Why ‘Emphatics’?

In the Arabic grammatical tradition, the consonants ṣād, ḍād, ṭāʾ, ẓāʾ are called muṭbaqa ‘covered’, referring to the tongue covering the soft palate and the nasal cavity as a lid. They belong to a larger group of consonants, whose pronunciation is accompanied by elevation of the tongue to the palate (tafḫīm). Modern grammars of Arabic routinely call these consonants ’emphatics’. Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) has been held responsible for the introduction of the term, but he only uses emphase as a general feature of pronouncing these consonants. In the present paper, I argue that the term was first used by a Maronite exile, Antonius Aryda [Anṭūn ʿArīḍa] (1736-1820), who taught Arabic at Vienna. He called these consonants literae emphaticae, which through his students was taken over in all modern grammars of Arabic.