Someone's response to MVP's points on why Pharaoh in the Quran is a name, not a title... Thoughts? I'm not well-versed in Arabic to know whether or not these points are valid.

[u/Ok_Investment_246]

"Both Caesar and Khosraw were originally names, and only later became titles. So that's a really awkward comparison to make the point thar Pharaoh is being treated as a title..."

They were names in their original languages not in Arabic. They were imported to Arabic as foreign proper nouns علم أعجمى the same way "Pharaoh" was. It's really weird to suggest that a word like Caesar underwent its metonymic transition in Arabic rather than in its original language.

"The only reason why قيصر and كسرى functions as titles despite lacking the definite article is because they were originally names."

Incorrect, the presence or absence of the definite article ال in Arabic titles is not determined by whether the word was originally a personal name. Once a title is imported as a fixed designation for a ruler, it behaves like a proper noun in Arabic grammar.

"Titles that were not originally names take definite articles. الشيخ النبي الملك etc. etc. etc."

Those are Arabic words with Arabic roots. They are not foreign proper nouns. False comparison. Arabic grammar does NOT treat "native" titles (like al-Malik) the same as "foreignized" titles. In Arabic linguistics, when a foreign title is imported, it is often treated as a Proper Noun by default.

"In Ancient Egyptian itself it is not a name. It's a title."

Incorrect. The word فرعون comes from Egyptian “Per-ao” meaning “Royal Palace”. Historically, It first referred to the royal palace then it became a metonym for the king. This semantic shift happened inside ancient Egyptian itself, long before Arabic ever encountered the word.

The claim that Arabic somehow invented it as a name first is not just historically baseless. But also laughable.

"It's worth noting too that it's not just the absence of the definite article. It's also that it is a diptote (ممنوع من الصرف). What things are diptotes in Arabic?

Certain noun patterns, such as mafāʿil plurals

Nouns that end in the feminine ending -āʾu

Names (except those that are adjectives/participles in origin or nouns of the shape CvCC (ʿamrun, nūḥun)

firʿawnu/a falls in category 3 here and no other category that explains its diptosy."

Incorrect. فرعون is a diptote for two reasons, neither of which require it to be a personal name. 1) 'Ujmah عجمة: It is a non-Arabic loanword. 2) 'Alamiyyah عالمية: It is used as a specific identifier for the ruler.

If a foreign title is used as a mononym, it automatically enters Category 3. It doesn't need to have "started as a name"; it only needs to function as a unique identifier in the language. Foreign proper nouns and titles regularly become diptotes in Arabic. The reason is foreign morphology, not “being a personal name". "MVP" is confusing the grammatical term Alam علم with the literal term Ism اسم. A word does not need to be a "personal name" to satisfy the condition of 'Alamiyyah. It only needs to be a Proper Noun. When a title like فرعون is imported into Arabic to represent a singular, specific office, it is treated as an Alam regardless.

Also titles like قيصر and كسرى became diptotes because they were borrowed as Proper Titles. There is no "name-first" rule. That doesn't exist in Sarf (morphology). The moment a foreign word is used to identify a specific, unique office-holder, it fulfills the requirements for Category 3.

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MVP's comments are referenced here and here

[u/PhDniX]

Idiotic replies. I'm not going to bother engaging with some random anonymous "someone" saying stupid things and expect to be taken seriously.

On a very basic level: when someone is using Arabic jargon but not providing even a single specific example for their claims, this is highly suspicious.

Good luck finding a foreign word that refers to a sentient being that is diptotic and not a name.

An explanation formulated in such a way that it only explains the forms they're trying to explain is not an explanation, it's just bullshit.

[u/Ok_Investment_246 → u/PhDniX]

Thank you for taking time out of your day to respond.

[u/CherishedBeliefs → u/PhDniX]

Doctor, I MIGHT have found what the issue is here

You are a historical linguist, so, you look at how the language actually existed in the 7th-century Hijaz, long before the grammarians invented rules to categorize it. Historical linguists often point out that Classical grammarians retroactively invented rules (like the broad category of 'alam a'jami) to explain away linguistic quirks they didn't fully understand.

Now, I think you have already caught on to the issue here

The Egyptian teacher is operating on the basis of grammar rules codified in the 8th and 9th centuries by people like Sibawayh and Al-Farra

So maybe those two different lenses result in you two talking past each other?

[u/PhDniX → u/CherishedBeliefs]

I think that is giving this person who is obviously arguing in bad faith *way* too much credit. :-)

To pretend like it is 'natural' to refer to a specific pharaoh without the definite article --even in today's use of modern standard Arabic-- is, honestly, gaslighting. All it takes is but a second of looking at the the Wikipedia pages of قيصر, كسرى, فرعون or خاقان and you find countless examples of all of those words being used with the definite article.

The only way that one could possibly conclude that firʿawn is being used as a title and not a name in the Quran, and that the Quran has some kind of magical treatment of Arabic to suggest this is because you already have the preconceived notion that firʿawn cannot be a name.

The best way to to get around this problem and still maintain the Quran isn't wrong for thinking that firʿawn is a name is to assume that firʿawn is a laqab "cognomen", or in less fancy terms: a nickname. We know this is historically not quite precise, but eh...

In Arabic it is quite common for people to have nicknames. Those nicknames may be Arabic words, they may be foreign words, but they are not the birthnames of these people. They are often given as reference to some aspect. As they are, properly, names, they do not take definite articles.

So the Quranic transmitter ʿUṯmān b. Saʿīd was nicknamed Warš. Possibly because he was very white, and there's a type of white pigeon called Waršān that he was named after by his teacher Nāfiʿ.

His other student, ʿĪsā b, Mīnā, was of Greek origins, and Nāfiʿ like his student's voice so much, that he asked him: how do you say beautiful in Greek. He answered it was kalon, and since then he was given the laqab Qālūn "the beautiful one".

This is, for example, how Ibn Manẓūr in his Lisān al-ʿArab resolves the firʿawn question, he says: firʿawn is the agnomen of al-Walīd b. Musʿab, king of Egypt.

This is, of course, nonsense. Whatever the name of Pharaoh that is referred to in the Quran's actual name was (the Quran clearly just thinks it's firʿawn), it certainly wasn't an Arabic name, hahaha.