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Some characteristics of Meccan speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Bruce Ingham
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Extract

The following is an account of the spoken Arabic of Mecca. The present work does not attempt a comprehensive description but is confined to the phonology of the syllable and the morphology of the verb and affixes; such a study is perhaps the most economical way of showing the character of the dialect and its relation to other dialects. My thanks are due to Mr. M. H. Bakalla, a post-graduate student of this school and a native of Mecca, for his constant help in the preparation of this article.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 273 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1971

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References

1 See p. 281, section ‘The syllable’.

2 cf. Erwin, Wallace M., Short reference grammar of Iraqi Arabic, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 1963Google Scholar; Blane, Haim, Communal dialects in Baghdad, Cambridge, Mass., 1964Google Scholar; Johnstone, T. M., Eastern Arabian dialect studies, OUP, 1967Google Scholar, also his ‘Aspects of syllabication in the spoken Arabic of ‘Anaiza’, BSOAS, XXX, 1, 1967, 1–16Google Scholar.

3 Trimingham, J. S., Sudan colloquial Arabic, second ed., OUP, 1946Google Scholar. The symbols used in broad transcription in this article are defined as to value on pp. 275 ff.

4 The same feature also occurs in the Syro-Mesopotamian dialects as described by Cantineau, in his ‘Études sur quelques parlers de nomades arabes d'Orient’, AIEO, II, 1936, III, 1937Google Scholar. The group ‘Omūr, Slūt, Bani Khālid, and Sirbān have the pronunciation /ummaha:tana/ ‘our mothers’ (/ummahart + na/).

5 Dōsiri /baya/, /yibya/, /?ile:n/, Kuwaiti /?ilhi:n/, Nejdi /tsid/, Abu Zabi and Dubai /ǒid/, Johnstone. Egypto-Levantine dialects have different, genetically unrelated forms for these functions, e.g. Egyptian /ƹa:wiz/ ‘to want’, /liya:yit-ma/ ‘until’, /dilwa?t/ ‘now’.

6 The same phenomenon was reported by Johnstone, T. M. for the Dōsiri dialect, a dialect of the 'Anazi type spoken 400 miles to the east of Mecca, in ‘Some characteristics of the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait’, BSOAS, XXIV, 2, 1961, 252Google Scholar.

7 There is considerable lip rounding in the vowel of the prefix in this class of verbs, phonetically [], [], etc.

8 Does not follow the rule of assimilation of /I/ to following /n/. Compare Baghdadi /ji:binna/ ‘bring to us’ (/ji:b + il + na/).

9 Baghdādi /giltilhum/, Cairene /?ultilak/, Beirut /?ultillak/, Dōsiri /gultelha/.

10 Note the following examples: al-'Aqaba, al-Qarana, al-'Araba, Salaqa, al-Nakhala, al-Bahara (Musil, A., The northern Heğâz, New York, 1926)Google Scholar.

11 /lahsan/ resembles the particle /yaƹni/ ‘it means’. It introduces a re-statement of some-thing already said.

12 /sa:ƹa:t/ ‘sometimes’, lit. ‘hours’.

13 /da:ƹatu/, a particle with the general meaning of ‘so that’.

14 /ƹal'ƹimuan/ normally stressed in this way, although one would expect /ƹalƹi'muim/. An introductory particle meaning ‘by the way’, ‘anyway’.

15 /tasawwar/ an elevated form; one would expect /?it§awwar/.

16 The final /i/ is an anaptyctic separating /mm/ from /b/.

17 The /u/ is very forward. One would expect /i/; the lip rounding is probably the result of the preceding /u/.

18 /tagaƹ/ ‘it falls or is situated’. This verb is irregular in the dialect, as all other initial /w/ verbs retain the /w/ in the imperfect. This seems to be an incomplete verb retained in this form meaning ‘to be situated’ and also in the expression /tigaƹlak assahaila/ ‘may comfort befall you’. In the second usage the normal vocalization for the dialect is used, in the first the Classical vocalization. The normal dialect verb for ‘to fall’ is /ta:h/.

19 /nnafsi/ for /lnafsi/.

20 /tusbafr/: before the velarized consonants the vowel of the prefix is /u/, not /i/.