Modern Trends in Arabic Dialectology

Modern Trends in Arabic Dialectology


Edited by Mohamed Embarki and Moha Ennaji

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Copyright © 2011 Mohamed Embarki and Moha Ennaji First Printing 2011

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Contents Introduction Mohamed Embarki and Moha Ennaji

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Part I: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives and Methods in Arabic Dialectology Chapter 1 Arabic Dialects: A Discussion Janet C. E. Watson Chapter 2 The Emergence of Western Arabic: A Likely Consequence of Creolization Federrico Corriente Chapter 3 Acoustic Cues for the Classification of Arabic Dialects Mohamed Embarki Chapter 4 Variation and Attitudes: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Qaaf Maher Bahloul

3

39

47

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Part II : Eastern Arabic Dialects Chapter 5 Arabic Bedouin Dialects and their Classification Judith Rosenhouse

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Chapter 6 Evolution of Expressive Structures in Egyptian Arabic Amr Helmy Ibrahim

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Chapter 7 Ḥadramī Arabic Lexicon Abdullah Hassan Al-Saqqaf

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Part III: Western Arabic Dialects Chapter 8 Dialectal Variation in Moroccan Arabic Moha Ennaji Chapter 9 Formation and Evolution of Andalusi Arabic and its Imprint on Modern Northern Morocco Ángeles Vicente Chapter 10 The Phonetic Implementation of Falling Pitch Accents in Dialectal Maltese: A Preliminary Study of the Intonation of Gozitan Żebbuġi Alexandra Vella Index

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185

211 239

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Introduction Mohamed Embarki and Moha Ennaji

F

or a long time, Arabic native scholars and Arabists had been relatively unaware of the interest to study Arabic dialects. They were only interested in Classical and Modern standard Arabic, because dialects were perceived as faulty speech. However, Arabic dialects have been more studied since the mid-nineteenth century, within the framework of Semitic comparative linguistics. Well-documented surveys, quasi exclusively produced by Arabist scholars, focused on the description of dialects both to better understand the evolution of the standard language, and to set up a more comprehensive scheme the family of Semitic languages. Since the mid-twentieth century, Arabic dialectology has known a clear-cut divide with the tradition drawn up during the preceding century. On the one hand, Arabic native scholars have shown a clear interest in Arabic dialects, maybe because they became free from their old prejudice that the study of dialects is unnecessary. On the other hand, since Semitic comparative linguistics have widely explained the typological resemblance between Semitic languages, Arabists have described and analysed dialects not within the necessary Semitic background, but within the new framework of Arabic dialectology.


Despite this significant development, Arabic dialectology still lacks language-specific theoretical and methodological approaches to evaluate linguistic landscapes in the Arabic area. There is a general bias among scholars – native Arabic or Arabists – to apply Western dialectology’s theories and methods. This bias, both in data collection and their interpretation, and in the identification of isoglosses, leads to ignoring some of the historical and cultural specificities of the Arabic dialects. That is, Western dialectology, like many other disciplines in the Humanities, is highly influenced by the socio-cultural and historical contexts of its conception. It is commonly accepted among scholars that Western dialectology, as an intellectual construct, leans in many respects towards linguistic and cultural standardization. It follows that the mapping bias of the Western conceptual account to improve our knowledge of Arabic dialects, which have not yet undergone any salient attempt to standardization, may necessarily yield parallels that are intrinsically irrelevant. Nonetheless, the Arabic area has known very early many fruitful states of standardization. For instance, the ancient Arab grammarians’ works of the classical period (8th – 10th century) offer an account of this standardization. However, the parallel with Western languages should be drastically restricted to the process itself, and not to the outcomes of standardization. Their large linguistic surveys could reflect language-specific theoretical and methodological approaches. For instance, three criteria led Arab grammarians to the labelling of linguistic features: a) good Arabic, to be imitated, (b) just acceptable Arabic which could not be rejected, but which is unusable as a model because of its rarity or awkwardness, or (c) incorrect language, to be outrightly avoided and condemned (Corriente, 1978:63).

Despite some common features with other languages and their contexts, Arabic studies remain essentially socio-culturally and historically-based. Insights gained from ancient Arab grammarians’ works relative to the conception of ‘Al’Arabiyya’ offer an account of a model based on a set of linguistic features derived, to a large extent, from Bedouin dialects. The common assumpviii

Introduction

tion which is shared by grammarians is that they were all very fascinated by Bedouin features, estimated to be much closer to the language of the pre-Islamic poetry and Qur’an. Conversely, they shared the idea that sedentary and urban Arabic dialects were largely corrupt, and therefore their linguistic features should be systematically rejected. Considering that this form of standardization is a relative oversimplification, Classical Arabic as an outcome of standardization showcased many errors and violations of the grammar, knowing that ancient Arab grammarians had noted the divide between the ideal construct of what Arabic should be and the extreme variability of the linguistic landscape. Consequently, at least two opposite views have marked studies on the history of Arabic dialects: (a) setting Classical Arabic as a fundamental step in the knowledge of dialects, (b) tracing their tangible system back to the pre-Islamic dialects and relating it to Classical Arabic. The two accounts of the study of Arabic dialects are necessarily incomplete in that they both offer only a sketchy picture of the situation. A more moderate overview may prevail, avoiding any such dichotomy. This overview would fill the gap by providing comprehensive explanations of the relationship between different forms of Arabic, and would be more accurate to capture explicit features sustaining the patterns of this relationship. The nature of the relationship between Old Arabic and Modern Arabic dialects, as has been discussed for a long time by dialectologists, is somewhat questionable, since it is the problem that has the most crystallized this dichotomy. Therefore, the relevance of many linguistic features might closely depend on the way that Classical Arabic has been regarded, either as falling inside or outside the paradigm. A closer inspection of how the study of geographical variation has been conducted in the last decades has led to the classification of Arabic dialects according to different georgraphical areas; this division is not completely exempt from the mapping of the dialect geography, inherited from the West-European linguistics of the 19th century. This mapping could raise either in the layout of the areas, or in the choice of the linguistic features.

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The classification of Arabic dialects, as it has been conducted, appears unfortunately to be somewhat arbitrary. The choice of some phonological features could construct borders of isoglosses. These borders could be deconstructed immediately and give arise to a different background if the features are taken from the lexical component. The relevance of this book is highlighted first by the fact that language-based approaches are still lacking in Arabic dialectology. The classification of Arabic dialects is not yet entirely satisfactory. Geographical and sociological layers were traditionally based on the assumption that the saliency of some features in the Modern Arabic dialects is the product of two different processes: diffusion and innovation. However, this traditional approach is not consistent with the history of Arabic. For instance, the saliency of some features that support the classification of the Modern dialects varies according to features that can be traced back to Classical Arabic, Islamic dialects, Old Arabic dialects, or proto-Arabic. Another explicative process has been, to some extent, neglected in the study of Arabic dialects, namely inheritance. Some phonological features currently present in Modern Arabic dialects cannot be explained by any of the two terms of this paradigm. As long as the mapping of Western approaches on Arabic dialects seems to be relatively unsatisfactory, diffusion and innovation are found to be incomplete to explain the extreme variability of the linguistic features of the Arabic dialects. Since some features appear in very distant isolated isoglosses, they are consistent neither with diffusion nor with concomitant innovation; only their underlyingly inherited nature could provide a logical scheme. Introducing the process of inheritance, besides diffusion and innovation, aims to enlarge our knowledge of the history of the Modern Arabic dialects. The threefold paradigm is more accurate to perform satisfying explanations of the features of similarity and dissimilarity between Old Arabic and Modern Arabic dialects, at the synchronic and diachronic levels. This division necessitates evaluating actual geographical and sociological classifications of Modern Arabic dialects, as well as our interpretations of the similarity and dissimilarity of linguistic features in the Arabic area. x

Introduction

Even if language-specific approaches to Arabic dialects are lacking, and the mapping of Western constructs unappealing, this fact should not justify per se constructing new completely compartmentalized trends in Arabic dialectology. Cross-cultural outlooks as widely experienced in the first stages of the Arabic empire in the Orient, as well as during the Islamic kingdoms of Spain, remain an essential motor that must lead to build up specific approaches for the study of Arabic dialects. This book aims to shed light on recent trends in Arabic dialectology. Cross-cultural analyses are provided by scholars from different origins (Arabic native speakers and excellent Arabists) and from different linguistic backgrounds (Arabic, Berber, English, French, Hebrew, Spanish). The chapters are all devoted to produce systematic descriptions and analyses of Arabic dialects. The book is divided into three thematic sections: (a) Theoretical and Historical Perspectives and Methods in Arabic Dialectology; (b) Eastern Arabic Dialects; and (c) Western Arabic Dialects. In the first part, the first chapter by Watson, entitled “Arabic Dialects: A Discussion” deals with the history and diversity of Arabic dialects. Because of the large geographical area where Arabic is spoken, and population movement, these dialects are in constant interaction on the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels. For this reason, there are similarities between certain Maghreb dialects and Yemeni and Syrian dialects. The second chapter by Corriente deals with the emergence of the main feature of Western Arabic. Children learning their first language and adults trying to acquire a second one all share the trend of trying to simplify allomorphs and adopt symmetrical, therefore less complex solutions. As a result, in the creolized Arabic of Yemenites who might have inherited their ancestors’ creolized second language, the system evolved in favour of a symmetrical solution, namely, the plural marking in all persons by {-↑} and that all persons of the same gender by the same prefix, {y}, {y} and {n} for the 3rd, 2nd and 1st persons, respectively. Similar simplifications have taken place in other Arabic dialects, e.g., in Andalusi and North African dialects. Embarki’s chapter titled “Acoustic cues for Arabic dialect classification” discusses the geographical and sociological clasxi


sification of modern dialects within a phonological perspective. It provides an extensive review of the literature on the main phonological characteristics of several Arabic linguistic forms and varieties, starting with the reconstructed form, Proto-Arabic, ancient dialects, Classical Arabic, Middle Arabic, Modern Arabic, and modern Arabic dialects. Bahloul’s chapter on “Variation and attitudes: a sociolinguistic analysis of the Qaaf” discusses how [g] became an attribute of the nation and a symbol of national identity in many parts of the Arab world. The older form, [q], seems to be widely used in the North West Mediterranean coast and the North Arabian Sea. In the second part, Rosenhouse’s chapter on “Arabic Bedouin dialects and their classification” studies the classification of present Bedouin dialects which share many similarities but differ from sedentary dialects. However, Bedouin dialects have been changing all the time, and it has not been possible to decide the exact role of Bedouin dialects in shaping each contemporary Arabic dialect, and the language in general, due to the numerous linguistic and extra-linguistic factors involved. Chapter six by Ibrahim titled “A text-book case for Arabic dialects typology: the evolution of expressive structures in Egyptian Arabic”, is concerned with the actualization of lexical items through means that integrate foreign loans and new expressions to the grammar. The same process occurs with infra-onomatopoeic or infra-semantic creations following easily recognizable templates. Chapter seven by Al-Saqqaf titled “HaDrami” Arabic vocabulary” gives an account of sources of the vocabulary old and new, slang, neologisms and the adaptation of loanwords into the dialect. The chapter deals with the basic lexicon in terms of semantics. HaDrami Arabic has in fact borrowed a great deal from other Arabic dialects and foreign languages, but has preserved its purity over the centuries due to its geographical isolation. In Part three, Ennaji’s chapter titled “Dialectal variation in Moroccan Arabic” argues that Moroccan Arabic varieties are distinct from Classical Arabic which has peripheral vocalic positions. Likewise, Moroccan Arabic varieties do not exhibit a strong opposition between long and short vowels, because Moroccan Arabic is characterized by vowel reduction unlike Classical Arabic. As a xii

Introduction

result, clusters are more developed and productive in Moroccan Arabic varieties than in Classical Arabic. Chapter 9 by Vicente titled “Formation and evolution of Andalusi Arabic and its imprint on modern Northern Morocco” discusses the linguistic evolution of Alandalús from the introduction of the Arabic language into the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the 8th century, until its disappearance with the expulsion of the Moriscos in the 17th century. The presence of some grammatical features of Andalusi origin in some spoken dialects of northern modern Morocco is also described. The final chapter by Vella deals with the phonetic implementation of falling pitch accents in dialectal Maltese. It reveals that there is a distinction in terms of both the approach to the fall and in the timing implementation of this fall when it occurs in nuclear as compared to pre-nuclear position within the I-phrase.

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