Maghrebian Arabic
Maghrebian Arabic ( Arabic اللهجات المغاربية al-Lahjat al-Magharibiyya , DMG al-lahǧāt al-maġāribiyya 'Maghrebian dialects'; also: West Arabic , Maghreb Arabic , Maghreb Arabic or only Maghreb ) is a collective term for the varieties of Arabic in the Maghreb are spoken.
The Maghrebian dialects of Arabic form a separate dialect group and are largely understandable among each other.
Usually the term is geographically related exclusively to the Maghreb, but the Maltese language also originated from a Maghreb dialect; later it was expanded into a modern standard language . Likewise, the extinct Sicilian Arabic and Andalusian Arabic were a Maghrebian dialect.
In everyday language, the respective dialects are used almost exclusively in the area of distribution; they are also often heard in Tunisian or Moroccan TV series.
Characteristic
A common feature of all Maghrebian dialects (and with them Maltese), which distinguishes them from the dialects of Mashrek and Standard Arabic, is the formation of the 1st person singular and plural of the past tense. When comparing the Tunisian to the Cairo dialect, this peculiarity is expressed in the example of writing as follows: Tunisian ni-ktib are Egyptian a-kteb and High Arabic a-ktubu (I write) or Tunisian ni-ktbu, the Egyptian ni-kteb and High Arabic na -ktubu (we write) opposite. The prefix n is characteristic of Maghrebian , which is not only plural in the first person, but also in the first person, contrary to standard Arabic. Singular is used. The plural is marked with -u .
There are various other peculiarities in morphology and lexicons that make Maghrebian in its entirety difficult to understand for speakers of Standard Arabic. B. the almost always occurring omission of short vowels.
The Maghreb dialects, especially in the lexicon, have been strongly influenced by the Berber languages and Latin , for whose suppression they are simultaneously responsible. They also have some loan words from French and Italian , due to the colonial era . In Mashrek, however, words were mainly taken from Turkish, Persian or Greek.
Geographical distribution
The main areas of distribution of the Maghreb dialects are Algeria , Tunisia , Morocco , Libya and Mauritania . Smaller numbers of speakers exist in the neighboring areas of Egypt , Mali and Senegal .
Inner structure
The dialect borders within the Maghreb follow more social (Bedouin - sedentary) than political borders. The Maghreb dialects are:
literature
- Hans-Rudolf Singer : The Western Arabic or Maghribinian. In: Wolfdietrich Fischer, Otto Jastrow (Hrsg.): Handbook of Arabic dialects . Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1980, ISBN 3-447-02039-3 , p. 249 ff.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Rudolf Singer : Grammar of the Arabic dialect of the Medina of Tunis. W. de Gruyter, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-11-083470-7 , p. 4 ff. ( Online )
- ↑ Lotfi Sayahi: Diglossia and Language Contact: Language Variation and Change in North Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, p. 26