f Sonderdruck aus: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Im Auftrag der Gesellschaft herausgegeben von Florian C. Reiter unter Mitwirkung von Christian Bauer, Dragomir Dimitrov, Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Lutz Edzard, Patrick Franke, Herrmann Jungraithmays, Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, Jens Peter Laut, Joachim Friedrich Quack und Michael Streck Band 171 - Heft 1 2021 Harrassowitz VerlagCopto-Arabica: The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions* By Maun van Purten, Leiden Summary: This paper builds on the important work that has been done in recent years on the phonology of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic based on the transcriptions of names in Greek papyri. This paper expands the view by looking at transcriptions of Arabic names in the early Islamic period based in Coptic papyri. It confirms many of the findings already found in the Greek papyri such as the retention of the fourth long vowel *@ and the i-umlaut of "a to i in CaCiC nouns. But it shows certain developments and new findings as well. Coptic material confirms a palatal realization of the Arabic *g, the fricative nature of *f and the realization of the feminine ending as /-a/ rather than /-ab/. 1 Introduction One of the great challenges of understanding the linguistic history of Arabic in the early Islamic period is the highly defective spelling of early Arabic. It is ambiguous in terms of phonetic features such as the short vowels, the hamzab, and a general disagreement whether a written text is supposed to represent the vernacular or rather a form approximating Classical Arabic, or something in between, make it difficult to establish much of a baseline of expectations of the Arabic of this period. Historically, scholars interested in the history of Arabic have relied on the descriptions of the language by the Arab Grammarians who started their effort to standardize a high Arabic language around the end of the 8 cen- tury, The form of Arabic they describe, however, is highly idealized, and certainly rather artificial. Any data there is about the spoken vernacular in such works is, as RABIN (1951, p. 4) put it, seen “only through the veil of the literary Arabic used by their speakers”. Recent advances in the field of Ara- bic historical linguistics, spearheaded by Auman At-JALLaD (2015; 2017b; 2018) have made it clear that in the Pre-Islamic period, Arabic was much more diverse than was previously thought. We therefore need to reconsider = T would like to thank AHMAD AL-JaLLap and Etie ScHEERLINCK for providing valuable suggestions and references while writing this paper. ‘See for example, BLau (1977) who envisions most of Pre-Islamic Arabic to be, essen- tially, identical to Classical Arabic.MARIN VAN PUTTEN 82 our assumptions on what Arabic was like in the Early Islamic period, asi i no longer a priori likely that it is either close to Classical Arabic, or close 4g any of the modern dialects spoken today. Transcriptions into non-Arabic script of Arabic names and phrases are of the utmost importance for a better understanding of the language of the period. By comparing such transcriptions with the Arabic equivalents we can triangulate a better sense of what the Arabic language was like. The pig. neering research by AHMAD AL-JALLAD (2017a; 20176, et al. 2013) on Arabic transcriptions in Greek script have massively improved our understanding of the phonology and morphology of Arabic of the early Islamic period and the later Pre-Islamic period. The present paper wishes to continue the exploration of the Arabic of the early Islamic period, using linguistic material written in non-Arabic script. It examines the transcription of, mostly onomastic material, written in Coptic papyri. Examination of Coptic as a corpus for linguistic material is of def- nite value for several reasons. As many of the Coptic Papyri come, like most Graeco-Arabic material, from Egypt, it allows us to test and corroborate some of the observations made on the Graeco-Arabic material; second, be- cause of some real differences both in the phonology and script of Coptic, we are able to make certain deductions about the Arabic language which could not be confirmed with certainty through transcriptions in the Greek script. While At-JALLAD (2017a) examined exclusively the Arabic of the first Is- lamic century, and as such was able to make it plausible that was he was ex- amining was indeed almost certainly the Arabic of the Islamic conquerors, such strict periodization is simply not possible for the Coptic material. Not only is the Coptic-Arabic material more limited, it is also generally somewhat later. In this paper we will focus on the material from the 7" to the 9° cen- tury. Around the late 8"* to early 9 century, Classical Arabic is codified, and hence from this moment onward, itis significantly more difficult to disentan- gle the presence of Classical Arabic and the vernacular. Later attestations will be used occasionally to either show that the generalizations made seem t0 hold up, or when we can see that a certain diachronic change has taken place. Marie Lecenpre (2014) discusses two interesting papyri from the ue century, which show significant influence from Arabic on the vocabulary, and obviously the onomasticon. While the material present in these papyti are somewhat late for our present interests, she provides a long and extremely useful appendix of Arabic personal names in Coptic documents. I have t¢- lied on this list as my source of Arabic onomastic material in Coptic, but have checked the original edition in all cases. While initial identifications of Arabic names have already been suggested by LEGENDRE, no attempt has been made to find any patterns or linguistic developments in the Arabic that ooSe The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 83 is reflected in the onomasticon, and due to a lack of a systematic study of the sound correspondences, several incorrect identifications have been made. When looking at Arabic in light of Coptic transcriptions, it is important to have a sense of the phonology of Coptic of the period. I have based myself primarily on Peust (1999) for the analysis, and will refer to it whenever it is relevant for the understanding of the transcriptions. Previous studies have been done on Arabic as reflected in Arabic loanwords in Coptic by RiciTeR (2011), but these focus on the presence of Arabic loanwords in Coptic (mostly later, literary texts). The treatment of this material makes it not very useful for our purposes, although they are certainly interesting in their own right. First, Ricr'TeR does not apply a diachronic approach to these loanwords, and as such all loanwords from all periods are lumped together. This of course, makes finding correspondences significantly more difficult. Moreover, the whole article works from the assumption that itis known what the Arabic form would be, and the resultant forms as they are borrowed into Coptic are presented as a long list of, occasionally, rather chaotic correspondences, so chaotic, in fact, that for the short vowels, RICHTER suggests that they “must be left out of considera- tion, since both their quality in colloquial Arabic and their Coptic transcriptions show a great deal of variation, so that correspondences remain unclear.” RicHTER does not appreciate that exactly the Coptic transcriptions can give us invaluable insights into what colloquial Arabic looked like in historical pe- riods in Egypt. We cannot know, or assume to know, what the colloquial form of Arabic at the time was. Instead we must try to deduce these from precious hints, such as transcriptions of Arabic names and words in historical periods in different scripts. For this reason, we have decided to start afresh, focusing specifically on transcriptions of Arabic names that can be roughly dated to the ‘early Islamic period’, that, is approximately the 7to the 9" century. 2 Vowels Coptic has a significantly different vowel system from Arabic, and the exact, system that is present depends somewhat on the dialect, as described in great detail by Peusr (1999, p. 201ff.). But for the stressed vowels we can make the generalization of likely realization of the vowels as follows (Peust 1999, p. 201): seid oy [ul ule) @ [0] ele ob) [ alaGi Maru van Purren In unstressed position, the phonemic inventory is significantly smaller, but it seems clear that e can represent some kind of unstressed vowel [3] (PEusT 1999, p. 250f.). Moreover, the unstressed vowel [a] often goes unwritten in Coptic. This same practice of not writing the unstressed vowel [2] occurs quite often in the Copto-Arabic material as well. Note that it does not follow that when we find a transcription where € is used in an unstressed position for an Arabic word, this must necessarily mean that Arabic in this position had [2]. A Coptic scribe would have no choice but to represent (¢] with ¢, even in this position, as there was no other way of doing so. 2.1 Short vowels 241 *a Short “a when stressed is mostly represented with a /a/, in post-stress po- sition it is sometimes represented with ¢, which shows that it was at least interpreted by the scribe to be equivalent to the Coptic /a/. However, quite a few other transcriptions write post-stress /a/ a, suggesting that this merger was far from universal. It should probably be considered slightly reduced. PBrux.Bawit, 27,1 aner Aamarl, Samar/ | 8c. P.Lond IV 1606, 2 ager Jahmad/, /ahmad/_ | Beginning 8c, | CPRI1228,RO3-4 | wapiam —_| /maryam/ Be. PiLond.Copt1668,2 | warenx | /madhog/ (no date) PLond.Copt 1 580,25 | 2acan Thasan/ 88/9% c, CPR IL117 voy eeurr | /aba rabot/ ste. In front of a long 7 in the next syllable, however, short “a appears to have been raised, as it is consistently represented with the high vowel sign which presumably represent a vowel /i/, which however appears to have been pronounced somewhat lower than phonetic [i], perhaps closer to the cen- tral vowel [3], hence explaining the lack of transcriptions with 1. The sign 1 appears to only be used next to the Arabic *. This raising is blocked when it appears next to a guttural consonant or /r/. BKU III 397, 1°55 ammwanecne | /Tabd il-masth/ | 84/9" ¢. ? | BKU IIL 418, 1 wezia Jyazid/ 78 ¢, O.CrumVC 129, 2 oyenrr Awvalid/ 88/9% c, |The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 85 PStras.Copt. 67,96 [enna [iiamil Ie. PlLond.Copt 1 1100, 15 |. Tgarit/ [(no date) CPR 1128,5 paar? —_| /rattd/ Be, | CPR 11249 cacrr JsaS'id/ oe. CPR X11 32, 28 ‘| sccaie arial 78%. This form of i-umlaut well-attested in the modern dialects, including Cairene Arabic, e.g, Ribir ‘big’ (“kabin), ti?il ‘heavy’ (< *taqil) but babib ‘beloved’ (< *habib), rafif ‘thin, slim’ (< *rafif). The same process was also already observed by At-JALLAD (2017, p. 420f) in Greek transcriptions of Arabic names in the early Islamic period There is marginal evidence in the Copto-Arabic material for a vowel har- mony of “a to i in *CaCCi environments, which occurs less frequently in modern dialects. This is a development that has taken place, for example, in Maltese mibni ‘built’ and Damascene mabni ‘id’, but has not taken place in Cairene Arabic mabni. This development appears to have taken place in the Arabic represented by the Copto-Arabic material, as can be seen in the cognate of the name *mahdiyy. T CPR XII 32, 21 [meen hdi/ 7-8" c, 2.1.2 High vowels *i and “iis represented with a variety of Coptic signs, but usually either ¢ or w, and occasionally 1 and el. This vowel was probably somewhat closer to a central high vowel /a/ than a front vowel, as is the case in many modern dialects and in the Graeco-Arabic material (AL-JALLAD 2017a, p. 421f.). NB Lecenpre (2014, p. 425) suggests this is spelled papta. This is not the case. Inthe Graeco-Arabic material, there is one other case of vowel harmony that appear to takes place. Namely, a...i > i...i well-attested in modern Egyptian Arabic, as well as most Levantine dialects, e.g. *fahima > Cairene fihim. This was recognised, but not men- tioned explicitly, by AL-JALLAD (2017a, p. 428) to take place in the name of the early 8 c, governor of Egypt fabd allah bin Sabd al-malik, whose patronym is spelled aBSehuehey (P.Lond. IV 1398, 1; early 8 c.), which points to /Sabd al-malak/ with two high vowels. Note that LeGenpre’s attestation of this name in the Copto-Arabie corpus is a ghost word, **asaexnenex (P.Lond. IV 1584, 5) is completely reconstructed on the basis of the Greek spelling.86 Maryn van Purten [cprui7 CPR X11 32, 24 eiceak Nishag/ (ishag) | 7-8" c. P.Lond. Copt. 1 624, (1 nodate) | CPR XN32,25 7-8 c, PH end of 78%, ONind.Copt. 121,25 | namexne /muslim/ 7-8" ¢, ‘snoy ooorr | /aba tabit/ [kabit] | 8% c. nat 75, 57 eH The Copto-Arabic material uses a variety of different signs to represent short *u, namely 0, w and oy. This seems to suggest that the phonetic realization of the *w was somewhat lower than a true [u}, vacillating between {o] and [o}, much like the realization in modern dialects. A similar reflex is also found in the Graeco-Arabic material, where #1 is represented with the same signs (AL-JaLtap 2017a, p. 421). [OVind. Cope. 121,25 [wacann __[/muslim/ [7° 8%c, P.Lond. IV 1494,6 | xoppa Jqurra/ 709 | PBal. 150,3 covnamnfan] dsulayman/ | 78% ¢, [P.Lips. inv. 250, v° 13 | anoycwpnp | /2abi surie/ | 10%—11""c. The reflexes of the names Yienus and Yas uf suggests that *u in a post-stress position has been reduced to /o/, as they are transcribed with e. CPR If 228, v°8 | royce | /yanas/ | 8c. PRyl.Copt. 236 | wycey | /yiisaf/ | 910%, 2.1.3 Epenthetic vowels There are a few examples where we find th inserted in word-final CC clusters. The vowel is either with a or with 6 seemingly dependent on the consonantal gsrmingly depen environment, All of these seem to ¢ rather later, however, and the only possible case Presented from the 8" c. could also be interpreted differently. a 1006-1008 at an epenthetic vowels has been —— ree Bawit. 27‘The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 87 [ Psteas.Copt. 67, 43, 138 | wmep Inirn(a)e/ le. ] [PRyLCopr. 306 anovpraer | /Pabi r-rus(e)d/ we | 2.2 Long vowels Coptic occasionally used double vowel signs to write vowels, which has been interpreted as a marking of long vowels (e.g. Peust 1999, p. 20541). This practice is only rarely attested in Copto-Arabic material, whenever it does show up, it seems to be rather related with the presence of a for h than with vowel length. 2.2.1 *@ The long vowel *a shows signs of a clear phonetic conditioning along the typical lines of a front and a central/back realization, depending on its pho- netic environment. It is fronted in neutral environments and subsequently transcribed by ¢, while it is backed in guttural and emphatic environment and next to *r, where its transcribed with a. In Coptic the ¢ was the front low-vowel counterpart to a (PEust 1999, p. 211), and the phonetic realisa~ tion of ¢ must therefore be thought of somewhere along the lines of [#~e], whereas a was a back low vowel [a~v]. ‘As such, the Coptic data seems to confirm the allophony of the vowel /3/ that is well-attested in the modern dialects with a fronted variant in [#] in neutral environments and a less-fronted to backed realization in guttural and emphatic environments [a~a]. This is different from the Graeco-Arabic material, which invariably writes both cases with a. This is presumably be- cause the phonetic value of the Greek ¢ was significantly higher than it was in Coptic. In the Graeco-Arabic material it is used to write the original high short vowel *i (AL-JALLAD 2017, p. 421f). The allophony between back and front articulations of /a/ show that the emphatic consonants were no longer ejectives, but had developed into phar- yngealized consonants, and thus triggering the backing effect of the vowels. CPR II 16,2 ecset /rabat/ (xbt] Bho. P.Ryl. Copt. 235 eases shaggag/ (haggeg) | 9c. PStras.Cotp 67, 102 ren /sihab/ [Sihzb] ume, + Lecenpre (2014, p. 434) identifies this name as Hugag, it seems clear that the read- ing Haggag is to be preferred considering the a in the initial syllable.= 88 Maun VAN PuTTEN (no date) 1006-1008 P.Lond. Copt. 1586,6 ‘Aagimal (fgima] (no date) [ PHermitage.Cope 16, 1? [cance Zsilah/ (salah) [7%e. P.Ryl. Copt. 227, Tarp /sahor/ (thar) 1o™—11% 6, | BRU III 339, 1 xanea dxalad/ [xalod] a l CPR XU 32,24 eceak PRishag/ [?ishaq] The name Hilal occurs twice, and in both cases, the is transcribed witha although conditioning factors that would cause the backing are absent. CPR 11442 [amoyenran_|/2aba hilal/ | 8c. SPP X 172 r° ear Jhilal/ 759 2.2.2 The high vowels *# and *7 For “as we saw above in section 2.2.1, mostly 1and w is used. For *Z both oy and @ are in use, and occasionally even simply 0. P.Lond.Copt.1545,6 [anoyiwxos —_|/2abi yafqub/ _[10%e. P.Lond. IV 1560, 1 _| eapolw Ihirin/ Be. P.Ryl.Copt. 306 anoyrp@mer | /2abi r-ruse)d/ | 11%. [CPR XI 29, 5 empagnnt Fibra 7, CPR XII 32,4 arer Wali/ 7-8 ¢, [O.CrumvC 1297 [aan ali BO, [CPR 11 228 v 12 ABOYAAI /Raba Sali/ Bie. 2.2.3 The diphthongs “aw and “ay In the Arabic represented in the Coptic material, both diphthongs are clearly retained, and no obvious examples of monophthongization can be detected. /awl is consistently transcribed with ay. + have been unable to consult this w ‘ork. My transcription i hat on ees y transcription is therefore based on whaThe Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 89 [CPRIT117 (and passim) [wayne _[/mawie/_[%e._ | [Pstras.Copt. 67, 153-6 | rayoap _|/kawtar/* | 11" While Coptic, like Greek, seems to lack a consistent way of representing the Arabic diphthong /ay/, the variety of strategies encountered whenever we en- counter it, e.g. in diminutive names, make it fairly clear that the diphthong was retained. Unlike Greek, however, Coptic did have a more or less con- ventionalised way of writing its diphthong /ay/, namely a(e)t (Peust 1999, p 244); The fact that transcriptions of Arabic names often do not use this orthographic practice suggests that the diphthong was phonetically not very similar to the Coptic diphthong, and was perhaps closer to [zj) or [ej], at least in unemphatic and non-uvular environment. ONVind.Copt. 121, 7,12 | Neer Nayt/ | | P.Lond IV 1519, 5 Kaete Iaays/ 709 CPR II 140, 4 | Zn fzayd/ Bic. CPR I165,1,5 vamomn —__|/maymin/ | 8%e. Pal. 150, 3 covaamnfan _|/sulayman/ | 7%-8%e. PRRyl-Copt. 460 fz@)renan | /sulaymin/ | 8c. 2.2.4 The fourth long vowel *€ Classical Arabic has two ways of writing word final 4, either by a final alif () and by the so called “?alif maqsirah”, which uses aya? (_,). Itis clear that historically these two have two different origins, the former coming from Proto-Arabic word-final *a or “aw while the later comes from word-final *ay®, Van Putten (2017) shows that on the basis of rhyme as well as ortho- graphy that Quranic Arabic preserves these as two different phonemes, the former being pronounced 4 while the latter was presumably é AL-JALLAD (2017, p. 431) already showed that in Graeco-Arabica this final sounds was indeed distinct and consistently represented with e, hence it comes as no surprise that in the Copto-Arabic material more evidence of this ancient *€ vowel is found, here it is consistently represented with 6. Note that the vowel © Identified by Lecenpre (2014, p. 417) to possibly be Katir/Qaysar. There can, of course, be no doubt that the name is Kawsar. This is somewhat surprising (and presum- ably the basis for Lecenpre’s lack of identification of this name as Kawtar) as Kawetar is 2 woman’s name, and it only appears as a patronymic. The reason why the four people ‘mentioned in the Papyrus have a matronymic in this case is unclear,NS 90 Maun VAN PUTTEN is distinct from the word-final feminine ending, which was a (see section | 2.2.5 below). As such there seems to be no indication that the *€ vowel is the ‘outcome of word-final raising of *-a/a to é (' ‘imalah”). CPR 11248, 3 we |/yahye/__|7%e. CPR II 228, 16-17 [rage | /yahyé/__| 8%. CPR 1169, 5 exere _| /yahyé/ | CPR XII 22,5 ice | /Sisé/ P.Lond.Copt. 1552 | woycu /misé/ LCPRIL17 wayne | /mawlé/ | There is limited evidence that by the 11" century, a shift from *6 to d had taken place, merging the two previously distinct sounds. In one of the pa- pyri that LeGenpre (2014) discusses, the name yahyé is has a final d rather than é, as in Classical Arabic yahya. Saas Copt. 67,121 |e | /yahy 2.2.5 The feminine ending *-ah P.Stra: Although Arabists tend to transcribe the femi: Classical Arabic, this is a rather misleading transci Quranic Arabic thyme, where the feminine ending rhymes with the 3" per- son masculine pronoun, that the feminine ending in pause was -ah, e g. Q75:2 ends in al-lawwamati (al-lawwamah in pause) while Q75:3 ends in Sizama-hit (Sizama-b in pause). Even in many modern diale + is not lost, and for example in Najdi Arabic, ularly -ab (INHaM 1994, p. 16). Therefore, the shape of earlier stages of Arabic were. T] biguous as to whether early-Islamic Arabic final -a,as ithas no orthographic means of re however, gives us somewhat clearer eviden variety attested in the papyri of Egypt. Coptic has the sign g to write the letter Jhh which it does in other positions, F = 8; Moynanee /munabbih/ (P,Stras.Copt. ciionis nese een fmahdil (CPR X11 32, 24,7482). Bea che eee nding is never speed *-2e, suggesting that it wae simply pronounced /-a!” e ending as a single -a in ription. It is clear from the cts, the final glottal fricative the feminine ending is still reg- it is worthwhile to examine what he Graeco-Arabica material is am- 7 This is different, for example, from i 5 : the Damascus Psalm Fr: pie Greck characters, which writes the feminine ending (usually) with in ene ae Uhl, €-8The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 91 This does not appear to be the result of Copti i ‘ : . ic phos acceptable in Coptic, eg, Sahidie whng "bel! (Chom 2008, 168)” perfectly P.Lond. IV 1494, 6 (and passim) Koppa =| /qurra/ 709 P.Lond.Copt1586,6 | tiaxna | /nagiyya/_| (no date) P.Lond.Copt.1586,6 |rarea | Aalha/ __| (no date) [PLond.Copt.1586,6 | Bata _|/fatima/__| (no date) RicuiTeR (2011) claims that the feminine ending in Arabic loanwords in Coptic is normally written with ¢. If this is indeed true for the later mate~ rial that he discusses we might be looking at either a diachronic difference, where raising applied to the final « at some point in the history of Egyptian Arabic or a dialectal difference. It would be interesting to see whether ear- lier loanwords into Coptic are more likely to have the ending written with a than with ¢. Alternatively, however, the preponderance of ¢ spellings for the feminine ending in loanwords from Arabic into Coptic may also have a Coptic-internal explanation. As Peust (1999, p. 253) discusses, most va- rieties of Coptic may only have two types of word-final unstressed vowels, cither ¢ /2/ or oy /u/, Therefore, when Arabic words were phonologically integrated into the Coptic phonemic system, itis possible that the final was simply replaced by the closest phonetic equivalent in the Coptic system, that is, ¢ /o/, In this interpretation Coptic would not at all give evidence for Pinnalab of the final -ah as RICHTER suggests, but instead be caused by Cop- tic phonology. In this interpretation we must assume thar the fact that the ov cmasticon less fully integrated names into Coptic phonology than true Doanwords, allowing final a to appear where in Coptic it could not. Lecennae (2014) identifies one (or two) feminine names that may have raising of the final vowel, namely gave (P.Lond.Copt. I 638; Fayoum), ganne (P Lond Copt. I 612, 2, Fayour) which she identifies as hannah. We can be sure that this is not, e.g. “han, as the person is referred to as a ‘dear mother’, and thosefore was ceresinly female. Interestingly the same letter also mentions the name wupe, identified as the Arabic name £4?iab, Inthe idiolect of the write? the feminine ending therefore seems raised enough to be represented by an fe/ Canines cleat example of the feminine ending being spelled with ¢ rather than a is found in the loanword aGOYHAE ‘total’ < al-gumlah (CPR XXXI 15; 838 av). wvyrezad Imugnahab/ ‘winged’s oohevdist Jwal-tawdiyah/ ‘and the valleys’ (At-JALtap forthcoming a).92 Marign VAN PUTTEN 3 Consonants As none of the Coptic dialects has a voicing contrast, and only one dialect (Bohairic) has a contrast between aspirates and non-aspirates (Peust 1999, pp. 84-87) the transcriptions of Arabic names in Coptic script are not nearly as useful to discern certain features of the phonetics of Arabic as Greek. The table below gives an overview of the probably value of the Coptic consonant inventory. Labial_|Dental__| Palatal Guttural Stop, nlp) |s ata lefthx [arth (Bohairic) Aspirates | (ph) |e xe) x(k] Fricative af jez jor eth) Approximant o(8) [etal | enti oy fw] Nasal ulm) | win} = Arabic t, d, tf, d, z are indiscriminately represented indiscriminately by Ae. = Arabic k and q are represented indiscriminately by x, r, x = Arabic b is represented by either nor 8. = Arabic s, z and 5 are represented indiscriminately by ¢, z Places where Arabic and Coptic have perfect phonetic matches, the reflex is as expected: m =u, n =, 7 =p, 1 =, y = (6), w = oy. The remaining cor- respondences are worth paying special attention to and are discussed below. 3.1 The gutturals A place where the Copto-Arabic material can give us an interesting insight into the phonetics is in the place of the guttural consonants. The sign @ is usually used to transcribe both /h/ and /h/. The other guttural consonants, ive. *£, #2 remain untranscribed. There is no direct evidence that *? was retained or lost. The uvular fricative *x and *g are transcribed identically to the velar and uvular stops. [CPR xin32,21 [een __|/mihdi/ [PiLond. IV 1606,2 |agner _|/2ahmod/ beginning 8c. [CPR x1132, 28 [accere | Maziz/ 748", 788% c.The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 93 CPR XII 22, 5 ewe | /isé/ 7-8 6, | CPR IV 51,8 xarea | /xalad/ 7-8" c, CPR XII 32,2 acrar | /?asbag/ 7-8 ¢, Occasionally the double writing of a vowel is used to mark the presence of an forh. CPR XII 32, 25 aannar | Sabbad/ [7-8%. CPR XXX115, 53, caasap | /gafar/ | Around 838 P.Bal. 130 App. 1 car /sahl/ 724-729 P.Lond.Copt. I 1050, 1 | caan /sahm/ 78%. | AL-JaLLap (2017a, p. 423f. explained a similar phenomenon attested in Greek as the result of epenthesis of the vowel /a/ in guttural + consonant cluster, i.e. cast [sah*m). This is a reasonable interpretation of the facts in the Graeco-Arabic material, but if aanmar represents this same practice, it seems clear that the double aa spelling need not be the result of an epenthetic vowel. Moreover, with }, when represented with g, there are no traces of epenthesis, in Copto-Arabic transcriptions. This suggests that the double vowel writing was simply an attempt to represent the guttural sounds in Greek. There is one case where @ is not used to transcribe the h, and instead it simply goes unmarked. This appears besides a spelling with the sign. | P.Lond.1V 1518,7 | qoypac_| /Surayh/_ | 708-709 | P.Lond, IV 1542, 10 | moyprg_|/Surayh/ [710 3.2% Modern Egyptian Arabic is famous for its pronounciation of the Classical Arabic gim as a voiced velar stop (g]. As this is the Proto-Semitic articula- tion, it seems possible that Modern Egyptian Arabic retains an archaic ar- ticulation of this sound from Proto-Arabic. The Graeco-Arabica as studied by AL-JaLLap (2017, p. 426) only gave very little evidence in favour of a palatalized pronunciation in the early Islamic period, rather than the velar pronunciation of modern Egyptian. The majority of the time, the gim is simply represented with 7, which is ambiguous. Only in two cases the stop94 Marin VAN PuTTEN is represented with the sequence 7, namely, yap /gam8/ and pradap /BaSfar/ which seems to mark a palatal realization. The Copto-Arabic material con- firms such a palatal reading. The gim is consistently represented with the palatal signs 6. In later texts the x is occasionally used as well. While it de- pends on the Coptic dialect how exactly the phonemic distinction between 6 and x should be interpreted (Peust 1999, p. 107ff,), it is clear that both rep- resent something palatal, and were considered more appropriate to represent the gim than x, the sign we would have expected had it been pronounced [g). CPR 11.236, 13 papas _| /farag/ Bic. CPR XXX115, 53 caasap | /gaSfar/ _| around 838 P.Fay.Copt.App.v° 10 | wapax _| /farag/ gh-9 c, P.Ryl.Copt. 235 gaces | /haggag/' | ee. 335 The Proto-Semitic *s? (also transcribed *s) was originally a voiceless lateral fricative [1] (KOGAN 2011, pp. 71-80) which AL-JALLAD (2015, p. 44f) has argued was a realization that was maintained in Old Arabic (= pre-Islamic Arabic). Copto-Arabic (like early-Islamic Graeco-Arabic, AL-JALLAD 2017a, p. 425) suggests that this sound was probably pronounced § [f] in much the same way as itis in most modern Arabic dialects today.” Copto-Arabic uses the Coptic sign a, pronounced [f] (Peust 1999, p. 125f.), to represent the Arabic $. PLond.Copt.1624,3 [anoy zemen | /2abii hasam/ [aba hasém) | (no date) CPR 11.28, 5 | Paar ieasid/ Bo P.Lond. IV 1542, 10 | aovene Feurayh/ 710 PStras.Copt. 67, 102 _| angen [/sihaby (sinzby 11%, P.Ryl.Copt. 306 [anovepaaer | /2aba L-ruk(o)d/ Ihe. © Lecenpre (2014, p. 434) takes this name to be Hugag, There is no obvious reason to think that *# would be represented with a, so Haag seems to be the preferable reading. 6 + “With a notable exception being Razihit, where it remained a lateral fricative (WaT son et al, 2005, p. 37).The Phonology of Early Islamic Arabic Based on Coptic Transcriptions 95 34 4f In the pre -Islamic period it is unclear what the Arabic reflex was of the Pro- to-Semitic *p consonant. While it universally becomes fin Classical Arabic and the modern Arabic dialects, transcriptions into Greck in the pre-Islamic period are quite ambiguous as it seems that in the Greek of the Middle east the aspirate $ was still pronounced [p'], and this was used to represent the reflex of Proto-Semitic *p, which allows for both a *p and *f interpreta tion (AL-JALLAD 2017b: 125f.), once the *p is represented by (yalizag for / xalif/, GL 432d), which might suggest that is was already fricativized in the Pre-Islamic period. Kartony (2015, p. 12) expresses himself agnostic as to whether in the Islamic period the sound was pronounced [p"] or [f], and con- siders both possible, AL-JALLAD (2017a) does not comment specifically on the realization of the reflex of Proto-Semitic *p, itis consistently transcribed by ¢. AL-JALLAD (2017a) however implicitly interprets these forms as having a fricative pronunciation: Tiadap as /gaSfar/ (P.Lond IV 1447, 86; 685-705 ce) and ABovEougovay as /abii sufwan/ (P. Lond. IV 1362, 24; 710 C.). Coptic technically has a sign to transcribe the [f], namely, 4, although this sign is only rarely used in the Papyri, and Bis used instead, which normally represents a voiced bilabial fricative (B] (PEust 1999, p. 136f,). But especially in Fayyumic, and non-Literary Sahidic the graphical distinction between qand 8 is lost (Peust 1999, p. 137). The equivalent to Proto-Semitic *p and Classical Arabic f is indeed 8, which takes away any ambiguity that existed as to the realization of this sound in early Islamic Arabic, which must have certainly been a fricative [f]. [P.Lond.Copt. 1586, 6 | wate /fatima/ ] (no date SB Kopt. 111 1448,9 | anoyamapas | /abiil-farag/_| 108-11". CPR XXX115,53 | eaasap afar! Around 838 | PRyl.Copt. 236 [woycea Iyiisaf/ 910". [CPR XII 32, 17 negewal0 _ | /mahfad/ TAB 6, | We The raising of the initial vowel of mabfiz is somewhat surprising.% Marun van Putten 4 Morphology 4.1 Definite article Unlike pre-Islamic Graeco-Arabic (AL-JALLAD 2017b, pp. 167-169), but similar to early-Islamic Graeco-Arabica (AL-JaLLAD 2017a, p. 428), the defi- nite article shows assimilation before coronals in the Copto-Arabic material. The amount of evidence for it, however, is rather limited, and restricted to the name fabd ar-rabman in the period that we are concerned with here (one more example in the 11" c.). Moreover, the initial vowel, as is common in many modern dialects appears to have been raised to a high vowel (pre- sumably /i/), represented with ¢ or 4, only in names with the theonym allah the initial vowel is occasionally, but not consistently written with a. P.Mon. Apollo 28, 1 asacpaman | Sabd ir-rahmin/ eae L . LPR x1132, 13 anaweaurr | /Sabd il-hamid/ 74-85%, CPR X11 22,6 armaoyean_| /fabd il-wahhab/" | 7-8. P.Lond. IV 1584, 4-5 y | and pass) ABAEAA abd illah/ 708 | CPR XII 32, 25 MAAR Wabd allah/ 7-88, [CPR IT 144 aanayne /al-mawle/ 8%, [ PRyl.Copt. 253, 6 ane, Al-layy/ 8%. [ PRyl.Copr. 306 anoypramer | /2abi r-rui(e)d/ ume. 4.2 Wawation ‘The name Samr, which in Arabic is written with a now otiose waw, 4,06, ap- pears to have had a pronunciation that was pronounced, i.e. /‘Samru/,"? as al- ready shown in the Pre-Islamic Graeco-Arabica and Islamic Graeco-Arabic (At-JaLLap 2017a, p. 431f). Evidence of this realization is attested several times in the Copto-Arabic corpus. "The apparent raising of the a in the first syllable of wabhab is unexplained, but there are no cases with a similar environment that allows us to test whether this is a regular outcome. nepoyan for Marwsin (PRyl.Copt. 349, 17; 10° c.) might be comparable but is attested rather late For adiscussion on the connection of this waw to the ancient Nabatacan case vowels see Diem 1973 and AL-JALLAD forthcoming b.