LANGUAGE IN INDIA

The Arabic Origins or Cognates of English and Indo-European
"Case Markings and Word Order":
A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

Zaidan Ali Jassem
Department of English Language and Translation
Qassim University

Abstract

This paper traces the Arabic origins or cognates of English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit ''case endings'' from a radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory perspective. The data consists of case endings for marking the subject, direct and indirect objects, genitive, and so on like –a, -e, -i, –en, -on, -um, -us, and so on.

The results clearly demonstrate that, although they were either greatly simplified or totally lost to be replaced by word order in spoken Arabic and modern European languages, all such endings or morphemes are multifunctional which have true Arabic cognates, with the same or similar forms and functions or meanings, whose differences are all found, however, to be due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change. For example, Latin –a, Greek –e/-a, and Arabic -a are identical cognates which may indicate the feminine nominative; Latin –um derives via Greek –on ' singular neuter nominative', from Arabic –un 'indefinite nominative marker' via lexical shift; Latin, Greek, and Old English –am/–an ' singular masculine accusative' descend directly from Arabic –an 'indefinite accusative and plural marker'; Latin and Greek –i 'singular genitive' comes from Arabic –i 'genitive ending'. Therefore, the results refute the Comparative Method and Family Tree-model's separation of Arabic from English and the so-called Indo-European languages, thus supporting and proving the adequacy of the radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory according to which Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit are dialects of the same language or belong to the same family, lately renamed Eurabian or Urban family, with Arabic being their origin all for sharing the whole cognates for the entire sister endings or variants with those tongues which they usually don't with one another such as Greek –e and -on and Latin –a and –um; Arabic has them all due to its huge phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and lexical capacity, variety, and wealth.

Furthermore, they indicate that there is a radical language from which all human languages stemmed and which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic without which it is impossible to interpret such rich linguistic treasure.

Keywords:Case endings, word order, Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, historical linguistics, radical linguistic (lexical root) theory, language relationships

1. Introduction

In thirty-seven studies so far, Jassem (2012a-f, 2013a-q, 2014a-k, 2015a-c) has demonstrated the inextricably close genetic relationship between Arabic, English, German, French, and the so-called Indo-European languages in general on all phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and semantic or lexical levels, which can all be regarded as dialects of the same language. More precisely, the Arabic origins of their words were successfully traced in twenty two lexical studies in key semantic fields like numerals and religious terms (Jassem 2012a-d, 2013a-q, 2014a-k, 2015a-c); in three morphological studies on inflectional and derivational markers (Jassem 2012f, 2013a-b); in eight grammatical papers like pronouns, verb 'to be', wh-questions (Jassem 2012c-e, 2013l, 2014c, 2014h-i); and in one phonetic study about the English, German, French, Latin, and Greek cognates of Arabic back consonants (Jassem 2013c). Finally, two studies extended the approach to translation studies (Jassem 2014e, 2015b).

The above investigations have been initially based on the lexical root theory (Jassem 2012a-f, 2013a-q, 2014a-k, 2015a-c) and subsequently on its slightly revised and extended version, called radical linguistic theory (Jassem 2014 h-j, 2015a-c), which both derive their name originally from the use of lexical (consonantal) roots or radicals in tracing genetic relationships between words in world languages. The theory first arose as a rejection of the Comparative (Historical Linguistics) Method or Family Tree Model for classifying Arabic as a member of a different language family from English, German, French, and the so-called Indo-European languages in general (Bergs and Brinton 2012; Algeo 2010; Crystal 2010: 302; Yule 2014; Campbell 2004: 190-191; Crowley 1997: 22-25, 110-111; Pyles and Algeo 1993: 61-94). In all the thirty-seven studies above, the intertwined genetic relationship between Arabic and such languages was, on the contrary, firmly demonstrated phonetically, morphologically, grammatically, and semantically or lexically so much so that they can be really considered dialects of the same language, with Arabic being the source or parent language (Jassem (2012a-f, 2013a-q, 2014a-k, 2015a-c). In other words, Arabic, English, German, and French words of all kinds and hues, for example, were shown to be true cognates with similar or identical forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and diverse routes of linguistic change. This entails that all such languages arose from an earlier perfect, sudden Radical Language from which all human languages emanated in the first place, to which they can be traced, and which has survived into different forms in today's languages, with Arabic being the closest descendant. In light of this, moreover, a new language taxonomy was proposed, termed Eurabian or Urban linking European and Arabian languages together (Jassem 2015c: 41).

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Zaidan Ali Jassem
Department of English Language and Translation
Qassim University
P.O.Box 6611
Buraidah, KSA
zajassems@gmail.com

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