying both common speech and the Qur’ān in order to help us see the clues “scattered” before our very eyes.
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