The Arabic Language

by Kees Versteegh

Overview

This is the third edition, fully revised and updated, of this indispensable introduction to Arabic linguistics.

New for this edition:
• Presents new perspectives on the history of Arabic from the period before Islam in two completely revised chapters reporting on the ground-breaking discoveries in this field
• Covers recent developments in language use in the media after the Arab Spring
• Examines the influence of social media on language use and language attitudes concerning Arabic, and the use of the language in political and religious discourse
• Contains text samples of Standard Arabic in Arabic script and English translation as well as dialect texts in the major Arabic dialects
• Engages with the huge amount of new publications on Arabic linguistics, including several handbooks

Concentrating on the difference between the two types of Arabic – the classical standard language and the dialects – Kees Versteegh charts the history and development of the Arabic language from its earliest beginnings to the modern age. The reader is given a solid grounding in the structure of the language, its historical context and its use in various literary and non-literary genres, as well as an understanding of the role of Arabic as a cultural, religious and political world language.

Key features:
• Covers all aspects of the history of Arabic, the Arabic linguistic tradition, Arabic dialects, sociolinguistics and Arabic as a world language
• Makes links between linguistic history and cultural history
• Emphasises the role of contacts between Arabic and other languages

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399542708
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2026
Pages:	520
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Kees Versteegh (1947) is Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Islam at the University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands). He studied Classical languages and Semitic languages and obtained his Ph.D. with a dissertation Greek elements in Arabic linguistic thinking (Brill, Leiden, 1977). From 1973 till 2010 he taught Arabic at the University of Nijmegen; in between, he served from 1987 to 1989 as director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo. His research focuses on historical linguistics, the history of linguistics and processes of language change and language contact, dealing with topics such as the beginnings of the Arabic grammatical tradition, early Qur'anic commentaries and the emergence of Arabic pidgins and creoles.

His books include The Arabic language (Edinburgh UniversityPress, Edinburgh, 1997, revised edition 2014). The Arabic linguistic tradition (Routledge, London, 1997), Arabic grammar and Qurʾānic exegesis in early Islam (Brill, Leiden, 1993), and Pidginization and creolization: The case of Arabic (Amsterdam, Benjamins,1984). He was co-editor of the three-volume Handbuch für die Geschichte der Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (de Gruyter, Berlin, 2000-2006), served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics (five volumes, Brill, Leiden, 2006-2009), and with Jan Hoogland and Manfred Woidich, edited the Dutch-Arabic and Arabic-Dutch dictionary (2 volumes, Bulaq, Amsterdam, 2003).

Table of Contents

Preface
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the Third Edition
List of Figures, Maps, Tables
Note on Transcription and Glossing

1. The Study of Arabic
2. Arabic as a Semitic Language
3. Arabs and Arabic: The Epigraphic Record
4. The language of the Arabian Tribes
5. The Emergence of New Arabic
6. The Development of Classical Arabic
7. The Structure of Arabic
8. The Arabic Linguistic Tradition
9. Middle Arabic
10. The Study of the Arabic Dialects
11. The Dialects of Arabic
12. The Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic
13. Diglossia: Language Variation and Code-mixing
14. Bilingualism: Language Choice and Code-switching
15. Arabic as a Minority Language
16. Arabic Pidgins and Creoles
17. Arabic as a World Language

Bibliography
List of Abbreviations
Index

Editorial Reviews

This absorbing work brings together for the first time the results of an ever-expanding body of research, and can be recommended immediately and enthusiastically as a reliable introduction to the extensive literature on all aspects of the Arabic language, its origins, history, structure, dialectology and distribution, not forgetting the cultural, religious and political dimensions. In short, it is an indispensable survey of all the major topics in the field."

M. G. Carter

This is an important book, impeccably documented, with an up-to-date bibliography critically viewed in the ‘further readings’ at the end of each chapter, with a useful index and especially with exciting points of view, the outcome of the author’s long-standing interest in the Arabic language and its various aspects.

Nadia Anghelescu

This is a very useful handbook, both for general linguists interested in various aspects of the history and present state of Arabic and for Arabists and/or Semiticists who wish to update their bibliographical knowledge of fields within Arabic linguistics in which they may not be specialists.

Lutz Edzard

Kees Versteegh is internationally renowned for his erudition as a historian of the development of Arabic grammatical thought. In this new and welcome handbook he casts his net wider and gives us an outline account of the historical development of the Arabic language from its earliest beginnings ... Each of Versteegh’s fourteen chapters provides not merely a good general introduction to its subject, but an excellent jumping-off point for further study ... He writes with a transparent mission to explain for the benefit of the specialist and non-specialist alike, and the result is an excellent introduction to the subject.

Clive Holes

An up-to-date textbook in English as an introduction to the history of Arabic has been a desideratum for a long time.... The author is to be congratulated on giving us a work that should become the standard handbook for years to come.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

This is a very useful handbook, both for general linguists interested in various aspects of the history and present state of Arabic and for Arabists and/or Semiticists who wish to update their bibliographical knowledge of fields within Arabic linguistics in which they may not be specialists.

Die Welt des Islams - Lutz Edward

This is a very useful handbook, both for general linguists interested in various aspects of the history and present state of Arabic and for Arabists and/or Semiticists who wish to update their bibliographical knowledge of fields within Arabic linguistics in which they may not be specialists.

— Lutz Edward

Die Welt des Islams