I admit that I long hesitated before addressing this phenomenon, in which some brothers in our Arab world have mixed political and cultural elements, and their desire to rebel against what they considered historical political imposed on them on the one the one hand, and components of their own sentiments, on the other. They have pointed their rebellion to the Arabic language, which they speak and write in a better way than the languages which they are trying to propagate. This phenomenon is not confined to what has been happening in the Arab world; it is common in other parts of our contemporary world. Nothing drives me to locate such areas, as this phenomenon is far remote from what is going in the Arab world and from its adherence to Arabic, at least as the time dimension is concerned. Rebellion against Russian following the collapse of the Soviet Union by the Central Asian Islamic republics or multilingual European republics, for example, cannot be compared with what is facing Arabic, which has for thousands of years been deeply rooted in place and in the hearts and minds of who have adopted Islam for ever before and after any political or geopolitical intervention.

Minority languageso... rather than linguistic minorities

To begin with, I wouldn’t like to call (speakers of these) languages linguistic minorities, not only because this is further from the truth here and there in the Arab World, but I’d like as well to assert full recognition of the various ethnic communities in the Arab world, the first cohesive element among whom is this Arabic tongue, which derives its historical vitality and active continuity from our common religious heritage, specifically the Holy Quran, then, in an all-embrasing manner, covers all aspects of Islamic Arabic culture, which many non-Muslim Arab intellectuals consider a basic component of their private and public cultural structure.

As this issue is extremely sensitive and thorny, I have decided to tackle it gently, setting aside my personal views and impressions, following the logic of research, presenting the overall picture of this difficult topic within the limitations of space of this Talk of the Month. Using the word ‘picture’ means that I will be bound by the references which I relied upon and which will be included as footnotes here for further research and verification. I also feel compelled to give up the normal pattern of an article to draw up a table giving a summary of the data as a visual aid, as the most important thing to start a topic such as the one under investigation is clarity of the picture, which is blurred to many viewers. In presenting the picture I prefer to exclude such languages that some want to recreate, as their recreation is all but impossible and a sort of fun which contradicts any logic outside the realm of academic studies and archeological research. These languages include Hieroglyphic and Phoenician. Let’s start by putting together the parts of the picture according to their size or significance, then look at the problem or consider a way out.

Amazih

Many Amazih intellectuals refuse to be called Berber, as this word was used by the Ancient Greeks to describe those who didn’t speak their language as barbarians. They say the corresponding word in Arabic is ‘foreigners’, with which Arabs refer to non-Arabic speakers. Some Europeans attached barbarism to Amazihs because of their fierce opposition to the Romans for four centuries. The Amazihs prefer to be called so as in their language it means the noble person.

From time immemorial, the Amazihs have spoken a heterogeneous language embodying seven major dialects distributed all over North Africa. In addition to Tashelhayt, these are : Rif and Tamazight in Morocco; Kabyle, Shawia and Mazabiah in Algeria and Tarakiyah in the Sohara, from Mauritania to Sudan.

Amazih is the oldest language in the Maghrib region. Its recorded civilization dates back over fifty centuries. It is distributed all over a geographic area of over five million square metres, stretching from the Egyptian-Libyan border to Mali and Niger in Africa. The largest Amazih-speaking demographic group is in Morocco. Archaeological research has indicated that this language was written in Tifinagh letters.

In all Hamito-Semitic languages there is a close affinity in syntax and the sound system, but not in vocabulary. There are almost 300 Amazih words similar to ones in other branches of the Hamito-Semitic family, including Arabic. This relationship means that these language were one common language long ago. This relationship was naturally not between Arabic and Amazih specifically, but between Amazih and Semitic languages.

Amazih is not the daughter of Arabic, but may be taken to be its sister and most probably older than it.

Amazih is written in three ways : Latin, Arabic and Tifinagh scripts, but most Amazih intellectuals have adopted the Latin script as a result of the influence of the French occupation period. That’s why some include them in the Francophonie group.

It is difficult to use the original Tifinagh letters as these require the introduction of special printing machines and types, which is extremely costly at present.

Some Amazihs are currently attempting to recreate their language, the reason for this as reported by the Amazih linguist Mohammed Acnar in an interview on Al-Jazeera channel on 17.8.2000, was as follows:

We have been brought up and raised under a rich, copious-but oral – Amazih literature. Our mothers and grandmothers communicated it us, but the world has now changed, and the role of mothers and grandmothers has disappeared and has been replaced by the radio, television and other media. Consequently, this literature is threatened with extinction. If we know that it remained oral and has never been collected and written, we will realize the significant loss of a major component of our Maghrib culture”.

The first translation of the meanings of the Holy Quran into Amazih in Arabic script appeared on 25 October 2003, and in September 2003, Morocco decided to teach Amazih on an experimental basis at 371 model primary schools.

Kurdish

Kurdu in Sumerian means mountain dwellers, the name given to the Kurds who live in the mountains called Kurdistan, which stretches to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey and Armenia. As a matter of fact, Kurds today vary in terms of language, political inclinations and economic conditions according to their spread in the neighbouring and surrounding countries. They are divided into three main groups: Iraq’s Kurds, Turkey’s Kurds and Iran’s Kurds.

Kurds are descended from Caucasian tribes who took refuge in forbidding mountains, then mixed with Arabs, Persians and Turkmens. There are many words of Sumerian, Arabic, Syriac and Akkadian origin in Kurdish. Kurdistan’s area expanded over the centuries due to successive Kurdish immigration.

Caucasian languages means that the people of Kurdistan spoke languages which did not belong to any of the known language families such as the Semitic languages or Indo-European languages which the existing Kurds speak, but belong to the Turanian family, such as the Chinese languages.

Turkmen

Turkmens belong to central Asian Turkistan-speaking communities which at present include former Soviet Republics, such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikstan. They are one and a half million in number in Iraq and account for 7% of the population there. Their number in Syria and Jordan is about 100,000 and 25,000, respectively.

Turkmens lead a tribal life similar to that of the region’s tribes. They are among those ethnic tribes with the least interest in politics; however, in Iraq they are more active than in Syria, Iran and Jordan.

They are described as Arab Turkmens in line with their integration into their Arab environment. They have borrowed the Arabic language and dress and adopted Arab and Bedouin customs, and are therefore considered Arabs of Turkmen origin.

Among the Muslim scholars of Turkmen origin are : Al-Farabi, Al-Bukhari, Al-Khowarizmi, Al-Bairouni and Al-Sarkhassi.

Turkmens constitute the third largest linguistic community in Iraq after the Arabs and the Kurds. They live in Kirkuk, Arbil, Mosul and Tikrit. They are Muslims, half of whom are Sunnis and Shiites each. Many Iraqi Arab tribes are of Turkmen origin, including the famous Iraqi poet Abdul Wahhab Al-Bayyati and the Turkmen intellectual Sarkon Boulos. Turkmen is similar to Turkish and Azerbaijani, but written in Arabic script.

Syriac

The Syriacs belong to the Aramaics and have adopted Christianity. The town of Al-Roha in the Jazeera region is one of their most important religious and historical sites. Syriac, an Aramaic dialect, became the liturgical language of all Christian and Babylonian churches in the East region from the Gulf of Basra to Sinai. It was also the language of the Arab tribes which adopted Christianity, such as the Lachmids. Arabic is considered a modern from of Syriac, in the same way as the latter was a new from of Aramaic. Syrian was also the language of the Sassanian Empire. Survivors of the Syriac Nestorian community are still distributed throughout India and China where they keep their religious documents in Syriac.

The Arabs called the Syriacs Nabateans, i.e the people who explored the land, as opposed to the Arabs, i.e. the nomads.

Kamishli is today one of the major Syrian towns and it constitutes the Syrian part of Nassibin, which was partitioned by Turkey and Syria, and the Syriac parish was transferred from Nassibin to Hasaka in 1933.

The Syriacs were divided into two sects : the Nestorians and the Jacobites, but both having Syriac language and culture in common.

The Syriacs are today distributed as follows : around a million and a half in Iraq, half of whom in Iraq and the rest in Mosul, Irbil, Dohuk, Kirkuk and Basra; around a million in Syria, mainly in Al-Jazeera, Aleppo and Damascus; 20,000 in Lebanon, mainly in Beirut; 10,000 in Turkey, and around a million worldwide.

Aramaic

The language of the tribes which inhabited the Fertile Crescent and existed for over a thousand years from the sixth century BC to at least two hundred years after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD and the introduction of Arabic into the region. Aramaic belongs to the Semitic languages and it had borrowed the Phoenician alphabet.

Aramaic had become the dominant language in all Semitic Asia, i.e. in Syria, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Iraq and Arabia during the Saluki age and since the fourth century BC. Muslims learnt it because of its many benefits. The Armenians used it in writing for a period of time before the spread of Armenian and its letters. It covered an area extending to the farthest east in China to the north and to the Indian countries to the south Except for English nowadays, we don’t think that any language – even Greek – matched Aramaic in terms of expansion.

The Aramaics learnt the art of alphabet writing from the Canaanites and tried to use Canaanite in their writing, but they discovered their identify by using Aramaic expressions, such as the syllables bu and beth and soon after that abandoned Canaanite and used their own language. The oldest texts in Aramaic date back to the ninth and tenth centuries BC, and these reflect distinct Aramaic and show how it developed from Canaanite.

Major Minority Languages in the Arab World

For further information see:

1- Yassily Nikitin Al-Kurd (2001) : A Sociological and Historical Study (in Arabic). Translation and Commentary by Nouri Talbani. Foreword by Louis Massignon. Beirut and London : Dar Al-Saki.

2- Salim Mattar (2003) : The Identity Argument (in Arabic). Beirut : Arab Studies and Publishing Organization.

3- Ibrahim Kayid : Arabic among the Semitic Languages (in Arabic)

4- Fredrick Newmayor (1417 AH) : The Politics of Linguistics (in Arabic). Translation by Dr. Abdullah Bin Hadi Al-Qahtani and Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al-Batal. Abha Literary Club.

That development from Canaanite to Aramaic was similar to what happened to Syriac which was replaced by Aramaic and became its heir, rather than a variety or branch of, as some scholars argue. The Syriac Aramaic dialects were divided into two categories : Western : The dialect spoken in Syria, Palestine, Upper Mesopotamia and Sinai in Egypt. Eastern : The dialect spoken in Iraq and Persia. A third distinct dialect was the one called Palestinian, which Jesus Christ spoke.

Mandaic

There is a great affinity between Arabic and Mandaic. Both share the same origin, the latter gave way to the former which developed and became a full – fleged in language, whereas Mandaic fell behind and was confined to ancient manuscripts and limited family communication. The Mandaic alphabet is similar to that of the Arabic (the other Semitic languages) : Abjad hawwaz hotti kalamon sa‘afat qaroshat.

Mandaic letters are closer in form to the Arabic letters than any other Semitic language. Many letters are identical, including baa, dal, waw, haa, taa, lam, noon, seen, sad, and ‘ein.

Arab researchers are surprised by the many vocabulary items which are so similar in sound and meaning that one piece of classical Mandaic literature contains about two hundred words and only a few non-Arabic words.

The Arab reader can understand Mandaic if he is familiar with the rules of phonetic change, metathesis, elision and assimilation. For example, there is phonetic change from sin and shin, as in the following examples : from salam to shalam, and ism to rishm or rasm. There is also change of haa, khaa and haa, as in haya instead of haya and aha meaning akha.

In Mandaic there is also phonetic change from hamza to ‘ayn, as in ayn instead of ‘ayn, and Saba instead of sabgh. As for Arabic there change from ‘ayn to hamza, as in quira‘a instead of quiraa, and masa‘ala instead of masala. In Mandaic the ‘ayn and ghayn are elided, as in abi, nabi, meaning abgha, nibgha,. (That feature is also common in southern Iraq), and as in da instead of da‘a, and mana meaning manda‘a, from which the word ‘Mandaic’ was derived, and a Sabaean was called day, which originally was da’i (faith) in God.

Nubian

Nubian is spoken by the inhabitants of Nubia, the region extending along the Nile coast from the Silsilla mountain range north of the town of Kom Ombo in Egypt to the town of Dongola in Sudan. The Egyptian side, which lies between the Sudan and Wadi Halfa, is called Lower Nubia, and the Sudanese side Upper Nubia.

There are two main varieties of Nubian with different syntax and vocabulary : Konouz and Matoki.

Conclusion

I have attempted to define the scope of minority languags in the Arab world. As the enclosed table shows, from the numerical point of view, the problem concerning the major languages combined involves just 25 million speakers, representing about 10% of the total population of the Arab world (even according to updated censuses which many people don’t recognize). The numerical dimension does not reveal the gravity of the problem, as those speakers of the minority languages, or who aspire to give them priority on their agendas, speak Arabic, and in cases the intellectuals amongst them speak and write Arabic better than they do those languages. A critical remark remains after the above review of these languages : most of them have no alphabet, and many suffer from syntactic or morphological inconsistency. With due respect to the right of any community in the Arab world to speak a language that is compatible with its ethnic or cultural roots, this creative diversity enriches the umbrella language – Arabic.

Undoubtedly, many questions above the future of Arabic in these communities, and in the Arab world in general, remain unanswered. These questions suggest the topic of another Talk of the Month.