Editing Classical Arabic (section)

{{short description|Form of the Arabic language used in Umayyad and Abbasid literary texts}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Classical Arabic
| altname          = Quranic Arabic
| states           = [[Caliphate|Early Islamic Caliphates]]
| era              = *7th–9th centuries AD
*Continued as a liturgical language of [[Islam]]
*Spoken with a [[Modern Standard Arabic|modernized pronunciation]]
| familycolor      = Afro-Asiatic
| fam2             = [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]
| fam3             = [[West Semitic languages|West Semitic]]
| fam4             = [[Central Semitic languages|Central Semitic]]
| fam5             = [[Arabic]]
| ancestor         = [[Old Arabic]]
| isoexception     = historical
| image            = Large Koran.jpg
| imagecaption     = Verses from the [[Quran]] vocalized in a reading tradition considered normative Classical Arabic, written in the [[cursive]] [[Arabic]].
| notice           = IPA
| glotto           = none
| nativename       = {{lang|ar|العربية الفصحى}}<br/>{{Transliteration|ar|ALA|al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā}}
| ethnicity        = [[Arabs]]
| pronunciation    = {{IPA|/al ʕaraˈbijja lˈfusˤħaː/}}
| script           = [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic abjad]]
| region           = [[Muslim World]]
}}

'''Classical Arabic''' or '''Quranic Arabic''' ({{langx|ar|links=no|العربية الفصحى|al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā|the most eloquent Arabic}}) is the standardized literary form of [[Arabic]] used from the 7th century and throughout the [[Middle Ages]], most notably in [[Umayyad Caliphate|Umayyad]] and [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid]] literary texts such as poetry, elevated prose and oratory, and is also the [[liturgical language]] of [[Islam]], "Quranic" referring to the [[Quran]]. Classical Arabic is, furthermore, the [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]] of the Arabic language on which [[Modern Standard Arabic]] is based.

Several written grammars of Classical Arabic were published with the exegesis of Arabic grammar being at times based on the existing texts and the works of previous texts, in addition to various early sources considered to be of most venerated genesis of Arabic.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Al-Jallad |first=Ahmad |date=2011-05-30 |title=Polygenesis in the Arabic Dialects |url=http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-arabic-language-and-linguistics/polygenesis-in-the-arabic-dialects-EALL_SIM_000030?s.num=1&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-arabic-language-and-linguistics&s.q=neo-arabic |journal=Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics |language=en}}</ref> The primary focus of such works was to facilitate different linguistic aspects.

[[Modern Standard Arabic]] is its direct descendant used today throughout the [[Arab world]] in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some radio and television broadcasts and non-entertainment content.{{sfn|Bin-Muqbil|2006|p=14}} The [[lexis (linguistics)|lexis]] and [[stylistics (linguistics)|stylistics]] of Modern Standard Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic uses a subset of the syntactic structures available in Classical Arabic, but the [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] and [[syntax]] have remained basically unchanged.{{sfn|Bin-Muqbil|2006|p=15}} In the Arab world little distinction is made between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and both are normally called {{Transliteration|ar|al-fuṣḥā}} ({{lang|ar|الفصحى}}) in Arabic, meaning 'the most eloquent'.

Classical Arabic is considered a [[Conservative and innovative language|conservative language]] among Semitic languages, it preserved the complete [[Proto-Semitic language|Proto-Semitic]] three grammatical cases and [[ʾIʿrab|declension (ʾIʿrab)]], and it was used in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic since it preserves as contrastive 28 out of the evident 29 consonantal phonemes.<ref name="Versteegh19972">{{cite book |last=Versteegh |first=Cornelis Henricus Maria "Kees" |author-link=Kees Versteegh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2tghviSsrF8C |title=The Arabic Language |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-231-11152-2 |page=13}}</ref>