Yemeni Arabic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Yemeni Arabic Spoken in Yemen, Somalia, Somaliland de facto state not currently recognized internationally

Total speakers Afro-Asiatic Language family Semitic Central Semitic South Central Semitic Arabic Southern Writing system Language codes ISO 639-2
ara

Yemeni Arabic

Arabic alphabet

ISO 639-3

variously: ayh Hadrami Arabic ayn Sanaani Arabic acq Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi

Arabia, and northern Somalia (as well as the territory of the de facto state of Somaliland). [1]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-1"[2] It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, as it has many classical features not found across most of the Arabic speaking world. Yemeni Arabic can be divided roughly into several main dialect groups, each with its own distinctive vocabulary and phonology. The most important of these groups are San'ani, Ta'izzi, Adani (Adenese), Tihami and Hadhrami (Hadrami). The independent languages of Mahri (Mehri) and Suqutri (Socotri, Soqotri) are not Arabic dialects at all, but developed from Old South Arabian via the ancient Sabaean language, which are related to Ethiopic Languages. Below is a table showing the transliteration system of some consonants together with their IPA values (Note that some phonetic symbols may not appear in some versions of web browser) : Arabic or x palatal stop: j/ velar stop: g affricate: j/ yodized: y y Transliteration s t d d j j IPA transcription

Contents
[hide] 1 San'ani Arabic dialect 1.1 Phonology 1.2 1.3

1.4 2 Ta'izzi Arabic dialect 3 4 5

6 6.1 Phonology

6.2 6.3

6.4 7 Yafi'i Arabic dialect 8 9 10

11

[edit] San'ani Arabic dialect

[edit] Phonology
The San'ani dialect is distinguished among Yemeni dialects by its use of the hard []

sound in the place of the classical Arabic qf ( ,)as well as its preservation of the classical Arabic palatal pronunciation of j (also transliterated , IPA transcription [d]) for the Arabic letter jm. In these respects, San'ani Arabic is very similar to most Bedouin dialects across the Arabian peninsula.

[edit] Morphology
Along with these phonological similarities to other dialects, San'ani Arabic also has several unique features. It uses the classical m in the meaning of "what", as well as in negations. Unlike the classical usage, this m is used without distinction in verbal and nominal sentences alike. It represents the future aspect with a complex array of prefixes, depending on the person of the verb. For first-person verbs the prefix (a-) or (ad) is used. The derivation of (a-) is apparently related to the classical (sa-), and (ad) is likely an abbreviation of (bad), meaning "after". For all other persons in San'a proper the simple prefix (a-) is used, although many of the villages around San'a extend the use of (a-) for all persons.

[edit] Syntax
San'ani syntax differs from other Arabic dialects in a number of ways. It is one of few remaining Arabic dialects to retain the m afal exclamatory sentence type with the meaning "how (adjective)". For instance, m ajmal, is used to mean "how beautiful", from the adjective jaml, meaning "beautiful". A construction it shares with Libyan Arabic and Levantine Arabic.

[edit] Vocabulary
The San'ani vocabulary is also very distinct and conservative. The classical verb sra, yasr is retained with the meaning of "to go". Shalla, yashill is used to mean "to take/get". [3] An example, would be the parliament speaker of Yemen, Abdullah Alahmar, when he spoke on AL-Jazeera TV few years ago, they actually had to translate his Yemeni dialect to Standard Arabic, for viewers and the TV host to understand what he said.

[edit] Ta'izzi Arabic dialect

The Ta'izzi Arabic Dialect is spoken in Taiz, Aden, parts of Ibb.

[edit] Adeni Arabic dialect

The Adeni dialect is also very distinct from the rest of the Yemeni dialects. Like the majority of Yemeni dialects, Adeni uses the hard uvular [q] for the classical qf ( .)Like the Taiz dialect, however, Adeni Arabic substitutes dental fricatives for dental plosives, // becomes /t/, // becomes /d/, and the two (classical) emphatics, // and /d/ are both merged into one sound, namely /d/.

[edit] Tihami Arabic dialect

The Tihami dialect has many aspects which differentiate it from all other dialects in the

Arab world. Phonologically Tihami is similar to the majority of Yemeni dialects, pronouncing the qaf ( )as [q] and the jm ( )as a hard [] ([] exists in Egyptian Arabic also). Grammatically all Tihami dialects also share the unusual feature of replacing the definite article (al-) with the prefix (am-). The future tense, much like the dialects surrounding Sana'a, is indicated with the prefix (sh-), for all persons, e.g. sha-bk am-sq "I will go to the Souq". Some Tihami dialects, such as that spoken in Al-Hodeida, are otherwise fairly similar to other Yemeni dialects in grammar and syntax, differing mainly in vocabulary, while others can be so far from any other Arabic dialect that they are practically incomprehensible even to other Yemenis.

[edit] Zabidi dialect

Of all the dialects of the Tihami tihama region, the dialect of Zabid displays the most innovations. It shares the transformed definite article of (am-) with the rest of the Tihami dialects, but it is unique in retaining certain of the declensional suffixes in the nominative case. Indefinite masculine nouns in nominal sentences as well as the subjects of verbal sentences are suffixed with the sound (-), which stems from the classical suffix (-un/-u). Likewise the phonology of the Zabidi sub-dialect is perhaps unique among all Arabic dialects in that it replaces the sound (ain) [] ( )with the glottal stop ( ) [] ( .)In terms of vocabulary, the Zabidi dialect shares very little with other Arabic dialects, in many respects it seems to be a different language. Zabidis use the verb bka, yabk to mean "to go." The word goh#d and goh#da mean man, and woman, respectively. And the word faym to mean "where", hence the phrase: faym byku? meaning "Where are you going?", which is grammatically parallel to the more familiar: fayn ryih# of more mainstream dialects.

[edit] Hadhrami Arabic Dialect

[edit] Phonology
The dialect in many towns and villages in the Wd (valley) and the coastal region is characterised by its pronunciation of the voiced palatal plosive (or affricate) ( )as the semi-vowel (( )y) ([j]). In this it resembles some Eastern Arabian and Gulf dialects including the dialects of Basra in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the dialects of the other Arab Emirates. In educated speech, ( )is realised as a voiced palatal plosive ([]) or affricate ([d]) in some lexical items. The [ q] reflex is pronounced as a voiced velar [] in all lexical items throughout the dialect. With the spread of literacy and contact with speakers of other Arabic dialects, future sociolinguistic research may reveal whether HA is going to witness innovation like using the uvular /q/ in certain lexemes while retaining the velar // for others. Wd HA makes [ / t], [] (t, ) and [ / d], [] (d, ) distinction but [ d] and [ ] are both pronounced [ ] where as Coastal HA merges all these pairs into the stops , and /( t/, /d/ and //) respectively. In non-emphatic environments, () is realised as an open front (slightly raised) unrounded

vowel. Thus (n) second; psn. name, which is normally realised with an []-like quality in the Gulf dialects, is realised with an [] 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 Wd and the coastal varieties of HA. Coastal HA has initial clusters in (b) he wants, (bal) onions and (brd) mail (n.) while Wd HA realises the second and third words as (baal) and (bard) respectively.

[edit] Morphology
When the first person singular comes as an independent subject pronoun, it is marked for gender, thus (an) for masculine and (an) for feminine. As an object pronoun, it comes as a bound morpheme, thus (n) for masculine and (n) for feminine. The first person subject plural is (nan). The first person direct object plural is (nan) rather than (n) which is the case in many dialects. Thus, the cognate of the Classical Arabic (araban) he hit us is (arab nan) in HA. Stem VI, (tC1C2aC3), can undergo a vowel stem shift to (tC1C2aC3), thus changing the pattern vowel () to (). This leads to a semantic change as in (tradaw) they ran away suddenly and (tradaw) they shirk, try to escape Intensive and frequentative verbs are common in the dialect. Thus /kasar/ to break is intensified to /kawsar/ as in (ksar fi l - lib) he played rough. It can be metathesized to become frequentative as (kaswar min i-akt) he made a series (lit. breaks) of giggles or laughs.

[edit] 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, lkan) but; nevertheless, though, (m) (Classical Arabic amm) 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 clichs and proverbs from other dialects including Classical Arabic. The particle /qad/ developed semantically in HA into /ku/ or /gu / yet, already, almost, nearly and /gad/ or /gid/ maybe, perhaps.

[edit] 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 Singaporean), the Indian subcontinent and East Africa on HA is clear in the vocabulary especially in certain

registers like types of food and dress, e.g. (rn) "sarong". Many loan words were listed in al-Saqqaf (2006):[4]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-4"[5]

[edit] Yafi'i Arabic dialect

While there is much about the Lower Yafa'i dialect that has not been thoroughly studied, it does have a very interesting phonological shift. Along with the southern bedouin dialects, in Abyan and Lahej, with which it shares much in common, Yafi'i pronounces the classical jm ( )as gm, but unlike all other dialects, Yafi'i systematically pronounces the classical sound ain (// as qain and qf as f, effectively switching the pronunciation of the one letter for the other. An illustration of this phonemic interchange can be seen in the Yafi'i words baar cow and qanam goat, which correspond to the classical words baqar cow and anam goat. Although a similar phonological shift occurs in certain words in the Sudan as well, the similarities are rather misleading. Whereas the shift is systematic in Yafi', occurring at every instance of the relevant phonemes, in the Sudan it is usually a form of hypercorrection which takes place only in certain classical words. In the Sudan, the phoneme [q] is systematically pronounced [] in all common words, with the pronunciation gh [] occurring as a hypercorrection in words such as istiqll "freedom", pronounced istighll (meaning "exploitation" in Standard Arabic).

Yemeni Arabic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Yemeni Arabic Spoken in Yemen, Somalia, Somaliland de facto state not currently recognized internationally

Total speakers Afro-Asiatic Language family Semitic Central Semitic South Central Semitic Arabic Southern Yemeni Arabic

Writing system Language codes ISO 639-2

Arabic alphabet

ara

ISO 639-3

variously: ayh Hadrami Arabic ayn Sanaani Arabic acq Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia, and northern Somalia (as well as the territory of the de facto state of Somaliland). [1]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-1"[2] It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, as it has many classical features not found across most of the Arabic speaking world. Yemeni Arabic can be divided roughly into several main dialect groups, each with its own distinctive vocabulary and phonology. The most important of these groups are San'ani, Ta'izzi, Adani (Adenese), Tihami and Hadhrami (Hadrami). The independent languages of Mahri (Mehri) and Suqutri (Socotri, Soqotri) are not Arabic dialects at all, but developed from Old South Arabian via the ancient Sabaean language, which are related to Ethiopic Languages. Below is a table showing the transliteration system of some consonants together with their IPA values (Note that some phonetic symbols may not appear in some versions of web browser) : Arabic or Transliteration s t d IPA transcription

x palatal stop: j/ velar stop: g affricate: j/ yodized: y y

d j j

Contents
[hide] 1 San'ani Arabic dialect 1.1 Phonology 1.2 1.3

1.4 2 Ta'izzi Arabic dialect 3 4 5

6 6.1 Phonology

6.2 6.3

6.4 7 Yafi'i Arabic dialect 8 9 10

11

[edit] San'ani Arabic dialect

[edit] Phonology
The San'ani dialect is distinguished among Yemeni dialects by its use of the hard []

sound in the place of the classical Arabic qf ( ,)as well as its preservation of the classical Arabic palatal pronunciation of j (also transliterated , IPA transcription [d]) for the Arabic letter jm. In these respects, San'ani Arabic is very similar to most Bedouin dialects across the Arabian peninsula.

[edit] Morphology
Along with these phonological similarities to other dialects, San'ani Arabic also has several unique features. It uses the classical m in the meaning of "what", as well as in negations. Unlike the classical usage, this m is used without distinction in verbal and nominal sentences alike. It represents the future aspect with a complex array of prefixes, depending on the person of the verb. For first-person verbs the prefix (a-) or (ad) is used. The derivation of (a-) is apparently related to the classical (sa-), and (ad) is likely an abbreviation of (bad), meaning "after". For all other persons in San'a proper the simple prefix (a-) is used, although many of the villages around San'a extend the use of (a-) for all persons.

[edit] Syntax
San'ani syntax differs from other Arabic dialects in a number of ways. It is one of few remaining Arabic dialects to retain the m afal exclamatory sentence type with the meaning "how (adjective)". For instance, m ajmal, is used to mean "how beautiful", from the adjective jaml, meaning "beautiful". A construction it shares with Libyan Arabic and Levantine Arabic.

[edit] Vocabulary
The San'ani vocabulary is also very distinct and conservative. The classical verb sra, yasr is retained with the meaning of "to go". Shalla, yashill is used to mean "to take/get". [3] An example, would be the parliament speaker of Yemen, Abdullah Alahmar, when he spoke on AL-Jazeera TV few years ago, they actually had to translate his Yemeni dialect to Standard Arabic, for viewers and the TV host to understand what he said.

[edit] Ta'izzi Arabic dialect

The Ta'izzi Arabic Dialect is spoken in Taiz, Aden, parts of Ibb.

[edit] Adeni Arabic dialect

The Adeni dialect is also very distinct from the rest of the Yemeni dialects. Like the majority of Yemeni dialects, Adeni uses the hard uvular [q] for the classical qf ( .)Like the Taiz dialect, however, Adeni Arabic substitutes dental fricatives for dental plosives, // becomes /t/, // becomes /d/, and the two (classical) emphatics, // and /d/ are both merged into one sound, namely /d/.

[edit] Tihami Arabic dialect

The Tihami dialect has many aspects which differentiate it from all other dialects in the

Arab world. Phonologically Tihami is similar to the majority of Yemeni dialects, pronouncing the qaf ( )as [q] and the jm ( )as a hard [] ([] exists in Egyptian Arabic also). Grammatically all Tihami dialects also share the unusual feature of replacing the definite article (al-) with the prefix (am-). The future tense, much like the dialects surrounding Sana'a, is indicated with the prefix (sh-), for all persons, e.g. sha-bk am-sq "I will go to the Souq". Some Tihami dialects, such as that spoken in Al-Hodeida, are otherwise fairly similar to other Yemeni dialects in grammar and syntax, differing mainly in vocabulary, while others can be so far from any other Arabic dialect that they are practically incomprehensible even to other Yemenis.

[edit] Zabidi dialect

Of all the dialects of the Tihami tihama region, the dialect of Zabid displays the most innovations. It shares the transformed definite article of (am-) with the rest of the Tihami dialects, but it is unique in retaining certain of the declensional suffixes in the nominative case. Indefinite masculine nouns in nominal sentences as well as the subjects of verbal sentences are suffixed with the sound (-), which stems from the classical suffix (-un/-u). Likewise the phonology of the Zabidi sub-dialect is perhaps unique among all Arabic dialects in that it replaces the sound (ain) [] ( )with the glottal stop ( ) [] ( .)In terms of vocabulary, the Zabidi dialect shares very little with other Arabic dialects, in many respects it seems to be a different language. Zabidis use the verb bka, yabk to mean "to go." The word goh#d and goh#da mean man, and woman, respectively. And the word faym to mean "where", hence the phrase: faym byku? meaning "Where are you going?", which is grammatically parallel to the more familiar: fayn ryih# of more mainstream dialects.

[edit] Hadhrami Arabic Dialect

[edit] Phonology
The dialect in many towns and villages in the Wd (valley) and the coastal region is characterised by its pronunciation of the voiced palatal plosive (or affricate) ( )as the semi-vowel (( )y) ([j]). In this it resembles some Eastern Arabian and Gulf dialects including the dialects of Basra in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the dialects of the other Arab Emirates. In educated speech, ( )is realised as a voiced palatal plosive ([]) or affricate ([d]) in some lexical items. The [ q] reflex is pronounced as a voiced velar [] in all lexical items throughout the dialect. With the spread of literacy and contact with speakers of other Arabic dialects, future sociolinguistic research may reveal whether HA is going to witness innovation like using the uvular /q/ in certain lexemes while retaining the velar // for others. Wd HA makes [ / t], [] (t, ) and [ / d], [] (d, ) distinction but [ d] and [ ] are both pronounced [ ] where as Coastal HA merges all these pairs into the stops , and /( t/, /d/ and //) respectively. In non-emphatic environments, () is realised as an open front (slightly raised) unrounded

vowel. Thus (n) second; psn. name, which is normally realised with an []-like quality in the Gulf dialects, is realised with an [] 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 Wd and the coastal varieties of HA. Coastal HA has initial clusters in (b) he wants, (bal) onions and (brd) mail (n.) while Wd HA realises the second and third words as (baal) and (bard) respectively.

[edit] Morphology
When the first person singular comes as an independent subject pronoun, it is marked for gender, thus (an) for masculine and (an) for feminine. As an object pronoun, it comes as a bound morpheme, thus (n) for masculine and (n) for feminine. The first person subject plural is (nan). The first person direct object plural is (nan) rather than (n) which is the case in many dialects. Thus, the cognate of the Classical Arabic (araban) he hit us is (arab nan) in HA. Stem VI, (tC1C2aC3), can undergo a vowel stem shift to (tC1C2aC3), thus changing the pattern vowel () to (). This leads to a semantic change as in (tradaw) they ran away suddenly and (tradaw) they shirk, try to escape Intensive and frequentative verbs are common in the dialect. Thus /kasar/ to break is intensified to /kawsar/ as in (ksar fi l - lib) he played rough. It can be metathesized to become frequentative as (kaswar min i-akt) he made a series (lit. breaks) of giggles or laughs.

[edit] 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, lkan) but; nevertheless, though, (m) (Classical Arabic amm) 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 clichs and proverbs from other dialects including Classical Arabic. The particle /qad/ developed semantically in HA into /ku/ or /gu / yet, already, almost, nearly and /gad/ or /gid/ maybe, perhaps.

[edit] 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 Singaporean), the Indian subcontinent and East Africa on HA is clear in the vocabulary especially in certain

registers like types of food and dress, e.g. (rn) "sarong". Many loan words were listed in al-Saqqaf (2006):[4]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-4"[5]

[edit] Yafi'i Arabic dialect

While there is much about the Lower Yafa'i dialect that has not been thoroughly studied, it does have a very interesting phonological shift. Along with the southern bedouin dialects, in Abyan and Lahej, with which it shares much in common, Yafi'i pronounces the classical jm ( )as gm, but unlike all other dialects, Yafi'i systematically pronounces the classical sound ain (// as qain and qf as f, effectively switching the pronunciation of the one letter for the other. An illustration of this phonemic interchange can be seen in the Yafi'i words baar cow and qanam goat, which correspond to the classical words baqar cow and anam goat. Although a similar phonological shift occurs in certain words in the Sudan as well, the similarities are rather misleading. Whereas the shift is systematic in Yafi', occurring at every instance of the relevant phonemes, in the Sudan it is usually a form of hypercorrection which takes place only in certain classical words. In the Sudan, the phoneme [q] is systematically pronounced [] in all common words, with the pronunciation gh [] occurring as a hypercorrection in words such as istiqll "freedom", pronounced istighll (meaning "exploitation" in Standard Arabic).