The Arabic Language

This is the third edition, fully revised and updated, of this indispensable introduction to Arabic linguistics.

New for this edition:
• Presents new perspectives on the history of Arabic from the period before Islam in two completely revised chapters reporting on the ground-breaking discoveries in this field
• Covers recent developments in language use in the media after the Arab Spring
• Examines the influence of social media on language use and language attitudes concerning Arabic, and the use of the language in political and religious discourse
• Contains text samples of Standard Arabic in Arabic script and English translation as well as dialect texts in the major Arabic dialects
• Engages with the huge amount of new publications on Arabic linguistics, including several handbooks

Concentrating on the difference between the two types of Arabic – the classical standard language and the dialects – Kees Versteegh charts the history and development of the Arabic language from its earliest beginnings to the modern age. The reader is given a solid grounding in the structure of the language, its historical context and its use in various literary and non-literary genres, as well as an understanding of the role of Arabic as a cultural, religious and political world language.

Key features:
• Covers all aspects of the history of Arabic, the Arabic linguistic tradition, Arabic dialects, sociolinguistics and Arabic as a world language
• Makes links between linguistic history and cultural history
• Emphasises the role of contacts between Arabic and other languages

Kees Versteegh (1947) is Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Islam at the University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands). He studied Classical languages and Semitic languages and obtained his Ph.D. with a dissertation Greek elements in Arabic linguistic thinking (Brill, Leiden, 1977). From 1973 till 2010 he taught Arabic at the University of Nijmegen; in between, he served from 1987 to 1989 as director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo. His research focuses on historical linguistics, the history of linguistics and processes of language change and language contact, dealing with topics such as the beginnings of the Arabic grammatical tradition, early Qur'anic commentaries and the emergence of Arabic pidgins and creoles.

His books include The Arabic language (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1997, revised edition 2014). The Arabic linguistic tradition (Routledge, London, 1997), Arabic grammar and Qurʾānic exegesis in early Islam (Brill, Leiden, 1993), and Pidginization and creolization: The case of Arabic (Amsterdam, Benjamins,1984). He was co-editor of the three-volume Handbuch für die Geschichte der Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (de Gruyter, Berlin, 2000-2006), served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics (five volumes, Brill, Leiden, 2006-2009), and with Jan Hoogland and Manfred Woidich, edited the Dutch-Arabic and Arabic-Dutch dictionary (2 volumes, Bulaq, Amsterdam, 2003).