Endless things about Arabic, Pt. 1

[muckefuck]

Totally typical of me. mollpeartree writes an excellent summary of the origins of jihad and I bog her down in a discussion of Arabic plurals. I promised her some research on the subject and I present it here in order to provide warning to all that--even more than Latin plurals--they are definitely Not To Be Trifled With.

The first thing I learned paging through the Hans Wehr dictionary of MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) is that the OED is not to be trusted on the subject. This shouldn't be too surprising, since if you're trying to learn how to make scrapple, you don't pull Bruce Cost's Asian ingredients off the shelf. Now for the two words in question:

1. Hadith or, in stricter transliteration, ħadi:th. From the verbal root ħadatha "to happen" (perhaps by means of the derived stem ħaddatha "tell, relate"). "Chat", "small talk", "gossip", "report", and "Prophetic tradition" are some of the many glosses Wehr provides. This certainly makes it sound like it could be a "mass-noun" (with no plural) or a "count-noun" (which takes a plural). Neither of the plurals he lists, aħa:di:th or ħidtha:n, corresponds to that given in the perfidious OED ("hadithat"), but that's not to say that this "sound plural" [vide infra] isn't in use by someone, somewhere, in some context. However, the first of Wehr's forms, aħa:di:th, is found in some of mollpeartree's sources.
   
   My recommendation would be to use hadith to mean an individual tradition concering the Prophet (each of which is proceeded by an elabourate genealogy establishing legitimacy--"I heard this from so-and-so, who heard it from so-and-so...blah blah blah..who heard it from the daughter of the Prophet, on him be peace!"--and take the form of a short narrative creating a context for an utterance of Muhammad's.) It might be wisest to avoid the plural, e.g. "those ahadith concerning remarriage", in favour of the collective noun Hadith (a proper noun, just like "Talmud" or "Tripitaka"), e.g. "the part of the Hadith concerning remarriage".



2. Sura (IST su:rah). From suwwara "to enclose" (cf. su:r "enclosure, wall", pl. aswa:r). The "sound plural" of this would be su:rat, but what makes Arabic noun morphology so daunting is its love of so-called "broken plurals", which retain the same consonants but rearrange the vowels. How "irregular" these are is a matter of debate, because there are definite patterns concerning what kinds of singulars are paired with which types of plurals, but let it be said that whatever regularity there is to the system is still highly complex and far from transparent to a novice. In any case, Wehr gives the broken plural suwar.
   
   However, the OED helpfully suggests that the word is not a direct borrowing from the Arabic but entred English from French and is, thus, naturalised enough to take a regular English plural, i.e. suras. Why mess with simplicity itself?

Comments

I thought it meat tale

[kayiwa.livejournal.com]

Granted I have no formal training in Arabic, I always understood Hadith to mean a tale. I had no idea it always had to relate to Mohammed p.b.u.h

Re: I thought it meat tale

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It depends on which language it's been used in. In Arabic (and possibly some languages that have borrowed from it, like Swahili or Persian), it has a range of meanings, one of which is "tale". In English, it only appears as a technical term in Islamic studies, wherein it has the specialised sense that I've given.

Another example of this phenomenon of specialisation is ţari:qa. In Arabic, it has a whole range of meanings, including "manner" and "way". However, in English tariq(a) has the specialised sense of "a Sufi brotherhood". Or Turkish dönme, which means "convert" (literally, "turning, one who has turned") but in English refers specifically to a particular sect of followers of the 17th-century Jewish mystic Shabbatai Zevi who converted to Islam rather than face execution or go into hiding. Actually, I could multiply examples almost at will.

Re: I thought it meat tale

[kayiwa.livejournal.com]

I am counting this is productive non-billable time.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You flatter me!

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

It might be wisest to avoid the plural, e.g. "those ahadith concerning remarriage", in favour of the collective noun Hadith (a proper noun, just like "Talmud" or "Tripitaka"), e.g. "the part of the Hadith concerning remarriage".

I'd prefer to stick to "ahadith," since using a collective noun implies (strongly) that there is one body of ahadith upon which the general scholarship agrees, like the Talmud. As mollpeartree discovered to her cost, there are several, not entirely compatible, Hadiths out there, whose individual ahadith contradict those found in other Hadiths with abandon.

Re:

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

So do you prefer "Scriptures" to "Bible", since not all Bibles consist of the same set of books?

there are several, not entirely compatible, Hadiths out there, whose individual ahadith contradict those found in other Hadiths with abandon.

You're just trying to bait me, aren't you?

Re:

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

So do you prefer "Scriptures" to "Bible", since not all Bibles consist of the same set of books?

Nope. "The Bible" is the Protestant Bible. "The Bible with the Apocrypha" is the Catholic Bible. This is because I am a Protestant, and the definition of "Bible" is a pretty key part of my religion.

Also, I consider "scripture" to be a generic word meaning "holy text"; the Koran is a scripture, but not Scripture. (The capital makes it holy to me.)

On the specific topic, I will have to let mollpeartree tell me if the various Hadiths overlap as much as the various Bibles.

You're just trying to bait me, aren't you?

I'm not just trying to bait you.

Re:

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

As if I know! Apparently Muslims of any stripe always mean their Hadith when they refer to the Hadith, which is why it took me forever to pick on the fact that there is not a single, universally-recognized corpus.

Re:

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you need to pick your fav and refer to all others as "The Hadith with the Apocrypha."

Re:

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"The Hadith: Reloaded"