Classical Arabic is mainly found in official correspondence since a classical education (adab) was an essential condition for the employment of secretaries (al-kuttâb). They modelled themselves on the prophet's chancellery. One of the outstanding features in these documents is the use of the Energetic (-anna).

Private persons with high education naturally used a perfect Classical Arabic as well.

Less educated people and especially Coptic writers writing in Arabic commited a lot of violations against the rules of the classical language. These language defects are shown below:

• a: Phonetics
• b: Syntax
• c: Vocabulary

6.a. PHONETICS

• Letters are often replaced by other, similar ones. Attested is the replacement of thâ’ by tâ’, Zâ’ by Dâd, Dâd by Tâ’, sîn by Sâd
• The hamza is frequently omitted.
• The tanwîn is neglected in the wiriting because it was no longer pronounced (e.g. accusative -an>)

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6.b. SYNTAX

• The nominative is used in place of the oblique case (e.g. -ûna instead of -îna, -âni instead of -ayni) after prepositions.
• On the other hand genitive or accusative often were used wrongly, e.g. in place of a demanded nominative.
   
• Status constructus replaces sometimes a demanded status absolutus (mi’atay instead of mi’atayn).
   
• Numbers are often written incorrectly (e.g. ’a‘shar instead of ‘ashar or Hadâ ‘ashara instead of aHada ‘ashar) corresponding to the dialectal pronunciation.
   
• Number and gender are often used incorrectly.
   
• Jussive is often used in place of Indicative (e.g. yanZurû instead of yanZurûna).
   
• Verbs (e.g. of laysa) and verbal forms (e.g. in the verba mediae geminatae: tasururnî instead of tasurrunî) are often used wrongly.

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6.c. VOCABULARY

• New words and meanings were created that can not be found in the lexica, as for example:
• qabbâlun ("tax collector")
• thaqîl ("a heavily armed person")
• muthallathî [adjective] ("in thirds of dînârs minted [gold]")
• etc.
• New loanwords form Persian, Greek or Coptic
• rûznâmaj from the Persian rûznâma ("daily journal")
• baTrûn from the Greek pátron ("patron")
• baqT from the Coptic ppakton ("lease")
• etc.

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