The importance of Semitic languages ​​in explaining some controversial grammatical issues in the Arabic language

Abstract

In our Arabic grammar, there are a large number of grammatical issues that have been the subject of disagreement and debate, for decades, between two ancient schools: the Basra school and the Kufic school. Some of our ancient scholars have collected these controversial issues in independent works, perhaps the most famous of which is Ibn al-Anbari’s book entitled (Al-Insaaf On matters of disagreement between the Basrans and the Kufans).

These contentious issues remain unresolved to this day. However, they were starting their study of these issues from within the Arabic language, and their knowledge of the Semitic languages, the sisters of the Arabic language, did not enable them to compare these languages. Which made them go around in a vicious circle without reaching a solution

This prompted the German orientalist Bergstrasser to say: There is agreement among contemporary linguists that most of the errors of ancient Arab grammarians and linguists arose through their ignorance of the Semitic languages.

In our research, we tried to study some of the controversial issues that arose between the scholars of the Basra and Kufic schools, trying to study them in the light of the Semitic languages.