Islam and Arabic

[Jim Wilce]

That's interesting, because that k "shouldn't be" a fricative.

Alexandre Enkerli wrote:
> Isn't there an issue of diglossia, here? Is Pipes talking about 
> Classical Arabic?
> It still sounds like an awkward perspective but there's something to 
> be said about people's expectations in terms of links between sacred 
> language and religion. Comparisons with Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Latin 
> would be quite interesting.
>
> I have no idea about the actual situation but I seem to remember an 
> article describing a situation in which the way some people (IIRC, 
> native speakers of Tamashek) speak Arabic was connoted in terms of 
> their religious practise. Something about devout Muslims and the 
> pronunciation of "kh" in "aleikhum" (as a fricative instead of a 
> plosive). Seems to me quite reasonable to expect that some forms of 
> Arabic would be associated with Islam.