Hassaniya Arabic


Hassaniya Arabic is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs, Malian Arabs and the Sahrawis. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassaniya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti.
The language has completely replaced the Berber languages that were originally spoken in this region. Although clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other Maghrebi variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga-Berber and Pulaar. There are several dialects of Hassaniya, which differ primarily phonetically. There are still traces of South Arabian in Hassaniya Arabic spoken between Rio de Oro and Timbuktu, according to G. S. Colin.
Today, Hassaniya Arabic is spoken in Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and the Western Sahara.

Phonology

The phonological system of Hassānīya exhibits both very innovative and very conservative features. All phonemes of Classical Arabic are represented in the dialect, but there are also many new phonemes. As in other Bedouin dialects, Classical /q/ corresponds mostly to dialectal, and the interdentals and have been preserved. The letter ج is realized as.
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 ', but in 'to be sick'. Some consonant roots even have a double appearance: 'heavy ' vs. 'heavy '. Some of the "classicizing" forms are easily explained as recent loans from the literary language or from sedentary dialects in case of concepts pertaining to the sedentary way of life. For others, there is no obvious explanation. 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 . In some literary terms, however, it is clearly preserved: 'suffering '.

Consonants

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 neighboring 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 Hassānīya is 31, or 43 counting the marginal cases.
On the phonetic level, the classical consonants and are usually realised as voiced and. The latter is still, however, pronounced differently from, the distinction probably being in the amount of air blown out. 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 .

Vowels

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 Maghrebi Arabic dialects, etymological short vowels are generally dropped in open syllables : > 'you 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', 'he descends'. 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'.

Code-switching

Many educated Hassaniya Arabic speakers also practice code-switching. In Western Sahara it is common for code-switching to occur between Hassaniya Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and Spanish, as Spain had previously controlled this region; in the rest of Hassaniya-speaking lands, French is the additional language spoken.

Orthography

Hassaniya Arabic is normally written with an Arabic script. However, in Senegal, the government has adopted the use of the Latin script to write the language, as established by Decree 2005–980 of October 21, 2005.

Speakers distribution

According to Ethnologue, there are approximately three million Hassaniya speakers, distributed as follows:
  • Mauritania: 2,770,000
  • Western Sahara and the southern area of Morocco, known as the Tekna zone: 200,000+
  • Mali: 175,800 – 210,000
  • Senegal: 162,000
  • Algeria: 150,000
  • Libya: 40,000
  • Niger: 10,000