A group for academics interested in vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin & Hatay), & in diaspora.
Files List
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The Emergence of a Mixed Type Dialect: The Example of the Dialect of the Bani ˁAbbād Tribe (Jordan)
The present article aims at questioning the status of the šāwi dialect of the Bani ʕAbbād tribe by providing a new analysis of the main distinctive phonological, morphological, and syntactical traits which may hint at dialect mixing. The data provided by the field research, based on a functional framework that relies on descriptive linguistics and a typological approach, show that this dialect is deeply affected by a koineizing tendency due to increasing contacts with the populations of the neighboring areas (especially ʕAmmān and Salṭ) which, in turn, leads to the gradual loss of its authentic features. Finally, this paper discusses whether the dialect of the Bani ʕAbbād should still be considered as belonging to the yigūl group (recently renamed Central Bedouin ygūlu) of the Syro-Mesopotamian sheep-raising tribes or if a new typology of mixed type dialects should eventually be adopted for the dialects displaying important markers of both Bedouin and sedentary types.
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The Classification of Bedouin Arabic: Insights from Northern Jordan
The goal of the present paper is to provide a revaluation of the classification of the Bedouin dialects of Northern Arabia and the Southern Levant, based on published or publicly available data and on first-hand data recently collected amongst some Bedouin tribes in Northern Jordan. We suggest extending previous classifications that identify three types of dialects, namely A (ʿnizi), B (šammari), and C (šāwi). Although intermediary or mixed types combining šammari features with šāwi features were already noted, our data suggest that further combinations are possible, either because they had so far been unnoticed or because recent levelling and dialect mixing have blurred the boundaries between some of the varieties.
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New-dialect formation: The Amman dialect
One fascinating outcome of dialect contact is the formation of totally new dialects from scratch, using linguistic stock present in the input dialects, as well as creating new combinations of features, and new features not present in the original input varieties. This chapter traces the formation of one such case from Arabic, namely the dialect of Amman, within the framework of the variationist paradigm and the principles of new-dialect formation.
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Phonetic and Phonological Variation in the Speech of Rural Migrants in a Jordanian City
This study investigates the phonetic and phonological variation in the speech of Fallahi (rural) migrants in the town of Irbid. This variationist investigation focuses on four linguistic variables: (Q), (D), (8) and (d3) across four social variables: social class, gender, education, and age. The spread of non-local urban features in the speech of the Fallahi people living within the same area and having similar kinship, social and cultural backgrounds is the focus of investigation. This kind of analysis considers the competing status of the two extreme levels of the Arabic language continuum. Therefore, it reshuffles the images associated with Standard Arabic as the most prestigious variety in Arabic.
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Dialect contact and change in an Arabic morpheme: The feminine ending in Jordan and Palestine
In this short presentation the authors explain the history of feminine ending in Semitic, Arabic varieties & levantine vernaculars focusing on Jordan & Palestinian varieties.
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Phonological aspects of al-Issa Arabic, a Bedouin dialect in the north of Jordan.
This study offers an account of selected key phonological aspects of al-Issa Arabic, spoken in three villages in al Mafraq: Ad-Dafyana, Mansiyat al-Gublan and Um As-srab. Forty suitable participants plus four language consultants were recruited. The dialect has a number of distinguishing features that make it stand out from the rest of Bedouin Jordanian Arabic dialects, e.g. the Bani Saxar dialect (Palva 1980), Bani Ḥassan dialect (Irshied 1984), Abbadi dialect (Sakarna 1999), and Wadi Ramm Arabic (Mashaqba 2015). These features include the unlimited affrication of *k, the realization of the palato-alveolar/j/as[y] in all word positions (yaʔyaʔa phenomenon), and the unconditioned retention of Classical Arabic diphthongs *aw and *ay in all contexts. In terms of syllable structure, the core syllable types observed are: CV,
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Emphatic variation of the labio-velar /w/ in two Jordanian Arabic dialects. By Mutasim Al-DeaibesEkab Al-ShawashrehMarwan Jarrah
Much work on emphatic segments in Arabic dialects has focused on primary emphasis. However, secondary emphasis has been less of a target of study. Our research investigates the emphatic variation of the secondarily emphatic labio-velar /w/ between males and females in two Jordanian Arabic sub-dialects: Rural Jordanian Arabic and Urban Jordanian Arabic. Twenty-four native speakers from the two dialects (equally stratified according to their gender and dialect) were asked to read a carrier phrase that included fifteen tri-syllabic words having the sound /w/ in medial position. Our research confirmed that there is a variation in the degree of emphasis based on gender and dialect. More particularly, males produced stronger emphatic segments than females did, and Urban speakers produced weaker empathic segments than Rural speakers did. Results also revealed that the secondarily emphatic /w/ caused the neighboring vowels to have lowered F2 and raised F1 and F3.