Cypriot Arabic

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Cypriot Arabic is the Arabic dialect spoken within the Maronite community of Cyprus .

history

The Arabic dialect owes its existence to four Maronite migrations from the fertile crescent to Cyprus in the 8th, 10th, 12th and 13th centuries and is therefore related to the Lebanese-Syrian group of Arabic dialects.

Cypriot Arabic is a recognized minority language in the Republic of Cyprus , alongside Armenian ( Western Armenian ) .

Due to an ongoing process of assimilation, the dialect is threatened with extinction; the information on the number of people who still speak Cypriot Arabic today - especially in private context - fluctuates between 130 and 1400. In any case, it is unanimously reported that the area of ​​distribution is now limited to the village of Kormakitis .

Like most Arabic dialects, Cypriot Arabic is exclusively spoken, not written. In a field study carried out by Alexander Borg in the 1980s, none of the speakers interviewed spoke the dialect of written Arabic .

Characteristics

  • Consonants become voiced in the interior of the word, voiceless in the final (e.g. standard Arabic katab (a) > kidep )
  • Insertion of k before y
  • Loss of the emphatic consonants ṣ , ḍ , ṭ and ẓ
  • Replacement of most broken plural forms in favor of the ending -āt
  • extensive adoption of Greek vocabulary

See also

literature

  • Alexander Borg: A comparative glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic-English). With an introductory essay. (= B. Spuler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Orientalistik, Dept. 1. The Near and the Middle East. Vol. 70) Leiden 2004. ISBN 90-04-13198-1
  • Alexander Borg: Cypriot Arabic. A histor. and comparative investigation into the phonology and morphology of the Arab vernacular spoken by the Maronites of Kormakiti village in the Kyrenia district of North-Western Cyprus. (= Treatises for the customer of the Orient. 47.4). Stuttgart 1985. ISBN 3-515-03999-6
  • Maria Tsiapera: A descriptive analysis of Cypriot Maronite Arabic. The Hague [u. a.]: Mouton, 1969. (Janua linguarum: Series practica; 66)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The new Fischer World Almanac - Cyprus - Statistical Data" , from: Fischer World Almanach , accessed on January 4, 2017