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Arabia and Areal Hybridity Journal of Language Contact 6 (2013) 220–242 brill.com/jlc Arabia and Areal Hybridity Ahmad Al-Jallad Leiden University Centre for Linguistics/Leiden University Institute for Area Studies [email protected] Abstract The present contribution proposes the existence of two ‘micro linguistic areas’ in Arabia in which features from Arabic and other Semitic languages diffused multilaterally. Some of the output varieties pose a significant challenge to phylogeny as they exhibit conflicting isoglosses connect- ing them equally with different lineages of Semitic. We introduce to the term ‘areal hybridity’ to explain the genetic position of languages emerging from contact situations such as these. We argue that several older varieties, such as the dialect of Ṭayyiʾ and the medieval Ḥimyaritic lan- guage described by the Arab grammarians, as well some modern varieties of southwest Arabia, such as Rāziḥī and Rigāľ Almaʿ, fall into this category. Keywords areal linguistics; hybridization; dialect mixing; Arabic; Ancient North Arabian; Ancient South Arabian 1. Introduction Until the 1970s, Semiticists classified Arabic in a subgrouping called South Semitic, which also included MSA, ASA, and the Ethio-Semitic languages. Several linguistic features attested in the aforementioned languages gave the impression that they shared an intermediate linguistic ancestor that excluded * The author thanks aartenM Kossmann, Na’ama Pat-El, and the anonymous referees of this article for their helpful feedback and improvements. The author alone is responsible for all errors. Abbreviations of languages: ANA = Ancient North Arabian; ASA = Ancient South Arabian; MSA = Modern South Arabian; QCT = Qur’ānic Consonantal Text. Gram- matical abbreviations: 1 = first person; 2 = second person; 3 = third person; cs = common singular; ms = masculine singular; fs = feminine singular; pro = pronoun; acc = accusative; voc = vocative. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI 10.1163/19552629-00602002 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:11:14AM via free access <UN> A. Al-Jallad / Journal of Language Contact 6 (2013) 220–242 221 Northwest Semitic and East Semitic.1 Similarities between languages can arise for a number of reasons and not all are indicative of genetic relationships. Heztron (1974; 1975; 1976) argued convincingly that only shared morpho- logical innovations constituted positive evidence for the purposes of genetic subgrouping. After careful scrutiny, Hetzron and others determined that the features characterizing South Semitic were either retentions from Proto- Semitic or could be explained through parallel development and/or diffusion.2 As a result, South Semitic as a genetic subgrouping was largely abandoned. Nevertheless, the features shared by its former members do seem to suggest the existence of a southern linguistic area,3 where contact-based similarities cut across genetic boundaries. The small corner of West Asia occupied by the Semitic languages naturally gave rise to several overlapping linguistic areas and micro-areas. Prolonged contact within such areas can eventually obliterate all evidence of earlier genetic relationships, as it becomes impossible to distinguish between inherited and diffused innovations, especially in the case of closely related subgroupings of a single language family.4 Typological research on borrow- ing has shown that no feature is immune to diffusion, and that structural 1 These include the p* > f sound change, the broken plurals, especially, in the view of Ratcliffe (1998), specific plural patterns, the-k based morphemes of the 1st and 2nd persons of the suffix conjugation, and the L-stem of the verb. 2 Hetzron’s original model placed Arabic in a subgrouping with Canaanite and Aramaic called Central Semitic, resulting in a smaller South Semitic, comprising MSA, ASA, and Ethio- Semitic. Since then, Nebes (1994) showed that ASA also participated in an important Central Semitic innovation, the imperfect based on the prefix conjugation*yaqtulu, and Porkhomovsky (1997) pointed out that the genetic relationship between the remaining two members, MSA and Ethio-Semitic, was based on a shared retention, the old imperfect yaqattal, rather than innova- tion, resulting in the elimination of the subgrouping. See Huehnergard and Rubin (2011) for a critique of Hetzron’s model and an up-to-date discussion on the classification of Semitic. 3 Aikhenvald explains a linguistic area as “a geographically delimited region including languages from at least two language families, or different subgroups of the same family, sharing traits, or com- binations thereof, most of which are not found in languages from these families or subgroups spoken outside the area…” (Aikhenvald, 2007: 11). Campbell (2006) provides a thorough critique of ‘linguistic area’ as an explanatory concept, highlighting the fact that there is no consensus as to what exactly constitutes a linguistic area, and that nothing seems to distinguish areal borrowing from regular borrowing. Campbell’s arguments notwithstanding, the term ‘linguistic area’ does seem useful, at the very least, to describe a phenomenon of multi-lateral borrowing among geo- graphically proximal languages, as opposed to ‘vertical’ borrowing, as in the influence of Latin on the modern European languages or Classical Arabic on the modern Arabic dialects and other Islamicate languages. 4 This is especially the case in situations of linguistic equilibrium, where no dominant lan- guage is present. See Aikhenvald (2007: 7ff.) for further discussion of this issue. Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:11:14AM via free access <UN> 222 A. Al-Jallad / Journal of Language Contact 6 (2013) 220–242 congruence can only ease the movement of features across language boundar- ies.5 According to Thomason’s borrowing scale (2001: 69-71), core inflectional morphology is one of the categories most resistant to borrowing, yet despite this, many Arabic dialects of southwest Arabia had no trouble taking over the inflectional paradigm of the suffix conjugation verb from ASA.6 This process was surely aided by the fact that the original Arabic paradigm was structurally SAUDI Riğāl Alma' ARABIA Jabal Rāzih Amiritic Haram Y EMEN ̜̜ San ā Zafār Şa y h a d . HADRAMAWT. Figure 1. Southwest Arabia. 5 On this point, see the discussion in Aikhenvald (2007) and the bibliographies there. 6 For the distribution of this phenomenon, see Behnstedt (1985, map 68). It seems highly unlikely that Proto-Arabic retained the Proto-Semitic asymmetrical paradigm, 1cs *-ku, 2ms *-ta, 2fs *-ti, as all other dialects of Arabic outside of this region exhibit the leveling of the t onset rather than the k. In so far as one can tell from the ANA epigraphy, those languages seem to have also leveled the t endings to the first person, e.g. Thamudic B: h Rḍw b-k ʾn rf ʾ-t voc. Rḍw in-pro.2s pro.1cs healed-1cs ‘O Rḍw, by you I am healed’ (Hayajneh, 2011: 770). Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:11:14AM via free access <UN> A. Al-Jallad / Journal of Language Contact 6 (2013) 220–242 223 Dūma Nafūd T a y y i ̜ T ̜ h Taymā Hāʾil a Hegrā m H I J Ā Zu Dadān d i c NAJD Yathrib Figure 2. North Arabia. Table 1 Suffix conjugation in Sabaic and Yemeni Arabic varieties.7 Sabaic Ǧiblah Yarīm Proto-Arabic 1cs f ʿl-k katub-k katab-t *katab-tu 2ms f ʿl-k katab-k katab-t *katab-ta 2fs f ʿl-k katab-ki katab-ti *katab-ti identical to its ASA counterpart, differing only in that the onset of the pro- nominal morphemes was t as opposed to k. The diffusion of inflectional morphology is not limited to exchanges in the expression of a shared morphological category. Entire morphological catego- ries, present in one language but absent in the other, can be borrowed as 7 See Fischer and Jastrow (1980: 117) for more on these forms and dialects. Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:11:14AM via free access <UN> 224 A. Al-Jallad / Journal of Language Contact 6 (2013) 220–242 well. The Bedouin dialects of the Sinai, for instance, have borrowed the marked-indicative modal system of the prefix conjugation verb, a morpho- logical category typically absent in Bedouin dialects, from adjacent Levantine and Egyptian dialects.8 The definite article, which Proto-Central Semitic and Proto-Semitic lacked, is also thought to have spread areally among the Central Semitic languages.9 The diffusion of morphological isoglosses among languages in close geographic proximity poses a significant challenge to phylogeny. Genetic sub-grouping is not only determined by the identification of shared morpho- logical innovations among members of a language family, but also requires these features to be inherited from a common ancestor rather than borrowed. In situations of close contact, the diffusion of morphological isoglosses may produce varieties with a mixed genetic profile, often rendering straightforward genetic classification impossible. Several of the world’s language groups, such as the Australian languages (see Dixon, 1997, 2002; for a summary of alterna- tive views, see Koch, 2004) and Berber (see the introduction of Kossmann, 1999), elude classification for these reasons precisely. Generally speaking, Semitic does not belong to this category. The major branches of Semitic are still clear, and, despite centuries of contact, Huehn- ergard and Rubin’s combined tree and wave model (2011) can successfully distinguish between inherited and diffused features.10 There are, however, several micro-linguistic areas which approach the situation described for Berber and the Australian languages. This article will examine two possible micro-linguistic areas in the Arabian Peninsula in which significant contact between different lineages of Semitic has blurred the boundaries between subgroupings. The first area is in the southwestern corner of the Peninsula, in what is today Yemen, and the second is in the northern Najd in present-day Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the southern area seems to date back to 8 This change has affected most, but not all, of theinai S dialects.
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