Two Other Ways to Refer to the Arabic Language

يَقْطين

root: ق-ط-ن / noun / definition: pumpkin

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Somehow, and I really don’t know how, I managed to submit my PhD work earlier today despite it not being due until mid next week. I really thought I’d be last-minuting it on Wednesday until the midnight clock struck and I’d turn into a pumpkin… or however that story goes.

I’m grateful for my Friday meet-up in a café that’s become all too familiar which rendered the rest of the day unproductive, because it clearly motivated me to get things done this weekend. (Thanks for the coffee.)

So now what do I do with this burden of freedom? My mind was not prepared to be so free just yet, and I’ve been feeling a strange guilt for relaxing since I clicked “submit”.

But here we are. And we’re looking at two other ways to refer to the Arabic language in Arabic.

So, of course we know that the Arabic language is اللُّغة العَرَبيّة—but the dictionary gives us two other names:

لُغَة الضّاد

This construct (إضافة) phrase is a well-known way to refer to Arabic, meaning “the language of ḍād”. It refers to the fact that the letter ض is unique to the language.

لُغَة مُضَرَ

So this one was new for me when I came across it in the dictionary some months back. مُضَر (Mudar) refers to a group of Arab tribes in Hejaz, Saudi Arabia. And, obviously, Arabic is their language.

Note that لغة مضر is also a construct phrase, but مضرَ ends in a fatha here as it is a diptote (ممنوع من الصرف). (We looked at the rules for diptotes here, but perhaps we need a separate post?)

I’m sure there must be some other ways to refer to the Arabic language. Do you know any?

!في أمان الله

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