Northwest Arabian Arabic Explained

Northwest Arabian Arabic
Also Known As:Levantine Bedawi Arabic
Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
States:Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria
Speakers: million
Date:2021–2023
Ref:e27
Familycolor:Afro-Asiatic
Fam2:Semitic
Fam3:West Semitic
Fam4:Central Semitic
Fam5:Arabic
Script:Arabic alphabet
Iso3:avl
Glotto:east2690
Glottorefname:Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic

Northwest Arabian Arabic (also called Levantine Bedawi Arabic or Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic) is a proposed[1] subfamily of Arabic encompassing the traditional Bedouin dialects of the Sinai Peninsula, the Negev, Gaza Strip, southern Jordan, and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia.

The dialect of the Maʿāzah in the Egyptian Eastern Desert borders the dialect of the ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic. Research is needed to establish whether the Maʿāzah dialect is the southwestern extremity of Northwest Arabian on the Egyptian mainland.

In Saudi Arabia, the dialects of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, the Hisma, and the Harrat al-Riha belong to the Northwest Arabian type, but the dialect of the Bili to the south is not closely related.[2]

Classification

The Northwest Arabian Arabic dialects display several innovations from Proto-Arabic:

  1. The voiced reflex of *q ([g])
  2. The gaháwah syndrome: insertion of /a/ after X in (C)aXC(V) sequences where X is /h/, /ʿ/, /ḥ/, /ġ/, or /ḫ/, e.g. gahwa(h) > gaháwa(h) "coffee", baġl > baġal "mule".
  3. The definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli are stressable as an integral part of the word, e.g. álwalad, áljabal. The initial /a/ is stable enough to be preserved after -ī (-iy), which is dropped: f-albēt, rāʿ-álġanam.
  4. A number of typical Bedouin lexical items (gōṭar "to go", sōlaf "to tell, narrate", ṭabb "to arrive", nišad ~ nišád "to ask").
  5. Absence of tanwīn and its residues.
  6. Absence of final /n/ in the imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular, 2nd person masculine plural, and 3rd person masculine plural.
  7. The pronominal suffix of the 2nd person masculine plural is -ku (-kuw).
  8. Stressed variants -ī and - of the pronominal suffix in the 1st person singular.
  9. Plural comm. forms haḏalla, haḏallāk, etc.
  10. Initial /a/ in Forms VII, VIII, and X in the perfect, and stressed when in stressable position.
  11. Initial /a/ in a number of irregular nouns (amm, aḫt, aḫwan, adēn, afám).

Varieties

Northwest Arabian Arabic can be divided into a western branch spoken in Sinai and the Negev, and an eastern branch spoken to the east of the Wadi Araba. Several dialects of the eastern branch, such as that of the Zalabiah and Zawaidih of Wadi Ramm,[3] and that of the Bdul, have been argued to be closely related to the western branch.

Differences between western and eastern branches:!!Western branch!Eastern branch
b- imperfectin regular usedoes not occur in plain colloquial
analytic genitivešuġl, šuġlah, šuġlīn, šuġlāt as genitive markers
Form I imperfect performativevowel harmonygeneralized /a/
reflexes of *aw and *aypartially monophthongized; monophthongs fluctuate with long phonemes /ō/ ~ /ū/, /ē/ ~/ī/.well-established monophthongs /ō/ and /ē/
gahawa syndromegaháwa onlyghawa ~ gaháwa
I-w imperfectyawṣal ~ yōṣalyāṣal
object suffix-ha/-hiy in Negev-ha
object suffixphonetically conditioned C-ih/-ah, C-u(h) in southern SinaiC-ah
subject pronouniḥna, aḥnaḥinna, iḥna
reflex of -ā(ʾ) in neutral environments-iy-a

Phonology

Consonants

LabialInterdentalDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarUvularPharyngealGlottal
plain emph.plain emph.plain emph.
Nasalpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Plosivevoicelesspronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/(pronounced as /link/)(pronounced as /link/)
voicedpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Affricatepronounced as /link/
Fricativevoicelesspronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
voicedpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/(pronounced as /link/)(pronounced as /link/)pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Trillpronounced as /link/(pronounced as /link/)
Approximantpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/

Vowels

Vowels occur in both long and short positions:

FrontBack
Closepronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
Midpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Openpronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/

Vowels are recognized as allophones in the following positions:[4]

Phoneme/SoundAllophoneNotes
i pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/in lax position
u pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/in lax position
pronounced as /link/when preceding emphatic sounds
a pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/in lax position
pronounced as /link/when preceding or following emphatics
eː pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/when following emphatic or back fricatives
oː pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/when preceding velar consonants
aː pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/in velarized environments
pronounced as /link/when following pharyngeal consonants
pronounced as /[{{IPAlink|ɛː}} ~ {{IPAlink|æː}}]/in neutral position in the Tarabin dialect

Imala

Word-internal imala of */-ā-/

Some varieties of Negev Arabic are characterized by word-internal imala of *-ā- to /ē/ in patterns where /i/ historically occurred in an adjacent syllable. It does not occur when one of the adjacent consonants is emphatic or a back consonant. Some of the patterns where it is found include the following:[5]

Similar raising is found in the Bdul dialect of Jordan: minǣsif “mansaf (pl.)”, hǣḏi “this (f.)”, ḏ̣aygǣt “narrow (pl.)”, iblǣdna “our land”.[6]

Word-final imala of */-ā(ʾ)/

Some of the western dialects of Northwest Arabian Arabic (Central Sinai and Negev in particular) are characterized by an Imala of Old Arabic word-final *-ā(ʾ) to /iy/ in certain patterns of nouns and adjectives. Emphatics seem to block the shift. The following examples are from Negev Arabic:

In the dialects of southern Sinai, word-final imala typically results in /iʾ/. Some examples are íštiʾ “winter”, ǧiʾ “he came”, ḏiʾ “this, these”, tižibhiʾ “you get it”, ifṭarniʾ “we had breakfast”. In some, but not all groups, /a/ in a previous syllable blocks this imala. Like the dialects of central Sinai and Negev, the imala of feminine adjectives of color and defect on the pattern CaCCāʾ results in stressed /íy/: sōdíy “black; bad”.

Characteristics

The following are some archaic features retained from Proto-Arabic:

  1. Gender distinction in the 2nd and 3rd person plural pronouns, pronominal suffixes, and finite verbal forms.
  2. Productivity of Form IV (aC1C2aC3, yiC1C2iC3).
  3. The initial /a/ in the definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli.
  4. Frequent and productive use of diminutives (glayyil "a little", ḫbayz "bread").
  5. Absence of affricated variants of /g/ (< */q/) and /k/.
  6. The use of the locative preposition fi (fiy).
  7. The invariable pronominal suffix -ki of the 2nd person feminine singular.

See also

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Encyclopedia: Palva . Heikki . Northwest Arabian Arabic . 10.1163/1570-6699_eall_EALL_COM_vol3_0233 . Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics . 978-90-04-17702-4 .
  2. Palva . Heikki . Remarks of the Arabic dialect of the Hwetat tribe . Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam . 2004 . 29 . 195–209 .
  3. Bassil Mohammad . Al Mashaqba . The phonology and morphology of Wadi Ramm Arabic . April 2015 . 1065303726 .
  4. de Jong . R. E. . The Bedouin Dialects of the Northern Sinai Littoral. Bridging the Gap between the Eastern and the Western Arab World . 1999 . 11245/1.154881 .
  5. Book: Shawarbah . Musa . A Grammar of Negev Arabic: Comparative Studies, Texts, and Glossary in the Bedouin Dialect of the ʻAzāzmih Tribe . 2012 . Harrassowitz Verlag . 978-3-447-06647-1 .
  6. Yasin . Raslan Bani . Owens . Jonathan . The Bduul Dialect of Jordan . Anthropological Linguistics . 1984 . 26 . 2 . 202–232 . 30027504 .