From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arabic dialect
Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic
,
[2]
also known as
Iraqi Arabic
,
[2]
Mesopotamian Gelet Arabic
,
[1]
or simply
Mesopotamian Arabic
[2]
is one of the two main
varieties
of
Mesopotamian Arabic
, together with
North Mesopotamian Arabic
.
[3]
[4]
Relationship to North Mesopotamian
[
edit
]
Mesopotamian Arabic has two major varieties: Gelet Mesopotamian Arabic and
Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic
. Their names derive from the form of the word for "I said" in each variety.
[5]
Gelet Arabic is a
Bedouin variety
spoken by Muslims (both sedentary and non-sedentary) in central and southern Iraq and by nomads in the rest of Iraq. Qeltu Arabic is an urban dialect spoken by Non-Muslims of central and southern Iraq (including Baghdad) and by the sedentary population (both Muslims and Non-Muslims) of the rest of the country.
[6]
Non-Muslims include
Christians
,
Yazidis
, and
Jews
, until most Iraqi Jews
left Iraq in the 1940s?1950s
.
[7]
[8]
Geographically, the gelet?qeltu classification roughly corresponds to respectively
Upper Mesopotamia
and
Lower Mesopotamia
.
[9]
The isogloss is between the rivers
Tigris
and
Euphrates
, around
Fallujah
and
Samarra
.
[9]
During the
Siege of Baghdad
(1258), the
Mongols
killed all Muslims.
[10]
However, sedentary Christians and Jews were spared and northern Iraq was untouched.
[10]
In southern Iraq, sedentary Muslims were gradually replaced by
Bedouins
from the countryside.
[10]
This explains the current dialect distribution: in the south, everyone speaks Bedouin varieties close to
Gulf Arabic
(continuation of the Bedouin dialects of the
Arabian Peninsula
),
[10]
[11]
with the exception of urban Non-Muslims who continue to speak pre-1258 qeltu dialects while in the north the original qeltu dialect is still spoken by all, Muslims and Non-Muslims alike.
[10]
Gelet/qeltu verb contrasts
[12]
s-stem
|
Bedouin/gelet
|
Sedentary/qeltu
|
1st
sg.
|
??rab-t
|
fata?-tu
|
2nd
m.
sg.
|
??rab-t
|
fata?-t
|
2nd
f.
sg.
|
ti??ab-?n
|
t??rab-?n
|
2nd
pl.
|
ti??ab-?n
|
t??rab-?n
|
3rd
pl.
|
yi??ab-?n
|
y??rab-?n
|
Dialects
[
edit
]
Gelet dialects include:
[9]
- Gilit
- Northwestern Mesopotamian group
- Central Iraqi Group
- Southern Iraqi and
Khuzestani Arabic
group
Baghdadi Arabic
is Iraq's de facto national vernacular, as about half of population speaks it as a mother tongue, and most other Iraqis understand it. It is spreading to northern cities as well.
[13]
Other Arabic speakers cannot easily understand Moslawi and Baghdadi.
[13]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic
at
Ethnologue
(27th ed., 2024)
- ^
a
b
c
"Glottolog 4.7 - Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic"
.
glottolog.org
. Retrieved
2023-01-01
.
- ^
Hassan, Qasim. "Reconsidering the Lexical Features of the south-Mesopotamian Dialects."
Folia Orientalia
56 (2019).
- ^
Jasim, Maha Ibrahim (2020).
Tafxi:m in the vowels of Muslawi Qeltu and Baghdadi Gilit dialects of Mesopotamian Arabic
(Thesis thesis). Newcastle University.
- ^
Mitchell, T. F.
(1990).
Pronouncing Arabic, Volume 2
.
Clarendon Press
. p. 37.
ISBN
0-19-823989-0
.
- ^
Jasim, Maha Ibrahim (2022-12-15).
"The Linguistic Heritage of the Ma?l?w? Dialect in Iraq"
.
CREID Working Paper 18
.
doi
:
10.19088/creid.2022.015
.
- ^
Holes, Clive, ed. (2018).
Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches
. Oxford University Press. p. 337.
ISBN
978-0-19-870137-8
.
OCLC
1059441655
.
- ^
Prochazka, Stephan (2018). "3.2. The Arabic dialects of northern Iraq". In Haig, Geoffrey; Khan, Geoffrey (eds.).
The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia
. De Gruyter. pp. 243?266.
doi
:
10.1515/9783110421682-008
.
ISBN
978-3-11-042168-2
.
S2CID
134361362
.
- ^
a
b
c
Ahmed, Abdulkareem Yaseen (2018).
Phonological variation and change in Mesopotamia: a study of accent levelling in the Arabic dialect of Mosul
(PhD thesis). Newcastle University.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Holes, Clive (2006). Ammon, Ulrich; Dittmar, Norbert; Mattheier, Klaus J.; Trudgill, Peter (eds.).
"The Arabian Peninsula and Iraq/Die arabische Halbinsel und der Irak"
.
Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik, Part 3
. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter: 1937.
doi
:
10.1515/9783110184181.3.9.1930
.
ISBN
978-3-11-019987-1
.
- ^
Al?Wer, Enam; Jong, Rudolf (2017). "Dialects of Arabic". In
Boberg, Charles
;
Nerbonne, John
; Watt, Dominic (eds.).
The Handbook of Dialectology
. Wiley. p. 529.
doi
:
10.1002/9781118827628.ch32
.
ISBN
978-1-118-82755-0
.
OCLC
989950951
.
- ^
Prochazka, Stephan (2018). "The Northern Fertile Crescent". In Holes, Clive (ed.).
Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches
. Oxford University Press. p. 266.
doi
:
10.1093/oso/9780198701378.003.0009
.
ISBN
978-0-19-870137-8
.
OCLC
1059441655
.
- ^
a
b
Collin, Richard Oliver (2009).
"Words of War: The Iraqi Tower of Babel"
.
International Studies Perspectives
.
10
(3): 245?264.
doi
:
10.1111/j.1528-3585.2009.00375.x
.