a phonology of darfur arabic

WIENER ZEITSCHRIFTFÜR DIE

KUNDE DES MORGENLANDES

HERAUSGEGEBEN VON

MARKUS KÖHBACH, STEPHAN PROCHÁZKA,GEBHARD J. SELZ, RÜDIGER LOHLKER

REDAKTION:VERONIKA RITT-BENMIMOUN

105. BAND

WIEN 2015

IM SELBSTVERLAG DES INSTITUTS FÜR ORIENTALISTIK

105

2015

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A Phonology of Darfur Arabic

By CAROLINE ROSET (Amsterdam) 1. Introduction Arabist dialectologists consider Darfur Arabic a part of Sudanic Arabic, which is a variety of Arabic not only spoken in Sudan but also in Chad, the north of Cameroon and the Northeast of Nigeria (Owens 2008). Sudanic Arabic is for its part split into East and West Sudanic Arabic and Darfur Arabic takes part of the Western section. Other spoken varieties of West Sudanic Arabic are Nigerian Arabic, described extensively and from a comparative perspective by Owens (1993a and b); Chadian Arabic, documented by Jullien de Pommerol (1999), Absi (1995) and Roth-Laly (1972 and 1979); and Kordofanian Arabic, recently studied by Manfredi (2009). Valuable contributions on West Sudanic Arabic are also made by Trimingham (1946) Lethem (1920), Hillelson (1930 and 1935), Zeltner & Tourneux (1986) and Kaye (1975), but there are no descriptions of the Arabic spoken in Darfur in any European language. However, Behnstedt (2013) as well as Ishaaq (in the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: Is a q 2002 and 2011) have published some interesting observations on the Arabic spoken in Darfur. The Arabic spoken in the capital of Sudan, Greater Khartoum (Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman), is also spoken in other urban areas of central Sudan (Dickins 2007 p.559). Therefore, Khartoum Arabic is also called Central (Urban) Sudanese Arabic by different linguists. It is beyond doubt the prestige variety of spoken Arabic in Sudan. In my experience, virtually all Sudanese call this variety arabi and any deviating Sudanic Arabic arabi mukas ar, ‘broken Arabic’. Since Khartoum Arabic or Central Sudanese Arabic is also spoken by educated and urban Darfurians and because of its status in Sudan, I prefer to call this variety Standard Sudanese Arabic1.

1 By referring to Khartoum Arabic or Central Urban Sudanese Arabic as Standard Sudanese Arabic, I do not mean ‘standard’ as in ‘codified in written dictionaries and grammars and taught in schools’, but a spoken standard. Since also educated and/or urban Darfurians speak this variety of Arabic (although possibly with an accent), it is not only confined to the centre of Sudan. By using the term ‘standard’, I follow Manfredi where he notes ‘the urban dialect of Khartoum which is also referred to as Sudanese Standard Arabic’ (2009 p.9) and Al-Wer where she argues that ‘standards of eloquence and linguistic admissibility should be measured against contemporary language usage. (...) Linguistic variation and change in Arabic involves interplay be-tween local varieties and emerging regional standards which are totally independent of Classical Arabic.’ (1997 p.262).

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"Map of Darfur 2011" by Sudan location map.svg: NordNordWestMap of Darfur-en.png: User: This derivative image: Idaltu - Sudan location map.svgMap of Dar-fur-en.png. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wiki-media Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Darfur_2011.png#mediaviewer/File:Map_of_Darfur_2011.png

A Phonology of Darfur Arabic 317

This dominant variety of spoken Arabic in Sudan is part of East Sudanic Arabic and described by Bergman (2002) and Dickins (2007a & b). In addition, a com-prehensive dictionary of this standard variety of Sudanese Arabic is written by Qasim (IPA Qa sim) in Arabic (2002), which includes several non-standard Sudanese lexemes with geographical or tribal annotations. Finally, Reichmuth has described the East Sudanic variety of the Šukriyya (IPA ukrij a) in 1983. Darfur is the utmost western province of Sudan, and borders on South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Chad and Libya. The area covers about 160,000 square miles (Hoile 2008 p.12), or 510,000 square kilometres (Assam 2005 p.9), often referred to as the size of France (p.ex. Bieckmann 2012 p. 42 and O’Fahey & Tubiana, undated, p.4). The three main towns are Al Fashir in the North, Nya-la in the south and Al Geneina, close to the Chadian border. According to the fifth Sudan Population and Housing census, though contested by the Darfur Relief and Documentation Center, the number of inhabitants was about 7.5 mil-lion people in 2008. As a trade and transit area and because of its geographical and climatic position, Darfur has always been distinguished by continuous mi-gration. Desertification and conflict have enhanced migration to become mas-sive in the last two or three decades, especially the very last years. Darfur houses a muslim, tribal, agro-pastoral society. Although Darfurian tribes bear either African or Arab names, ‘virtually every “ethnic” group has components from both categories’ (O’Fahey & Tubiana, undated, p.26, also see De Waal 2005 p.181&187). The most well known and probably largest ‘Afri-can’ or indigenious tribes are the Fur, Zaghawa, Berti, Masalit and Tungur. The members of those tribes are known to be settled farmers, but some of them, like several Zaghawa clans, live as nomad bedouins. The largest ‘Arab’ tribes are Rizeigat and Misirijja (usually spelled as Misiriyya or Misiriya). The Arabs are generally known as nomadic camel breeders, Abbala, or cow breeders, Baggara. However, members of Arab tribes, like Biderijja and the Zajjadijja, have become sedentary Darfurians in villages or towns since years, sometimes decades or maybe centuries. Due to the conflict that started in 2003, over 300,000 Darfuri-ans now live as refugees in neighbouring countries and 2.6 million in Darfur itself (Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre 2010 p.18-19). Arabic is the language of education, the main language of the media and a lingua franca in Darfur. The African tribes often have their own, mostly Nilo-Saharan languages, but an increasing number of those languages are becoming extinct or endangered. Language is not ethnically determined: most Darfurians are at least bilingual in their indigenous language as well as Arabic and some-times multilingual, but there are also a few monolinguals in one of the Nilo-Saharan languages (Corbett 2012 p.64 and own data). Nevertheless, the number of monolinguals in Arabic, either from an Arab or African background, is gain-ing ground (Doornbos & Bender 1983 p.46, Idris 2008 p.233 ff and own data). Garri (2012 p.285-286) has diagnosed revitalised positive attitudes towards

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indigenious languages and an aversion towards Arabic since the conflict, which has not ended yet. But it is not clear what long-term effect the conflict has on the linguistic situation of Darfur. Since Darfurians of different tribes have been mixing and intermarrying for centuries, it is difficult to categorise them. However, Ishaaq (2002 p.22-33) classifies the Darfurians into four linguistic groups, which more or less corre-spond with Hoile’s classification (Hoile 2008 p.13): the bedouin Arabs, who only speak Arabic; the non-Arabised Africans, who only speak indigenous lan-guages; the city dwellers, who speak Standard Sudanese Arabic; and the partly Arabised villagers, who are illiterate but mostly multilingual in at least one in-digenous language as well as Arabic. It is the latter group that is the subject of my research. Darfur Arabic exhibits a great deal of variation, including the phonology of the dialect. Therefore, there are quite some exceptions to the phonological anal-yses below. I assume this is due to the vastness of the area, together with poor infrastructure and education (though improved during the last two decades ac-cording to Hoile 2008 p.21) and a high degree of diversity in linguistic back-ground of its speakers. Furthermore, I presume that variation within the dialect is amplified by the status of Darfur Arabic as a non-standard and low prestige language variety in Sudan. This kind of relative instability of the dialect agrees with surrounding varieties of Arabic that are also exposed to African languages as substrates or adstrates: Luffin on Ki-Nubi of Mombasa (2002 p.74 ff), Wel-lens on the Nubi of Uganda (2003 p.51), Roth-Laly on the Chadian dialect of Abéché (1979 p.I) as well as Miller on the Arabic of Juba (2007 p.519) all attest considerable variation in the phonology of the language variety in question. Nevertheless, several Darfurians as well as non-Darfurian Sudanese claimed in informal interviews with me that Darfur Arabic is mutually intelligible by all Darfurians but not by all non-Darfurian Sudanese, with some distinctive but still intelligible differences between the Arab and African Darfurian speakers of Arabic. These statements support the theory that West and East Sudanic Arabic are distinct dialects and confirm that there are isoglosses between them within Sudan. Due to the inaccessibility of Darfur at the time of this study, my phono-logical analysis below is based on about nine hours of recordings I made among Darfurians living in The Netherlands, Birmingham in the United Kingdom and Khartoum in 2011 and 2012, replenished by an uncounted number of hours of unrecorded informal interviews, conversations and elicitation. The vast majority of these recordings were made among elder women who resided in Greater Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. These women originated from different villages in Darfur and belonged to different Darfurian tribes, mostly African. Other in-formants and I estimated their age at around 60 and older (they did not know their age themselves or were reluctant to tell) and most of them were multilin-


gual. They were all (almost) illiterate and had a rural-pastoral background in Darfur. Some of them were in Khartoum temporarily, some had lived there only a few years, but others already for a decade or more. Admittedly, these speakers must have been influenced by Standard Sudanese Arabic more than their fellow-Darfurians who never left the area. However, Darfurians of different origin judged their speech to be typically Darfurian and not or very little influenced by Standard Sudanese Arabic. The analysis below is put in perspective by comparing it with surrounding dialects and Old Arabic, the type of the language that in its codified form be-came the literary and cultural language of the Arabo-Islamic empire and is usu-ally called Classical Arabic (Versteegh 1997 p.98). Although Old Arabic is a controversial version of Arabic with regard to its definition as well as its role as a comparative language (Versteegh 1997 p.46-52, Al-Wer 1997, Owens 2006 p.34-78, Macdonald 2008 p.464-466), as a measure it reveals and explains some phonological patterns in the spoken Arabic of Darfur. Below, whenever the root of a word is given, I imply the root in Old Arabic. I use IPA to describe the pho-nology of the Arabic spoken in Darfur as represented by my informants. Phono-logical or phonemic transcription is written in italics; phonetical transcription is only given when relevant and put between square brackets and the English trans-lation between quotation marks. For example: hina k [h n k] ‘there’. The sym-bol ~ means that more than one variant of a word or phoneme are attested, for example tokola j ~ togola j ‘small cup’. In the interlinear morpheme translations I apply the Leipzig Glossing Rules (2008). Note there is optional gender agree-ment in Darfur Arabic and often no number agreement either. For example, the conjugated verb arif ti ‘you F knew’ is grammatically feminine, but might in reality be addressed to a man, and ra mo ‘he/she threw him/it’ might also mean ‘they threw him/her/it’ in context. Hence the actual meaning should be interpret-ed in context and can be different than the merely grammatical translations giv-en in the analysis below. Since I so far found that stress is only contrastive in verbs, I only indicate stress in that word class when relevant.

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2. Phonemes of Darfur Arabic 2.1. Consonants The following chart exhibits the consonants of Darfur Arabic (voiceless left, voiced right)

Bi-labial Labio- dental

Alveolar Post- alveolar

Palatal Velar/ Uvular

Glottal

Plosive b t d k g

Fricative f s x h

Affricate ( )

Nasal m n ( ) ( )

Lateral l

Trill r

Approximant w j

The inventory above corresponds largely with other West Sudanic variants of Arabic (Owens 1993 p.19, Zeltner & Tourneux 1986 p.15&16, Jullien de Pom-merol 1999 p.11, Manfredi 2009 p.34, Roth 1972 p.35). Compared to Old Ara-bic, it includes the West Sudanic peculiarities of the marginal presence of , and and the absence of . The lack of q, the pharyngeals and velarised conso-nants seems to be a feature induced by non-native speakers of Arabic in the region. The phonemes and only appear in loanwords from African languages spoken in Darfur, as they do in West Sudanic Arabic generally (Roth-Laly 1972 p.47, Hillelson 1935 p.xi, Manfredi 2009 p.35, Ishaaq p.78-88 and Owens 1993a p.19). However, neither Bergman, Qasim nor Reichmuth mention these pho-nemes in East Sudanic Arabic, so we might conclude their occurrence is a fea-ture that distinguishes West from East Sudanic Arabic. Dickins (2007 p.69) suggests indeed may originate from the West Sudanic area.

ia la ‘Nyala’ a a ‘baby’

na na ‘talkative’ The post alveolar affricate seems to be limited in use. It occurs in words such as at (own data, Roth 1969 Volume 1 p.105, Owens 1993 p.92) ‘all’ and amtaba (own data, Jullien de Pommerol p.143 root b ), the name of a local drink.


As a rule, the glottal plosive is realised at the beginning of every word starting with a vowel, except the relative pronoun al. However, this glottal stop is not always pronounced very prominently.

ani na ~ ani na ‘we’ a al ~ a al ‘date’ ij a l ~ ij a l ‘children’ ab a ~ ab a ‘he refused’

In some cases is realised as a reflex of the historical phoneme (see 6.5. Old Arabic phoneme ). 2.1.1. Allophonic realisation of consonants Due to speaker variation, the following consonants of Darfur Arabic can be realised in various ways. The phoneme which I transcribe as , reflecting of Old Arabic, can be realised both ways, according to my own observations and as also attested by Fischer and Jastrow (1980 p.105), Bergman (2002 p.2) and Manfredi (2009 p.44) on the Arabic spoken in Sudan.

ha a [h a ~ h a] ‘thing’ ja zaw a u [ja zaw a u ~ ja zaw a u] ‘they marry’ bi i bu lik [bi i bu l k ~ bi i bu l k] ‘they give you’

Darfurians from the Fur tribe sometimes use p, b and f as allophones, just as they are in the Fur language (Jakobi 1990, p.18) or a bilabial fricative sound [ ] in between p, b and f.

japturu ~ jafturu ‘they have breakfast’ root f r arpa ~ arba ‘four’ root rb fi [ i ~ fi] ‘in’ root fj nadi p ~ nadi f ‘clean’ root nðf

2.2. Vowels The vowel triangle below exhibits the vowels occurring in Darfur Arabic. front back i, i u, u closed e, e o, o a, a open

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In addition to the vowels above and according to the phonological context (see 3.8. Vowel harmony), schwa is used as an epenthetic vowel or as a reflex of the short phonemes u, i and a. 2.3. Lengthening vowels and consonants Differences in vowel length are phonemic, as shown by the minimal pair safar ‘journey’ and sa far ‘he travelled’. However, the lengthening of vowels is often reduced in comparison to other variants of Arabic. This kind of weak vocalic quantity also exists in the Chadian Arabic of Abéché (Roth-Laly 1972 p.55-57). In the Arabic based creoles Ki-Nubi and Juba Arabic (Luffin 2005 p.60-61, Wellens p.39 and Miller 2007 p.520), vocalic quantity is virtually absent and not distinctive. Below is a list of words that contain long vowels but are generally realised as half long in Darfur Arabic, indicated as in the phonetic representa-tion.

ga mat [ga mat] ‘she got up / then’ tagu l [tagu l] ‘you say’ e [ e ] ‘millet’

ti a wir [t wir] ‘you consult’ jisa haru [j sa haru] ‘they stay up late’

Nevertheless, vowels can be lengthened for expressive reasons: by lengthening vowels extensively, the word becomes stressed or intensified.

kati r ‘much’; kati r ‘very much’ abjad ‘white’; abja d ‘very white’ ra gid ‘much/many’; ra gid ‘plenty’ awala t ‘large sacks’; aw ala t ‘many large sacks’

nalabu ‘we dance’; nala bu ‘we dance much’ The same kind of prosodic lengthening applies to the lengthening of consonants, i.e. grammatical gemination is not as strong as in other Arabic colloquials. However, like vowels, consonants might be pronounced long or even over-long for expressive reasons (also see Amery 1905 p.xi). Roth-Laly does not mention this occurrence in the Arabic of Abéché. Moreover, Luffin (2005 p.61-62), Wel-lens (2003 p.51) and Miller (2007 p.519) claim geminate consonants do not occur in Ki-Nubi nor Juba Arabic. Below are some examples of grammatical gemination but where this gemina-tion is not heard prominently, as shown in the phonetic transcription.

ni war i [n w r i] ‘I show’ bas [b s ] ‘only, just’ had u [had u] ‘finish, ready’ bi dug u [b dug u] ‘they pound’ kul u [kul u] ‘all of it’


Examples of prosodic lengthening: abjad ‘white’; ab jad ‘very white’ simi ‘good/beautiful’; sim i ‘very good/beautiful’ a abat ‘she was surprised’; a abat ‘she was very surprised’

min adara ma nu-mrug-u from-STRESSED tree NEG 1IPFV-we leave-PL ‘we are certainly not leaving the tree’

3. Phonological rules Below systematic phonological processes in Darfur Arabic are enumerated. As mentioned in the introduction, there is a lot of variation, but some generalities can be observed. 3.1. Phoneme i [i] [ ] The phoneme i is realised as [ ] in the beginning or in the middle of a word but as [i] when it is succeeded by the glide j, or at the end of a word. This rule in-cludes words that contain deleted historical phonemes (see 6. Historical consid-erations).

fila n [f l n] ‘person’ mili [m l ] ‘salt’ (deleted historical word-final ) ija li [ij li] ‘my children’ fara gabij a [fara gabij a] ‘Farangabiyya’ (a Fur dance) ilid gawi [ l d gawi] ‘strong leather’

taxal i [tax l i] ‘you let it’ 3.2. Phoneme a [ ] [a] [ ] As in many other Arabic colloquials, a is realised as rather fronted when it is adjacent to alveolar and palatal consonants.

na s [n s] ‘people’ ija l [ ij l] ‘children’

hina k [h n k] ‘there’ abal [j b l] ‘mountains’ ida n [ id n] ‘branches’

bas [b s ] ‘only’ Word-final ima la occurs frequently in the spoken Arabic of Darfur. This means that a is raised when preceded by a front consonant, turning into [ ]. Ac-cording to Ishaaq (2002 p.154) and Qasim (2002 p.17&398), ima la is a distinct feature of the Arabic spoken in the west of Sudan, due to bedouin influence. It is a common trait of rural West Sudanic Arabic (Manfredi 2009 p.126, 235-236).

asi d ‘thick sorghum porridge’ sit ‘six’ sin ’year’

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jib ‘small galabija’ i f ‘pin’

xawa ‘western foreigner’ An exception is the frequently used word for ‘now’ has a, which does not exhib-it ima la in Darfur. In Khartoum, however, it does and is often pronounced as has (Tamis & Persson 2010 p.69, Bergman 2002 p.389 and own findings). ima la can also occur in the middle of a word, tending to [e] rather than [ ]:

na.al ~ ne l ‘shoes’ root n l tama nija [t m nija ~ t me nija] ‘eight’

In the vicinity of the alveolar trill [r] and/or back consonants, a is often lowered towards [ ]:

suk ar [suk ar ~ suk r] ‘sugar’ nug a ra [nug a ra ~ nug r ] ‘drums’ rak abo [rak abo ~ r k abo] ‘they mounted’

mara [mara ~ m r ] ‘woman’ ma tixal i [m t xal i] ‘don’t leave it’ hag ik [hag k ~ h g k] ‘your(s)’ had u [had u ~ h d u] ‘enough’ muraha t [murah t ~ mur h t] ‘herds’

Interestingly, phoneme a is also often lowered in the vicinity of historical velar-ised phonemes (see 6.7. Velarised consonants). 3.3. Phoneme o [o] [ ] The rounded close-mid back vowel o, sometimes tending towards [ ], is not part of the phoneme inventory of Old Arabic but all the more of Darfur Arabic. First, it appears as the reflex of diphthong au in Old Arabic (see 6. Historical considerations), such as fo k ‘above/in’ root fwq; no m ‘sleep’ root nwm; and the typical and frequently used Sudanese Arabic word for ‘person, fellow, guy’: zo l (Ishaaq 2002 p.192, Jullien de Pommerol 1999 p.1351). Second, loanwords can contain this phoneme, such as Fo r ‘Fur’ (tribe) and kalo l ‘sauce pan’. The sound o also occurs in the Darfurian word-final diminu-tive -o j or -o ja in for example ilmo ja ‘kind of farming tool’ and ram o ja ‘solid earth’ (Ishaaq 2002 p.194-195). Third, the vowel also occurs as a merger of the diphthongs eu and iu as in lo ~ leu ‘for/to him’ and bo ~ biu ‘with/by him’. Fourth, o can be realised instead of u in verbs, such as nadu ri ~ nado ri ‘I want’ and tixut i ~ tixot i ‘you put’ and as 3SG.M bound pronouns like in za tu ~ za to ‘itself’ and fi itu ~ fi ito ‘its intervening space’. Phonemes u or o at the end of verbs can either stand for plural, the 3SG.M bound pronoun, or both. As a consequence, kas aro or kas a ro can either mean ‘they broke’ but also ‘he/they


broke it’. The verb bal u or bal u might mean ‘they wetted’ or ‘he/they wetted it’ (see 5. Word stress). 3.4. Diphthongisation In Darfur Arabic, combined vowels result in the following possible phonetic diphthongs. [au] as in bara -u ‘on his own / different’ root br (Qasim p.77)-PRON.3S.M and

alma -u ‘its water’ root mwh-PRON.3S.M; [ai] as in sixaj ar ‘small’ root r and hina i root hn (Qasim p.1027) ‘what’s-its-

name’; [eu] as in le -u ‘for/to him’ PREP le- PRON.3S.M; [ia] as in lu bia ‘black-eyed beans’ and lage ti -a ‘you found it’ root lqj

PFV.2S.F-PRON.3S.F; [iu] as in nasaw i -um ‘I make them’ root swj IPFV.1S.-PRON.3PL and bi-u ‘with

him’ PREP bi-PRON.3S.M; [oi] as in hirbo j ‘chameleon’ and salumbo ja ~ alumbo ja ~ absalumbo ja

‘small mouse’; [ou] as in a bo -um ‘they brought them’ root jb PFV.3PL-PRON.3PL. 3.5. Assimilation Darfurians hardly use the definite article al, but when they do it assimilates with (post)alveolar, so called sun letters, i.e. the l of the article turns into the same sound as the first sound of the noun.

aldam > ad am ‘the blood’ alzura > az ura ‘the sorghum’

However, the relative pronoun al, homophone with the article, does not always assimilate with the following word.

al darasti de ‘that which you ground’ al sawe ti da ‘that which you made’

So far, I only noticed few other cases of assimilation but no rules, except that b seems to be susceptible to assimilate partially or totally with other phonemes.

babga ~ bag a ‘it becomes’ mas u t ~ mabsu t ‘cheerful’ ad er a n ‘Abdel Rahman’ (proper name, Old Arabic abd ar a ma n) imbasat ~ inbasat ‘he was happy’

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3.6. Voicing and devoicing Darfurians tend to devoice consonants when preceded by a vowel at the end of a word or succeeded by another voiceless consonant. Below Standard Sudanese Arabic is indicated as the underlying structure. v + Cvoiced v + Cvoiceless / ___ #

fo k < fo g ‘above/in’ (see 6.1 Old Arabic phoneme q) rus < ruz ‘rice’ tabak < abag ‘cover, lid’ su k < su g ‘market’ zabat < zabad ‘cream’

Cvoiced + Cvoiceless Cvoiceless + Cvoiceless takta < tag a ‘you cut’

makfu l < magfu l ‘closed’ Sometimes devoicing occurs between two vowels too:

wat arta ~ wad arta < wad arta ‘I (am) lost’ bar a to ~ bar a do < bar ado ‘he/they bathed (him/them)’ nati f ~ nadi f < na i f ‘clean’

Finally, I also noticed several other, irregular cases of devoicing (called ‘as-sourdissement facultatif’ in Abéché Arabic by Roth-Laly 1972 p.36) as well as voicing.

balti < baldi (Old Arabic root wld) ‘it grows’ Dore ~ Tore ‘Dore’ (village in North Darfur) jazaru and bazaru < jasra u and basra u ‘they herd’

mu zim < mu sim ‘season’ asma < azma ‘shoes’

bat gal amu < bat kal amu ‘they talk’ 3.7. Deletion As is common in other modern spoken varieties of Arabic, unstressed, short i and u in open syllables are deleted.

wilidat > wildat ‘she gave birth’ ga .idi n > gaidi n ‘they stayed/continued’ muna sabitum > muna sabtum ‘their occasion’

3.8. Vowel harmony In case of vowel harmony, low vowels like o or u occur in a word with other low vowels. High vowels like i or e, in their turn, go along with other high vowels. Phoneme a plays a neutral role in this process and can be combined with both low and high vowels. As in other West Sudanic Arabic dialects (Owens 1993a p.38-41, Manfredi 2009 p.49-52, Roth-Laly 1972 p.61 t/m 65) vowel harmony is a salient feature in Darfur.


In the case of the Arabic of Darfur, vowel harmony in verbs includes suffix-es, is regressive and especially effects open syllables. In short adverbs, nouns, adjectives or verbs without suffixes, vowel harmony can be progressive. This manner of vowel adaptation needs more data and analyses than can be given so far. Until now, I have only noticed the rules as stated above, occurring within lexemes.

tiham i d-i ‘you F make it ferment’ but b ham u d-u ‘they make it ferment’ tirak i b-i ‘you F put it on fire’ but birak u b-u ‘they put it on fire’

A similar type of vowel harmony as described above also occurs in Xarga and Bari s in Upper Egypt (Behnstedt in Fischer & Jastrow 1980 p.244). See 3.9. Epenthesis below for examples of other nouns, adverbs and adjectives display-ing vowel harmony. 3.9. Epenthesis A vowel is inserted between the last two consonants in words with the pattern CvCC if the last two consonants are not geminate (Roth-Laly 1972 p.76-78, Owens 1993 31-37, Manfredi 2009 p.54-55). This kind of epenthesis is general-ly maintained when a suffix is added. The quality of the inserted vowel depends on vowel harmony (see 3.8. Vowel harmony). CvCC CvCvC

mu uk ‘remains’ butun ~ but n ‘belly’ amis ‘yesterday’ akil ‘food’ ilid ‘leather’

Darfur Arabic meets with the gahawa syndrome. This syndrome entails that an a is placed between a laryngeal, pharyngeal, or an uvular/velar fricative and the following consonant if the former consonant is also preceded by a (De Jong 2007). In the Arabic spoken in Darfur, the gahawa syndrome is applicable from a diachronic perspective, i.e. in words containing these phonemes historically but deleted in the present language variety at issue (see 6. Historical considera-tions). Furthermore, the inserted vowel is often, but not necessarily a, and sub-ject to vowel harmony. Ø > v / (C)aX_C(V) X = h, , , x, or (i.e. laryngeal, pharyngeal, or an uvular/velar fricative) C = any consonant V = any short or long vowel

ahamar ‘red’ root mr axadar ‘green’ root x r ga.awa ‘coffee’ root qhw

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Likewise, the Arabic of Darfur exhibits the expanded bukara syndrome, imply-ing that a vowel is inserted before r, l, n or m if this consonant is followed by another vowel (De Jong 2006). Again, the quality of the inserted vowel is often a but also affected by vowel harmony. Ø > v / C_rv C = any consonant r = r, l, m or n

ba arabu ‘they drink’ root rb tagili ‘you F boil’ root lw

amalas ‘smooth’ root mls aturun ‘natrium, soda, salt’ usum-u ‘his name’

Examples of lexemes that have epenthesis due to either bukara or gahawa syn-drome are:

naxulu ‘we boil’ root lw ahalan ‘welcome’ root hl is taxarabat ‘she was surprised’ root rb

3.10. Metathesis Metathesis, called qalb in Arabic (Qasim 2002 p.15), occurs often in Darfur Arabic in the sense that two phonemes in a word can be switched. Metathesis seems to be current in Sudanic Arabic generally (Owens 1993a p.25), as well as in the Fur language (Jakobi 1990 p.57).

at a n > a ta n ‘thirsty’ root magfu l > mafgu l ‘closed’ root qfl aljo m > ajlo m ‘today’ root jwm taksiri > taskiri ‘you F break’ root ksr naxsulu > nasxulu ‘we wash’ root sl

busxa > buxsa ‘big pan for making asi da’ More complex cases of metathesis are:

banado ra ~ barando ra ‘tomatoes’ fara gabi ja ~ fara arabi ja ‘Farangabijja’ (a Fur dance)

Ishaaq (2002 p.179) claims the Old Arabic adverb qa ‘only’ has undergone metathesis and the sound shifts of q to k (also see 6.1. Old Arabic phoneme q) and to t (also see 6.7. Velarised consonants), resulting in tak in Darfur Arabic. My recordings and elicitation attest to the frequent appearance of the latter word in this meaning, also present in the Arabic of Chad (Pommerol 1999 p.1169).


4. Syllable structure Darfur Arabic exhibits the following possible syllables (C = consonant, V = long vowel, v = short vowel).

CV ka mil Cv bagar CvC bagar CVC kurfa n CvCC bit

These possible syllables include deleted historical phonemes (see 6. Historical considerations). Darfur Arabic does not seem to contain syllables beginning with or ending in two consonants, except geminate consonants at the end of a lexeme. Furthermore, I have not observed a long vowel before two consonants either, nor words ending in two different consonants (also see 3.9. Epenthesis). 5. Word stress Stress assignment is accounted for in the following rules in the Arabic of Darfur. a. Stress falls on either the long vowel V or the short vowel v preceding two consonants CC. If both of these types of syllables occur in a word, stress is put on the last one. This rule also includes historical phonemes which are deleted (see 6. Historical considerations), as well as historically long vowels that are shortened in the Arabic of Darfur (see 2.3. Lengthening vowels and consonants).

ba .a jim ‘cattle’ ba kulu ‘they eat’

bi dugdug ‘he hits’ madi ditna ‘our porridge’ baga ratum ‘their cow’ (deleted historical h after t) am atum ‘their aunt’ (deleted historical h after t)

b. If the word does not contain a long vowel or a vCC pattern, stress is put on the first syllable in words consisting of two or three syllables.

balabu ‘they dance’ mitil ~ misil ‘like’ gada ‘cup’

c. Verbs including a bound pronoun or indirect pronoun, generally receive stress on that pronoun. In pause, this happens consistently. Stressing the bound pro-noun seems to be done in order to avoid misunderstanding with verbs without bound pronouns. Hence this kind of stress assignment makes stress phonemical-ly contrastive (first set of examples below). This manner of placing stress in-cludes pronouns introduced by the prepositions bi ‘by/with’ or le ‘to’ (second set of examples). Stressing other bound pronouns than -u also occurs, but to a less extent. Note that inconsistent gender and number agreement in the verb itself as well as in the

330 C. Roset

bound pronoun, result in ambiguous semantics. In this analysis, only grammati-cal translations are given.

na kub u ‘we pour’ but nakub -u ‘we pour it’ asma ‘listen’ IMP.SG.M but as m-a ‘listen to her’ root sm

nag a l-a ‘he took it with him’ root nql ra m-o ‘he/they threw it’ root rmy bar a t-o ‘he/they bathed him’ root brd na ag -u na ar -u ‘we pound it and we spread it out’ root qq and rr bamsa.u -lo ‘they anoint him’ root ms ba arabu -bo ‘they drink from it’ root rb naxarafu -bo ‘we ladle with it’ root rf dabahu -le k ‘they slaughtered for you’ root ðb takub i -lo ‘you pour on it’ root kbb bukub i -lum ‘you pour for them’ root kbb

d. Like in the Arabic of Kordofan (Manfredi 2009 p.58-59), 1SG bound pronoun -i with nouns and -ni with verbs, receive stress on this i.

kala m-i ‘my words’ ija l-i ‘my children’ atane t-i ~ atana j ti ‘my grandchild’ fut a -ni ‘you 2SG.M left me’ iriftu -ni ‘you 2PL knew me’

Word-final i seems susceptible to receive stress generally: the frequently used independent pronoun 1SG a ni ‘I, me’ and aj ‘yes’ receive stress on i too. Fur-thermore, imperatives, which I have only heard in grammatical PL or SG.F (but were sometimes addressed to men) equally receive stress on word-final i, as in sid i ‘close’ IMP SG.F. e. Stress in loanwords is maintained as it is in the source language.

ia la ‘Nyala’ ga ga ‘Ganggang’ (kind of dance, especially known with the Masalit tribe)

a wa ‘rubber clogs’ togolo ~ togo lo ‘small cup’

f. Many Arabic words ending in a other than verbs, can either receive stress according to rule a. above, or on the last syllable. This manner of putting stress might be caused by interference with the other languages spoken in Darfur.

wa ta ~ wata ‘sole of foot/shoe, floor, weather’ sawa ~ sa wa ‘together’

ani na ~ a ni na ~ an a ‘we’ ba la ~ bala ‘without’ xala ~ xa la ‘open country, wilderness, desert’ kafa ~ ka fa ‘enough’


6. Historical considerations Old Arabic is a cover term for the Arabic that has been handed down to us from pre-Islamic times until the first two centuries of the Arabo-Islamic empire. In its codified form by the grammarians, Old Arabic became the literary language of the Arabo-Islamic empire and is usually called Classical Arabic. Classical Ara-bic in its modernized form is the official written standard variant of Arabic in all Arabic countries, and, apart from little English, the only language of instruction in schools in Sudan. But since my informants were almost all (functionally) illiterate and multilingual, it does not seem realistic to consider Old or Classical Arabic as their linguistic background or their target language. However, compar-ing Darfur Arabic with Old Arabic reveals and explains phonological (and mor-phological) patterns in the spoken Arabic of Darfur. Below, roots and bound pronouns are given in Old Arabic. In the Arabic spoken in Darfur, like in most other Arabic sedentary collo-quials, the Old Arabic phoneme generally corresponds to t; ð to d; is deleted or reflected by j; and diphthongs ai and au are replaced by e and o (Fischer & Jastrow 1980 p.50-55). Nevertheless, the variable realisation of the Old Arabic gutturals (velars/uvulars, pharyngeals and glottals/laryngeals) is a distinct fea-ture of Darfur Arabic compared to other dialects. Depending on the nature of the phoneme at issue, the linguistic background of the speaker and some specific words, some of these Old Arabic back consonants are either consistently or vari-ably replaced by others or even completely left out. This swapping and absence of guttural phonemes might be explained by the influence of the Nilo-Saharan substrates (also see Roth-Laly 1972 p.70-72), which exhibit only one or two (marginal) gutturals (see Edgar 1989 p.9 on Masalit, Jakobi 1990 p.18 on Fur and Osman 2006 p.7 on Zaghawa). 6.1. Old Arabic phoneme q Phoneme q has more than one manner and place of articulation in Old Arabic and in modern Arabic dialects, but is known to be an uvular voiceless stop in Modern Standard Arabic (Edzard 2009). However, in all Sudanic variants of Arabic, q is realised as velar voiced g. This g is sometimes realised as k or a sound in between g and k. Also see 3.6. Voicing and devoicing on this matter. q > k

binak it ‘it drips’ root nq katal ‘he killed’ root qtl bo k ‘heavy rain’ root bwq (Ishaaq 2002 p.106)

Sometimes x figures as a substitute for Old Arabic q. According to Ishaaq (2002, p.106-107) this substitution is typical for Darfurian villagers. q > x

xa na t ‘tv channel’ root qnw firxa ‘team/band’ root frq

332 C. Roset

According to Hillelson (1935 p. xvii ‘frequent, especially in gezira’), Qasim (2002 p.14 ‘seldom’), Bergman (2002 p.3), Owens (‘q may optionally spirantise to x/ or / post vocalically’ 1993a p.28) Manfredi (2009 p.43) and Woidich (2006 p.300), Old Arabic q is sometimes realised as its voiced affricate pendant in Sudanic Arabic and in Upper Egypt. I indeed noticed this reflex regularly

among Sudanese in Khartoum but not (yet) among my Darfurian informants and Roth-Laly does not mention as a substitute for Old Arabic q either. One would expect Darfurians to do this too in the context of the general tendency of mingl-ing gutturals. But phoneme might not occur at all in the language variety at issue (see 6.3. Old Arabic phoneme ). 6.2. Old Arabic phoneme x Old Arabic velar phoneme x (by some linguists described as uvular ) is often ‘correctly’ realised as it is from a diachronic point of view.

xala s ‘that’s it / right’, root xl , discourse marker xamsa ‘five’ root xms ti xal i ‘you let, leave’ root xlw xarabu ‘they spoiled’ root xrb

baxu r ‘incense’ root bxr Old Arabic phoneme x can also be replaced by h. I have been told by several Darfurians that especially members of the Zaghawa tribe are known to do this, but I witnessed Darfurians other than Zaghawa do this, as well. x > h

hamsa ‘five’ root xms hartu m ‘Khartoum’ hawaja t ‘westeners’ be-he r ‘fine’ PREP bi-root xyr

When x is replaced by h, it can be deleted (see 6.6. Old Arabic phoneme h), like in: ja talif ‘it is different’ (root xlf, stem jaCtaCiC, known as stem VIII). Phoneme k also appears as a reflex of Old Arabic x, as it does in Arabic-based creoles (Owens 1997 p.155). x > k

kala s ‘finally / that’s it’ root xl , discourse marker ko r ‘brook’ root xwr bite k ‘watermelon’ root b x

6.3. Old Arabic phoneme The absence of Old Arabic is characteristic for West Sudanic Arabic (Roth-Laly p.67; Manfredi 2009 p.34; Owens 1993a p.19; Qasim 2002 p.14). As a rule, this Old Arabic phoneme is replaced by x.


> x xanam ‘goats’ root nm sixaj r ‘small’ root r tistaxrib ‘you are suprised’ root rb axali t ‘things’ root l

Zaxa wa ‘Zaghawa’ nasxulu ‘we wash’ root sl

The substitution of for x above, might also be considered as a case of de-voicing, since the two consonants are realised from the same point of artic-ulation. Maybe this is why I have also heard Old Arabic phoneme , just like x, to be realised as k. > k

ji kas ulu ‘they wash’ root sl ji kan u ‘they sing’ root nw

Interestingly, Roth-Laly (1972 p.72) notes that Zaghawa, called Arabs in Abé-ché, realise Old Arabic phoneme as q. Hence they pronounce their own tribe as Zaqa wa. Manfredi detects the same reflex in rural Kordofanian Baggara Arabic (2009 p.63) and I have also noticed few informants say bagulu ‘they boil’ and tagili ‘you boil’ root lj, with velar g tending to an uvular release. 6.4. Old Arabic phoneme The voiceless pharyngeal is realised as h in word-initial position, sometimes also between two vowels. In the latter case, h becomes voiced too. Also see Qasim 2002 p.13 on this matter and Hillelson 1935 p. xvii: ‘h for always in the speech of the sedentaries of Kordofan’.

> h Word-initial

hami r ‘donkeys’ root mr ha a ‘thing’ root w ha la ‘beautiful’ root lw hilu ‘beautiful’ root lw

Between vowels: mula ha t [mul a t] ‘sauces’ root ml wa hid [wa d] ‘one’ root d (but note the variety on the same word below) bahar [b r] ‘sea; river’ root b r

In the middle of a word, is often deleted. However, when preceded by a vowel, an ‘echo’ of often remains. I have rendered this resonance as a period, indicat-ing a syllable break.

334 C. Roset

> Ø After a consonant

jafaru ‘they are happy’ root fr tatani ‘you grind’ root n

Between two vowels (the last four examples are cases of epenthesis, see 3.9. Epenthesis):

wa .id ‘one’ root d sa.an ‘plate’ root n fa.am ‘charcoal’ root f m ti.it ‘under’ t t a.amad ‘Ahmed’ root md

At the end of a word is deleted. Nevertheless, syllables ending in this historical but deleted , are considered as closed syllables, since a preceding short i is realised as [ ] (see 3.1. Phoneme i).

mafa ti ‘keys’ root ft sa.i ‘correct’ root gada ‘cup’ root qd saba ‘morning’ root b fa ti [fa t ] ‘open’ root ft simi [s m ] ‘good’ root sm

Like in Standard Sudanese Arabic, in the frequently used verb a 3SG.M.PFV, ja u 3SG.M.IPFV ‘to put’, is replaced by x: na xut u ‘we put’. 6.5. Old Arabic phoneme At the beginning of a word or between two vowels, the reflex of the voiced pharyngeal can be . >

Word-initial: amalo ‘they made’ root ml

a i b ‘wonderful’ root b id a ‘dishes’ root dd a ara ‘ten’ root r

Between vowels: bi a anu ‘they knead/eat’ root n bi aj anu ‘they watch’ root jn mu al imi n ‘teachers’ root lm

Otherwise, is deleted. Notwithstanding, like its voiceless pendant , when preceded by a vowel, a light ‘echo’ of the phoneme remains, indicated below as a period.


> Ø Word-initial:

a ara ‘ten’ root r irfu ‘they knew’ root rf

isa n ‘sticks’ root j asalij:a ‘asalij a’ (kind of drink) root sl ugu b ‘punishment’ root qb

After a consonant: togod ‘you sit’ root q d

sabi n ‘seventy’ root sb gita ‘a piece’ root q talab ‘you dance’ root l b

Between two vowels: la.abat Fo r ‘the dance of the Fur’ root l b gata.u ‘they cut’ root q

ga .id ~ gaid ‘sitting, staying’ root q d mu.askar ‘camp’ root skr o zu bi l a hi ‘I seek refuge with God’ Old Arabic a u ðu bi-l a hi

In the latter example, Old Arabic a u in a u zo is reduced to o by deleting and rendering the remaining diphthong au as o. At the end of a word is also deleted. Nevertheless, syllables ending in this historical but deleted pharyngeal, must be considered as closed syllables, since a preceded short i is realised as [ ] (see 3.1. Phoneme i).

batla ‘it comes up/out’ root l zira ‘cultivation, farming’ root zr takta ‘you cut’ root q

ziri [z r ] ‘cultivation, farming’ root zr a ri [ r ] ‘street’ root r

The absence of the pharyngeals and as well as the velarised consonants (see below) also occurs in some other peripheral Arabic dialects, like Maltese (Fi-scher & Jastrow 1980 p.52) and some variants of Anatolian (Jastrow 1973 p.18), Nigerian and Chadian (Owens 1993b p. 94, 115, 125, 128 and Roth-Laly 1972 p.70) Arabic. Both the pharyngeals and the velarised phonemes hardly appear in Arabic based creole languages (Wellens 2003 p.36, Luffin 2005 p.59, Miller 2007 p.519) either. 6.6. Old Arabic phoneme h Glottal or laryngeal h is only heard in the beginning of a word but deleted in other positions. However, like the pharyngeals mentioned above, an ‘echo’ of h remains when preceded by a vowel (also see Qasim 2002 p.17).

336 C. Roset

Word-initial: hi ‘she’ hu ‘he’ haj in ‘easy’ ha j ‘hey’ (exclamation)

After a consonant: naka ‘smell, aroma’ root nkh na.ar is-a ‘I marry her off’ root rs-PRON.3SG.F(ha in Old Arabic)

Between vowels: xal u -.a ‘they left her’ root xlw-PRON.3SG.F(ha in Old Arabic) takub u le -.u ‘you pour on him’ root kbb PREP le -PRON.3SG.M(hu in Old Ar-abic) abu -.um ‘their father’ root bw-PRON.3PL.M(hum in Old Arabic) ga.awa ‘coffee’ root qhw a.alu ‘his family’ root hl

ji aj is ‘he prepares’ root hz (Owens 1993a p.23: ‘after i, ‘/h not infre-quently are assimilated to y’)

6.7. Velarised consonants The Old Arabic velarised (also called emphatic or pharyngealised) consonants (IPA , often transcribed with a dot as in ) are replaced in Darfur Arabic by their non-velarised counterparts. This phenomenon also occurs in the Arabic spoken in Abéché (Roth-Laly 1972 p.69-70). Notwithstanding, Owens (1993a p.25-27) and Manfredi (2009 p.40-42) do attest the occurrence of the velarised phonemes, as well as secondary velarisation or secondary emphasis. I assume this is due to the nature of the latter linguists’ informants, who belong to Arab tribes. In Darfur, the velarised phonemes are realised as follows. > s > t

merged into d, sometimes z ð Interestingly, although velarisation has ‘disappeared’ from Darfur Arabic, his-torical velarised phonemes often tend to effect adjacent a by lowering it.

xala s [x l s] ‘that’s it’ root xl wata [w t ] ‘ground’ w j munaz ama [mun z ma] ‘organisation’ root nðm bi saf u [bis f u] ‘they filter’ root fw da n [d n] ‘sheep’ root n

When surrounded by other vowels than a, the historical velarised consonants are not recognised as such.


ti n [ti n] ‘earth/clay’ root jn na xud u [na xud u] ‘we churn’ root x se f [se f] ‘summer’ root jf te b-i n [te bi n] ‘well’ ADJ.PL root jb

7. Conclusion At the phonological level, Darfur Arabic coincides with West Sudanic Arabic as it has been described by other arabists. The analysis above notably displays much resemblance to the phonology of Abéché in Tchad, as published by Roth-Laly in 1972. This is not surprising, since Abéché is situated only about 150 kilometres or 90 miles from the border, and shares significant ethnical, historical and geographical elements with Darfur. In spite of substantial variation in Darfurian Arabic speech, some patterns can be established. The most salient phonological features of West Sudanic Arabic are confirmed in the analysis of Darfur Arabic above: it includes the West Sudanic peculiarities of the marginal presence of , and and the ab-sence of ; the possible reflexes of Old Arabic [ ] are either [ ] or [ ]; there is vowel harmony and characteristic manners of voicing, devoicing and epenthesis. Especially Sudanese linguists also note ima la as a typical feature of West Suda-nese dialects and arabists consider it as a feature of rural West Sudanic Arabic. When specifically compared to the West Sudanic Arabic variety of Abéché, further common typical traits are the absence of the velarised phonemes and reduced vowel lengthening, features that are shared with Arabic based creoles. Within West Sudanic Arabic, the language spoken by Darfurian villagers can be distinguished by a stronger tendency to mix or omit gutturals; degemination and particular stress assignment. It is likely that the latter features, which also re-mind of creoles, are caused by interference with the indigenous languages of Darfur. The combination of these features leads to the occurrence of many hom-onyms. Below more than one possible meaning is given for a word or a combi-nation of words in the Arabic of Darfur. The actual meaning of those homonyms must be interpreted with the help of the context. ‘you F have put’ root xa t e ti [xat e ti] ‘you F have covered’ root w ‘not’ or ‘indeed’ (counter-assertive particle) root ma ma ‘with’ root m

338 C. Roset

‘one place’ root ll and d ma.al wa .id ‘together’ root m and d An example of near homonyms is:

bazara ‘he cultivates’ root zr (possibly devoiced to basara) basara ‘he herds’ root sr

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a phonology of darfur arabic

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