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Hassaniyya
Hassānīya
Spoken in:Algeria, Mauritania, southern Morocco, Western Sahara
Total speakers:2,787,625 (2002)[1]
Language family:Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  West Semitic
   Central Semitic
    South Central Semitic
     Arabic
      Maghrebi
       Hassaniyya 
Writing system:Arabic alphabet 
Official status
Official language in:National language of Mauritania
Regulated by:none
Language codes
ISO 639-1:none
ISO 639-2:–
ISO 639-3:mey
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa Western Sahara ( Arabic: الصحراء الغربية; transliterated: as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbīyah; Sahara Occidental is a territory List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. The Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite The Arabic language family consists of The Arabic macrolanguage ( ISO 639-3 ara including the living Varieties of Arabic Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Hassānīya (Arabic: حسانية‎ Hassānīya; also known as Hassaniyya [ISO 639-3], Klem El Bithan, Hasanya, Hassani, Hassaniya) is an Arabic variety originally spoken by the Beni Hassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties Beni Ḥassān ( Arabic: بني حسان "sons of Ḥassān" was a Bedouin group one of several Yemeni Maqil Arab The Bedouin, (from the Arabic (ar بدوي pl badū) are a desert-dwelling Arab Nomadic pastoralist, or previously Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country Western Sahara ( Arabic: الصحراء الغربية; transliterated: as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbīyah; Sahara Occidental is a territory It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region. Nomenclature The term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century and is still used today Though clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other North African variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga and Wolof. Zenaga (autonym Tuḍḍungiyya) is a Berber language spoken by some 200 to 300 people (Ethnologue estimate 1998 between Mederdra and the Atlantic 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. Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa Mauritania (موريتانيا Mūrītāniyā officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country Mali, officially the Republic of Mali (République du Mali is a Landlocked nation in Western Africa. Niger ( or /ˈnaɪdʒɚ/) officially the Republic of Niger, is a Landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. Senegal (le Sénégal officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. Western Sahara ( Arabic: الصحراء الغربية; transliterated: as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbīyah; Sahara Occidental is a territory [2]

Contents

Pronunciation

The phonological system of Hassānīya is both very innovative and very conservative. All phonemes of Classical Arabic are represented in the dialect, but new phonemes are numerous, too. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language As in other Bedouin dialects, Classical /q/ corresponds mostly to dialectal /ɡ/, /dˤ/ and /ðˤ/ have merged into /ðˤ/ and the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ have been preserved. See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties In common with most western Arabic varieties, the equivalent of Modern Standard Arabic /ʤ/ is realised as /ʒ/.

For reasons not quite clear, however, there is sometimes a double correspondence of a classical sound and its dialectal counterpart. Thus classical /q/ is represented by /ɡ/ in /ɡbaðˤ/ 'to take' but by /q/ in /mqass/ 'scissors'. Similarly, /dˤ/ becomes /ðˤ/ in /ðˤəħk/ 'laugh (noun)', but /dˤ/ in /mrˤədˤ/ 'to be sick'. Some consonant roots even have a double appearance: /θaqiːl/ 'heavy (mentally)' vs. /θɡiːl/ 'heavy (materially)'. Some of the "classicizing" forms are easily explained as recent loans from the literary language (such as /qaː. nuːn/ 'law') or from sedentary dialects in case of concepts pertaining to the sedentary way of life (such as /mqass/ 'scissors' above). For others, there is no obvious explanation (like /mrˤədˤ/ 'to be sick'). Etymological /ðˤ/ appears constantly as /ðˤ/, never as /dˤ/.

Nevertheless, the phonemic status of /q/ and /dˤ/ as well as /ɡ/ and /ðˤ/ appears very stable, unlike in many other Arabic varieties. Somewhat similarly, classical /ʔ/ has in most contexts disappeared or turned into /w/ or /j/ (/ahl/ 'family' instead of /ʔahl/, /wak. kad/ 'insist' instead of /ʔak. kad/ and /jaː. məs/ 'yesterday' instead of /ʔams/). In some literary terms, however, it is clearly preserved: /mət. ʔal. lam/ 'suffering (participle)' (classical /mu. ta. ʔal. lim/).

Hassānīya has innovated many consonants by the spread of the distinction emphatic/non-emphatic. In addition to the above-mentioned, /rˤ/ and /lˤ/ have a clear phonemic status and /bˤ fˤ ɡˤ mˤ nˤ/ more marginally so. One additional emphatic phoneme /zˤ/ is acquired from the neighbouring Zenaga Berber language along with a whole palatal series /c ɟ ɲ/ from Niger-Congo languages of the south. Zenaga (autonym Tuḍḍungiyya) is a Berber language spoken by some 200 to 300 people (Ethnologue estimate 1998 between Mederdra and the Atlantic The 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 At least some speakers make the distinction /p/–/b/ through borrowings from French. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people 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 /f/ and /θ/ are usually realised as voiced [v] (hereafter marked /v/) and [θ̬]. The latter is still, however, pronounced differently from /ð/, 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 /ʁ/ is likewise realised voiceless in a geminated position, although not fricative but plosive: [qː]. In other positions, etymological /ʁ/ seems to be in free variation with /q/ (etymological /q/, however varies only with /ɡ/).

Vowel phonemes come in two series: long and short. The long vowels are the same as in Classical Arabic /aː iː uː/, and the short ones extend this by one: /a i u ə/. The classical diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ may be realised in many different ways, the most usual variants being [eːʲ] and [oːʷ], respectively. Still, realisations like [aj] and [aw] as well as [eː] and [oː] 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 /-a/): */tak. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds tu. biː/ > /tə. ktbi/ 'you (f. sg. ) write', */ka. ta. ba/ > */ka. tab/ > /ktəb/ 'he wrote'. In the remaining closed syllables dialectal /a/ generally corresponds to classical /a/, while classical /i/ and /u/ have merged into /ə/. Remarkably, however, morphological /j/ is represented by [i] and /w/ by [u] in a word-initial pre-consonantal position: /u. ɡəft/ 'I stood up' (root w-g-f; cf. /ktəbt/ 'I wrote', root k-t-b), /i. naɡ. ɡaz/ 'he descends' (subject prefix i-; cf. /jə. ktəb/ 'he writes', subject prefix jə-). In some contexts this initial vowel even gets lengthened, which clearly demonstrates its phonological status of a vowel: /uːɡ. vu/ 'they stood up'. In addition, short vowels /a i/ in open syllables are found in Berber loanwords, such as /a. raː. ɡaːʒ/ 'man', /i. vuː. kaːn/ 'calves of 1 to 2 years of age', and /u/ in passive formation: /u. ɡaː. bəl/ 'he was met' (cf. /ɡaː. bəl/ 'he met').

See also


References

  1. ^ ethnologue.com: gives 2,475,000 in Mauritania (2002). See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, According to a few sources the small Nemadi hunting tribe of eastern Mauritania speak a separate language of their own however most sources agree that they speak a dialect The Imraguen or Imeraguen language is spoken by a tiny (thousand-strong Imraguen fishing tribe in the Banc d'Arguin National Park on the Atlantic coast Population total all countries: 2,787,625.
  2. ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

External links

Countries with Hassaniya speakers: Ethnologue, country index - languages of the world (map)

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