International Journal of Culture and History

ISSN 2332-5518
2021, Vol. 8, No. 1

Why neither Russian nor Arabic will Become World

Languages

Dennis Michael Bryant (Corresponding author)

Faculty of Arts, University of Canberra
Kirinari Street, Bruce, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Tel: 61-04-0049-9265 E-mail: DrDennisBryant@[Link]

Received: May 16, 2021 Accepted: June 16, 2021 Published: June 17, 2021
doi:10.5296/ijch.v8i1.18650 URL: [Link]

Abstract
This paper argues that classical languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are most unlikely to
become spoken widely around the world, as has English. This is not to deny that Russia
launched a sputnik into space in earlier times and currently is considered to be a super-power.
Nor is there any intention to deny that the Russian language once functioned as a diplomatic
language. Nor does the premise constitute a denial that Arabic is widely spoken in the Middle
East and in some parts of Africa, and is recognised as a carrier of culture. But qualifying for a
label of classical does carry a burden.
These comments are not meant to denigrate either Russian or Arabic; they are classical
languages in a sense that simplistic English will never achieve. Unlike English, Russian and
Arabic both require a complexity of construction which entails strict adherence to building
grammatical inflections on nouns, which is called case marking. While such case markings
might be seen as concise, and perhaps even elegant word construction, this paper will argue
that an over-fondness for expanding the basic words by building upon them case structures
that are essentially semaphores to signal grammatical metadata, is antithetical to discourse in
so much as it is a departure from simplicity.
In order to demonstrate the likelihood of this paper’s premise being true concerning metadata
overload at the word level, as is evident in case marking, the methodology is mixed in the
sense that it seeks to establish a general probability of feasibility for the premise. This can be
achieved through a brief demonstration of two languages which retain case, these being
Arabic and Russian, against today’s English which jettisoned case in days of yore. Perhaps it
is reasonable to suggest that this long-past jettisoning, of case and its overheads in favour of
simplification of construction, has contributed to English success in becoming the accepted

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and widely-spoken world norm.

Keywords: case marking removal, simplification, positional inference
1. General Introduction to Case
It might come as a surprise to speakers of English — but English is not a classical language
in any sense of the word. It only emerged when European Angles and Saxons invaded
England pre the tenth century, and according to Mitchell, the language became known as
Anglo-Saxon English but is also called Old English. Providing further background, Potter
mentions that Old English had four main dialects, these being Northumbrian, Mercian, West
Saxon, and Kentish.
However, Old English is rather different from today’s Modern English. Gunn & Eagleson
describe Old English as having ‘grammatical devices built into words’ [p. 101], or being
‘synthetic’ in nature. The major change is that English has embraced a sustained move away
from the complexity of synthetic construction. Gunn & Eagleson also point out that today’s
English is much more ‘analytical’ in its nature. In this regard, Bolinger remarks that instead
of inflating words with inflected endings to show grammatical function, those inflectional
endings were ‘taken over by prepositions and word order’ [p. 118]. An example of this trend
to simplicity is the removal of case markings from nouns. Additionally, both Wrenn and
Potter note that from the time of King Alfred the Great in the late ninth century, there was an
accompanying move towards an agreed word order, beginning the trend towards the order
evident in today’s English.
Having described a simplification to nouns, it must be said that some case markings can be
seen in today’s English, but only on pronouns. For example, ‘they, them, their’ indicate
respectively a Nominative (also called a Subject) pronoun; an Accusative (Object) pronoun;
and, what has been called for convenience, a Possessive pronoun but is in reality an adjective
that describes ‘ownership’.
However, it cannot be argued that today’s speakers are users of case. The latter statement may
seem to be at odds with previous comments and therefore illogical, but it is nevertheless true
because, given the demise of case in English, speakers associate a noun’s function according
to where the noun occurs in a sentence; that is, in today’s Subject Verb Object world, as first
described by Greenberg, a noun which is positioned in a declarative sentence’s Subject slot is
seen as undertaking an action, yet when positioned in a declarative sentence’s Object slot is
seen as enduring an action. In other words, English has acquired a set word order whereas
Old English had a freer word order because each noun was inflected with a case ending
which indicated its (nominative, or accusative, genitive) role.
In summary, the elimination of case endings on nouns (including case elimination on
Nominative and Accusative adjectives), has reduced grammatical expense to speakers in
today’s English. It is true of course that a trace of past inflections does remain. The lingering
inflection that was not eliminated is evident on Possessives where an apostrophe ‘s’ inflection
remains today. It should be noted that this paper has intentionally referred to an apostrophe ‘s’
ending as an inflection, and not a case ending. It is necessary to draw this distinction because
it is a frequent over-sight that an apostrophe ‘s’ ending serves to convert a noun into a
different word type; that is, into an adjective (as in John’s).

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It would not be correct to conclude that case elimination was a small gain. Such a gain was
major because there were several classes of nouns, each of which had its own set of case
inflections. As a small comparison, a much smaller cost of recognising word class and then
applying grammatical association is experienced by learners of French where a new speaker
has to ‘know’ the gender of a noun in order to associate a definite article (le, or la). In short,
unlike Old English, it is reasonable to claim that today’s English has zero case markings, and
this paper holds that this zero case marking feature of English is likely to ensure a lower
uptake cost for learners, as well as a lower operating cost for all speakers than would be
probable in case languages such as Arabic and Russian, or even French.
2. General Introduction to Arabic Case
Probably the least-widely known feature of Arabic is that it is a Verb-Subject-Object, or VSO,
language. While there is no shame in VSO, very few languages have chosen VSO as their
method of organisation. In fact, only a small minority or just five percent of languages have
adopted this organisation. Nor does VSO qualify as the second most chosen organisation —
that is SVO organisation, which accounts for forty five percent of languages. English
qualifies as SVO. However, the most widely chosen organisation is the antithesis of VSO,
which means that its organisation is SOV, and is typified by Japanese. So, Arabic organisation
is relatively unique, where unique might be defined as unexpected and infrequently
encountered.
3. Cases, Consonants & Radicals
Unlike English which has a zero tolerance of case on nouns, it is not out of place to expect
case in a language that is classified in the Semitic grouping along with languages like Hebrew,
Akkadian, Aramaic, Phoenician and Egyptian, which survives today as a liturgical language
and is known as Coptic. Langacker points out that Arabic ‘has pharyngealized consonants’
which means that Arabic sounds can be produced with constriction of the throat [p. 151].
Sapir groups Arabic (along with Finnish and Latin) as a synthetic language and, according to
his definition for synthetic, it is a linguistic scenario in which concepts cluster more thickly
and words are more richly chambered when compared to, say, English which is in his
analytical grouping due to its comparatively minor concern with word construction.
In more specific terms, Tritton notes that Arabic marks one of three case suffixes on a noun [p.
11]. These suffixes are ‘u, a, i’. To exemplify, and using ‘bayt’ as the semantic underpinning
for ‘house’; the suffixes are nominative ‘u’, as in ‘bayt-u’; accusative ‘a’ as in ‘bayt-a’; and
genitive ‘i’ as in ‘bayt-i’. It would be remiss to fail to mention that many Arabic nouns are
composed of three letters, which are called radicals and in a sense they are pillars because
they underpin the words that can be derived. Radicals are usually consonants, but can include
non-consonants. In the examples directly above, the radicals are BYT. While BT are obvious
consonants, Y is regarded as a voiced palatal semi-vowel. To continue exemplifying the
above discussion, and again using ‘bayt’ as the semantic underpinning for ‘house’, ‘baytun,
baytan’ would indicate nominative and accusative indefiniteness; whereas ‘al-baytu, al-bayta’
indicates nominative and accusative definiteness. An expansion of Arabic definiteness is
undertaken in the next section.

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4. Articles: Definite Prefix (al-) & Indefinite Suffix (-n)

At this point, however, the plot thickens in complexity slightly, because the distinction
between a definite and indefinite noun has been described by Tritton as fundamental in
understanding and utilising Arabic. This description may be inferring that both kinds of
Arabic definiteness are unlike English in which a common space within a communication is
assigned either for a definite or indefinite article as a free morpheme. Not so for Arabic. One
is a prefix; the other, a suffix. Specifically, ‘al-’ is prefixed to a noun to designate a definite
article. Markedly contrasted by its different placement, an indefinite article is indicated by a
suffixed ‘-n’ and this indefinite article is referred to in Arabic grammar as nunation. Here, a
minor point of agreement between Arabic and English exists in that a definite article exceeds
in character length the size of an indefinite article. Seemingly, between Arabic and English,
there is an unstated but shared psychological reality that a single instance requires a minimal
investment in character expenditure.
The following Arabic sentences serve to exemplify the above discussion. However, two
features of Arabic are missing in the following examples — these being the Arabic script, and
because the script is not being used, the convention of writing from right-to-left is also absent.
It uses ‘rajul’ and ‘kelb’ as the semantic underpinning for ‘man’ and ‘dog’.
Consider a definite example in which ‘the man kicked the dog’.
Verb Subject Object
Rakala al-rajul-u al-kelb-a (hyphens are used only for clarity).
‘Kicked the man the dog’ -- is the order of expression, or VSO.
As regards the verb in the exemplar sentence above, it shows ‘rakala’ as the past tense form
for ‘hit’; is interpreted as masculine third person and is a default interpretation in the absence
of other inflections; and is required to agree with the following nominative noun in Number,
Person and Gender. Speaking of Gender, were the noun to be feminine, then the verb would
need to indicate a non-default feminine suffix which in this case is ‘t’, giving ‘rakala-t’.
Moving to the second element, the Subject shows two inflections; the first of these being the
definite article ‘the’ prefixed to ‘man’. The final Subject inflection is a suffix to indicate that
‘man’ is to be interpreted to function nominatively. Similarly, the Object, as the third element,
has two inflections which are: a prefix to indicate definiteness; and a suffix to indicate that
‘dog’ functions in an accusative role.
Moving now to an indefinite example in which ‘a man kicked a dog’.
Verb + Subject + Object
Rakala + rajul-u-n + kelb-aa-n (hyphens are again used for clarity).
As regards the verb in the exemplar sentence above, the example again shows ‘rakala’ as the
verb. Moving to the second element, it is noticeable that the Subject now lacks a definiteness
prefix. However, it does have a word-final indefiniteness marker ‘-n’ which occurs as the
outer-most suffix. Perhaps the best explanation for ‘n’ as the outer-most suffix is that the

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inner-most suffix ‘u’ is a higher level case indicator, and if this interpretation is taken, then it
would follow that an indicator of lower importance can be relegated to an outer position
thereby being isolated from the nominal root. This seems to be a nice piece of Arabic
symmetry of thought.
Further exploring Arabic paradigms, the next exemplar is restricted to a sentence fragment,
namely, a Subject which uses ‘baab’ as the semantic underpinning for ‘door’ in a construct
meaning ‘a door of a house’, as taken from Tritton.
Subject
Baab-u + bayt-i-n
The first element of the exemplar above, ‘door’, lacks a definite article prefix, and this gives
rise to the inference that this construct is likely to be indefinite. As regards grammatical
function, the first element is suffixed with a ‘u’ which is indicative of nominative.
Moving now to the final element, ‘house’ lacks a prefixed definite article and this gives rise
to a similar inference that this construct is likely to be indefinite also. As regards this
element’s two grammatical functions, it is suffixed firstly with a ‘-i’ indicating genitive.
However, a further inflection is manifest on this final element. An indefinite article is
indicated by the ‘-n’ suffix, which sits just beyond the previously mentioned genitive suffix.
Taking both suffixes into account, the construction reads literally as ‘door’ with Nominative
suffix + ‘house’ with genitive suffix, followed by indefinite suffix. According to Tritton, this
construct would be translated as ‘[a] door of a house’, but could be rendered more simply and
economically in English as ‘a house door’. Although not shown above, a modifying adjective
cannot come between the two construct nominals; instead, an adjective agreeing with the first
noun must come after the second noun; that is, adjectives are placed post the construct.
In summary, Tritton remarks that this genitive arrangement is called a construct state which
means that the governing noun comes first but loses nunation. Additionally, while the
governing noun makes no comment on definiteness, an assumptive alliance between the noun
construct must be presumed based on the definiteness of the genitive noun [ibid, p. 34]. As a
summation, and revealing a degree of article balance, ‘al-‘ is a definite prefix, while ‘-n’ is an
indefinite suffix that follows a case ending. Having noted the aesthetic, such construction
does come at a cost. In fact, for some types of noun, Tritton notes that the learning of
inflection ‘is all memory work…because no rules can be given’.
There are, of course, markings for dual and plural number. With respect to dual, perhaps less
ironic than it may seem, there are two markings. These suffixes are ‘aani’ for nominative,
with ‘ayni’ functioning for both accusative and genitive. To exemplify, consider using the
semantic underpinning for ‘eye’, ‘?ayn’. Its three radicals are firstly a seeming question mark
but representing a glottal stop, which somewhat recalls to mind the Cockney speech found in
London. By custom in Arabic, the glottal stop is attached to a vowel –here ‘a’. The remaining
radicals are Y and N. With a dual suffix, ‘two eyes’ would be expressed as nominative
‘?ayn-aani’, and as accusative-cum-genitive ‘?ayn-ayni’.

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At first sight to speakers who are not familiar with Arabic, ‘?ayn-ayni’ may be a bit of a
tongue-twister, but a native speaker would be unlikely to find them to be similar because they
differ markedly, in that ‘?ayn’ is a visual reality that occurs only with eyes, whereas the ‘ayni’
inflection usage can occur across any nominal for which duality is possible. Perhaps the
following example is dissimilar in nature, but English itself may often represent difficulty of
interpretation to Arabic speakers –for example, when nominals function in English as verbals
without carrying any change in form. For example, as a verb in ‘He would run often’, yet as a
noun in ‘I got a good run with my shares’.
Apart from these case markings, and possibly serving as a testimony to human ingenuity,
Arabic distinguishes its nouns according to grammatical gender, although natural genders can
be found. For example, masculine as in ‘malik’ (king) and feminine ‘malikah’ (queen). In
addition, a noun can carry an inflection for number, being either singular (usually assumed to
be the default), or inflected as dual (as mentioned), or inflected as plural. And not forgetting
definiteness, nouns can be marked as either Definite or Indefinite. There is a small pool of
so-called ‘deficient nouns’ which escape case marking but nevertheless do require
definiteness marking. Additionally, there is a requirement for marking agreements in the
nominal sphere; that is, adjectives are marked in agreement with their accompanying noun
markings.
The previous section, as brief as it was, points to one implication: this being that the presence
of case infers a slower uptake, and a higher operating cost is probable for learners of Arabic
than would be the case for learners of English. If this is true, as this paper proposes, then
construction cost in Arabic can be considered to be an inhibiting feature; as it is in other
languages which require the complication of case constructions. However, this claim is not
intended to deny Sapir’s tenet that Arabic is a significant carrier of culture; nor does it dispute
that words have been borrowed from Arabic into English, such as ‘algebra’ which has caused
the ire of many high-school students.
5. A Mention of Russian Case
Unlike the English drive towards achieving zero tolerance of case markings, by contrast, it
has been observed by Wade et al., as well as Mustgo, that the Russian language is
well-endowed with six markings to distinguish a noun’s case function. This means that there
are declensions on nouns. Declensions are also known as case markings which are used to
indicate a Nominative (or, subject) noun; or an Accusative (a direct object, which is the most
usual situation); or a Dative (an indirect object), which occurs when a verb requires a second
object. In English such a verb would be ‘donate’. Russian noun markings are also used to
indicate Instrumental case (indicating what instrument was used); and Prepositional case
(indicating that the noun is used as part of a prepositional construction). Additionally, Russian
includes a Genitive (which is a term that is equivalent to Possessive) inflection.
In further signs of complexity, adjective-noun agreement is required and there are rule-sets as
to how agreement inflections are completed; and with regard to verbs, there are multiple
conjugations. As an additional point, and serving as a contrast to English, there are several

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acceptable orders, and SVO is described as the neutral order. Mustgo reflects that word order
is principally determined by topic (what the sentence is about, or old information) and focus
(new information).
When compared to an absence of case markings in English, the existence of case markings on
Russian nouns, and adjectives, could be interpreted to indicate that a slower uptake and a
higher operating cost for speakers is probable. Perhaps ameliorating some of this cost to
speakers is that Russian requires neither indefinite nor definite articles. Two additional
hurdles exist as script, where Cyrillic alphabet is in use; and, Russian allows personal
pronouns to be dropped because the verb ending makes the person clear. These are also
potential impediments to global uptake.
6. Loss of Case in English
While today’s Russian and Arabic languages deserve to be seen as classical languages, it
would hardly be a winning argument to view today’s English in the same classical light. This
is due to the sustained English drive towards achieving zero tolerance of case markings.
However, if one were to harken back in time, Old English could be argued to have many
similarities to today’s Russian and Arabic. In particular, Old English had an extensive set of
case markings (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive) on nouns as well as on adjectives.
Noted by Mitchell, Old English also distinguished nouns by gender, examples of which
would be ‘staan’ (stone) being masculine, singular and nominative; with ‘word’ (word) being
neuter, singular and nominative; and with ‘yiefu’ (gift) being feminine, singular and
nominative.
However, with the passage of time, Wrenn observes that English has opted for simplicity by
sacrificing all its noun and adjective case markings, with one exception -- it has kept some of
its pronoun case forms, as in ‘they, them, their’. English managed to largely discard the case
concept by opting for a much simpler solution. English speakers decided on what this paper
would like to call positional inference. That is, a noun appearing in the Subject position is
assumed to be a nominative noun; whereas it would be assumed to be an accusative, or a
dative noun if it were to appear in the Object position of a declarative sentence. That is, the
form of a noun has lost a good deal of relevance and the noun’s function is now determined
by position.
This trend to simplicity —which Wrenn calls ‘the period of lost inflections’— did not happen
over-night. Simplification can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon era and the times of
Boewulf and Old English; continuing into Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s Middle English
before reaching today’s Modern English. To name just one example, ‘thou, thee’ have been
discarded from common usage.
Mitigating against the historical shedding of grammatical structures thereby creating a
pathway to greater simplicity and reduced speaker effort, English has not managed to shed all
classes. For example, some old verb forms still persist and because of their ability to endure
are called ‘strong verbs’. One example would be ‘taken’ with its three forms of ‘take, took,
taken’. However, while they are the exception to a clean-up process that English has revelled

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in over time, they can be explained as high-usage words, and as such they tend to endure.
Notwithstanding the exceptions, it would follow that a clean-up might well be called a
simplification process. If this statement is true as this paper is intentionally inferring, then it
would follow that a sacrifice of grammatical-rule overheads is likely to have repercussions
for the process of acquiring that language. In other words, fewer grammatical overheads is
likely to assist the uptake of that language, as well as assist daily fluency efforts.
This paper argues, as do other papers by Bryant that are listed in the References section, that
part of the linguistic reason for the rise in the use of English was simplicity; or put differently,
it never was a classical language in that it never made serious efforts of preservation of what
might be called inhibiting case structures. In these senses, it might be reasonable to claim that
English is anything but classical. However, it is not being argued entirely that being
simplified is sufficient to make English global. Historical circumstances, such as the rise to
prominence of the British and then a further rise in global prominence by America would be
sustainable as an answer to its rise in popularity. This is certainly the view held by Wrenn.
The only thing that English appears to have provided was a relative simplicity of operation;
but nevertheless that simplicity may have partly contributed to its world-wide up-take.
7. Conclusion
This paper started with a premise that the Russian and Arabic languages are unlikely to ever
become spoken widely around the world, as has English. In advancing this premise, it was
never the intention of this paper to disparage either Russian or Arabic, for any reason. Instead,
there is a recognition herein that both of them qualify as classical languages that have, and
still do, serve their speaker base. However, there is an obvious irony here, namely, that a
non-classical language arose from obscurity into ascendency, becoming the first choice for
universal communication – that language is English and it is notably not one of the classical
languages. In a sense, and speaking allegorically, English is like the awkward Ugly Duckling
that developed into a graceful and elegant swan that was poised, most unexpectedly, to soar.
The rise of English would seem partly attributable to economic development of England and
also to the rise of the United States of America; however, this paper did not pursue arguments
along political or economic lines. Instead, this paper put forward an assertion that a label of
classical does imply a complexity that entails strict adherence to building grammatical
inflections, which are known also as case marking of nouns, adjectives and pronouns. A part
of this paper’s premise is that a rise in commitment to grammatical inflections comes
hand-in-hand with a rise in communicative expense. Continuing the premise, a rise in
communicative expense infers the possibility of a lower threshold of acclaim for selecting a
language to function as a universal lingua franca.
In order to support the probability of this paper’s premise being true, the methodology was
theoretical in the sense that it sought to underscore the probable reasons for English
becoming a universal lingua franca; namely, that English pursued a strategy of achieving
simplicity by discarding costly structures such as case. This flight to soar to world heights did
not happen over-night. This trend to simplicity and ease of use can be traced from Old

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English into Middle English before reaching today’s Modern English, which now serves as
the accepted and widely spoken norm. The irony is that classical languages, for instance
Russian and Arabic, have neither reached, nor are they likely to attain, that same milestone
within the foreseeable future.
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