পৃষ্ঠা ৪১ থেকে ৫০

পৃষ্ঠা:৪১

Arabic has an extensive vocabulary. No language can compare with it in the wealth of its words

In the huge mass of languages. Arabic is the most extensive. The Da’irat al-Ma’arif of Hyderabad, Deccan, India, has re-printed an old lexicon of Arabic named Jumhurah al-Lughah, which consists of three comprehensive volumes. The introduction has been written by a German scholar, in which he states that Arabic is the most extensive language in the world. It is beyond human power to comprehend its vastness. A book has been published in Egypt called al- Mukhassas which consists of sixteen volumes. There is a detailed discussion in this book on the “philosophy of the Arabic Words.” There are different names for the various characteristics of the horse, camel, sword, honey, human age and of the numerous animals. Arabic is capable of supplying names for all these things to all the languages of the world. Arabic has a different name for every stage of human emotions, e.g., love and passion, jealousy and enmity. distress and pain. The age, colour, height, beauty and ugliness, cultivated or wild growth, all find different names in Arabic. There is a different name in Arabic for all varieties of things like the date, grapes, cow, ox, etc. Farrar writes in his Origin of Languages, p. 85: “In Arabic a work is mentioned on the 500 names of the lion, another on the 200 names of the serpent.” An Eastern author has written a whole book on the words used for honey. He counted 800 without exhausting the subject. The same author maintains that in Arabic there are at least 1,000 words for sword. Others maintain that there are 400 to signify misfortune. Van Hammer counts 5,744 words al relating to the camel (The Science of Language by F. Max Muller, vol. 1. p. 526, published in 1891). This point is further explained by the following example. To cut is an infinitive. The Arabic word for this verb is Qat’. A list of all

পৃষ্ঠা:৪২

those words follows which describes all the various ways in which this action takes place. This illustrates the fact that Arabic is extensively rich in vocabulary.

Qatta                               he cut it out or shaped it any manner.

Qadda                             cut cloth is lengthwise.

Qata                                cut cloth in breadth.

Jadda                              cut into pieces.

Jatha                               cut at the roots.

Jadhdha                          cut swiftly.

Jazza                              cut in pieces.

Adhdha                           cut to cause pain.

Hadhdha                         cut quickly.

Qadhdha                         cut out sides.

Qassa                             cut a knot of a stick.

Jizzatun                          cut it in a good manner.

Jassa                              cut with his mouth.

Jabba                             cut off penis or testicles.

Daqqa                        cut finely that a thing became smal in size or diameter as compared with length.

 Dakka                           cut and smoothen.

Bakka                            cut off head.

Fakka                            to separate by cutting, deducting, cutting to make a gap. 

Shaqqa                        to divede in half by cutting. 

Hadda                          get cut by fall.

Fasl                              severence of claim.

Qadha                         to be executed.

Batta                           to cut limb or hair. 

Qataba                        to collect after cutting.

Sha’b                          to collect before cutting.

Dharib                        to cut into bits.

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৩

Qardh                         cut-scissors the tool to cut.

Jurm                           cut fruit off tree, cut off the

Hasada                      cut crops.

Sarm                          wool of the sheep.

Sarim                         to interrupt or cut a speech. Cut through.

 Cut off friendship. determination to cut.

Ajram                        cut for cvil purpose.

Taqriz                        cut for noble purpose.

Sharh                        cut a work. 

Abza’o                      cut limb or hair.

Sabat                        cut off completely in any place.  

Batak                          tail cut off entirely. Cut off progeny.

Abatir                          cut off severely. Cut off from everything for the sake of God or worship.

Abtar                         cut or lop trees.

Batal                         Azudacut or bite hand in wrath. Cut by teeth.

Adhdha                     cut property amongst a people.

Fadhdha                   Cut out a useful thing. 

Bassa                       cut into enormous pieces. Cut off. Cut to pieces.

Shakka                     cutting in or making hole in it.

 In the same way, to cut slowly, to cut swiftly, to cut in front, to cut from behind, to cut in length, in breadth, etc.-all these modes of action have a word to describe every condition and situation in the process of cutting. There are numerous words for this single action of cutting. Arabic with its vast vocabulary must have given words to other lanaguages.

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৪

There are thousands of words in Arabic where a change in the short vowel gives a different meaning to the word. For example:

Ghamaraho                  abundant water.

Ghimrah                       concealed enmity.

Ghumrah                      ignorant.

Salaam                         greetings.

Silaam                         stone.

Sulaam                        bone.

Kalaam                        speech.

Kilaam                         wound.

Kulaam                        hardness of the earth.

Harra-                          black stoney.

Hirra                            acute thirst.

Hurra                          chaste woman. 

Halam                         to colour the hide.

Hilm                            Kindness.

Hulm                           sexual excitement.                     

Sabt                            Saturday.                

Sibt                             imprint of horse shoe. 

Subt                            sleeping or relaxing.

There are some words which contain two opposite meanings. There is a genuine reason for such words to carry such meanings. For example.Sareem. It is used both for day and night. The reason is that its real meaning is to cut. It is used in this sense because the day cuts the night and the night cuts the day.Al-Saarikh. Means both plaintiff and defendants. The real meaning is to complain. This word is used as both complain against each other.Rijaa’. Is used for both hope and fear. Because in certain cases both are intermixed.Zann. Is used for both doubt and belief. Because in doubtful matters both factors are present.

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৫

There is a whole book in Arabic on this subject. The aforementioned examples have been cited that these aspects of the language might not be ignored.Many years ago Mr. Karamat Husain, a Judge of the Allahabad High Court, India, at the request of the late Khwaja, kamal-ud-Din (founder of the Woking Muslim Mission) made a research and on the basis of this claimed that 15.000 words in English have been borrwed from Arabic. Most of these words are used in English in their original form. Thousands of years ago, the inhabitants of India spoke and understood Arabic. Arabic was disfigured into various forms and gave rise to the hundreds of languages we now find in India. The founder of the Arya Samaj movement, Swami Dayanand, has stated in his book. Satyarth Parkash, that the Kurus and Pandwas discussed confidential matters in Arabic. The words for mountains, rivers, towns, heaven, earth, names of relations, names of posts, exclamations of happiness, bedding and coverings, house, etc., are all in Arabic. The only difference in most cases is that if the words are read from right to left they sound Arabic, and if they are read from left to right they sound Sanskrit. There is no doubt that old lexicons of Sanskrit which are known by the name of Nirukt do give explanation of Sanskrit words. But the scholars of Sanskrit strongly differ about the explanations given in these lexicons. They give strong and contradictory explanations for most of the words. In Arabic every word has a definite philosophy and a chain of words related to it. Before a list of such words is given, I will give an example to show the relation between Arabic and the rest of the languages of the world. The words for mother and father are common to all languages and they are pronounced in more or less the same way. Let us make a study of the words used for mother in different languages.

Arabic                Persian

Sanskrit             Umm.

Mader.               Mata or Matr.

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৬

Greek                               Matter.

Bulgarian                           Mati.

Russin                               Mate.

Polish                              Mater.

German                           Mutter.

Lethonian                         Mote.

Ltalian                              Madre.          

Spanish                          Madre.

Portuguese                    Madre.

French                           Mere.

Danish                           Moder.

Swedish                        Moder.

English                          Mother.

Welsh                           Mam.

Irish                              Mathir.

Icelandich                    Modhir.

Gaelic                         Mathair   

Zend                            Mater.

Anglo-Saxon               Moder. 

Latin                             Mater.

German                        Muotar.

Slavonic                       Mate.

Dutch                           Moeder,

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৭

In Sanskrit mother is called Matr. Orientalists think that its root is Ma, which is the root for the same word in all Indo-European languages. Contrary to this, my opinion is that no language is based upon roots.The real words of a language are its nouns, and by changes in the nouns a language is formed.To search out roots is the work of scholars, and it is evident that there is a difference of opinion amongst the scholars of all languages regarding the roots or derivations for any noun. Every commentator has his own views. The old lexicons of Sanskrit are known as Nighantu, and the commentators on these are called Nirukt Acharya. Mostly they disagree in the explanation or root of a word.Language begets language. Changes in a language occur when nations mix with cach other or when enmity takes place between two nations; then they adopt words of each other’s language after deforming them in shape or meaning. Some words when adopted cannot be pronounced properly because of climatic conditions. The Japanese cannot pronounce the letter “r” properly and in all places replace it with “L”. For example they pronounce Europe as Eulope, France as Flance, and Turkey as Tulky, etc. The Turks cannot pronounce kh and substitute it by h.

It has already been observed that of all the words used to denote mother, the smallest of them is “Umm”. In fact this letter is “m”, which is diffcult to utter and therefore needs a vowel in order to be pronounced. In Arabic every letter has a significance. For example:

Tau’am

Hamma               Dhamma

Tamma                Imam

conjunction of two. collection of goods. get toghter with some one. call and collect every one. one around whom every one collects.

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৮

Not only does every word have a special meaning, but the change of vowel signs affects the meaning of the word.For example: Hamal (with Fathah on h) means a burden which can be carried and which may have to be carried in the womb. Himal (with kasrah on h) means a burden which is difficult to carry and which may have to be carried on the back. Humal (with dhammah on h) means a burden which is very essential to be carried. It is obvious that it is easy for a child to utter the word Umm, and m which conveys the same sense is easy to utter for a child. A similar word is maa’, which means water, and which is considerably easier for a child to say than water. The Sanskrit word matri or mata, which is an altered version of Um and matru, which is the same word as pronounced by the Mahrashtra pandits and which are distorted versions of Umahaat, which is the collective noun of UmIn Arabic singular Um is another version of ma. This is not the only word. In Arabic there are hundreds of words that have been absorbed by Sanskrit in an altered form.It is understandable that it is easier for a child to utter Umm. In fact any word which can be spoken by a slight movement of the lips is easily spoken by a child. Words like father, mother, mata and madar, are words which are comparatively diffcult to be spoken.One of the wonders of the Arabic language is that collective nouns are not formed from singular nouns. Instead, in Arabic singular nouns are derived from collective nouns. Whenever man musthave given names to objects, his mind must have conceived collective things and gender. A child as soon as it opens its eyes in this world forms a conception about the world collectively. But slowly and gradually he comes towards the principle of “thinking things in twos, and after determining the gender for every object he fixes a place for

পৃষ্ঠা:৪৯

every word. One of the interpretations can be given to this verse of the Holy Qur’an, and which fits it very well, that “Adam was taught collective nouns.”(2:31) It means that man has the ability to determine nouns of genders and form and give a name to every object. Man gives names by conceiving an idea about a certain object. No other creature has been gifted with this ability, whether animals or angels.Why is mother called Umm in Arabic ? For this we have to refer to the Arabic lexicons. Any being which nourishes a thing improves it from beginning to end, and is referred to by the word Umm. Those people who have claimed that the root of all the words in different languages for mother is ma, can never prove that the Sanskrit word for mother has the conception or meaning of ma.An Arab calls the mother of an animal in its collective form as Ummaat, and the mothers of human beings as Ummahaat. But this subtle and delicate difference is not observed in Sanskrit. In India a cow is called Go-mata, and the country itself is called Bharat mata. In their mind the word mata has a limited meaning and not the comperhensive meanings contained in the conception of mother.Like the word for mother, there is another word which is a source of language, and that is father, which is pronounced in more of less the same manner in all languages, i.e., English, German, and various European languages, Sanskrit, persian, etc, e.g., father, and the root of all these words is pa, and according to the princples of investigation into languages, the roots for these words should be one. Undoubtedly, there is a root for this word in Sanskrit, i.e., pa. But this root is unable to give the philosophic interpretation of the conception of father. My objection to this root is the same as the one I have for ma being the root of matri. 2 Language is never formed

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by roots but by nouns. It is the job of scholars who follow to dig out the common factors in the family of words and thus determine the roots. But they can never make a new language from roots.However, the philosophical explanation of father is as follows: “He who begets a child, one who exercises paternal care over another, a fatherly protector or provider, the nearest male protector.The Sanskrit word for “one who provides” is not pita but Ganitr. Still, the conception of spirrtual nourishment is not contained in the word at all. It is just as if someone has said that father is derived from feeder, meaning one who provides us with bread. But such statements are frivolous. The word pa does not contain the meaning of giving spiritual sustenance nor does it mean “the nearest male ancestor”. The Arabic word for father is ab, which is a very short one. In fact it is the smallest word in all the languages of the world to express the idea of father. The root of this word is b, and it needs a vowel to precede it so that it becomes easy to speak. In Arabic ab is not the root but the noun. The Sanskrit root for father is pa, and this is a distorted form of ab, because p of Sanskrit changes into b when written in Arabic and the Arya people convert b into p.The Arabic lexicon explains the word ab as one who begets, who is the source of creation, improvement or manifestation. The prophet Muhammad has been called the father of Mu’minun because he is the source of spiritual instruction and development for all the believers.(Extract from The Islamic Review, January, 1957. Contributor, Moulana Abdul Haque Vidyarthi is a Scholar both of Islam and Sanskrit who has translated the vedas in to Vrdu.)

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