Hadhrami Arabic

Template:Short description Template:Template other Hadhrami Arabic (Template:Langx) is a variety of Arabic spoken by the Hadharem living in the region of Hadhramaut in southeastern Yemen. It is also spoken by many emigrants, who migrated from Hadhramaut to the Horn of Africa (Somalia and Eritrea), East Africa (Comoros, Zanzibar, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore) and, recently, to the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

Hadhrami Arabic is also the main element language that forms a local variety of Arabic in Indonesia. This variety was eventually referred to as Indonesian Arabic, where most of the vocabulary and grammar are absorbed from here.

Phonology

The dialect in many towns and villages in the Wādī (valley) and the coastal region is characterised by its Template:IPAslink-yodization, changing the Classical Arabic reflex Template:IPAslink to the approximant Template:IPAblink. That resembles some Eastern Arabian and Gulf dialects, including the dialects of Basra in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain other Arab Emirates. In educated speech, is realised as a voiced palatal plosive Template:IPAblink or affricate Template:IPAblink in some lexical items which are marked [+ religious] or [+ educated] (see Template:IPAslink below).

The Template:IPAslink reflex is pronounced as a voiced velar Template:IPAblink in all lexical items throughout the dialect. In some other Arabic dialects, Template:IPAslink is realised as a voiceless uvular plosive Template:IPAblink in certain marked lexemes [+ religious], [+ educational]: “Qur’an”. With the spread of literacy and contact with speakers of other Arabic dialects, future sociolinguistic research may reveal whether using the uvular Template:IPAslink in certain lexemes and retaining the velar Template:IPAslink for others will occur.

Consonants

		Labial	Interdental		Dental/Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
			plain	emph.	plain	emph.
Nasal		Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link
Stop	voiceless				Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link ~ Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Trill					Template:IPA link
Approximant					Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

• Sounds are phonetically noted as lamino-alveolar stops .
• is phonetically noted as an apical-alveolar stop .
• can be heard as a voiced palatal plosive or an affricate sound .
• In the dialects of Al-Qarn, both and can be heard as affricated , .
• can be heard as labiodental when preceding .
• can be heard as a palatal nasal when following . When preceding , it is then heard as .

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link

• There are five diphthongs noted as .

In non-emphatic environments, is realised as an open front (slightly raised) unrounded Template:IPAblink. Thus, "second," which is normally realised with an Template:IPAblink-like quality in the Gulf dialects, is realised with an Template:IPAblink.

Phoneme	Allophone	Notes
		in shortened, non-emphatic environments
		in emphatic or emphatic-like environments
		within the positions of pharyngeal fricatives
		in non-emphatic environments
		in emphatic-like environments
		within the positions of emphatic consonants
		in shortened, non-emphatic environments
		within the positions of labial or high articulated consonants
		within the positions of uvular or pharyngeal consonants
		elsewhere in non-emphatic environments
		diphthongization occurs when in emphatic environments
		elsewhere in non-emphatic environments
	,	within the positions of emphatic environments
		elsewhere in non-emphatic environments
		within the positions of emphatic environments
		elsewhere in non-emphatic environments
		within the positions of emphatic environments
		elsewhere in non-emphatic environments
		within the positions of emphatic environments

Diphthongs

Phoneme	Allophone

Distinctions , Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink and , Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink are made in Wādī, but Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink are both pronounced Template:IPAblink. The Coast merges all the pairs into the stops , and (Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink), respectively.

The dialect is characterised by not allowing final consonant clusters to occur in final position. Thus, Classical Arabic "girl" is realised as . In initial positions, there is a difference between the Wādī and the coastal varieties. The coast has initial clusters in "he wants," "onions" and "mail (n.)," but Wādī realises the second and third words as and , respectively.

Morphology

When the first person singular comes as an independent subject pronoun, it is marked for gender: for masculine and for feminine. As an object pronoun, it comes as a bound morpheme: for masculine and for feminine. The first person subject plural is naḥnā.

The first person direct object plural is rather than the of many dialects. Thus, the cognate of the Classical Arabic "he hit us" is .

Stem VI, tC1āC2aC3, can be umlauted to tC1ēC2aC3, thus changing the pattern vowel ā to ē. That leads to a semantic change, as in "they ran away suddenly" and "they shirk, try to escape."

Intensive and frequentative verbs are common in the dialect. Thus "to break" is intensified to , as in "he played rough." It can be metathesized to become frequentative, as in "he made a series (lit. breaks) of giggles or laughs."

Syntax

The syntax has many similarities to other Peninsular Arabic dialects. However, the dialect contains a number of unique particles used for co-ordination, negation, and other sentence types. Examples in coordination include "but, nevertheless, though," (Classical Arabic ) "as for…," and "or."

Like many other dialects, apophonic or ablaut passive (as in "it was written") is not very common, and is mainly confined to clichés and proverbs from other dialects, including Classical Arabic.

The particle developed semantically in the dialect to or "yet, already, almost, nearly" and or "maybe, perhaps."

Vocabulary

There are a few lexical items that are shared with Modern South Arabian languages, which perhaps distinguish this dialect from other neighbouring Peninsular dialects. The effect of Hadhrami emigration to Southeast Asia (see Arab Indonesians and Arab Singaporeans), the Indian subcontinent and East Africa is clear in the vocabulary especially in certain registers like types of food and dress: "sarong." Many loanwords are listed in al-Saqqaf (2006).

See also

• Varieties of Arabic
• Peninsular Arabic
• Indonesian Arabic

External links

• Hadhrami Arabic on www.grin.com