Catherine Miller, Alexandrine Barontini, Marie-Aimée Germanos, Jairo Guerrero and Christophe Pereira (dir.) Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from May 30th to June 2nd 2017 Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) Felipe Benjamin Francisco DOI: 10.4000/books.iremam.3903 Publisher: Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans Place of publication: Aix-en-Provence Year of publication: 2019 Published on OpenEdition Books: 24 January 2019 Serie: Livres de l’IREMAM Electronic ISBN: 9791036533891 http://books.openedition.org Electronic reference FRANCISCO, Felipe Benjamin. Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) In: Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from May 30th to June 2nd 2017 [online]. Aix-en-Provence: Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans, 2019 (generated 12 janvier 2021). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/iremam/3903>. ISBN: 9791036533891. DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.4000/books.iremam.3903. This text was automatically generated on 12 January 2021. Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) 1 Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) Felipe Benjamin Francisco Introduction 1 The Chiadma’s territory is situated at the Province of Essaouira – in the Region of Marrakesh-Safi. Their lands are limited on the north by the Tensift river, on the south by the Haha (Ihahen) territory; west by the Atlantic Ocean and east by the Al-Haouz Plains (Faḍlillāh 1994:241). 2 From the standpoint of the Historical Dialectology of the Maghreb, we suppose that the Arabic of the Chiadma probably contains Bedouin type traits, which are well known to characterize the varieties along the Atlantic plains from Asilah as far as Essaouira (Colin 1938:230). Similarly, Heath (2002) classifies what he calls the “Atlantic strip” varieties as belonging to his Central-type category, just as Boukous (1995) who labels the varieties of this same area as ʕṛūbi. In fact, the latter is the same term, used by the inhabitants of Essaouira, when referring to the variety spoken in the outskirts of the city, inside the Chiadma territory. Despite of that, we still do not have access to the varieties spoken in many parts heading south Casablanca, especially inside the Chiadma territory, except for nearby areas such as Safi and Azemmour (Heath 2002) and the Doukkala region (Premare 1993). 3 To this end, this study provides new information about the variety spoken in the Chiadma territory. Firstly, we try to shed the light on the origin and lineage of the Chiadma as a tribe. Then, we explain the method of data collection during our fieldwork in a village (ḍŭwwāṛ) at Bḥǝybǝḥ beach, in Akermoud. Lastly, we propose a brief description of the variety, presenting its linguistic systems: Phonetics, Morphosyntax and Lexicon. Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) 2 1. The Chiadma tribe 4 The origins of the Chiadma are not very clear, even though they are usually considered Arabs since they are an Arabic speaking tribe. Moreover, they identify themselves Arabs in opposition to the Haha, whom they call šlūḥ, and with whom they have been in contact for centuries. And even though, in modern times, the borders between the Chiadma Arabic speaking territory and the Haha (Ihahen) tachelhit speaking territory are very well marked, yet some authors argue the Chiadma are of Berber origin. Boukous 1995 – Carte linguistique du Maroc. Arabic speaking (orange). Berber speaking (yellow). 5 First of all, the etymology of their name is clearly Arabic as in Ibn Manḏ̣ūr: šayḏ̣am ṭawīl ( ةمظايش ,) šayāḏ̣ima meaning ( يمظيش ّ) šayḏ̣amī with the plural form( مظيش ) and ‘tall’, ǧasīm ‘big, corpulent, great’, and it can be applied to people, but to animals as well, such as horses, camels or lions; for instance: riǧāl šayāḏ̣ima ‘big men’. In the current pronunciation at this region, in the vernacular Arabic, the word lost the resulting in šyāḍma ,[ض] /became /ḍ [ظ] /diphthong /ay/ and the phoneme /ḏ̣ [ ةمضايش ,] what explains the current romanized version of the name in use “Chiadma.” 6 Works written by historians from the 16th century seem to confirm the Arab origins of the Chiadma. As we can notice in the following lines, they used to distinguish between the Haha and the Arab tribes who used to live in their territory, and the Chiadma were among them. 7 The Chiadma are often mentioned as living side by side the Al-Ḥāriṯ of the Banī Hilāl tribe. Leo Africanus mentions the Chiadma in his Descrittione dell’Africa (1528) when talks about the Banī Hilāl: “Elcherit [Al-Ḥāriṯ] dwell upon the Heli plains in the company of the Saidima [Chiadma] and collect tribute from the people of Hea [Haha].They are vile and poor people”1. In the same way, Luis del Mármol in his Descripción general de África (1573), Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) 3 strongly based on the latter, also mentions the Chiadma when describes the Pueblo de Hilela - the Banī Hilāl: The ninth is called Vled el Querid [Al-Ḥāriṯ] and they dwell upon the Helin plains in the province of the Heha [Haha], which is located in the Kingdom of Morocco, in the company of Vled Saydima [Chiadma]. Although they were used to collect tribute from the Berber of that province, they were a vile and poorly armed people2. 8 On the other hand, in the Kitāb al-ʕibar, Ibn Khaldoun states that the Kilābiyya tribes were in the Haha territory with the Al-Ḥāriṯ and not the Chiadma as we saw above, what could make us think of the possibility of the Chiadma, being related to the Kilābiyya at some point, as we see below: La tribu de Sofyan était établie à demeure fixe: elle occupait les bords de la province de Temsna, du côtè d’Anfa ; les Kholt leur ayant enlevé la possession des vastes plaines de cette contrée. De toutes leurs familles il n’y a que les Hareth et les Kelabïa qui ont continué à parcourir, avec leurs troupeaux, le territoire du Sous et le désert qui en dépend; ils fréquentent les plaines du pays des Hèha, branche des Masmouda […] . (Histoire des Berbères, pp 63-64). 9 The most evident anyway is that the Chiadma were not considered Haha. Damião de Góis in his Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Manuel (1566-67) on the Portuguese Empire in Morocco, distinguishes clearly between the two groups, denominating the Chiadma “Arabes” (Arabs), as opposed to the “barbaros” (Berber) (Fol.88-89). He also mentions the “Xiatima” – the Chiadma - several times when referring to the charging of tributes by the Portuguese on the tribes established in the area between the Oumm ar-Rbi‘ river and Mogador (Essaouira) (Fol. 30), which corresponds clearly to the current Chiadma territory. Moreover, Góis delimits the specific location of an Arab territory under the control of the Chiadma inside the Province of the Doukkala: “From the river Daguz [Tensift] heading south, midday direction, it is located the land of the xiatima [Chiadma], where there are many Arabs[…]3. 10 This Chiadma territory mentioned by Góis in the Doukkala region lead authors like Michaux-Bellaire to claim that the Chiadma were arabized Berbers who turned to speak Arabic: « Les Chtouka et les Chiadma, Berbères arabisés, ont perdu l’usage de la langue tamazight et parlent l’arabe. » (1937:187). He argues that they are ethnically Berber because of their use of “mots berbères”, such as: sārūt < tāsārūt ‘key’; mūka <tāmūkt ‘owl’; mūš < āmšīš ‘cat’ (ibid.). However, these words are very common borrowings to most of the Moroccan Arabic varieties, what might invalidate his statement, except for original Berber words he cites such as: tāġūlālt ‘little snail’; tārānīmt ‘reed’; and tāfōtna ‘Turkish bath’. In this case, we could also doubt of his statement since these words could have resulted from the contact of the Chiadma with the neighboring Berber tribes, like the Chtouka themselves, in the Doukkala Region specifically, not being very representative of the whole Chiadma territory. 11 More recently, Moroccan contemporary authors reaffirm the Arab origins of the Chiadma. Besides the linguistic differentiation between the two groups, Al-Kānūnī (1932:34) and Ar-Regrāgī (1935:88) claim that the Chiadma are Arabs and have among them Maʕqil Arabs and even a few Berber origin tribes, like the Regraga and the Meskala. 12 Finally, we consider that although the Chiadma have been in contact with the Haha for a long period until the current times, the historical sources above highlight the distinction between the two groups and do not mention a Berber origin for the Chiadma. Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Preliminary Notes on the Arabic Dialect of the Chiadma (North of Essaouira) 4 2. Fieldwork and data collection 13 Our linguistic fieldwork has taken place at a ḍŭwwāṛ by the Bḥǝybǝḥ beach which is located approximately 48 Km north from the city of Essaouira. The Bḥǝybǝḥ beach is under the jurisdiction of the city of Akermoud inside the Province of Essaouira, in Chiadma territory. Its dwellers live mainly on fishing and agriculture. 14 We recorded about four hours of speech in a one-day visit to the ḍŭwwāṛ during our fieldwork at the city of Essaouira in 2016. Most of the data was obtained by oral text collection and free speech recording (Payne, 1997; Vaux & Cooper, 2003), as well as elicitation in a lesser extent.