Mesopotamian Arabic Explained

Mesopotamian Arabic
Also Known As:Iraqi Arabic
Nativename:Arabic: اللهجة العراقية
States:Iraq (Mesopotamia), Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, parts of northern and eastern Arabia
Region:Mesopotamia, Cilicia
Ethnicity:Mainly Iraqi Arabs also used as a L2 language by non Arab communities in the region
Speakers:Gelet/South (acm): million
Date:2020
Ref:e27
Speakers2:Qeltu/North (ayp): million (2020)
Speakers Label:Speakers
Familycolor:Afro-Asiatic
Fam2:Semitic
Fam3:West Semitic
Fam4:Central Semitic
Fam5:Arabic
Dia1:Gelet
Dia2:Qeltu
Script:Arabic alphabet
Ld1:Gelet
Lc1:acm
Ld2:Qeltu
Lc2:ayp
Sign:Iraqi Sign
Map:Árabe mesopotámico.png
Mapcaption:Areas where Mesopotamian Arabic are widely spoken.
Notice:IPA
Glotto:meso1252
Glottorefname:Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic
Glotto2:nort3142
Glottorefname2:North Mesopotamian Arabic

Mesopotamian Arabic (Arabic: لهجة بلاد ما بين النهرين), also known as Iraqi Arabic (Arabic: اللهجة العراقية), is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, southeastern Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Iraqi diaspora communities.[1]

History

Aramaic was the lingua franca in Mesopotamia from the early 1st millennium BCE until the late 1st millennium CE, and as may be expected, Mesopotamian Arabic shows signs of an Aramaic substrate.[2] The Gelet and the Judeo-Iraqi varieties have retained features of Babylonian Aramaic.[2]

Varieties

Mesopotamian Arabic has two major varieties: Gelet Mesopotamian Arabic and Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic. Their names derive from the form of the word for "I said" in each variety.[3] Gelet Arabic is a Bedouin variety spoken by Muslims (both sedentary and non-sedentary) in central and southern Iraq and by nomads in the rest of Iraq. Qeltu Arabic is an urban dialect spoken by Non-Muslims of central and southern Iraq (including Baghdad) and by the sedentary population (both Muslims and Non-Muslims) of the rest of the country.[4] Non-Muslims include Christians, Yazidis, and Jews, until most Iraqi Jews left Iraq in the 1940s–1950s.[5] [6] Geographically, the gelet–qeltu classification roughly corresponds to respectively Upper Mesopotamia and Lower Mesopotamia. The isogloss is between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, around Fallujah and Samarra.

During the Siege of Baghdad (1258), the Mongols killed all Muslims. However, sedentary Christians and Jews were spared and northern Iraq was untouched. In southern Iraq, sedentary Muslims were gradually replaced by Bedouins from the countryside. This explains the current dialect distribution: in the south, everyone speaks Bedouin varieties close to Gulf Arabic (continuation of the Bedouin dialects of the Arabian Peninsula),[7] with the exception of urban Non-Muslims who continue to speak pre-1258 qeltu dialects while in the north the original qeltu dialect is still spoken by all, Muslims and Non-Muslims alike.[8]

Gelet/qeltu verb contrasts[9] ! s-stem !! Bedouin/gelet !! Sedentary/qeltu
1st ḏạrab-t fataḥ-tu
2nd ḏạrab-t fataḥ-t
2nd tišṛab-īn tǝšrab-īn
2nd tišṛab-ūn tǝšrab-ūn
3rd yišṛab-ūn yǝšrab-ūn

Dialects

Gelet dialects include:[10]

Qeltu dialects include:[10]

Baghdadi Arabic is Iraq's de facto national vernacular, as about half of population speaks it as a mother tongue, and most other Iraqis understand it. It is spreading to northern cities as well.[11] Other Arabic speakers cannot easily understand Moslawi and Baghdadi.[11]

Substrate

Mesopotamian Arabic, especially Qeltu, has a significant Eastern Aramaic substrate,[12] and through it also has significant influences from ancient Mesopotamian languages of Sumerian and Akkadian. Eastern Aramaic dialects flourished and became the lingua franca throughout Mesopotamia during the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period, where different dialects such as Syriac, Mandaic and Hatran Aramaic came to being.[13] [14] Mesopotamian Arabic also retains influences from Persian, Turkish, and Greek.[15]

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Book: Arabic Dialectology: In Honour of Clive Holes on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Enam al-Wer, Rudolf Erik de Jong. 53. 99–100 . Brill . 9789047425595. 2009.
  2. Muller-Kessler. Christa. Aramaic 'K', Lyk' and Iraqi Arabic 'Aku, Maku: The Mesopotamian Particles of Existence.. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 2003. 123. 3. 641–646. 10.2307/3217756 . 3217756.
  3. Book: Mitchell, T. F.. Terence Frederick Mitchell. Pronouncing Arabic, Volume 2. 1990. Clarendon Press. 0-19-823989-0. 37.
  4. Jasim . Maha Ibrahim . 2022-12-15 . The Linguistic Heritage of the Maṣlāwī Dialect in Iraq . CREID Working Paper 18. 10.19088/creid.2022.015. free .
  5. Book: 2018 . Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches . Clive . Holes . 978-0-19-870137-8 . Oxford University Press. 1059441655 . 337.
  6. Book: Procházka, Stephan . 3.2. The Arabic dialects of northern Iraq . 2018 . The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia . 243–266 . Haig . Geoffrey . De Gruyter . 10.1515/9783110421682-008 . 978-3-11-042168-2 . 134361362 . Khan . Geoffrey.
  7. Book: 10.1002/9781118827628.ch32 . Dialects of Arabic . The Handbook of Dialectology . 2017 . Al‐Wer . Enam . Jong . Rudolf . 529 . 978-1-118-82755-0 . Wiley. Charles. Boberg. Charles Boberg. John. Nerbonne. John Nerbonne. Dominic. Watt. 989950951.
  8. The Arabian Peninsula and Iraq/Die arabische Halbinsel und der Irak . 2006 . Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik, Part 3 . Ammon . Ulrich . Berlin/New York . Walter de Gruyter . 10.1515/9783110184181.3.9.1930 . 978-3-11-019987-1 . Dittmar . Norbert . Mattheier . Klaus J. . Trudgill . Peter. 1937. Clive . Holes.
  9. Book: 10.1093/oso/9780198701378.003.0009 . 2018 . Prochazka . Stephan . The Northern Fertile Crescent . Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches . Clive . Holes . 978-0-19-870137-8 . Oxford University Press. 1059441655 . 266.
  10. Phonological variation and change in Mesopotamia: a study of accent levelling in the Arabic dialect of Mosul . Newcastle University . 2018 . PhD . en . Abdulkareem Yaseen . Ahmed.
  11. Collin . Richard Oliver . 2009 . Words of War: The Iraqi Tower of Babel . International Studies Perspectives . en . 10 . 3 . 245–264 . 10.1111/j.1528-3585.2009.00375.x.
  12. Book: del Rio Sanchez, Francisco . Influences of Aramaic on dialectal Arabic. Sala . Juan Pedro Monferrer . Archaism and Innovation in the Semitic Languages: Selected Papers . Watson . Wilfred G. E. . 2013 . Oriens Academic . 978-84-695-7829-2 . en.
  13. Book: Smart, J. R. . Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language And Literature . 2013 . Routledge . 978-1-136-78805-5 . 10.4324/9781315026503.
  14. R. J. al-Mawsely, al-Athar, al-Aramiyyah fi lughat al-Mawsil al-amiyyah (Lexicon: Aramaic in the popular language of Mosul): Baghdad 1963
  15. Book: Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff . 1997 . Penn State University Press . 978-1-57506-020-0 . 10.5325/j.ctv1w36pkt. 10.5325/j.ctv1w36pkt . Afsaruddin . Zahniser . Asma . A. H. Mathias .