A Linguistic History Of Arabic -
: Using statistical approaches, he examines features like verb forms and object pronouns across widely dispersed dialects to trace them back to a shared pre-diasporic stage.
: Owens disputes the idea that modern dialects (Neo-Arabic) emerged solely from a pre-Islamic version of Classical Arabic. He posits that modern dialects share features with an ancient variety he calls "pre-diasporic Arabic," which coexisted alongside the language of the Qur'an and poetry. A Linguistic History of Arabic
: He suggests that many "modern" dialect features are actually as old as, or even older than, those found in Classical Arabic. This implies that the Arabic-speaking world has always been linguistically diverse, rather than starting from a uniform "Classical" monolith. : Using statistical approaches, he examines features like
: He explores whether case markings (the 'irab ) were universal in early Arabic or if "caseless" varieties existed from the start. : He suggests that many "modern" dialect features
