Juba Arabic

Juba Arabic, also known since 2011 as South Sudanese Arabic, is a lingua franca spoken mainly in Equatoria Province in South Sudan, and derives its name from the South Sudanese capital, Juba. It is also spoken among communities of people from South Sudan living in towns in Sudan. The pidgin developed in the 19th century, among descendants of Sudanese soldiers, many of whom were recruited from southern Sudan. Residents of other large towns in South Sudan, notably Malakal and Wau, do not generally speak Juba Arabic, tending towards the use of Arabic closer to Sudanese Arabic, in addition to local languages. Reportedly, it is the most spoken language in South Sudan despite government attempts to discourage its use due to its association with past Arab rule.

Classification

Juba derives from a pidgin based on Sudanese Arabic. It has a vastly simplified grammar as well as the influence of local languages from the south of the country. DeCamp, writing in the mid-1970s, classifies Juba Arabic as a pidgin rather than a creole language, though Mahmud, writing slightly later, appears to equivocate on this issue. Mahmoud's work is politically significant as it represented the first recognition by a northern Sudanese intellectual that Juba Arabic was not merely "Arabic spoken badly" but is a distinct dialect.
Because of the civil war in southern Sudan from 1983, more recent research on this issue has been restricted. However, the growth in the size of Juba town since the beginning of the civil war, its relative isolation from much of its hinterland during this time, together with the relative collapse of state-run education systems in the government held garrison town, may have changed patterns of usage and transmission of Juba Arabic since the time of the last available research. Further research is required to determine the extent to which Juba Arabic may now be considered a creole rather than a pidgin language.

Phonology

Vowels

Each vowel in Juba Arabic comes in more open/more close pairs. It is more open in two environments: stressed syllables preceding, and unstressed syllables. For example, contrast the in girish "piastre", and mile "salt"; or the in deris "lesson", and leben "milk".
As opposed to Standard Arabic, Juba Arabic makes no distinction between short and long vowels. However, long vowels in Standard Arabic often become stressed in Juba Arabic. Stress can be grammatical, such as in weledu "to give birth", and weleduu "to be born".

Consonants

Juba Arabic omits some of the consonants found in Standard Arabic. In particular, Juba Arabic makes no distinction between pairs of plain and emphatic consonants, keeping only the plain variant. Moreover, ع Ayin#Arabic ʿayn is never pronounced, while ه He #Arabic hāʾ and ح Heth#Arabic ḥāʾ may be pronounced or omitted altogether. Conversely, Juba Arabic uses consonants not found in Standard Arabic: v, ny, and ng. Finally, consonant doubling, also known as gemination or Shadda in Arabic, is absent in Juba Arabic. Compare Standard Arabic سُكَّر sukkar and Juba Arabic sukar, meaning "sugar".
In the following table, the common Latin transcriptions appear between angle brackets next to the phonemes. Parentheses indicate phonemes that are either relatively rare or are more likely to be used in the "educated" register of Juba Arabic.

Orthography

Juba Arabic has no standardised orthography, but the Latin alphabet is widely used. A dictionary was published in 2005, Kamuus ta Arabi Juba wa Ingliizi, using the Latin script.

Vocabulary

The following is a sample vocabulary taken from Smith and Ama :

Juba Arabic	Origin	English
gelba	From Arabic	heart
januub	From Arabic	south
jidaada	From Sudanese Arabic , from Arabic	chicken
tarabeeza	From Sudanese Arabic , from Greek	table
yatu	From Sudanese Arabic	which
bafra	From Dinka bafora	cassava