Fusha: Research into its Categorization and Features

Volume 1|Issue 1| Summer 2012 |Articles

Abstract

Offering a comparative linguistic and historical archeology of the origins of Arabic as a Semitic language, this article investigates the main theories addressing the historical and linguistic formation of Arabic. The study traces its historical origins and determines how the Arabic language should be categorized within the Semitic family. It then explores the key features that define its Semitic origin on the phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels, and discusses the features that distinguish it from the other Semitic languages, or that have been expanded in Arabic to become distinguishing features, thereby giving it its uniqueness and own identity.

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Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Chair of Arabic at the American University of Beirut, former Visiting Professor at Cambridge and Chicago Universities, and resident professor at Georgetown. He specializes in language and linguistics and served as editor of Al-Abhath, a journal published by the Faculty of Arts at AUB for more than ten years, where he also headed the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES), and served as Vice-Dean for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for seven years.

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