L1: What is Kalam?

الكلام هو اللفظ المركب المفيد بالوضع
Speech: is a compounded meaningful utterance bil wada’

He says ‘speech is a compounded utterance bil wada’, intending thereby the definition specific to the nomenclature of the grammarians because *speech* has many definitions in accordance to the nomenclature of other topics, yet what interests us, is the definition used in the nomenclature of the grammarians.The science of grammar(nahw), as you know, came only to serve [purpose] for arabic speech, and of course the grammar we’re elucidating to here is the grammar of the *Arabic language*, each language has its own grammar, however we’re concentrating on arabic grammar, which does service to speech in explaining its states of inflection, different forms etc. Nawh also, generaly encompasses the science of morphology(sarf).Therefore speech, as termed by the grammarians is: a compunded meaningful utterance bil wad’i – so, certain conditions must be fulfilled for speech to be considered speech in the jargon of the grammarians:1)that it be an utterance
2)that it be compounded(joined, formed of two or more words)
3)that it be meaningful
4)”bil wada”1) An Utterance اللفظ

This means: a sound made up of letters from the arabic alphabet [those that start with Alif and end with Ya], for example: أحمد, يكتب, سعيد – All of these words, when uttered, are a sound made up of four letters from the alphabet. Therefore, indicating with your hand, for example is *not* termed ‘kalam’ because it doesn’t consist of a sound made up of letters from the alphabet, even though the Linguists would consider it(indication) ‘kalam’ because benefit is achieved through it.

2) Compounded المركب

This means: that is be made up of two or more words e.g: محمد مسافر, العلم نافع, لكل مجتهد نصيب – each of these expressions are called ‘kalam’, and each are made up of two words, or more.

Therefore a single word is not considered kalam according to the grammarians unless it is joined with another word – this joining can be *literal/explicit*(as shown in the above examples) or *implicit*, like if someone was to say to you: من أخوك(who is your brother?), and you replied: محمد, then this ‘Muhammad’ is considered kalam because you are implying that: محمد أخي (Muhammad is my brother), so in reality this implicit expression is actually made up of three words – محمد, أخ, and the يof nisbah, which when attatched renders the thing in mention *the property of the one who is talking* i.e if you say محمد أخي, it means ‘Muhammad is *my* brother.

3) Meaningful المفيد

This means: that after mention of such speech(a compounded meaningful utterance), the silence of the listener would become appropriate – he would not need further clarification as to what the speaker intends, and is not left waiting for more, because the speaker has conveyed a *meaningful* sentence, so much so that nothing more is needed. So if you said: إذا حضر الأستاذ(if the teacher comes), this would not be kalam because, even though it is an ‘utterance made up three words’ it is not *meaningful*, because the one being spoken to is still waiting to hear what comes after this – i.e what exactly will happen after the teacher comes, because you’ve left him waiting at: ‘If the teacher comes…’. However if you were to say: إذا حضر الأستاذ أنصت التلاميذ( if the teacher comes the students will quieten down) – it would be considered be kalam.

4) Bil Wad’i بالوضع

This means: that the words used in kalam be from those that have been placed there by the arabs themselves, and that they follow the rules of the arabic language – this is pretty obvious because grammar is all about grammatically analysing each sentence and the words within it, but this can’t be done to other languages because what they term kalam is totally different to what the arab grammarians term kalam.

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