Date Last Updated: 10-Aug-2004

Tracing the history of the Arabic language will lead us to Ancient Egypt. Ibn Hazm, the medieval Arabic scholar of Crdoba (died 1064), recognized that Aramaic/Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic were kindred dialects, derived from the Mudar, the dialect in which the Koran had been disclosed.

The original home of Arabicthe Arabic of the Koran came from the northwestern region of the Arabian Peninsula. These three kindred dialects (Aramaic/Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic) originated from the Moab region. Diodorus, Book I, [28, 1-4], tells of an Egyptian colony at present-day Moab.

. . . that the nation of the Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as colonies by certain emigrants from their country [Egypt]; and this is the reason why it is a long-established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children, the custom having been brought over from Egypt.

It is therefore a logical step to consider the role of the Ancient Egypt language, as it relates to the later formulated Arabic language.

To decipher the Ancient Egyptian language and its grammar and syntax, modern-day Egyptologists studied the Arabic language. They assumed that Arabic, being an offshoot of the Ancient Egyptian language, would share much of the same grammar/syntax and vocabulary. It was generally the right assumption and thus Egyptologists were able to address the subject of the Ancient Egyptian grammar and syntax.

The Ancient Egyptian-controlled Moabi region is regarded as the home of the Mudar language, the forerunner of Arabic. The name Mudar is an abbreviated form of the Ancient Egyptian term, Medu-Neter, meaning the words/language of angels/gods. It is no accident that Moslems say that Arabic is the language of angels, in imitation of the Ancient Egyptian Medu Neter. The people of this Ancient Egyptian colony (Moabi) spoke and wrote the Egyptian language. Scripts found in the Moabi region look exactly like the Ancient Egyptian demotic style of writing.

The Egyptians were the only people in the Moabi region who had an available writing surface (papyri), and its associated writing tools of pens and inks. When Ancient Egypt lost power in Asia, there was no one to maintain a literate Mudar language, and as a result no more than a handful of written texts were found, because writing was/is not part of the nomadic lifea fact that was also affirmed by Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddimah [chapter 5, sections 20-22].

The rise and unexpected sweeping success of the Islamic forces, in the 7th century CE, prompted the need to write the Koran. The new Moslem Arabs came up with a haphazard system of writing, which is very cumbersome. It took a few centuries to keep on fixing its flaws, and in the process, made it even more difficult. It took a couple of centuries after Mohammeds disclosure of the Koran for an Arabic script to have some form. The end result was an Arabic scriptthat looks basically like the Ancient Egyptian non-pictorial style of writing, some variation in sound of vocabulary (because of the phenomena of sound shift), as well as the incorporation of some local Arabic vocabulary.

The Ancient Egyptian demotic writing, such as depicted on the Rosetta stone, resembles very much the Mudarthe forerunner of present-day Arabic writing. The Arabic script survived and continues to survive only because it is the only permitted language of the Koran and prayers for the Moslems. The fate of Arabic is connected to the fate of Islam.

The (Koranic) Arabic language tried to look different from its Ancient Egyptian (Semitic) source, by re-arranging the order of the abgd alphabet to a, b, t, th, etc, which caused them more problems. Other Semitic languages like Hebrew maintained the same order of abgd alphabet.

Despite the Islamization of Egypt and making Arabic its official and only language, the spoken Ancient Egyptian language didnt die. The so-called colloquial Arabic in Egypt is practically the Ancient Egyptian language with some intrusive (Koranic) Arabic dialect vocabulary. The spoken language in Egypt has its own peculiar ancient vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. To call the spoken Egyptian language colloquial or vulgar Arabic is a misrepresentation of the history and content of the languages of the region where Egypt was a prominent literate country that has fallen prey to the illiterate nomadic Islamic Arabs since 639 CE.

Moustafa Gadalla

For more information about the role of the Ancient Egypt language as the mother of all Semitic languages, as well as all other languages/dialects in the Mediterranean Basin and beyond, read:

Egyptian Romany: The Essence of Hispania by Moustafa Gadalla 272 pages, 5.5″ x 8.5″ List Price: $16.50 USD (paperback) $ 10.95 USD (eBook)