The Look of Language

Authors

  • Bernard O'Kane

Abstract

The status of Arabic as the language in which the Quran, the word of God, was revealed, privileged it in Islamic lands. Even in non-Arabic speaking areas it remained for many centuries the only language that appeared on works of art and architecture in the Muslim world, from Andalusia to India. When and how did this begin to change? In parts of the early Islamic Empire Arabic almost completely supplanted local languages such as Aramaic, Egyptian and Berber. The major exception was Iran, where the older language of the Sasanians, Pahlavi or Middle Persian, was replaced by what is called New Persian, a language of which forty percent now consisted of loan words from Arabic, and which was written in the Arabic alphabet.

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Published

2014-05-22

Issue

Section

Articles