The Arabic Cognates or Origins of Plural Markers in World Languages: A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

Abstract

This paper traces the Arabic origins of "plural markers" in world languages from a radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory perspective. The data comprises the main plural markers like cats/oxen in 60 world languages from 14 major and minor families-viz., Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Dravidian, Turkic, Mayan, Altaic (Japonic), Niger-Congo, Bantu, Uto-Aztec, Tai-Kadai, Uralic, and Basque, which constitute 60% of world languages and whose speakers make up 96% of world population. The results clearly show that plural markers, which are limited to a few markers in all languages comprised of -s/-as/-at, -en, -im, -a/-e/-i/-o/-u, and Ø, have true Arabic cognates with the same or similar forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change. Therefore, the results reject the traditional classification of the Comparative Method and/or Family Tree Model of such languages into separate, unrelated families, supporting instead the adequacy of the radical linguistic theory according to which all world languages are related to one another, which eventually stemmed from a radical or root language which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic as the most conservative and productive language. In fact, Arabic can be safely said to be the radical language itself for, besides other linguistic features, sharing the plural cognates in this case with all the other languages alone.

The Arabic Origins of English and Indo-European "Floral Terms": A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

“…More precisely, the Arabic origins or cognates of their words were successfully traced in twenty six lexical studies in key semantic fields like numerals, religious, love, democratic, military, legal, and urban terms (Jassem 2012a(Jassem -d, 2013a(Jassem -q, 2014a(Jassem -k, 2015a; in three morphological studies on inflectional and derivational markers (Jassem 2012f, 2013a; in nine grammatical papers like pronouns, verb 'to be', wh-questions, and case (Jassem 2012c(Jassem -e, 2013l, 2014c; and in one phonetic study about the English, German, French, Latin, and Greek cognates of Arabic back consonants (Jassem 2013c). Furthermore, the theory was extended in another five even wider studies to the examination of the Arabic origins of pronouns in Chinese (Jassem 2014h) and Basque and Finnish (Jassem 2014i), demonstratives (Jassem 2015i), negation (Jassem 2015j), and plurality (Jassem 2016a) in eleven major (and minor) language families in the last three, making up 95% of the total world population. Finally, two papers applied the approach to translation studies (Jassem 2014e, 2015b.…”

The Arabic Origins of English and Indo-European "Fashion and Modeling Terms": A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

“…More precisely, the Arabic origins or cognates of their words were successfully traced in twenty seven lexical studies in key semantic fields like numerals, religious, love, democratic, military, legal, urban, and floral terms (Jassem 2012a(Jassem -d, 2013a(Jassem -q, 2014a(Jassem -k, 2015a(Jassem -h, 2016b; in three morphological studies on inflectional and derivational markers (Jassem 2012f, 2013a; in nine grammatical papers like pronouns, verb 'to be', wh-questions, and case (Jassem 2012c(Jassem -e, 2013l, 2014c(Jassem , 2015d; and in one phonetic study about the English, German, French, Latin, and Greek cognates of Arabic back consonants (Jassem 2013c). Furthermore, the theory was extended in another five even wider studies to the examination of the Arabic origins of pronouns in Chinese (Jassem 2014h) and Basque and Finnish (Jassem 2014i), demonstratives (Jassem 2015i), negation (Jassem 2015j), and plurality (Jassem 2016a) in eleven major (and minor) language families in the last three especially, which make up 95% of the total world population. Finally, two papers applied the approach to translation studies (Jassem 2014e, 2015b.…”