Yemeni Arabic
Yemeni Arabic | |
---|---|
لهجة يمنية | |
Native to | Yemen and southern Saudi Arabia |
Ethnicity | Yemenis |
Native speakers | 30 million (2020)[1] |
Dialects |
|
Glottolog | sana1295 Sanaanihadr1236 Hadramitaiz1242 Ta'izzi-Adenijude1267 Judeo-Yemeni |
Areas where Yemeni Arabic is spoken (in dark blue those areas where it is widely spoken).(The map does not indicate where the language is majority or minority.) | |
Yemeni Arabic (
Yemeni Arabic can be divided roughly into several main
Non-Arabic South Semitic languages indigenous to the region include several Modern South Arabian languages, such as the Mehri and Soqotri languages, which are members of an independent branch of the Semitic family. Another separate Semitic family once spoken in the region is Old South Arabian; these became extinct in the pre-Islamic period with the possible exceptions of Razihi and Faifi. Some of these share areal features with Yemeni Arabic owing to influence from or on Yemeni Arabic.
Yemeni Arabic itself is influenced by
San'ani Arabic dialect
Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic dialect
Tihamiyya Arabic
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2023) |
Zabidi dialect
Of all the dialects of the Tihama region, the dialect of Zabid displays the most innovations. It shares the transformed definite article of (am-) originally used in
Hadhrami Arabic dialect
Phonology
The
The
Wādī HA makes ث / ت [t], [θ] (⟨t⟩, ⟨ṯ⟩) and ذ / د [d], [ð] (⟨d⟩, ⟨ḏ⟩) distinction but ض (Classical Arabic /ɮˤ/) ⟨ḍ⟩ and ظ [ðˤ] ⟨đ̣⟩ are both pronounced ظ [ðˤ] whereas Coastal HA merges all these pairs into the stops د , ت and ض (/t/, /d/ and /ḍ/) respectively.
In non-emphatic environments, (ā) is realised as an open front (slightly raised) unrounded vowel. Thus (θānī) “second; psn. name”, which is normally realised with an [ɑː]-like quality in the Gulf dialects, is realised with an [æː] quality in HA.
This dialect is characterised by not allowing final consonant clusters to occur in final position. Thus Classical Arabic bint ‘girl’ is realised as binit. In initial positions there is a difference between the Wādī and the coastal varieties of HA. Coastal HA has initial clusters in (bġā) ‘he wants’, (bṣal) ‘onions’ and (brīd) ‘mail (n.)’, whilst Wādī HA realises the second and third words as (baṣal) and (barīd) respectively.
Morphology
When the first person singular comes as an independent subject pronoun, it is marked for gender, thus (anā) for masculine and (anī) for feminine. As an object pronoun it comes as a bound morpheme, thus (–nā) for masculine and (–nī) for feminine. The first person subject plural is (naḥnā).
The first person direct object plural is (naḥnā) rather than (–nā) as in many dialects. Thus the cognate of the Classical Arabic (ḍarabanā), ‘he hit us’, is (đ̣arab naḥnā) in HA.
Stem VI, (tC1āC2aC3), can undergo a vowel stem shift to (tC1ēC2aC3), thus changing the pattern vowel (ā) to (ē). This leads to a semantic change as in (tšāradaw), ‘they ran away suddenly’, and (tšēradaw), ‘they shirk, try to escape’.
Intensive and frequentative verbs are common in the dialect. Thus /kasar/ ‘to break’ is intensified to /kawsar/ as in (kōsar fi l - l‘ib), ‘he played rough’. It can be metathesized to become frequentative as (kaswar min iđ̣-đ̣aḥkāt), ‘he made a series (lit. breaks) of giggles or laughs’.
Syntax
The syntax of HA has many similarities to other Peninsular Arabic dialects. However the dialect contains a number of unique particles used for coordination, negation and other sentence types. Examples in coordination include (kann, lākan) ‘but; nevertheless, though’, (mā) (Classical Arabic ammā) ‘as for’ and (walla) ‘or’.
Like many other dialects, apophonic or ablaut passive (as in /kutib/ ‘it was written’) is not very common in HA and perhaps is confined to clichés and proverbs from other dialects including Classical Arabic.
The particle /qad/ developed semantically in HA into /kuð/ or /guð/ ‘yet, already, almost, nearly’ and /gad/ or /gid/ ‘maybe, perhaps’.
Vocabulary
There are a few lexical items that are shared with Modern South Arabian languages, which perhaps distinguish this dialect from other neighbouring Arabian Peninsula dialects. The effect of Hadrami migration to Southeast Asia (see Arab Singaporeans), the Indian subcontinent and East Africa on HA is clear in the vocabulary especially in certain registers such as types of food and dress, e.g. (ṣārūn) "sarong". Many loan words were listed in al-Saqqaf (2006):[4]
Yafi'i Arabic dialect
While there is much about the
Although a similar phonological shift occurs in certain words in the Sudan, the similarities are rather misleading. Whereas the shift is systematic in Yafi', occurring at every instance of the relevant phonemes, in Sudan, it is usually a form of hypercorrection that takes place only in certain classical words. In Sudan, the phoneme [q] is systematically pronounced [ɡ] in all common words, with the pronunciation ġ [ʁ] occurring as a hypercorrection in words such as istiqlāl "independence", pronounced istighlāl (meaning ‘exploitation’ in Standard Arabic).
See also
Notes
- ^ Hadhrami Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Sanaani Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Judeo-Yemeni Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) - ISBN 978-0231115681.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2017-05-12.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ A. Al-Saqqaf (2006): Co-referential devices in Hadramî Arabic, pp. 75-93 Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik Issue 46. http://semitistik.uni-hd.de/zal/zal46.htm
Further reading
- Shaghi, Abdullah and Imtiaz Hasanain (2009). Arabic Pausal Forms and Tihami Yemeni Arabic pausal /u/: History and Structure. In Hasnain S. Imtiaz (edt.) Aligarh Journal of linguistics. Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Vol. 1, January- December 2009, pp. 122-139
- JSTOR 41223556