Migrated Features from Ancient Yemen and North Africa, and Vestiges of a Pre-Modern Cairene Arabic Variety

Abstract

The following article is a brief socio-historical linguistic study of four Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, copied sometime during the eighteenth/nineteenth century, and today held in the custody of the Jewish Karaite community in Ramle.1 By means of their Hebrew orthography and non-standard Arabic literary style (which will be described below), the manuscripts display an array of conspicuous Arabic linguistic features which prove to correspond with certain waves of migration of people within the Islamic empire. The findings reflect usage of old features which may be linked to the settlement of Yemenite Arabs in the western parts of the earlyIslamic empire, notably in urban areas such as the city of Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo). Moreover, features may also be linked to later waves of migration to Egypt, mainly from North Africa – parts of which may have initially come from Spain – that have taken place at various points throughout medieval times. Finally, there may also be identified in the material studied here, traces of a pre-Modern Cairene variety which seems to have been suppressed as substandard or fallen out of use in Modern Egyptian Arabic. This is a chapter from the book Philologists in the World: A Festschrift in Honour of Gunvor Mejdell, Nora Sunniva Eggen & Rana Issa (ed.). © 2017 Novus Forlag