In:Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIV: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Tucson, Arizona, 2020
Edited by Mahmoud Azaz
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 12] 2023
► pp. 13–32
Towards an account of historical new-dialect formation in northern Africa
The case of sibilant merging in Arabic dialects
Published online: 6 January 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.12.01ben
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.12.01ben
Abstract
The two “waves” which are held to have brought Arabic to northern Africa are typically assumed to have been homogenous entities which subsequently developed in situ into the numerous dialects of the modern period. This paper argues that the complex distribution of phonological variants seen in the modern dialects can be better accounted for by assuming multiple input dialects and a sociolinguistic process of new-dialect formation leading to new output dialects. It uses the example of sibilant merging, attested in a number of dialects, wherein the Arabic non-emphatic sibilants s/š and z/ž merge their places of articulation. Sibilant merging in these dialects is argued to be an internal development preceding the spread of Arabic into northern Africa rather than solely the result of language contact.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Sibilant merging in Arabic dialects
- 3.The origins of sibilant merging
- 4.Towards an account of historical new-dialect formation in North Africa
- 5.Conclusion
Notes References
References (57)
Aguadé, J. (2018). The Maghrebi dialects of Arabic. In Clive Holes. (ed.), Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches (pp. 29–63). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Al-Jallad, A. (2015). On the Voiceless Reflex of *ṣ́ and *ṯ̣ in pre-Hilalian Maghrebian Arabic. Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik, 62, 88–95.
(2018). What is Ancient North Arabian? In Daniel Birnstiel. (ed.), Re-engaging Comparative Semitic and Arabic Studies (pp.1–44). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
(2020). The Linguistic Landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia: Context for the Qur’an. In Mustafa Shah & M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Al-Sharkawi, M. (2008). Pre-Islamic Arabic. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.
Al-Wer, E. (2007). The Formation of the Dialect of Amman: From Chaos to Order. In Catherine Miller, Enam Al-Wer, Dominique Caubet & Janet C. E. Watson. (eds.), Arabic in the City: Studies in Dialect Contact and Language Variation (pp.55–76). London: Routledge.
(2020). New-dialect formation: The Amman dialect. In Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi. (eds.), Arabic and contact-induced change (pp.551–566). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Behnstedt, P. (1987). Die Dialekte der Gegend von Sa‘dah (Nord-Jemen) (Semitica Viva 1). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
(2018). The formation of the Egyptian Arabic dialect area. In Clive Holes. (ed.), Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches (pp. 64–95). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Benkato, A. (2019). From medieval tribes to modern dialects: On the afterlives of colonial knowledge in Arabic dialectology. Philological Encounters, 4, (1–2). 2–25.
Bradley, Travis G. & Delforge, A. (2006). Systemic Contrast and the Diachrony of Spanish Sibilant Voicing. In Deborah Arteaga & Randall Gess. (eds.), Historical Romance Linguistics: Retrospectives and Perspectives (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, pp. 19–52). Amsterdam – Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Cantineau, J. (1938). Les parlers arabes du Département de Constantine. In IVème congrès de la Fédération des Sociétés savantes de l’Afrique du Nord, vol. 8, 849–863.
Chetrit, J. (2007). Diglossie, hybridation et diversité intra-linguistique: Études socio-pragmatiques sur les langues juives, le judéo-arabe et le judéo-berbère. Louvain: Peeters.
(2015). Diversity of Judeo-Arabic Dialects in North Africa: Eqa:l, Wqal, kjal and ʔal Dialects. Journal of Jewish Languages, 4, 1–43.
Chiu, C., Wei, P. C., Noguchi, M., & Yamane, N. (2020). Sibilant fricative merging in Taiwan Mandarin: An investigation of tongue postures using ultrasound imaging. Language and speech, 63(4), 877–897.
Churchyard, H. (1993). Early Arabic siin and šiin in Light of the Proto-Semitic Fricative-lateral Hypothesis. In Mushira Eid & Clive Holes. (eds.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics V: Papers from the Fifth Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (pp. 313–342). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Cohen, D. (1964). Le parler arabe des juifs de Tunis: Tome 1, textes et documents linguistiques et ethnographiques. Paris: Mouton.
(1981). Remarques historiques et sociolinguistiques sur les parlers arabes des Juifs maghrébins. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 30, 91–106.
Corriente, F. (1977). A Grammatical Sketch of the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle. Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura Direccion General de Relaciones Culturales.
(2020). Moroccan Arabic. In Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi. (eds.), Arabic and contact-induced change (pp. 213–224). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Heath, J. & Bar-Asher, M. (1982). A Judeo-Arabic Dialect of Tafilalt (Southeastern Morocco). Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik, 9, 32–78.
Hillili, A. (1979). Phonologie et morphologie de l’ancien fassi (parler arabe marocain). Paris: Université Paris III M.A. Thesis.
Kogan, L. (2011). Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology. In Stefan Weninger, Janet C. E. Watson, Geoffrey Khan & Michael P. Streck. (eds.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook (pp. 54–150). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
(2013). The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 67). Leiden: Brill.
(2021). Proto-Berber phonological reconstruction: An update. Linguistique et Langues Africaines 6. 11–42.
Le Page, R. B. & Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lévy, S. (2009). Parlers arabes des juifs du Maroc: histoire, sociolinguistique et géographie dialectale. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islamicos y del Oriente Próximo.
Messaoudi, L. (1998). Traits linguistiques du parler ancien de Rabat. In Jordi Aguadé, Patrice Cressier & Ángeles Vicente. (eds.), Peuplement et arabisation au Maghreb occidental. Dialectologie et histoire (pp. 157–164). Zaragoza: University of Zaragoza.
Muxika-Loitzate, O. (2017). Sibilant Merger in the Variety of Basque Spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano. Languages, 2(25). 1–19.
Pereira, C. (2011). Arabic in the North African region. In Stefan Weninger, Janet C. E. Watson, Geoffrey Khan & Michael P. Streck. (eds.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook (pp. 954–969). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
(2017). Waves of Arabization and the Vernaculars of North Africa: An annotated bibliography. In The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (pp.488–503). New York: Routledge.
van Putten, M. (2014). Some notes on the historical consonantism of Awjila. Folia Orientalia, 51, 257–274.
Roux, A. (1925). Le parler arabe des musulmanes de Meknès. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation.
Stillman, N. (1988). The Language and Culture of the Jews of Sefrou, Morocco: an Ethnolinguistic Study (Journal of Semitic Studies Monographs 11). Manchester: University of Manchester.
Taine-Cheikh, C. (1984). Les altérations conditionnées des chuintantes et des sifflantes dans les dialectes arabes. Comptes rendus du GLECS, 24, 8, 413–435.
(2017). La classification des parlers bédouins du Maghreb: revisiter le classement traditionnel. In Veronika Ritt-Benmimoun. (ed.), Tunisian and Libyan Arabic Dialects: Common Trends – Recent Developments – Diachronic Aspects (pp. 15–42). Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo (IEIOP).
Trudgill, P. (2004). New-Dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Watson, J. (2018). South Arabian and Arabic dialects. In Clive Holes. (ed.), Arabic historical dialectology: Linguistic and sociolinguistic approaches (pp. 316–334). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Watson, J. & Heselwood, B. (2016). Phonation and glottal states in Modern South Arabian languages and San’ani Arabic. In Youssef A. Haddad & Eric Potsdam. (eds.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVIII: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Gainesville, Florida, 2014 (pp. 3–36). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Woidich, M. (1993). Die Dialekte der ägyptischen Oasen: Westliches oder östliches Arabisch? Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik, 25, 340–359.
(2020). The Dialect of Farafra Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. In Zeinab A. Taha. (ed.), Revisiting Levels of Contemporary Arabic in Egypt: Essays on Arabic Varieties in Memory of El-Said Badawi (pp. 19–42). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
Yoda, S. (2006). “Sifflant” and “chuintant” in the Arabic dialect of the Jews of Gabes (south Tunisia). Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik, 46, 7–25.
(2017). The Historical h in some Eastern Maghribi Dialects Revisited. In Veronika Ritt-Benmimoun. (ed.), Tunisian and Libyan Arabic Dialects: Common Trends – Recent Developments – Diachronic Aspects (Estudios de Dialectología Árabe 13, pp. 85–102). Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo.