Drawing on the recent discussions of Middle Arabic and mixed Arabic, this book offers a comprehensive survey of the various fields of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Arabic texts as well as the matters of mixed language and diglossia.

In recent scholarship, the connection between Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic is studied in a more systematic way. The idea of studying these two varieties in one theoretical frame is quite new, and was initiated at the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic (AIMA). At these conferences, the members of AIMA discuss the latest insights into the definition, terminology, and research methods of Middle and Mixed Arabic. Results of various discussions in this field are to be found in the present book, which contains articles describing and analysing the linguistic features of Muslim, Jewish and Christian Arabic texts (folklore, religious and linguistic literature) as well as the matters of mixed language and diglossia. Contributors include: Berend Jan Dikken, Lutz Edzard, Jacques Grand’Henry, Bruno Halflants, Benjamin Hary, Rachel Hasson Kenat, Johannes den Heijer, Amr Helmy Ibrahim, Paolo La Spisa, Jérôme Lentin, Gunvor Mejdell, Arie Schippers, Yosef Tobi, Kees de Vreugd, Manfred Woidich, and Otto Zwartjes.

Le present volume regroupe 13 des communications presentees au IVe colloque international de l'AIMA (Association internationale pour l'etude du moyen arabe et des varietes mixtes de l'arabe / The International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic), tenu du 12 au 15 Octobre 2013 a Emory University, Atlanta (Georgie), organise par Benjamin Hary. Il avait pour theme Le role du moyen arabe et de l'arabe mixte dans la standardisation de l'arabe moderne (usage reel ecrit et parle) / The Role of Middle/Mixed Arabic in the Standardization of Modern Arabic in its Actual Written/Spoken Use. Depuis sa fondation, l'AIMA s'attache a associer intimement l'etude du Moyen Arabe (Middle Arabic) a celle de l'arabe mixte ou melange (Mixed Arabic). Nouvelle etape dans la poursuite de ce projet, ce volume comprend, outre une mise a jour bibliographique de plus de 600 references pour l'ensemble du domaine, 5 contributions concernant le Moyen Arabe au sens classique (variete mixte ecrite, essentiellement produite depuis la periode medievale jusqu'a la periode precontemporaine) et 7 concernant l'arabe mixte/melange (variete ecrite ou orale, periode contemporaine). Une treizieme contribution concerne l'ensemble du spectre chronologique.

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War. This volume takes its starting point in the non-Arabic and non-Muslim communities, tracing their linguistic and literary practices as part of a number of interlinked processes, including that of religious modernization, of new types of communal identity politics and of socio-political engagement with the emerging nation states and their accompanying nationalisms. These twentieth-century developments are firmly rooted in literary and linguistic practices of the Ottoman period, but take new turns under influence of colonization and decolonization, showing the versatility and resilience as much as the vulnerability of these linguistic and religious minorities in the region. Contributors are Tijmen C. Baarda, Leyla Dakhli, Sasha R. Goldstein-Sabbah, Liora R. Halperin, Robert Isaf, Michiel Leezenberg, Merav Mack, Heleen Murre-van den Berg, Konstantinos Papastathis, Franck Salameh, Cyrus Schayegh, Emmanuel Szurek, Peter Wien.

An introductory guide for students of Arabic language, Arabic historical linguistics and Arabic sociolinguistics.

This is a thoroughly revised and expanded version of the first edition of the Arabic version of Dimitrie Cantemir’s The Divan or the Sage’s Dispute with the World (Ṣalāḥ al-ḥakīm wa-fasād al-ʿālam al-ḏamīm) (Iaşi, 1698), his first printed book, the earliest ethical treatise in Romanian literature and a testimony to his wide knowledge, reading, and proficiency in foreign languages. Completed in 1705 by Athanasius III Dabbās, Patriarch of the Antiochian Church (1684-1694, 1720-1724), the Arabic text is accompanied by the first translation into a modern language, English. Book III contains Cantemir’s version of the Latin work Stimuli virtutum, fraena peccatorum (Amsterdam, 1682) by the Unitarian Andzrej Wiszowaty (Andreas Wissovatius) of Raków (Poland), a chief representative of the Polish Brethren. Thus, in the space of twenty-three years Central-European Protestant ideas reached the Arab Christians of Ottoman Syria, by way of Greek and Arabic.