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Hassaniya
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Hassaniya Arabic ( Hassaniya; also known as Hassaniyya [ISO 639-3], Klem El Bithan, Hasanya, Hassani, Hassaniya) is an Arabic variety originally spoken by the Beni Hassan Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region. Though clearly a western dialect, Hassaniya is relatively distant from other North African variants of Arabic.
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Encyclopedia
Hassaniya Arabic ( Hassaniya; also known as Hassaniyya [ISO 639-3], Klem El Bithan, Hasanya, Hassani, Hassaniya) is an Arabic variety originally spoken by the Beni Hassan Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region. Though clearly a western dialect, Hassaniya is relatively distant from other North African variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga and Wolof. There are several dialects of Hassaniya. The primary differences among them are phonetic. Today Hassaniya is spoken by inhabitants of Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and the Western Sahara.
Pronunciation
The phonological system of Hassaniya is both very innovative and very conservative. All phonemes of Classical Arabic 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 ).
Hassaniya 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 language along with a whole palatal series from Niger-Congo languages of the south. At least some speakers make the distinction /p/–/b/ through borrowings from French. All in all, the number of consonant phonemes in Hassaniya 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 /?/ 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 j?-). 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
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