The development of the triphthongs in Quranic and Classical Arabic

Abstract

The original Proto-Semitic triphthongs have developed in a variety of ways

in the history of Arabic. Employing data from Old Arabic and the Quranic

Consonantal Text, this paper examines the developments of these triph-

thongs in Classical Arabic and the language of the Quran. It describes the development in hollow and defective roots and shows that Quranic Ara- bic developed a new long vowels /ē/ and /ō/ in positions where Classical Arabic merges triphthongs with *ā.