Arabian Diversions: Studies in the Dialects of Arabia.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Review

By BRUCE INGHAM. Reading, Berks.: ITHACA PRESS, 1997. Pp. xv + 193.

The essays in this volume belong on the shelves of anyone interested in comparative Arabic dialectology. Most of them are reprinted from BSOAS, two first appeared in the Zeitschrift fur arabische Linguistik, and one was originally published in Asian Folklore Studies (Nagoya). The author's introduction presents important background material and successfully synthesizes his research on the Arabic dialects of Saudi Arabia, southern Iraq, and Khuzistan (pp. ix-xv). The aforementioned dialects can be divided into Mesopotamian and Najdi types, with a "cultural continuum" existing between the two (p. ix). While linguists have long been aware of the notion of a linguistic continuum (see my "Formal vs. Informal in Arabic: Diglossia, Triglossia, Tetraglossia, Etc., Polyglossia-Multiglossia Viewed as a Continuum," Zeitschrifi fur arabische Linguistik 27 [1994]: 47-66), further research is imperative to clarify the concept of a cultural continuum (see, most recently, Gary B. Palmer, Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics [Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1996], which uses the continuum notion in many contexts).

Ingham, who has been doing fieldwork in this part of the Arab world since 1969, remarks that the title of this book was inspired by the tome of his University of London colleague, R. H. Robins' Diversions of Bloomsbury: Selected Writings on Linguistics (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1970). Interestingly enough, too, Ingham has followed in Robins' footsteps by branching out to research, via fieldwork, American Indian languages, with a specialization in Lakota.

Chapter 1 deals with Khuzistani Arabic. Its vocabulary demonstrates a close tie-in with southern Mesopotamian dialects; e.g., xos 'good' (a Persian loanword), aku 'there is' (also hast and hassIt 'there is', another Persian loanword). Phonologically, one notices the frequent /y/ reflex of Classical Arabic jim, and of morphological interest is the -an of the imperfect, e.g., asufan 'I see'. The texts are transcribed in detail (which has always been a forte of the London School of Linguistics), and the translations into English read well. (Incidentally, it is strange indeed to read in a 1997 book that Khuzistan is part of the "kingdom of Iran" [p. 14]; however, it should be kept in mind that this article originally appeared in 1973. This should have been changed.)

Chapter 2 is on the dialect geography of southern Iraq and...