Mesopotamian Arabic
| Mesopotamian Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Iraqi Arabic | |
| عراقي ʕirāqi | |
| Pronunciation | [ʢɪˈrɑːqi] |
| Native to | Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey |
| Region | Mesopotamia, Armenia, Cilicia |
|
Native speakers
|
unknown (undated figure of 15 million)[1] |
|
Afro-Asiatic
|
|
| Dialects | |
| Arabic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | acm |
| Glottolog | meso1252[2] |
Khaki: Iraqi Arabic
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Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as Iraqi Arabic, is a continuum of mutually intelligible Arabic varieties native to the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq as well as spanning into Syria,[3] Iran,[3] southeastern Turkey,[4] and spoken in Iraqi diaspora communities.
Contents
History[edit]
Aramaic was the lingua franca in Mesopotamia from the early 1st millennium BCE until the late 1st millennium CE, and as may be expected, Iraqi Arabic shows signs of an Aramaic substrate.[5] The Gelet variety has retained features of Babylonian Aramaic.[5]
Due to Iraq's inherent multiculturalism as well as history, Iraqi Arabic in turn bears extensive borrowings in its lexicon from Aramaic, Akkadian, Persian, Kurdish and Turkish.
Varieties[edit]
Mesopotamian Arabic has two major varieties. A distinction is recognised between Gelet Mesopotamian Arabic and Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic, the names deriving from the form of the word for "I said".[6]
The southern (Gelet) group includes a Tigris dialect cluster, of which the best-known form is Baghdadi Arabic, and a Euphrates dialect cluster, known as Furati (Euphrates Arabic). The Gelet variety is also spoken in the Khuzestan Province of Iran.[3]
The northern (Qeltu) group includes the north Tigris dialect cluster, also known as North Mesopotamian Arabic or Maslawi (Mosul Arabic), as well as both Jewish and Christian sectarian dialects (such as Baghdad Jewish Arabic).
Distribution[edit]
Both the Gelet and the Qeltu varieties of Iraqi Arabic are spoken in Syria,[3][4] the former is spoken on the Euphrates east of Aleppo, and the latter is spoken in the Upper Khabur area and across the border in Turkey.[4]
Cypriot Arabic shares a large number of common features with Mesopotamian Arabic;[7] particularly the northern variety, and has been reckoned as belonging to this dialect area.[8]
References[edit]
- ^ Mesopotamian Arabic at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996). Note: Data may come from an earlier edition.
- ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mesopotamian Arabic". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ^ a b c d Arabic, Mesopotamian | Ethnologue
- ^ a b c Arabic, North Mesopotamian | Ethnologue
- ^ a b Muller-Kessler, Christa (July–September 2003). "Aramaic 'K', Lyk' and Iraqi Arabic 'Aku, Maku: The Mesopotamian Particles of Existence.". The Journal of the American Oriental Society 123 (3): 641–646.
- ^ Mitchell, T. F. (1990). Pronouncing Arabic, Volume 2. Clarendon Press. p. 37. ISBN 0-19-823989-0.
- ^ Versteegh, Kees (2001). The Arabic Language. Edinburgh University Press. p. 212. ISBN 0-7486-1436-2.
- ^ Owens, Jonathan (2006). A Linguistic History of Arabic. Oxford University Press. p. 274. ISBN 0-19-929082-2.
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