tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post6608884323984795037..comments2024-03-23T01:31:13.502+01:00Comments on Jabal al-Lughat: Ibn Khaldun: Arabic dialects are independent languagesLameen Souag الأمين سواقhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-82513757629405301982015-04-03T05:09:31.636+02:002015-04-03T05:09:31.636+02:00I think some of you are being very unkind to Ibn K...I think some of you are being very unkind to Ibn Khaldun. In his day, as indeed in our own, any talk of "the Arabs" needs to be interpreted in context. Words fall from the lips of my Algerian friend which I would never dare utter. "Les Arabes, quel désastre!" is one of the printable ones. But virtually in the same breath, he can say "Je suis arabe, et fier de l'être."<br /><br />I too have harsh things to say about the English, to the point of being considered "anglophobe", but nonetheless I carry a British passport.<br /><br />Picking out the exact meaning(s) of "Arab" in Khaldun's writing is no doubt of academic interest for people who are academically interested in such things, but you can be sure there's enough rivalry and rancor there, without us dragging it into the arena of modern-day intra-Arab or Arab-European disagreement.petrenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-85691422976955898292015-03-21T18:41:16.085+01:002015-03-21T18:41:16.085+01:00I got giddy when you mentioned the relationship to...I got giddy when you mentioned the relationship to Dune.<br /><br />I wish there were more serious work looking at Dune for its social and political theory, as well as its relevance to issues today, whether socio-cultural/economic/political.Jared Krausshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17518535016571165559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-89396575618821537542015-03-19T09:46:58.983+01:002015-03-19T09:46:58.983+01:00Moroccan: You're assuming that Ibn Khaldun sha...Moroccan: You're assuming that Ibn Khaldun shared the simplistic view that civilization is in every way the best state for man and barbarism the worst. In reality, in the same section where he explains that Arabs ruin civilization when they conquer it, he explicitly says that "<a href="http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter2/Ch_2_04.htm" rel="nofollow">Bedouins are closer to being good than sedentary people</a>", and that this is because they are less civilized and lead harder lives. Civilisation, in Ibn Khaldun's view, is necessary but naturally tends to spoil people, accustoming them to luxury and dissipation.<br /><br />You're also assuming that Ibn Khaldun defined Arabness in terms of language, as we do now. In reality, for Ibn Khaldun as for other medieval authors, the Yemenis were not only Arab but the original Arabs (al-arab al-aribah) and the northern Arabs who spoke what we think of as Classical Arabic were merely Arabised tribes (musta'ribah).Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-55833803594112136612015-03-18T17:14:26.670+01:002015-03-18T17:14:26.670+01:00I don't think Ibn Khaldun claimed that he was ...I don't think Ibn Khaldun claimed that he was Arab, nor was he proud thereof. I think he said that he was Yemeni / Hadrami from Hadramawt. Yemenis are actually non-Arab Semitic people, just like Hebrews or Syrians are non-Arab Semitic peoples. Maybe Ibn Khaldun meant to make a difference between Yemenis and real Arabs of Arabia. Ibn Khaldun bashed and panned the Arabs with harshest possible words. He said "Arabs are savages and are far from civilization and whenever they conquer a nation it quickly turns into ruins". <br /><br />I don't think this is a person who is proud to be an Arab at all. Most likely he meant he is of Yemeni origin. Today the original languages of Yemen, Hadramaut and Oman like Mehri language, Harsusi language and Jebbali language are still alive and spoken. Maybe one of them was the original language of Ibn Khaldun's ancestors.Moroccannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-20123451507290418982015-03-14T23:56:35.247+01:002015-03-14T23:56:35.247+01:00Paul: The section I quote is online at http://www....Paul: The section I quote is online at http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter6/Ch_6_47.htm , translated slightly differently of course.<br /><br />Peter: I'll keep an eye out for that - sounds interesting.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-91863660628408291102015-03-14T22:51:42.277+01:002015-03-14T22:51:42.277+01:00Wolfhart Heinrichs discusses some of these issues ...Wolfhart Heinrichs discusses some of these issues in a short paper entitled “Ibn Khaldūn as a Historical Linguist with an excursus on the question of ancient gāf”, in Language and Nature - papers presented to John Huehnergard on the occasion of his 60th Birthday, pp. 137-149.Peternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-73766549069234632522015-03-14T21:46:30.258+01:002015-03-14T21:46:30.258+01:00The section you quote doesn't seem to appear i...The section you quote doesn't seem to appear in my print edition as translated by Rosenthal and edited/abridged by Dawood (1967). This edition is online at http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/ <br /><br />The chapter "Cities, Forms of Sedentary Civilization" has a short section (#22) titled "The dialects of the urban population" that touches on language issues, as do a few sections, beginning with #42, in the chapter titled "The Various Kinds of Sciences."Paul Ogdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10506794128294501289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-85946956988799908422015-03-14T19:31:59.532+01:002015-03-14T19:31:59.532+01:00Ibn Khaldun's influence extends astonishingly ...Ibn Khaldun's influence extends astonishingly far - for one thing, the usual two-stage model of North African Arabic dialectology is basically Marçais's interpretation of Ibn Khaldun. Gellner is certainly one of his most astute modern readers, and unfortunately seems as isolated among his contemporaries as Ibn Khaldun was among his own.<br /><br />Ibn Khaldun's atttitude to the Arabs was a little more complicated than that. In his autobiography he proudly claims Arab ancestry for himself - but elsewhere he tells us that it's a meaningless boast for an urbanite (which he certainly was) to claim tribal ancestry, because such a claim only means anything in the context of a functioning nomadic society. In effect, urbanity destroys ethnicity. As for the camel nomads whom he sees as the truest Arabs, he condemns their violence and mismanagement in one breath and praises their honesty and valour in the next. The townsmen are unlikely to become bandits, true, but only because they haven't got the guts - they're used to letting the government do that job. It's not a million miles from the social-ethical landscape of <i>Dune</i>, actually.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-23052163130080536522015-03-13T22:48:30.371+01:002015-03-13T22:48:30.371+01:00Highly admired by me, too.
As for bedouins and ba...Highly admired by me, too.<br /><br />As for bedouins and bandits, my Algerian boyfriend would not be keen to be called a "bandit", but seems happy with "corsaire/pirate" (at least for his ancestors). "Bédouin" is a term he reserves for Saudis and the like.<br /><br />We're all deeply enmired in prejudice, as no doubt Battuta was too.<br /><br />petrenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-27058975441907547032015-03-13T18:53:10.169+01:002015-03-13T18:53:10.169+01:00Ibn Khaldun is highly admired by many contemporary...Ibn Khaldun is highly admired by many contemporary and recent social theorists, notably Ernest Gellner.<br /><br />In Gibb's translation of Ibn Battuta, it seems that "Arab" = "Bedouin" = "bandit". I don't know what Battuta actually wrote.<br /><br />Battuta may have been a Berber, but as I remember, he didn't think of Arabs as the collective group of everyone who spoke Arabic, but defined people by their city.John Emersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-12962684800402180222015-03-10T01:31:38.063+01:002015-03-10T01:31:38.063+01:00Intriguing stuff, and what a smart guy. Imagine if...Intriguing stuff, and what a smart guy. Imagine if, way back then, Maghrebi, Andalusi, Mashreqi had acquired real status as languages the way French, Italian, Spanish did. Hmmm...petrenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-55056625961291206142015-03-09T00:27:13.458+01:002015-03-09T00:27:13.458+01:00Fascinating. :-)Fascinating. :-)David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.com