Khuzestani Arabic

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Khuzestani Arabic is a dialect of South Mesopotamian Arabic (SMA or "Gələt Arabic") spoken by the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan Province of Iran. While it is a variety of SMA, it has many similarities with Gulf Arabic in neighbouring Kuwait. It has subsequently had a long history of contact with the Persian language, leading to several changes.[1] The main changes are in word order, noun–noun and noun–adjective attribution constructions, definiteness marking, complement clauses, and discourse markers and connectors.[1][2]

Khuzestani Arabic is only used in informal situations. It is not taught in school even as an optional course, although Modern Standard Arabic is taught at a basic level for religious purposes.[1] Almost all Khuzestani Arabic speakers are bilingual in Iranian Persian, which is the official language of Iran.[3] Khuzestani Arabic speakers are shifting to Persian; if the existing shift continues into the next generations, according to Bahrani & Gavami in Journal of the International Phonetic Association, the dialect will be nearly extinct shortly.[3]

It is not clear how many speakers of Khuzestani Arabic there are. Template:Quote

Distribution

Khuzestani Arabic is spoken in Ahvaz, Hoveyzeh, Bostan, Susangerd, Shush, Abadan, Khorramshahr, Shadegan, Hamidiyeh, Karun, and Bawi.[3]

Contact and lexis

Khuzestani Arabic is in contact with Bakhtiari Lurish, Persian, and other varieties of SMA.[3] Although the lexis of the dialect is primarily composed of Arabic words, it also has Persian, English, French and Turkish loanwords.[3] In the northern and eastern cities of Khuzestan, Luri is spoken in addition to Persian, and the Arabic of the Kamari Arabs of this region is "remarkably influenced" by Luri.[3] In cities in Khuzestan such as Abadan, some of the new generations, especially women, often mainly speak Persian.[3] Some Khuzestani Arabic speakers furthermore only converse in Persian at home with their children.[3]

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Even in the most formal of conventions, pronunciation depends upon a speaker's background.[4] Nevertheless, the number and phonetic character of most of the 28 consonants has a broad degree of regularity among Arabic-speaking regions. Arabic is particularly rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and pharyngealized ("emphatic") sounds. The emphatic coronals (Script error: No such module "IPA"., Script error: No such module "IPA"., Script error: No such module "IPA"., and Script error: No such module "IPA".) cause assimilation of emphasis to adjacent non-emphatic coronal consonants.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". The phonemes Script error: No such module "IPA".پ⟩ and Script error: No such module "IPA".ڤ⟩ (not used by all speakers) are only occasionally considered to be part of the phonemic inventory; they exist only in foreign words and they can be pronounced as Script error: No such module "IPA".ب⟩ and Script error: No such module "IPA".ف⟩, respectively, depending on the speaker.[5][6]

Khuzestani Arabic consonant phonemes
Labial Dental Denti-alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
plain emphatic1
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
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 Template:IPA link
voiced (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link ~ Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Affricate voiceless Template:IPA link
voiced Template:IPA link
Tap Template:IPA link
Approximant Template:IPA link (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:IPA link

Phonetic notes:

  • Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink occur mostly in borrowings from Persian, and may be assimilated to Script error: No such module "IPA". or Script error: No such module "IPA". in some speakers.
  • Script error: No such module "IPA". is pronunciation of /Script error: No such module "IPA"./ in Khuzestani Arabic and the rest of southern Mesopotamian dialects.
  • The gemination of the flap /ɾ/ results in a trill [r].

See also

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References

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  1. a b c Khuzestani Arabic: a case of convergence
  2. Template:Cite thesis
  3. a b c d e f g h Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  4. Template:Harvcoltxt
  5. Teach Yourself Arabic, by Jack Smart (Author), Frances Altorfer (Author)
  6. Hans Wehr, Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (transl. of Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart, 1952)

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Sources

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