Towards a dialect geography of oman

Holes, Clive

doi:10.1017/s0041977x00034558

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…This criterion, nonetheless, he notes, has failed to stand the test of time as a result of dialect change. Holes (1989) proposes that the OA dialects spoken in northern and central Oman can be classified into four major varieties, two Bedouin, further divided into Bedouin 1 and Bedouin 2, and two Ħaḍari or sedentary, further divided into Ħaḍari 1 and Ħaḍari 2. Holes" division does not include the dialects spoken in Muscat (the Capital area) and Dhofār (southern Oman).…”

Section: The Omani Dialects Of Arabicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, the similarity between the OA dialects and the pre-Islamic ones can certainly make a very interesting question. Finally, Holes (1989) states that the word for "coffee" is ghawah and gahwah in Bedouin dialects, but kahwah and qahwah in the sedentary ones. Besides these, ghawwah is heard in the (Bedouin) dialect of Bidiyyah and ghewa is heard in the Dhofāri Bedouin dialect, indicating the existence of other variants in the other towns/varieties.…”

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Omani Arabic: More than a Dialect

Al-Balushi¹

2016

MACL

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This paper surveys several linguistic aspects of the varieties of the Omani Arabic dialect (OA). It starts with a discussion of the sociolinguistic situation in Oman and the factors that shaped it, as well as discussing the OA varieties and the languages spoken in the country. This is followed by a presentation of the OA consonant and vowel phonemes and their allophones. The paper also presents phonological aspects such as syllable structure and word stress as well as examples of processes like assimilation and emphasis spreading. Then, it presents the OA personal, demonstrative, possessive, and interrogative pronouns, as well as morphological issues such as subject agreement affixes, verbal forms, passive formation, and pluralization patterns. Next, it presents syntactic patterns including word order, negation, question formation, and relative clauses. Besides the survey, the paper provides examples that reveal similarity between some OA dialects and those of the pre-Islamic era, as evidenced by some of the documented and approved readings of the Holy Qurʔān. There is also discussion of some cases of grammaticalization and pronominal copulas.

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Section: The Omani Dialects Of Arabicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Omani Arabic: More than a Dialect

Al-Balushi¹

2016

MACL

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“…At a structural level, Holes (1989) has proposed that the dialects of Oman fall into four groups. The primary division is between hadari dialects spoken by the sedentary population of the mountain core, and bedouin dialects spoken by the nomads of the desert and certain settled communities of nomadic bedouin descent.…”

Section: Omani Dialectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The form -is (2.f.s. ), which is generally regarded as a distinctively southern Arabian feature (Ingham, 1986: 278;Holes, 1989: 448) with a wide distribution in Yemen, Hadhramaut and Oman, does not occur in WahTbi usage.…”

Section: The Wahiba Dialect In Relation To Bl and B2 Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Notes on the dialect and way of life of the Āl Wahība bedouin of Oman

Webster¹

1991

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

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Between 1985 and 1987 the present writer took part in a multi-disciplinary study of the Wahiba Sands organized by the Royal Geographical Society. During this time I was able to travel extensively through and around the Sands to visit many bedouin families of the Āl Wahība, who inhabit the greater part of the area, and other tribes including the Āl ،Amr, Āl Bū ،Īsa, Ḣikmān, Hishm and Janaba who are found in certain enclaves, particularly to the east and north of the main sand desert. The purpose of my research was to make a social and ethnographic survey rather than a purely linguistic one, but in the process I was able to record some dialect speech including the text presented below.Very little was known about the bedouin of this part of Oman prior to the Wahiba Sands Project. Holes has recently published examples of some related dialects and has proposed a classification scheme as the basis for a dialect geography of Northern Oman (Holes, 1989). Bedouin dialects of central and eastern Arabia have been more extensively described and classified (Holes, 1983; Ingham, 1982(a), 1982(b), 1986; Johnstone, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1967). Comparative studies of the distribution of certain features of present-day dialects have been shown to shed light on the population movements of the past, often supporting the written histories and oral traditions of the area.

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“…The phonological and morphological system of a given language may also place an effect on the type and amount of words in that language, leaving non-equivalent onomatopoeic words in some cases. Since onomatopoeia in Omani Arabic (OA) is an untrodden zone, this paper is an attempt to shed light on onomatopoeic words used in such unique variety of Arabic that exhibits certain features that tease it out from other varieties of Arabic spoken in Arabia and the Arab World (Shaaban, 1977;Glover, 1988;Holes, 1989). OA namely refers to the type of vernacular Arabic largely spoken in the Sultanate of Oman in the eastsouthern part of Arabia as well as in other scattered areas outside Oman.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Onomatopoeia in Omani Arabic

Jahdhami¹

2020

JAL

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Onomatopoeia is believed to be of a widespread occurrence in all languages of the world though with different extents. Arabic language is attested to be rich in the use of onomatopoeia in speech, prose, and poetry. Omani Arabic, a unique variety of vernacular Arabic spoken in the Sultanate of Oman in the eastsouthern part of Arabia, likewise has numerous usages of onomatopoeic words in everyday life interactions. Both lexical and non-lexical onomatopoeia exist in Omani Arabic falling into three main categories: human sounds, animal sounds, and sounds associated with nature and objects. Onomatopoeic sounds appear in different syllabic forms including full syllables and non-syllabic forms with one or more consonants. The use of voiceless sounds and fricatives is more prevalent compared to other types of sounds. Cases are attested of sounds captured in diverse manners exhibiting alternation among sounds close in place of articulation as well as between emphatic sounds and their non-emphatic counterparts. The use of fricatives is used to mark the duration of sounds as opposed to the use of plosives employed to show abruptness and short duration of sounds. Morphologically, most of these words are used as verbs and derivative nouns. Reduplication is likewise used to mark the intensity and duration of actions signified by these sounds.

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Towards a dialect geography of oman

Cited by 19 publications

References 1 publication

Omani Arabic: More than a Dialect

Omani Arabic: More than a Dialect

Notes on the dialect and way of life of the Āl Wahība bedouin of Oman

Onomatopoeia in Omani Arabic

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