Mesopotamian Arabic

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mesopotamian Arabic
Iraqi Arabic
اللهجة العراقية
Native to
Arabia
RegionMesopotamia, Armenian highlands, Cilicia
EthnicityMainly Iraqi Arabs also used as an L1 or L2 by non Arab communities in the region
SpeakersGelet/South (acm): 17 million (2020)[1]
Qeltu/North (ayp): 10 million (2020)[1]
Dialects
Qeltu
Glottologmeso1252
nort3142
Areas where Mesopotamian Arabic are widely spoken.[image reference needed]
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Mesopotamian Arabic (

Arabic: اللهجة العراقية) is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, Kuwait, southeastern Turkey, Iran, and Iraqi diaspora communities.[2]

History

substrate.[3] The Gelet and the Judeo-Iraqi varieties have retained features of Babylonian Aramaic.[3]

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.[4] 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.[5] Non-Muslims include Christians, Yazidis, and Jews, until most Iraqi Jews left Iraq in the 1940s–1950s.[6][7] Geographically, the gelet–qeltu classification roughly corresponds to respectively Upper Mesopotamia and Lower Mesopotamia.[8] The isogloss is between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, around Fallujah and Samarra.[8]

During the

Bedouins from the countryside.[9] 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),[9][10] 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.[9]

Gelet/qeltu verb contrasts[11]
s-stem Bedouin/gelet Sedentary/qeltu
1st sg. ḏạrab-t fataḥ-tu
2nd m. sg. ḏạrab-t fataḥ-t
2nd f. sg. tišṛab-īn tǝšrab-īn
2nd pl. tišṛab-ūn tǝšrab-ūn
3rd pl. yišṛab-ūn yǝšrab-ūn

Dialects

Gelet dialects include:[8]

Qeltu dialects include:[8]

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.[12] Other Arabic speakers cannot easily understand Moslawi and Baghdadi.[12]

Substrate

Mesopotamian Arabic, especially

Qeltu, has a significant Eastern Aramaic substrate,[13] 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.[14][15] Mesopotamian Arabic also retains influences from Persian, Turkish, and Greek.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Gelet at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Qeltu at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ISBN 9789047425595
    .
  3. ^
    JSTOR 3217756
    .
  4. ISBN 0-19-823989-0
    .
  5. doi:10.19088/creid.2022.015
    .
  6. OCLC 1059441655
    .
  7. S2CID 134361362
    .
  8. ^ a b c d Ahmed, Abdulkareem Yaseen (2018). Phonological variation and change in Mesopotamia: a study of accent levelling in the Arabic dialect of Mosul (PhD thesis). Newcastle University.
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-3-11-019987-1
    .
  10. OCLC 989950951
    .
  11. OCLC 1059441655
    .
  12. ^
    doi:10.1111/j.1528-3585.2009.00375.x
    .
  13. ISBN 978-84-695-7829-2
    .
  14. ISBN 978-1-136-78805-5. [verification needed
    ]
  15. ^ R. J. al-Mawsely, al-Athar, al-Aramiyyah fi lughat al-Mawsil al-amiyyah (Lexicon: Aramaic in the popular language of Mosul): Baghdad 1963
  16. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1w36pkt. [verification needed
    ]

Further reading
Mesopotamian Arabic test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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