Fi in Gulf Pidgin Arabic

Potsdam, Eric; Alanazi, Mohammad

doi:10.17161/kwpl.1808.15946

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…fi aqalam bagalah “is there pens in the grocery”) or in linking verbs (e.g. ana fi tabaan “I am sick”) (for an in-depth discussion of GPA, see Potsdam and Alanazi, 2014).…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that it may seem better for Arabic-speaking physicians to learn basic health vocabulary from the expatriates' native languages as suggested by one interviewee, this proposal should be conducted with utmost care, due to the high likelihood of misunderstanding on the part of the physicians. As a short-term solution, Arabic-speaking doctors, coming from nonGulf countries, should at least learn more about GPA, which is a simplified pidgin extensively used among the expatriates living in SA (see Potsdam and Alanazi, 2014). For future work, we suggest that more work should be done on the communication between doctors and nurses of different linguistic backgrounds in the Saudi context or at an international level as a whole.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lack of interpretation services for limited English and Arabic proficiency patients in Saudi hospitals: challenges and perceptions

Alanazi

2022

SJLS

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PurposeThe motivation for the current exploration follows from the fact that one-third of the population in Saudi Arabia (SA) is expatriates. According to the Saudi General Authority for Statistic (https://www.stats.gov.sa/en), the total population in SA in 2021 is estimated at 33,413,660 people, 20,768,627 of whom are Saudi citizens whereas 12,645,033 are expatriates coming from different countries across the world, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Philippines, Sudan, Sri Lanka, among many others. In this study, the author targeted limited English and Arabic proficiency patients (LEAPPs) from only three countries in the Near East: (1) Bangladesh, (2) India and (3) Pakistan. The author selected these three countries because they represent the high number of expatriates in SA. According to www.globalmediainsight.com, the population of the abovementioned nationalities in SA in 2021 is as follows: India (2,550,000 million), Pakistan (2,450,000 million) and Bangladesh (1,300,000 million) (see https://bit.ly/3NR6SfT). The main official languages for Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are Urdu, Hindu and Bengali respectively. Although the English language is the second official language in both Pakistan and India, it comes as a second language, not as a mother tongue. In other words, these LEAPPs are unlikely to have a full command of the English language.Design/methodology/approachThe current study makes use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative component follows from the use of questionnaires whereas the qualitative part comes from the execution of face-to-face interviews. This mixed approach has been influential in earlier explorations (see, e.g. Terrel, 2012; Dawadi et al., 2021) and was used in this study to achieve two objectives: (1) to explore whether LEAPPs suffer linguistically when they visit a Saudi hospital, and this data can be elicited via questionnaires, and (2) to gain insights from LEAPPs' experience and attend to their suggestions towards the improvement of the linguistic landscape of the Saudi health system, and this can be gleaned from the interviews.FindingsBased on questionnaires and interviews, the study shows that 64.5% of LEAPPs cannot express their health issues to Arabic-speaking physicians, while 54.8% cannot understand the details of their diagnoses and the guidelines of the prescriptions. Although there is a strong consensus among LEAPPs that interpretation services should be introduced to the Saudi health sector to achieve a better experience, 67.7% are generally satisfied with the current healthcare. Contra previous claims that patients are concerned about their privacy with the introduction of interpreters (see, e.g. Hadziabdic, 2011; Floyd and Sakellariou, 2017; MacFarlane et al. 2020), the present study shows that 70.9% of LEAPPs express no concerns regarding their privacy, whereas 19.3% adopt a neutral position.Originality/valueUnlike Al-Khathami et al. (2010) who explored the perspective of Saudi patients towards nonArabic speaking nurses and contra Alhammami (2020) who examined the attitudes of the nonArabic speaking doctors towards Saudi patients, the current study shed more light on a neglected sample, namely the laborers, janitors and other craftsmen who have limited knowledge of both Arabic and English and who visited a Saudi clinic/hospital and were met by Arabic-speaking physicians.

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“…fi aqalam bagalah “is there pens in the grocery”) or in linking verbs (e.g. ana fi tabaan “I am sick”) (for an in-depth discussion of GPA, see Potsdam and Alanazi, 2014).…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of interpretation services for limited English and Arabic proficiency patients in Saudi hospitals: challenges and perceptions

Alanazi

2022

SJLS

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“…?There is the student present.' Another alternative proposal, provided by Potsdam and Alanazi (2014), suggests that fii in GA 34 existential sentences is a copular verb 35 . Their approach rests on two pieces of evidence.…”

Section: The Np Fiihmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An Arabic variety spoken in the Arab Gulf states. Based on the data that Potsdam and Alanazi (2014) provided, it seems that the variety they investigated is that spoken in Kuwait.…”

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confidence: 99%

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On the Syntax of Existential Sentences in Najdi Arabic

Alharbi

2022

Languages

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The existential sentence is a noncanonical sentence type that is used crosslinguistically to assert the (non)existence of one or more entities. It consists of a set of syntactic items that includes an expletive, pivot, and coda. Two different syntactic analyses have been identified in the literature for the existential construction. The first type of analysis, the standard analysis, treats the existential sentence as a nonraising counterpart of copular sentences. In this analysis, both existential and copular sentences are derived from a single underlying structure, which takes the pivot as a subject and the coda as a predicate. The other type of analysis, the nonstandard analysis, treats the existential sentence differently from the copular sentence. In this analysis, the copular verb takes the pivot NP as its complement, and the coda is treated as an adjunct. The purpose of this paper is to examine the syntactic status of the three syntactic items, namely, the expletive fiih, the pivot NP, and the coda XP, in the existential construction in the dialect of Najdi Arabic (NA). Using the nonstandard analysis, I propose that the existential pronoun fiih is an NP merged in the Spec, vP, the pivot is an NP complement selected by a copular verb, and the coda is an adjunct that serves as either an internal or external modifier. This work about NA existentials may fruitfully contribute to the ongoing discussion on the syntax of existential constructions. Examining existential constructions in various unrelated languages may help obtain a better understanding of this interesting syntactic phenomenon, thereby enabling a more plausible analysis.

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Marking statements of fact in early pidgins

Versteegh

2022

JPCL

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The particle fi is used in Classical Arabic as a local and temporal preposition, ‘in’. In the contemporary Arabic dialects, it has the same meaning, but in addition it is used in some dialects as an existential, ‘there is/are’. In a number of Arabic work-related pidgins, such as Gulf Pidgin Arabic and Pidgin Madame, fi has acquired new functions. It does not only denote nominal predication, location, and possession, but is also used in combination with verbal forms. Several proposals have been made to explain this use of fī. Avram (2012) regards fī as a progressive aspect marker, while Potsdam & Alanazi (2014) deny the verbal nature of the construction and regard fī as a copula. Bakir (2014) analyzes fī as a marker of verbality of the predicate. The present paper suggests that the general function of fi is to mark the link between topic and focus as assertive rather than modal and looks for parallels of this use in a few other work-related pidgins.

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Fi in Gulf Pidgin Arabic

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

Lack of interpretation services for limited English and Arabic proficiency patients in Saudi hospitals: challenges and perceptions

Lack of interpretation services for limited English and Arabic proficiency patients in Saudi hospitals: challenges and perceptions

On the Syntax of Existential Sentences in Najdi Arabic

Marking statements of fact in early pidgins

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