This should be an interesting topic for discussion, as I am sure we all have something to share with the group about this wonderful and mysterious thing called “language”.

I am aware that, like any other field,  linguistic disciplines have their own set of jargon and that those who have not studied linguistics in general, might become confused with some of the terminology.  Please bear with me, and understand that the most important part of all of this is the logic employed.  However, the underlying message here is very important.  It has to do with the evolution of language in general, but most importantly, our mother tongue, Classical Arabic, which has played a very important role in the evolution of many languages and cultural institutions it came in contact with. 

When it comes to European languages, the extend of this connection has not yet been recognized and in many cases obliterated, but hopefully through this series you will begin to see that not only token words such as admiral, zero, magazine, etc., but the underlying foundation of very important cultural institutions passed on to Europe through culture contact during the dark ages. 

Lastly, if anyone needs clarification of any of the subject matter and or terms used here, please don't hesitate to let me know. 

Scholars in the 19th century made the first leap back in hypothetical ancestral languages. By comparing archaic words of modern languages and analyzing internal vowel, changes and common word endings, they established the probable common root of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Germanic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian. Called Indo-European, its daughter languages constitute today's most of the widely spoken linguistic family. 

Over two centuries, specialists in the field of Indo-European Linguistics, the cornerstone of Historical Linguistic Studies,have promoted the principal idea that correspondences between the vocabularies of the Ancient Indo-European family of languages illustrate the principal aspects of a common culture, particularly of material culture.  Further more, they asserted that instances of the lexical inheritances were collected from expressions for family relationships, numbers, names of animals, metals, agriculture implements, etc.  Hence, a series of authors, ranging from the nineteenth century until recent times, have devoted themselves to the compilation of such lists of common expressions to buttress their theory. 

The forms involved are specifically expressions relating to institutions.  Their aim is to analyze the so-called genesis of these expressions and terms and their connections to the study of the formation and organization of the vocabulary of the Indo-Europeans institutions. 

In so doing, their primary task is to trace and to restore a linguistic unity thought to have been dissolved by processes of evolution, bringing buried structures to light and harmonizing the divergence of technical usage. 

This methodology makes it easier for historians and sociologists to see what use they can make of analyses to advance the Indo-European theory of languages.

How this is done?  The task of the linguist is delimited in the following way.  He takes his material from the vast store of what is believed to be established correspondences of the Indo-European language family, which have been transferred, without much change, from one etymological dictionary to another. 

This material is, by its very nature, far from homogeneous.  Each separate linguistic fact comes from a different language and constitutes part of a distinct system which develops along unpredictable lines.  The main task is to demonstrate that these forms correspond to one another and they are all direct continuations of some original form found in the theoretical original Indo-European tongue. 

An attempt is then made to show how words, which at first exhibited little differentiation, progressively acquired specialized applications and evolved into semantic subfamilies that reflect a profound evolution of institutions.  Such developments within a particular language may also come to influence other languages through culture contact. 

The result of this methodology is that, on the one hand, the linguist is faced with the tangled web of developments which may take centuries or even millennia and which he must trace back to their primary state; and on the other hand, the investigator must try to bring out certain universal tendencies which govern these individual developments.

This is the daunting path within which the historical linguist must operate. This is further complicated by a double handicap: (1) The lack of written documentation and (2) the lack of historical perspective.
 

Perhaps, for all of the reasons described above, and what I previously underlined in my introductory remarks on the subject, I reiterate this fact: The field of Historical Linguistics is far from being an exact science;and I should add, this leaves the field wide open to challenge. 

The following comparison  between the Icelandic "Saga" in  the Germanic and the Classical Arabic Saga` - will help illustrate my point. 

 What is the Saga?

 According to the American Heritage Dictionary the following is a definition concurred by eminent Indo-European linguists, such as  A. Walde,  H. Falk,  A. Trop,  F. Weigand and Calvert Watkins. 
 

SYLLABICATION: sa·ga 

PRONUNCIATION:   säg 

NOUN: 1a. A prose narrative usually written in Iceland between 1120 and 1400, dealing with the families that first settled Iceland and their descendants, with the histories of the kings of Norway, and with the myths and legends of early Germanic gods and heroes. 1b. A modern prose narrative that resembles a saga. 2. A long detailed report: recounted the saga of their family problems. 

ETYMOLOGY:

Old Norse Saga a narrative prose.  From a reconstructed root : *sekw-3 meaning To utter.

CLASSICAL ARABIC DEFINITION: (according to the Lisan al-`Arab 

Saga` :Rhyming narrative prose, having "Fawasil" like the rhyme of a verse without being measured, so-called because it is being likened as the saga` or the cooing of a pigeon and/or the yearning cry of a she-camel in one uniform mode. Hence, to utter or to speak in saga` style.

ETYMOLOGY: To utter rhymic speech. 
 
 

I have purposely zeroed in on this subject for several reasons.
 
 

As a result of this match, we can safely assume that the greater the number of similarities in the various meanings of the term, the more likelihood there is that a borrowing occurred as a result of culture contact between the Arabs and the Germans, bypassing the Latin and the Greek worlds. 

My archeology professor often expressed the following thought.  He stated that if a Gothic cathedral were discovered in the heart of the Australian desert, there would be no denying the fact that Europeans had been there.  Such a structure is so distinctive, and composed of so many different elements, that it would be impossible to consider its hypothetical Australian counterpart as a duplication, independently developed, of the European form. 

The same rationale applies here in the case of the various meanings in the term of Saga, which are shared exactly in their meanings, forms, pronounciation and etymologies in both the Classical Arabic and the Germanic exclusively of any other languages.

It is obviously safe to ascertain that these similarities could not have been developed independently from each other, just as in the case of the Gothic cathedral in the Australian wilderness described above. 

I rest my case momentarily at this point.  However, I will offer later, a rational explanation for these unusual similarities, which have all the signs pointing to a contact between the Arabic and the Germanic cultures.

Next Risalat (Accounts) of Ibn Fadlan: The Historical Travels of an Arab Emissary to the Norsemen in 921 C.E.,

Akhuwkum Ishinan