10~8/2019 Washington Research Library Consortium Mail - Re: ILL from Catholic University of America Libraries (ILL 199086190)

-~- 1c..-•; ...~ '< S6-S

.:. JII _Washlngton
")C Research requests, WRLC <requests@wrlc .org>
V~Ubrary
~ ( )a Consortium

Re: ILL from Catholic University of America Libraries (ILL 199086190)

1 message

Interlibrary Loan <lib-ill@cua.edu>

To: "requests, WRLC" <requests@wrlc.org>

Sorry about that.

According to WorldCat , it might be in volume 23 instead

https:i/www.worldcat .orgi title/histo rical-interpretation-of-iraqi-arab ic-aku-the re-is/oclci6097244 09

Sonderdruck aus : Orbis. 1974, t. 23, no. 2.

Seite 449-45 3 ; 26 cm

Karen Stephanites

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 12:05 PM requests, WRLC <requests@w rlc.org> wrote :
Could a better cite be found? The desired article could not be located in the cited volume.

Thank you ,
Katy

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 9:29 AM The Cathol ic University of America Libraries , ILL <lib-i ll@cua.edu> wrote:
ILL#: 199086190

Fulfilled by the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) Shared Collections Facility

From the collection of: DCU, The Catholic University of America

Interlibrary Loan , University Libraries
123 Mullen
620 Michigan Ave, NE
Washington , DC 20064
lib-ill@cu a.edu
202-319-5063

Supplying Library 's TN: 173654

1 Article Information:

Location :
Barcode:

Journal Title: Orbis

ISSN: 0030-4379 ; 1783-1660
Article Author : Centre international de dialectolo gie generale : Centre for the Historiography of Linguistics Diem
Article Title: A historical interpretation of Iraqi Arabic aku 'there is'

Journal Vol: 24 Journal Issue:

Journal Month : Journal Year: 1974
Article Pages: 448-453

Please deliver to :
A7U , Interlibrary Loan
American University of Sharjah Library
P.O. Box 26666
Sharjah United Arab Emirates

Email: ill@aus.edu
Odyssey IP: illiad.aus.edu

Delivery Method :
Special Instructions:

Requesting Library's TN : 0

Shared Collections Facility

Washington Research Library Consortium
901 Commerce Drive
Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
Phone: 301 .390 .2000
Fax: 301 .390.2020
Email: requests@wrlc.org

The Catholic University of America

https://mail.google .com/mail/u/1 ?ik=a 73b5d00b8&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A 1648401959551067 415% 7Cmsg-f%3A 16484019595510. .. 1/2

 Domaine semitique-arabe.

A historical interpretation of Iraqi Arabic 'aku

" there is ".

r. One of the features distinguishing the oriental Arabic dialects from

Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic is the way the concept
corresponding to engl. there is, germ. es gibt, fr. il y a is expressed.
Whereas in Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic there exist
two constructions, viz. r. nominal sentences introduced by huniik,
huniilik or fammata "there" and 2. verbal sentenc es with a form of
yugad " is found " as predicate, the oriental Arabic dialects generally
use a nominal sentence introduced by an expression consisting of the
dialectal reflex of one of the two prepositions Ji and bi- meaning " in "
and the possessive pronoun of the 3 sg. masc. Which of the two preposi-
tions is used, depends on the dialect. The dialects spoken in Cairo,
Lebanon, Syria and Anatolia , for instance, use Ji- (Cairo fih, Lebanon
and Syria/i, Mardinfiyu), while the dialects of Yemen and Datinah use
bi- (Yemen beh and buh according to region, Datinah buh), etc.
2. Expressions of the above-mentioned type seem to be common to
most oriental Arabic dialects, with the exception of the dialects spoken
in Iraq (r) and Kuwait (2), which instead use 'aku "there is", negated
miiku (3). miiku is clearly a combination of 'aku and the negative particle
ma; 'aku itself, however, cannot be brought into derivational association

(r) Cf. for the dial ect of Ba ghdad especially D .R. WOODHEAD and Wayne
BEENE, A Dictionary of Iraqi Arabic. Arabic-English, Wa sh in gto n D .C. 1967, 12,
where ample exampl es are given.
(2) Cf. T. M. JOHNSTONE, Eastern Arabian Dialect Studies , L ondon 1967, 146. -
Besides 'aku the koin e equivalent fih is used (JOHNSTONE243), probably due to the
influence of the Egyptian and Syrian dialects.
(3) Another expression which cannot be analyzed as a pr eposition meaning " in "
+ the possessive personal pronoun of the 3 sg. masc. is the P ers ia n hast" there is"
used in Bal).rain and Qatar (JOHNSTONE 155 and 165 resp ec tivel y). - The negative
miimis "there is not", us ed in Bal).rain and Qatar be sides mii hast, which JOHNSTONE
155 derives from *mii min §ayy, I should prefer to consider as an assimilated form
of ma.bis, which is still in us e in Y emenite dialects . Th e expr ess ion ma.mis besides
miiku is mentioned by E. SACHAU, Arabische Volksli eder aus Mesopotamien, Berlin
1889, 33, and B. MEISSNER, N euarabische Geschichten aus dem Iraq, Leipzig 1903,
xvii, also for Iraqi dialects .
 IRAQI ARABIC'AKU " THERE IS " 449

with one of the prepositions Ji and bi- meaning " in " . This being the
case, other explanations of 'aku have been attempted.
According to the Iraqi scholar GALALAL-l:IANAFIAL-BAGDADI (1), the
famous Pere ANASTASE AL-KARMALI declared 'aku to be of Sabean and-
if I understand him correctly - ultimately Greek origin, an opinion to
be discarded immediately as impossible (2). GALALadds that "others"
see in 'aku and miiku a contraction (ib,ti$iir) of yakun "he (it) is" and
mii yakun "he (it) is not" respectively. The same opinion is held by
N. MALAIKA (3) who thinks that 'aku is the result of the development
*miiikun (dialectal reflex of cl. mii yakun) ) *mii'akun ) *ma'aku
) miiku, the negated miiku finally being split into mii and 'aku. Two
decisive arguments, however, speak against this theory: r. The develop-
ment /i /) /' / in *majkun) ma'akun would be unparalleled, and 2. the
same is true of the supposed development *ma'kun (stressed on the last
syllable)) *ma'aku (str essed on the first syllable). MALAIKA'sreference
to cl. lam yaku " he (it) was not ", where yaku stands for the regular
yakun, does not make the development *ma'akun) *ma'aku any more
acceptable, since the highly poetical yaku cannot have been the starting-
point of a dialectal form, quite apart from the fact that yaku and
yakun can be used only in a limited number of constructions, e.g. after
the particle lam restricted to Classical Arabi c. Another idea as to the
origin of 'aku was put forward by T . M. JOHNSTONE(4) who considers
.,
,·
'aku and miiku to be " either ossified verbs or demonstrative particles "(5) .
3. The th eory proposed in the present article is that from the dia-
chronic point of view 'aku pres ents a combination consisting of a deictic
particle ending in k and th e substantive personal pronoun of the 3 sg.
masc. Before we adduce evidence from other Arabic dialects, the validity
of the theory has to be discussed in terms of Iraqi Arabic. When we
interpret 'aku as a combination of a deictic particle and the substantive
pronoun of the 3 sg. masc., we get as pronoun of the 3 sg. masc. the form
*(h)u, while in the dialect of Baghdad the pronoun of the 3 sg. masc .
actually appears as huwwa. At first glance this seems to be a contradic-
tion, but as *(h)u appears also in some other pronouns where no doubt
as to its origin can exist, viz. minu "who" (< *min hu) , sinu "what"
(< *[ayyi]sayin hu) and yiihu "which", this discrepancy is sufficiently
accounted for. minu and sinu also provide parallels in respect to the
fact that the h of *hu was dropped after a consonant, whereas it was

(1) Mu'gam al-alfii;; al-kuwaitiyya, Bagdad 1964, 22.

(2) I have been unabl e to check the original wording of Pere ANASTASE.
(3) Grundzuge der Grammatik des arabisch en Dialektes von Bagdad, Wiesbaden
1963, 57.
(4) Eastern Arabian Dialect Studies 146 footnote I.
(5) The second assumption is, as will be shown, not too far removed from the
explanation put forward in the present article.
45° WERNER DIEM

retained after a vowel in yahu. Consequently there are, as far as the

dialect of Baghdad is concerned, no phonetical or morphological objec-
tions to the analysis of 'aku as *ak+*hii. In the dialect of Kuwait the
problem hii versus huwwa does not exist at all, because in this dialect
the pronoun of the 3 sg. masc. appears as hii.
4. The material which suggested the proposed analysis of 'aku is to be
found in Yemenite dialects spoken in the region of the towns Ta'izz and
Ibb. The substantive personal pronouns in the dialect of Ta'izz are (1) :
sing. plur.
I masc. 'ana
'iJJna
fem. 'ani
2 masc. 'anta 'antum
fem. 'anti 'antin
3 masc. hil hum
fem. hi hin

It is striking that variants of the 3 rd persons exist in connection with

precisely the same element *ak that we had previously abstracted from
Iraqi 'aku:
sing. plur.
3 masc. 'akuwwa 'akunna
fem. 'akiyya 'akinna

In 'akuwwa, 'akiyya and 'akinna the historically older forms *huwwa,

*hiyya and *hinna appear instead of hii, hi and hin. The form 'akunna
instead of the expected *'akum results without doubt from analogy to
the fem. 'akinna. The same process occurred in the 3 plur. masc. perfect
in connection with the suffixed personal pronouns of the 2 sg. and 3 sg.,
e.g.
'ab$aru "they (masc.) saw" +uh" him" -+ 'ab$arunnuh "they (masc.)
saw him", in analogy to
'ab$arin "they (fem.) saw" +uh "him" -+ 'ab$arinnuh "they (fem.)
saw him".
So the form 'akunna does not in fact constitute a problem.
The forms 'akuwwa, 'akiyya, 'akunna, 'akinna have the meaning
" he (it) is there ", " she is there ", " they (masc.) are there ", " they
(fem.) are there". In the first and second persons the concept "to be
there " is expressed by huniik " there " preceded by a substantive
personal pronoun, e.g. 'iJJna huniik "we are there".

(1) The following Yemenite material was collected by the author partly from
Yemenis living in Beirut and partly during an expedition to Yemen financed by
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 1970. Cf. Skizzen jemenitischer Dialekte,
Beirut-Wiesbaden 1973, 104.
 IRAQIARABIC'AKU "THERE IS" 451
Isolated instances of similar forms are attested for other dialects of
the Ta'izz-Ibb-region. LANDBERG(r) cited for the dialect of Giblah near
Ibb the sentence 'aku musanni bi-l-bab "he is waiting there at the
door", and S. D. GOITEIN (2) mentions for the dialect of the Jews of al-
Gadis near Ibb the form ku " he is here ", his example being ku al-
mijtaJ;,taJ;,tal-J;,ugerah" here is the key under the stone ", and hakkiyeh
" there she is ". The latter form apparently also has to be taken into
account.
5. Without entering for the present into the discussion concerning the
etymology of the element *'ak, one may say that the Yemenite forms
have the basic meaning" is (are) there" (3). It is evident that out of the
meaning " is there " the meaning " there is ", characteristic of Iraqi
'aku, can easily have developed. An analogous shift of meaning is attested
for some other languages unrelated to Iraqi Arabic, viz. engl. there is, it.
c'e (ci sono), fr. il ya; the related Classical Arabic and Modern Standard
Arabic furnish the analogous hunak (hunalik, !ammata)-construction
(cf. 1.). Nor are there syntactically any objections. On the basis of the
Yemenite forms 'akuwwa, 'akiyya, 'akunna, 'akinna, which agree with
the subject of the sentence in number and gender, analogous forms
must be postulated for a phase of Iraqi Arabic anterior to that in which
the form 'aku of the 3 sg. masc. was generalized. There are parallels that
speak in favour of such a development. In certain dialects of the Yeme-
nite plateau the interrogative pronoun "what" has the two forms
mahu (sg. masc.) and mahi (sg. fem.), which agree with the subject of the
sentence, whereas in the dialects of the Ta'izz region and the region
" south of Ta'izz the form of the 3 sg. masc. has been generalized as mu
and mau respectively. The same development is shared by Lebanese
and Syrian su "what" (( *ais hu) and Rada' (Yemen), Datinah (4)
and Lahag (Aden) (5) §uh. Further congruence is shown by Iraqi minu
" who ", sinu " what " and yahu " which " (cf. 3.) which also do not
agree in number and gender.
6. There remains the task of determining the exact nature of the
element *'ak contained in Iraqi 'aku and the analogous Yemenite forms.
Yemenite evidence showed that *ak must be a deictic particle meaning

(1) l;la~ramout, Leiden 1901, 319.

(2) The Language of al-Gades . The Main Characteristics of an Arabic Dialect
Spoken in Lower Yemen, Le Museon 73 (1960) 372.
(3) There seems to be an exception : ku mentioned by GOITEIN for the dialect
of al-Gadis in the meaning "is here", if the meaning attributed by GOITEIN to
ku is exact. A certain amount of doubt cannot be excluded, since GOITEIN mentions
only this isolated form .
(4) LANDBERG,Glossaire Dajinois, Leiden 1920-1942, 2092.
(5) I. FODOR, Two Tales in the Dialect of Lahaj, Mitteilungen des Instituts fur
Orientforschung 16 (1970) 43, 14; 45, 16, -9; 61 s.v. sy'.
452 WERNERDIEM

"there". If we tak e into consideration that the dialect of Ta'izz uses

in the first and second persons instead of the ak-expressions the pronoun
hunak " there" preceded by a substantive personal pronoun, we could
be tempted to identify *ak historically with hunak , in other words, we
could assume a development *huniik huwwa ) *hunakuwwa) *'akuwwa
) 'aku. This development, however, is rendered impossible by several
facts.
I. It is improbable that from a supposed *hunakuwwa or *hunaku
an element hun would have been separated. There do exist cases where
particles lose their first half- cf. e.g. 'f:tatta) dial. ta, 'ila ) dial. la - but
there is no reason why in hunaku(wwa) the split should have taken place
just in the middle of a syllable. If a split were to have occurred at all,
we would expect something like *naku. 2. If we regard hunak as the
basic form, the form hakkiyyeh 3 sg. fem. mentioned by GoITEIN is left
unexplained, as hakkiyyeh can hardly have developed from *hunakiyyeh.
3. There is the problem that 'aku has a short a, while hunak has a long
one. Possibly this problem could be solved by assuming that the long a
of hunak was shortened in unstressed pretonic syllable in *hunakuwwa
and that the shortness of the a was retained when the accent shifted to
the first syllable (*'akuwwa ) 'aku). If on the other hand a different
development starting with *hunak hu is assumed, the shortness of the a
in 'aku cannot be explained, since the long stressed a could not have been
shortened.
7. A clue to the origin of 'ak is furnished by a perusal of W. FrscHER's
inventory of particles similar to ak in form and functi on, as used in other
Arabic dialects. The relevant particles, to which as in the case of the
Yemenite forms, substantive and sometimes, due to re-interpretation,
dependent personal pronouns can be attached, are ha and 'a (r). Of the
two particles ha together with 'a (2) is used especially in Maghrebine
dialects, while the dialect of Cairo has only' a. To repeat here the numer-
ous examples compiled by FrscHER would be beyond th e scope of the
present paper. It must suffice to draw attention to the fact that ha and
'a in the greater part of the examples are to be int erpreted in the sense
of " here ". Another particle to be included is Maroccan hak in the
meaning "there" occurring as loan-word in Berber dialects (3).

(1) W. FISCHER, Die demonstrativen Bildungen der neuarabischen Dialekte,

's Gravenhage 1959, 163-171.
(2) To the examples cited by FISCHER the forms 'aha, 'aht, 'ahum (also 'ahuwwa,
'ahiyya, 'ahumma) from th e dialect of Mecca hav e to be added. Cf. G. SCHREIBER,
Der arabische Dialekt von Mekka, Diss . Munster 1971 (mimeogr.), 31, 21.
(3) Cf. FISCHER 163. - From hiik " there" the particl e hiik "take", "here you
have" has to be separated, in which the ending k is to be identified with the
dependent personal pronoun of the 2 sg. masc.
..,.....

IRAQIARABIC'AKU " THERE IS " 453

When we compare the particles ha, 'a and hiik treated by FISCHERand
add to them the element 'ak furnished by the Iraqi and Yemenite
dialects, we obtain the pairs
ha hiik
'a 'ak,

in which the particles hiik and 'ak are augmentations of the correspond-
ing members hii and 'a. The augmenting element k also exists in other
pairs, such as cl. ar.
hunii " here " hunaka " there "
hiir!,ii" this (masc.) " rf,iilika (cf. also dial. hiir!,ak)"that (masc.)",

which shows that k is a derivational element indicating " distance from

here ". The same correlation is valid for the pairs hii - hiik, 'a - 'ak :
hii and 'a point to what is near, and hiik and 'ak to what is distant. The
element hakk of the pronoun hakkiyyeh 3 sg. fem. cited by GOITEIN
for the dialect of al-Gadis near Ibb may be assumed to be an emphatic
form for hak. An analogous case in which VC is converted into VCC
in order to convey the idea of emphasis is dial. mii fissfor ma fi.s" there
is not".
8. From what has been said it follows that in the pairs hii - hiik, 'a -
'ak the unenlarged particles hii and 'a are the historically older ones.
ha and 'a cannot be derived from one another, but are, as H. WEHR (r)
has pointed out, to be considered as originally equivalent affective
interjections primarily used in no other function than to rouse the
attention of the person addressed. In Classical Arabic and other Semitic
languages these particles were grammaticalized in several functions,
apart from the function discussed here, e.g. as elements used in the
vocative, the elative and the verbal derivational system. The effect of
this gramrnaticalization is best demonstrated by the fact that the
personal pronouns and the derivational element k could be added, which
proves that hii and 'a were no longer felt as mere interjections, but had
been integrated into the grammatical system of Arabic. Due to and in
the course of this re-interpretation hii and 'a came, perhaps in analogy
to pairs such as hiir!,ii- hiir!,iik,hunii - hunak (cf. 7.), to indicate what
is near, and hiik and 'ak what is distant.

Munich. Werner DIEM.

(1) Der arabische Elativ, A bhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen

,., Klasse Nr. 7 der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz 1952, 601 ss.