Cover not available
Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 32:1 (2015) ► pp.1–33

D-possessives and the origins of Moroccan Arabic

| University of Michigan

Despite the general view that Berber was the only important substratum for Maghrebi Arabic, Moroccan Arabic (MA) took shape in the 7th–8th centuries AD in Roman cities in which Late Latin (LL) was spoken. The occupation of Morocco was far more tenuous than in other areas conquered during the Arab expansion. Rapid language shift from LL to a contact Arabic introduced by eastern Berber troops left telltale signs in phonology and in morphological simplification. Archaic MA D-possessives di, d- and dyal- reflect Latin dē and pronominal combinations thereof, and must be dated to the language-shift period. Recognition of this has been delayed by hesitation to recognize the LL/MA relationship and by Arabic-internal explanations of D-possessives that must be rejected in light of what we now know about Maghrebi Arabic dialects.

Keywords: Late Latin, Moroccan Arabic, language shift, possessive, Berber
Published online: 30 March 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.32.1.01hea
References
Adams, James N
2003 Bilingualism and the Latin language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bar-Asher, Moshe
1986 Le diminutif dans les dialectes judéo-arabes du Tafilalet. Masorot 21. 1–14.Google Scholar
Blanc, Haim
1970 Dual and pseudo-dual in the Arabic dialects. Language 46(1). 42–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brett, Michael & Elizabeth Fentress
1996 The Berbers. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brunot, Louis & Elie Malka
1939 Textes judéo-arabes de Fès. Rabat: École du Livre.Google Scholar
Carcopino, Jérôme
1928 Note sur une inscription chrétienne de Volubilis. Hespéris 81. 135–145.Google Scholar
Caubet, Dominique
2004 Dialectologie et histoire du Maghreb: Pour une sociolinguistique historique. In Jocelyne Dakhlia (ed.), Trames de langues: Usages et métissages linguistiques dans l’histoire du Maghreb, 59–70. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colin, Georges
1926 Étymologies maġrébines. Hespéris 61. 55–82.Google Scholar
1945 Des juifs nomades retrouvés dans le Sahara marocain au XVIe siècle. In (ed. anonymous), Mélanges d’études luso-marocaines dédiés à la mémoire de David Lopès et de Pierre de Cenival, 53–66. Lisbon: Portugália Editora.Google Scholar
Corriente, Federico
1977 A grammatical sketch of the Spanish Arabic dialect bundle. Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura.Google Scholar
1989 South Arabian features in Andalusī Arabic. In Paul Wexler, Alexander Borg & Sasson Somekh (eds.), Studia linguistica et orientalia memoriae Haim Blanc dedicata, 94–103. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
2013 A descriptive and comparative grammar of Andalusi Arabic. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Dozy, Reinhart & Michael Jan de Goeje
(eds.) 1866 Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Euzennat, Maurice & Jean Marion
1982 Inscriptions antiques du Maroc, vol. 2, Inscriptions latines. Paris: Éditions du CNRS.Google Scholar
Fanciullo, Franco
1992 Un capitolo della Romania submersa: Il latino africano. In Dieter Kremer (ed.), Actes du XVIIIe Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romane, vol. 11, 162–187. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles
1959 The Arabic koiné. Language 251. 616–630. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrando, Ignacio
1998 On some parallels between Andalusi and Maghrebi Arabic. In Jordi Aguadé, Patrice Cressier & Ángeles Vicente (eds.), Peuplement et arabisation au Maghreb occidental: Dialectologie et histoire, 59–74. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez.Google Scholar
Fischer, August
1907 Eine interessante algierisch-marokkanische Genetivumschreibung. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 611. 178–195.Google Scholar
Flobert, Pierre
2002 Latin-Frankish bilingualism in sixth-century Gaul: The Latin of Clovis. In James N. Adams, Mark Janse & Simon Swain (eds.), Bilingualism in ancient society: Language contact and the written text, 419–430. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Morris
1986 Review of Versteegh (1984). Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 1(1). 165–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guay, F
1918 La forme féminine berbère à Salé. Archives Berbères 31. 30–51.Google Scholar
Hall, Robert
1976 Proto-Romance phonology. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Harning, Kerstin
1980 The analytic genitive in the Modern Arabic dialects. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey
1987  Hasta la mujerra! and other instances of playful language mixing in Morocco. Mediterranean Language Review 21. 113–116.Google Scholar
1999 Sino-Moroccan citrus: Borrowing as a natural-language experiment. In Lutz Edzard & Mohammed Nekroumi (eds.), Tradition and innovation: Norm and deviation in Arabic and Semitic linguistics, 168–176. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
2002 Jewish and Muslim dialects of Moroccan Arabic. London: Routledge/Curzon.Google Scholar
2004 Hassaniya Arabic (Mali) - English - French Dictionary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Holes, Clive
1995 Modern Arabic: Structures, functions and varieties. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Kampffmeyer, Georg
1899 Materialien zum Studium der arabischen Beduinen-dialekte Innerafrikas. Mittheilungen des Seminars für orientalische Sprachen, Westasiatische Studien 21. 143–221.Google Scholar
1900 Südarabisches, Beiträge zur Dialektologie des Arabischen (III). Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 541. 621–660.Google Scholar
Kossmann, Maarten
2008 Three irregular Berber verbs: ‘eat’, ‘drink’, ‘be cooked, ripen’. In Alexander Lubotsky, Jos Schaeken & Jeroen Wiedenhof (eds.), Evidence and counter-evidence: Essays in honour of Frederik Kortlandt, vol. 21, 225–236. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lass, Roger
1990 How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 261. 79–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lévy, Simon
1998 Problématique historique du processus d’arabisation au Maroc: Pour une histoire linguistique du Maroc. In Jordi Aguadé, Patrice Cressier & Ángeles Vicente (eds.), Peuplement et arabisation au Maghreb occidental: Dialectologie et histoire, 11–38. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez.Google Scholar
Lewicki, Tadeusz
1953 Une langue romane oubliée de l’Afrique du Nord: Observations d’un arabisant. Rocznik Orientalistyczny 171. 415–480.Google Scholar
Lugan, Bernard
1992 Histoire du Maroc, des origines à nos jours. Paris: Criterions.Google Scholar
Marçais, Philippe
1936 Remarque sur un fait syntaxique du parler arabe d’El-Milia. Revue Africaine 79(2). 1047–1055.Google Scholar
1956 Le parler arabe de Djidjelli. Paris: Maisonneuve.Google Scholar
Marçais, William
1911 Textes arabes de Tanger. Paris: Leroux.Google Scholar
Marçais, William & Abderrahmân Guiga
1925 Textes arabes de Takroûna, vol. 11. Paris: Leroux.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Ali & Alamin Mazrui
1995 Swahili state and society: The political economy of an African language. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.Google Scholar
Múrcia Sànchez, Carla
2010 La llengua amaziga a l’antiguitat a partir de les fonts gregues i llatines. Barcelona: University of Barcelona dissertation. [URL]Google Scholar
Mutonya, Mungai & Timothy Parsons
2004 KiKAR: A Swahili variety in Kenya’s colonial army. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 251. 111–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna
1986 Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar. Language 62(1). 56–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Owens, Jonathan
1997 Arabic-based pidgins and creoles. In Sarah Thomason (ed.), Contact languages: A wider perspective, 127–172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Arabic dialect history and historical linguistic mythology. Journal of the American Oriental Society 123(4). 715–740. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prémare, André-Louis de
1993-1999 Dictionnaire arabe-français, vol. 121. Paris: l’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Rebuffat, René
2001 Les gentes en Maurétanie Tingitane. Antiquités Africaines 371. 23–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sánchez, Pablo
2007 Marruecos tras la conquista islámica: Un estudio de geografía dialectal. Estudios de Dialectología Norteafricana y Andalusí 111. 101–119.Google Scholar
Thouvenot, Raymond
1935 Notes sur deux inscriptions chrétiennes de Volubilis. Hespéris 211. 131–139.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
2011 Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Versteegh, Kees
1984 Pidginization and creolization: The case of Arabic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vicente, Ángeles
2006 El proceso de arabización de Alandalus: Un caso medieval de interacción de lenguas. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo.Google Scholar
Wagner, Ewald
1966 Der Jemen als Vermittler äthiopischen Sprachgutes nach Nordwestafrika (Festgabe für Wilhelm Eilers). Die Sprache 121. 252–279.Google Scholar
Wahrmund, Adolf
1861 Praktisches Handbuch der neu-arabischen Sprache, vol. 1, Grammatik. Giessen, Germany: J. Ricker.Google Scholar
Wright, Roger
1982 Late Latin and early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France. Liverpool: F. Cairns.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Bulakh, Maria
2023. The first person prefixes in South Ethio-Semitic. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 44:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Heath, Jeffrey
2019. Caught in the middle. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 34:1 ► pp. 126 ff. DOI logo
Owens, Jonathan
2022. Arabic Language Contact. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 382 ff. DOI logo
Pereltsvaig, Asya
2020. Languages of the World, DOI logo
Sands, Bonny
2022. Tracing Language Contact in Africa’s Past. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 84 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Language Contact and Genetic Linguistics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Language Spread. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 325 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.