Changes in the Phonological Perception of Classical Arabic

There are two intimately related dictionaries of Arabic, Kitāb al-ʿayn by al-Ḫalīl (d. 175/793) and Ǧamharat al-luġa by Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933). In addition, the two books also include treatises on the phonologies of Arabic of their day. This paper will not dwell on the lexicographical aspects, but it will discuss the phonological treatises that both authors pre-pended to their dictionaries, in order to point out some of the similarities and differences between the two. Each author offered his own system of the basic divisions of the vocal tract and the classification of the sounds of Arabic into subgroups that shared phonetic properties. The authors offer sufficient detail to provide a reasonable conjecture on how Arabic was pronounced, and what some of the divergences were among speakers from different linguistic periods. In the process one can observe what was preserved of the eighth century tradition, its theoretical framework, its terminological apparatus, and what had been changed, or so perceived, by Ibn Durayd.