| Hassaniya | |
| Also Known As: | Mauritanian Arabic |
| Nativename: | حسانية () |
| States: | Southwestern Algeria, Northwestern Mali, Mauritania, southern Morocco, Northern Niger, Western Sahara |
| Nation: |  Mali[1] |
| Minority: |  Morocco[2] |
| Speakers: | million |
| Date: | 2014–2021 |
| Ref: | e27 |
| Speakers Label: | Speakers |
| Familycolor: | Afro-Asiatic |
| Fam2: | Semitic |
| Fam3: | West Semitic |
| Fam4: | Central Semitic |
| Fam5: | Arabic |
| Fam6: | Maghrebi |
| Fam7: | Hilalian |
| Script: | Arabic alphabet, Latin alphabet (in Senegal) |
| Iso3: | mey |
| Glotto: | hass1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Hassaniyya |
| Dia1: | Nemadi |
| Dia2: | Imraguen |
| Map: | Hassaniya_Arabic_Map.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Current distribution of the Hassaniya language. |
| Notice: | IPA |
Hassaniya Arabic (Arabic: حسانية|Ḥassānīya; also known as , , , , and Maure) is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs and the Sahrawi people. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Morocco's southeastern and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassaniya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti.
The language has completely replaced the Berber languages that were originally spoken in this region. Although clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other Maghrebi variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga-Berber and Pulaar. There are several dialects of Hassaniya, which differ primarily phonetically. There are still traces of South Arabian in Hassaniya Arabic spoken between Rio de Oro and Timbuktu, according to G. S. Colin.[3]
Today, Hassaniya Arabic is spoken in Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and the Western Sahara.
The phonological system of Hassānīya exhibits both very innovative and very conservative features. All phonemes of Classical Arabic are represented in the dialect, but there are also many new phonemes. As in other Bedouin dialects, Classical /q/ corresponds mostly to dialectal pronounced as //ɡ//; pronounced as //dˤ// and pronounced as //ðˤ// have merged into pronounced as //ðˤ//; and the interdentals pronounced as //θ// and pronounced as //ð// have been preserved. The letter ج pronounced as //d͡ʒ// is realized as pronounced as //ʒ//.
However, there is sometimes a double correspondence of a classical sound and its dialectal counterpart. Thus, classical pronounced as //q// is represented by pronounced as //ɡ// in pronounced as //ɡbaðˤ// 'to take' but by pronounced as //q// in pronounced as //mqass// 'scissors'. Similarly, pronounced as //dˤ// becomes pronounced as //ðˤ// in pronounced as //ðˤəħk// 'laugh (noun)', but pronounced as //dˤ// in pronounced as //mrˤədˤ// 'to be sick'. Some consonant roots even have a double appearance: pronounced as //θaqiːl// 'heavy (mentally)' vs. pronounced as //θɡiːl// 'heavy (materially)'. Some of the "classicizing" forms are easily explained as recent loans from the literary language (such as pronounced as //qaː.nuːn// 'law') or from sedentary dialects in case of concepts pertaining to the sedentary way of life (such as pronounced as //mqass// 'scissors' above). For others, there is no obvious explanation (like pronounced as //mrˤədˤ// 'to be sick'). Etymological pronounced as //ðˤ// appears constantly as pronounced as //ðˤ//, never as pronounced as //dˤ//.
Nevertheless, the phonemic status of pronounced as //q// and pronounced as //dˤ// as well as pronounced as //ɡ// and pronounced as //ðˤ// appears very stable, unlike in many other Arabic varieties. Somewhat similarly, classical pronounced as //ʔ// has in most contexts disappeared or turned into pronounced as //w// or pronounced as //j// (pronounced as //ahl// 'family' instead of pronounced as //ʔahl//, pronounced as //wak.kad// 'insist' instead of pronounced as //ʔak.kad// and pronounced as //jaː.məs// 'yesterday' instead of pronounced as //ʔams//). In some literary terms, however, it is clearly preserved: pronounced as //mət.ʔal.lam// 'suffering (participle)' (classical pronounced as //mu.ta.ʔal.lim//).
Hassānīya has innovated many consonants by the spread of the distinction emphatic/non-emphatic. In addition to the above-mentioned, pronounced as //rˤ// and pronounced as //lˤ// have a clear phonemic status and pronounced as //bˤ fˤ ɡˤ mˤ nˤ// more marginally so. One additional emphatic phoneme pronounced as //zˤ// is acquired from the neighboring Zenaga Berber language along with a whole palatal series pronounced as //c ɟ ɲ// from Niger–Congo languages of the south. At least some speakers make the distinction /p/–/b/ through borrowings from French (and Spanish in Western Sahara). All in all, the number of consonant phonemes in Hassānīya is 31, or 43 counting the marginal cases.
| Labial | Interdental | Dental/Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emphatic | plain | emphatic | plain | emphatic | ||||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Stop | voiceless | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | |||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||||
| Affricate | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Trill | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
On the phonetic level, the classical consonants pronounced as //f// and pronounced as //θ// are usually realised as voiced pronounced as /[v]/ (hereafter marked pronounced as //v//) and pronounced as /[θ̬]/. The latter is still, however, pronounced differently from pronounced as //ð//, the distinction probably being in the amount of air blown out (Cohen 1963: 13–14). In geminated and word-final positions both phonemes are voiceless, for some speakers /θ/ apparently in all positions. The uvular fricative pronounced as //ʁ// is likewise realised voiceless in a geminated position, although not fricative but plosive: pronounced as /[qː]/. In other positions, etymological pronounced as //ʁ// seems to be in free variation with pronounced as //q// (etymological pronounced as //q//, however varies only with pronounced as //ɡ//).
Vowel phonemes come in two series: long and short. The long vowels are the same as in Classical Arabic pronounced as //aː iː uː//, and the short ones extend this by one: pronounced as //a i u ə//. The classical diphthongs pronounced as //aj// and pronounced as //aw// may be realised in many different ways, the most usual variants being pronounced as /[eːʲ]/ and pronounced as /[oːʷ]/, respectively. Still, realisations like pronounced as /[aj]/ and pronounced as /[aw]/ as well as pronounced as /[eː]/ and pronounced as /[oː]/ are possible, although less common.
As in most Maghrebi Arabic dialects, etymological short vowels are generally dropped in open syllables (except for the feminine noun ending pronounced as //-a// < pronounced as //-ah//): pronounced as /
Many educated Hassaniya Arabic speakers also practice code-switching. In Western Sahara it is common for code-switching to occur between Hassaniya Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and Spanish, as Spain had previously controlled this region; in the rest of Hassaniya-speaking lands, French is the additional language spoken.
Hassaniya Arabic is normally written with an Arabic script. However, in Senegal, the government has adopted the use of the Latin script to write the language, as established by Decree 2005–980 of October 21, 2005.[4]
| Hassaniya Arabic alphabet (Senegal) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E | J | O | T | X | ʔ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | c | d | ḍ | e | ë | f | g | h | ḥ | i | j | k | l | m | n | ñ | o | q | r | s | ṣ | ŝ | t | ṭ | ŧ | u | v | w | x | ẋ | y | z | ż | ẓ | ʼ | |
According to Ethnologue, there are approximately three million Hassaniya speakers, distributed as follows: