Hassānīya Arabic ( Hassānīya; also known as Hassaniyya [ISO 639-3], Klem El Bithan, Hasanya, Hassani, Hassaniya) is an
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
varietyThe Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties that diverge widely from one another—both from country to country and within a single country. A distinction is to be made between Classical/Standard Arabic and these "colloquial" variants...
originally spoken by the
Beni HassānBeni Ḥassān was a Bedouin group, one of several Yemeni Maqil Arab tribes who emigrated in the Middle Ages to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania...
BedouinThe Bedouin, , are a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert...
tribes, who extended their authority over most of
MauritaniaMauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest...
and the
Western SaharaWestern Sahara is a territory of North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of...
between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has almost completely replaced the
Berber languagesThe Berber languages are a group of very closely related languages and dialects spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and the Egyptian area of Siwa, as well as by large Berber communities in parts of Niger and Mali. A relatively sparse but very old population extends into the whole Sahara and...
spoken in this region. Though clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other North African variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from
ZenagaZenaga is a Berber language spoken by some 200 to 300 people between Mederdra and the Atlantic coast in southwestern Mauritania...
and
WolofWolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the ethnic group of the Wolof people. Like the neighboring language Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family...
. There are several dialects of Hassaniya. The primary differences among them are phonetic. Today Hassaniya is spoken by inhabitants of
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
,
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
,
MauritaniaMauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest...
,
MaliMali, officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked nation in Western Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west...
,
NigerNiger , officially the Republic of Niger is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
,
SenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south, and it also encircles The Gambia on its three sides,...
and the
Western SaharaWestern Sahara is a territory of North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of...
.
Pronunciation
The phonological system of Hassānīya is both very innovative and very conservative. All phonemes of
Classical ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
are represented in the dialect, but new phonemes are numerous, too. As in other Bedouin dialects, Classical /q/ corresponds mostly to dialectal , and have merged into and the interdentals and have been preserved. In common with most western Arabic varieties, the equivalent of Modern Standard Arabic is realised as .
For reasons not quite clear, however, there is sometimes a double correspondence of a classical sound and its dialectal counterpart. Thus classical is represented by in 'to take' but by in 'scissors'. Similarly, becomes in 'laugh (noun)', but in 'to be sick'. Some consonant roots even have a double appearance: 'heavy (mentally)' vs. 'heavy (materially)'. Some of the "classicizing" forms are easily explained as recent loans from the literary language (such as 'law') or from sedentary dialects in case of concepts pertaining to the sedentary way of life (such as 'scissors' above). For others, there is no obvious explanation (like 'to be sick'). Etymological appears constantly as , never as .
Nevertheless, the phonemic status of and as well as and appears very stable, unlike in many other Arabic varieties. Somewhat similarly, classical has in most contexts disappeared or turned into or ( 'family' instead of , 'insist' instead of and 'yesterday' instead of ). In some literary terms, however, it is clearly preserved: 'suffering (participle)' (classical ).
Hassānīya has innovated many consonants by the spread of the distinction
emphatic/non-emphatic. In addition to the above-mentioned, and have a clear phonemic status and more marginally so. One additional emphatic phoneme is acquired from the neighbouring
Zenaga Berber languageZenaga is a Berber language spoken by some 200 to 300 people between Mederdra and the Atlantic coast in southwestern Mauritania...
along with a whole palatal series from
Niger-Congo languagesThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
of the south. At least some speakers make the distinction /p/–/b/ through borrowings from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
. All in all, the number of consonant phonemes in Hassānīya is 33, or 39 if you count the marginal cases, too.
On the phonetic level, the classical consonants and are usually realised as voiced (hereafter marked ) and . The latter is still, however, pronounced differently from , the distinction probably being in the amount of air blown out (Cohen 1963: 13–14). In geminated and word-final positions both phonemes are voiceless, for some speakers /θ/ apparently in all positions. The uvular fricative is likewise realised voiceless in a geminated position, although not fricative but plosive: . In other positions, etymological seems to be in free variation with (etymological , however varies only with ).
Vowel phonemes come in two series: long and short. The long vowels are the same as in Classical Arabic , and the short ones extend this by one: . The classical diphthongs and may be realised in many different ways, the most usual variants being and , respectively. Still, realisations like and as well as and are possible, although less common.
As in most western Arabic dialects, etymological short vowels are generally dropped in open syllables (except for the feminine noun ending ): * > 'you (f. sg.) write', * > * > 'he wrote'. In the remaining closed syllables dialectal /a/ generally corresponds to classical , while classical and have merged into . Remarkably, however, morphological is represented by and by in a word-initial pre-consonantal position: 'I stood up' (root
w-g-f; cf. 'I wrote', root
k-t-b), 'he descends' (subject prefix
i-; cf. 'he writes', subject prefix
jə-). In some contexts this initial vowel even gets lengthened, which clearly demonstrates its phonological status of a vowel: 'they stood up'. In addition, short vowels in open syllables are found in Berber loanwords, such as 'man', 'calves of 1 to 2 years of age', and in passive formation: 'he was met' (cf. 'he met').
See also
- Varieties of Arabic
The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties that diverge widely from one another—both from country to country and within a single country. A distinction is to be made between Classical/Standard Arabic and these "colloquial" variants...
- Maghreb Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic or Darija is a cover term for the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. In Algeria, colloquial Maghrebi Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist...
- Nemadi language
The Nemadi are small Nemadi hunting tribe of eastern Mauritania. Their language is according to some sources a dialect of Hassaniyya, according to other a mixture of Zenaga, Azer and Hassaniyya...
- Imraguen language
The Imraguen or Imeraguen language is spoken by a tiny Imraguen fishing tribe in the Banc d'Arguin National Park on the Atlantic coast of Mauritania. According to Gerteiny , it is "a strange version of Hassaniyya restructured on an Azêr base"; Hassaniyya is an Arabic dialect and Azer is a Soninke...
External links