Arabic dialect history and historical linguistic mythology.

• Author: Owens, Jonathan

INTRODUCTION

Studies of spoken Arabic have been dominated by descriptions of individual dialects, dialect atlases and corpus-based sociolinguistic studies. There have been few attempts to apply principles of historical linguistics systematically to this relatively rich data base. (1) Earlier studies such as Cowan (1960) or Kaye (1972) stand out as the exception. (2) Since these two studies appeared a great deal of progress has been made in Arabic dialectology (e.g., Behnstedt 1985, 1997, Behnstedt and Woidich 1985, many studies of individual dialects). However, the descriptive advances remain basically unintegrated into a larger study of Arabic linguistics. (3)

There are two prominent pitfalls in relating dialects to the history of the Arabic language. First, to return to Kaye's study cited above, reconstructions based on dialectal forms eventually have to be melded into the total object, Arabic, and for this their compatibility with the oldest citations of Arabic need to be checked. With regard to 'jiim', already in the late eighth century various pronunciations are attested in the phonetic description of Arabic (Sibawaih II: 452). Sibawaih gives two "acceptable" variants of 'jiim' and two variants that are not good (laa tustahsanu) either in koranic recitation or in poetry. (4) Any discussion of a single proto-form has to consider this situation. It may be asked, for instance, whether Kaye's proposed change of *[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] > d[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Aleppo Arabic (1972: 54), doesn't in fact reflect the use of a variant already existing before Arabic speakers arrived in Aleppo. In general the problem of Arabic reconstruction must always confront the question of whether dialect forms of the diaspora are due to post-diaspora innovation, or are reflective of pre-existing diversity on the Arabian peninsula. A second problem in many dialect studies revolves around linguistic features that are attributed a specific historical origin. Closer inspection of these features, however, shows that historical attributions are often made on the basis of contemporary dialectal distributions rather than on systematic historical reconstruction.

In this paper I will concentrate exclusively on this second problem, and therefore have chosen a feature which indubitably is of post-diaspora provenance. I examine the well-known first person imperfect (1SG) verb affix, n-, n- ... -u, commonly identified as of North African (maghrebin) origin, and attempt a plausible historical linguistic account of its place and, more speculatively, date of origin.

1. BACKGROUND SUMMARY

   In this first section I present the basic problem and the tools with which it can be tackled.

   1.1 Basic Linguistic Problem

   In Arabic first person singular and plural imperfect verbs fall into one of three paradigms.

   I write we write (1) b- m-n- [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]- [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ktob ktob, (2) a-ktib, n-ikitb-u (3) n-iktib, n-ikitb-u In (1) 1SG is represented by a vowel (a or [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), 1PL by n-. It is found in eastern Arabic dialects, the present example from Damascene Arabic, most of Egypt, the Sudan and Nigeria, and in Classical Arabic as well. In (3) 1SG is represented by n-, 1PL by n- ... -u. Alternatively, one could say that n- has become a marker of first person, -u of plural. This variant is found throughout North Africa from Morocco to Alexandria, as well as in Chad and, according to Hillelson (1925), in Darfur and some parts of Korodofan in the Sudan. There are no recent studies giving a precise demarcation, and it can be noted that in the Sudan forms like (1) have over the past 150 years tended to migrate east so that they have also become a part of the urban sociolectology in Khartoum and other Nile cities. At the western edge of the western Sudanic dialect region (see 4.1 for this terminology) the boundary between (1) and (3) lies, according to Owens (1998: 114), in the small northerly strip of northern Cameroon where Arabic is the dominant language. Nigerian Arabic is basically characterized by (1), Chadian by (3). In this paper, (3) will thus be termed "Chadian Arabic" when reference is made to the dialects of the western Sudanic region. (3) is furthermore characteristic of some Egyptian dialects. It is found in the northwestern Delta area, the so-called biheera (also buhayra), and it is found in the area south of Asyut, up to Aswan. At the northern and southern end of this latter region it is interspersed with villages and cities using (2) (Behnstedt and Woidich 1985: 210-12). (2), a combination of morphemes midway between (1) and (3) is of more limited geographical distribution, being restricted to Egypt. (5) It is found in the west delta area, forming a buffer zone between (1) and (3), and in Upper Egypt occurs interspersed with (1) (see Map 1). I will come back to these forms in section 7 below, in the meantime concentrating on the more widespread (1) and (3).

   (3), n- ... -u is frequently referred to as "North African" (see section 7 below for references). As a shorthand term this is unobjectionable. It is unwieldy to qualify it as "North African plus various regions in Egypt and in the Sudanic area" or the like. Given its wide distribution outside of North Africa, however, one cannot on a priori grounds assume that its current region of widest distribution is also where it originated.

   [GRAPHIC OMITTED]

   As the following discussion will indicate, there is no firsthand evidence for how the forms (2) and (3) arise. I assume that the historical development went from (1) to (2) to (3). (6) To argue for this sequence, (1) is close to if not identical with the original proto-Arabic. To get from (1) to (3) two steps are necessary, whereas from (1) to (2) only one step is. Furthermore, a two step approach from (1) to (3) allows a regular working of analogy. The first person plural is correlated first with the 2 and 3 masculine plural forms; the first person singular is then correlated with the n- of the new first person plural, as in (4).

   (4) Analogical development of first person markers

   step 1. n-uktub : t-uktub-u [right arrow] n-uktub-u: tuktub-u : plural analogy (1 PL correlates with 2/3 PL)

   step 2. aktub : nuktub-u [right arrow] n-uktub : n-uktub-u: first person analogy (1SG correlates with 1 PL)

   According to this, the question relevant to historical linguistics, and of this paper, is to explain where and when (2) and (3) above developed.

   1.2 Linguistic Evidence I, II, III

   The linguistic evidence that will be brought to bear on this question can be sorted into three types. In the first, what can be termed linguistic evidence I, there is a rather exiguous amount of data supplied by old written sources (see below, section 3). A second type, which is termed linguistic evidence II, is an historical reconstruction based on the present distribution of (1)-(3). This type of data begins with the synchronic distribution of (1-3), but uses basic procedures of the comparative method to derive clues as to their historical development (sections 4, 5, 7). This type of data when examined in strictly linguistic terms is suggestive, but in and of itself inconclusive when applied to (1-3) above. (1) has three main points of distribution: all of North Africa up to about Alexandria and including the two most northerly Egyptian oases, Upper Egypt on the Nile, and Chad. Given these three discontinuous areas, a reasonable initial hypothesis would be that it emanated from a central point of distribution outwards. This would imply Upper Egypt, situated between Chad on the one hand and North Africa on the other. (7) This assumption is based on the principle of paucity: from Upper Egypt it is only one step into North Africa and into Chad, whereas beginning in either Chad or North Africa requires two steps to reach the opposite extreme. (8)

   What is termed linguistic evidence III is a much broader category of data, one potentially limitless in scope. I restrict myself to two of its aspects. The first pertains to the linguistic features, the bundles of isoglosses typically accompanying (1-3), and in basic terms, the dialects which they imply. In this context, (1-3) are the features whose development will be explained in this paper, while other linguistic features may be adduced as supporting actors as it were, to elucidate aspects of this development (sections 4, 6, 7). In this paper, however, I shall distance myself from the notion that dialects move through time holistically from one era to another. Rather, as will be illustrated in section 4.2, linguistic features seem to break apart and regroup in new areas; new features are introduced by immigrating groups. The second aspect of this category of evidence concerns the linguistic nature of the features in the expression of first person singular and plural in the imperfect verb. This multifaceted issue will be addressed in terms of the notion of saliency of linguistic features (section 6).

   1.3 Historical Evidence

   Linguistic argumentation can be given a more nuanced interpretation when it is linked to the history of the speakers of the dialects. Individual linguistic features, such as (1-3) are deformalized, as it were, by linking them to specific populations which either transported the features themselves in their migrations, innovated them, or adopted them from other populations (sections 4.3, 5).

   Admittedly, given the time depth involved and the nature of the early sources, this evidence is subject to some of the same limitations as the early written linguistic evidence, alluded to in section 1.2. However, some large-scale population movements in the region are well attested in the historical record, and an effort can be made to link these migrations with the migration of the linguistic forms. A central argument in this paper is that (3) in particular was carried from Egypt to the other regions in specific, large-scale...