Some characteristics of the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait

T. M. Johnstone

doi:10.1017/S0041977X00091436

Some characteristics of the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009

T. M. Johnstone

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

The dialect material set out in this article was collected mainly from two informants of the Dōsiri (pl. Duwāsir < > Dawāsir) tribe living in Kuwait. Although the dialect is described as Dōsiri, there is no doubt that the informants had been influenced by the local form of ‘Ajmi, a dialect of high social prestige. This influence was particularly noticeable when the informants were conversing with one another.

Type: Articles
Information: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , February 1961 , pp. 249 - 297

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00091436 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 249 note 1} At that time (1958) in the employ of the Kuwait Oil Co. who gave me special facilities to do this work, and work on other related dialects.

^{page 249 note 2} As far as I could determine my informants had been brought up in Kuwait by an ‘Ajmi mother, from about the age of 11 in the case of the elder informant, now about 22–25. Their original habitat was apparently the area of Wadi Duwāsir (Dawāsir) in Sa'ūdi Arabia (500 km. east of Mecca) though the elder seems not to have been born there.

^{page 249 note 3} cf. Dickson, H. R. P., Kuwait and her neighbours, London, 1956, 83Google Scholar.

^{page 249 note 4} In particular names for natural phenomena and a few common particles. Some of these are mentioned in the course of the article.

^{page 250 note 1} cf. Soein, A., Diwan aus Centralarabien, Leipzig, 1900Google Scholar, and 'al-Hātizn, Abdallah al-Khálid, Khiyär ma yultaqat min al-shi'r al-nabat, Damascus, [part 1], 1952, and part 2Google Scholar, Al-shi'r al-nabatī, Damascus, 1956Google Scholar.

^{page 250 note 2} cf. for example the appended text (p. 292) where the Doairi word for 13 (thálatte-'áshar) is followed immediately by the Kuwaiti word (thalattásh).

^{page 251 note 1} This is even written by informants.

^{page 252 note 1} A few (presumably borrowed) words are found with the consonant d. The only instances known to me are hādir ‘present (time)’, tagaddā ‘purchase’, and magādi ‘purchases’.

^{page 252 note 2} Although there are exceptions where one of the consonants is slurred in articulation.

^{page 252 note 3} kull has two forms, kid- and kulli-.

^{page 252 note 4} viz. without the tenseness of articulation associated with a final geminate as in madd.

^{page 254 note 1} cf. Mitchell, T. F., BSOAS, XIV, 1, 1952Google Scholar, which treats very fully with the Cyrenaican dialect and the same author's An introduction to Egyptian colloquial Arabic, Oxford University Press, 1956, 104Google Scholar. See also Socin, , Diwan, part in, p. 232Google Scholar: ‘Das Particip Activi steht haufig im Sinne einer vergangenen Handlung’. Similar instances may be found in Cl. Ar. occasionally, as:‘which has fallen’ (Reckendorf, H., Die, syntaktischen Verhältnisse des Arabischen, Leiden, 1898, 68)Google Scholar. The general rule, however, is (quoting from Reckendorf, , op. cit., 67)Google Scholar that: ‘Das Partiz. enthalt Nichts von Zeitstufe, aber auch Nichts von Zeitart’.

^{page 254 note 2} cf. notes on e on p. 252.

^{page 255 note 1} The other persons already begin with a consonant cluster.

^{page 255 note 2} There is a similar syllable pattern to be found in nouns where the same conditions apply, cf. hlemat (Cl. Ar. ), hdebat , hmesa , etc.

^{page 255 note 3} This convention is used throughout. Similarly, suffixed forms which are given without their suffixes are followed by a hyphen, as shebō-, etc.

^{page 255 note 4} Bracketed forms are interpolated on the basis of comparable attested forms.

^{page 255 note 5} This trisyllabic form is well enough attested but one would expect shirbat.

^{page 255 note 6} The final vowel in these forms may be long, particularly in pause.

^{page 255 note 7} 3 f.pl. forms occur but they are rare, cf. yir'in ‘they (f.) pasture’.

^{page 256 note 1} Verbs with initialwaw are regular in this dialect, cf. sect. 2.6.

^{page 256 note 2} There are certain indications that imperfects of the form yaf'ul are becoming rarer. A number of verbs which have their imperfects ina, still have imperatives in u, as for example yakhraj, 'ukhruj, while many others, which have imperfects of the type yaf'ul in Cl. Ar., in this dialect have the characteristic vowel a throughout, as yag'ad, impve. 'ig'ad. In Kuwaiti Arabic there are no verbs which have u as their characteristic vowel, imperfects being of the form yaf'il or yif'al.

^{page 256 note 3} These forms in -in and -ūn are less characteristic and may represent the influence of the Kuwaiti dialect.

^{page 256 note 4} Before consonants usually yaskũ, taskũ, etc.

^{page 256 note 5} Forms for the 3 f.pl. (but not for 2 f.pl.) are found only in set phrases, proverbs, etc. The 3 f.pl. forms for these verbs would be (yashrabin), (yu'rifin), (yaskinin).

^{page 256 note 6} Kuwaiti forms are sometimes used in 2 f.s., as dakhli, sim'ay, etc.

^{page 277 note 1} The retention of the -n is common to all dialects of this area but in both the imperfect and imperative of the 2 f.s. the -n is elided when the suffix -ni ia added, as la tlahhīni ‘you do not amuse me’, la tsadgini‘you do not believe me’, etc.

^{page 257 note 2} Series (a) is representative of forms which are paroxytonic and series (b) of forms which are oxytonic before suffixation.

^{page 257 note 3} Post-consonantal forms -idhribha, etc., also occur as free variants in rapid speech. Compare also lāzim nê hádin ig'ád me'hum ‘someone must stay with them’, where the change in stress appears to be a function of the whole sentence complex.

^{page 257 note 4} Such types are not uncommon in related dialects, as Socin, Diwan, part in, 154, and Reinhardt, C., Ein arabischer Dialekt gesprochen in ‘Omān und Zanzibar, Stuttgart, Berlin, 1894, 249Google Scholar.

^{page 257 note 5} Mbāralc is a passive partīciple. As a rule derived verbs seem to have only one participle.

^{page 257 note 6} Verbal nouns of these verbs are replaced by verbal nouns of another type. III has a verbal noun of the form fi'äl (as khilāf) but Ilia and V seem to have no verbal noun.

^{page 257 note 7} There is considerable variation of vowel in participles of IV, as: mughdur, mighdir ‘dark’, maghrim ‘fond of’.

^{page 258 note 1} See p. 257, n. 6.

^{page 258 note 2} The retention of the second vowel of the imperfect is strange, but such forms are well attested.

^{page 258 note 3} It is not known how representative this verbal noun is, since verbs of this type are rare. There is no verbal noun of the form tafā'ul in common use.

^{page 258 note 4} Compare the verbal noun 'intsāf,_ ‘the middle of the night’, etc. which has a three consonant cluster. This seems to be possible with nks, nts, and jtm (as ijtma'u).

^{page 260 note 1} Before f, b, and w, a often becomes u as bduwi ‘(a) Bedouin’, guwi ‘strong’, ‘rubi 'Arab’, etc. In other words the a is only rounded before these consonants, as: taww- ‘just, newly’ wagaf ‘stand’, etc.

^{page 260 note 2} I have no imperfects of this kind of verb.

^{page 260 note 3} The meaning of these verbs is: sār ‘become’ , ‘go’ , gāl ‘say’, rāh- ‘go’, nām ‘lie down’.

^{page 260 note 4} In the Kuwaiti dialect these forms have long vowels, as gūl, rūh.

^{page 260 note 5} The imperative 2 f.pl. was given to me as nōmin (!).

^{page 261 note 1} Imperfect also yabghai, yabghei.

^{page 262 note 1} With some verbs the final consonant cluster is split by an ‘intrusive’ vowel as 'ishir ‘buy’, etc. The absence of a final vowel in the 2 m.s. is common to all the dialects of this area (cf. Palest, equivalent 2 m.s. 'imshi).

^{page 262 note 2} The forms bracketed were obtained by questions, and some are rare, as 'istárh ‘be confident’.

^{page 263 note 1} In the word marat, mar'at the ending -at appears to be the only conventionally permissible one.

^{page 264 note 1} This is equivalent to about 10–15 per cent of the indefinite nouns in the texts studied for this purpose.

^{page 264 note 2} In terms of Arabic grammar some of these could be defined as the subjects of the sentence, viz. those sentences which in English begin ‘there is, was, etc.’. These and the complex , etc., are the only kind of subjects of sentences which have the tanwin suffix.

^{page 265 note 1} The dhmā is the ‘thirst’, the state of not drinking water, when camels are mjazziya or mijziya ‘able to do without water’.

^{page 265 note 2} In the styles studied: (a) over 33 per cent of the cases, (b) 12 per cent, and (c) over 33 per cent.

^{page 266 note 1} cf. Northern Arabic (ma…) hndan where an -an suffix is found, presumably originating in tanwin.

^{page 266 note 2} Except which appears both as khāssatan and khastin.

^{page 267 note 1} The final -n of the dual is sometimes retained in the construct, as 'īdēni ‘my hands’but 'īdēi, rijlēi are the preferred forms.

^{page 268 note 1} Also the construct state of this word. The form 'akh, 'akhkh is known but used only in non-Dōsiri expressions.

^{page 269 note 1} wiylihum is a variant of wlēhum, wlihum (cf. sect. 4.2)

^{page 271 note 1} After verbs and some particles.

^{page 272 note 1} gad could be used with pronominal suffixes even in old Cl. Ar.; cf. Brockelmann, C., Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1913, II, 38Google Scholar.

^{page 272 note 2} 'ād could be used as a particle in older Cl. Ar. also; cf. Le Djâmi' d'ibn Wahb, ed. DavidWeill, J., Cairo, 1939, II, p. 32, note on lines 17–18Google Scholar.

^{page 273 note 1} In my material only with 'and h.

^{page 273 note 2} cf. South Arabian forms.

^{page 274 note 1} This is not dissimilar to some uses of ‘this’in modern English.

^{page 274 note 2} viz. yiwsōfun. Occasional (apparent) passives are found but it is diflicult to determine what if anything is distinctive in their form, cf. yídhkarun ‘they are mentioned’, khilg ‘he was created’.

^{page 274 note 3} It may be that this is true for all relative clauses whose verb is a participle, but I have no other examples in my material.

^{page 275 note 1} Compare the greeting: Yā, ba'd hayyi ‘O you who come before my tribe’ (Mutayri).

^{page 275 note 2} Or wi-njī biz-xād. The two elements are often separate in this dialect.

^{page 275 note 3} Here dim is used in the Kuwaiti sense. It is used in roughly this meaning (Bahrain—home-land) by most town-dwellers of the Persian Gulf. Bedouin usage, however, is different, dīra. meaning the ground covered in their annual peregrinations and also perhaps the (trading) centre round which these peregrinations revolve. Cf. also South Arabian rēda (Landberg, , Glossaire datînois, II, Leiden, 1923)Google Scholar.

^{page 276 note 1} Shumovskii, T. A., Tri neizvestnye lotsii Armada ibn Mājida, Moscow, Leningrad, 1957, gives (p. 157)Google Scholar as meaning ‘eastward, to the east of’. The meaning of taht, and fög may depend on the position of the speaker.

^{page 276 note 2} viz. ila (a variant of wlē, equivalent to the Cl. Ar. .

^{page 277 note 1} Compare Landberg, , Glossaire datīnois, III, Leiden, 1942, 2727Google Scholar, where is given as meaning ‘so that’ (pour que). In his Études sur les dialectes de l'Arable méridionale, Leiden, 1901 (vol. I, Hadramoût, p. 719)Google Scholar he gives mēd as meaning ‘cause, reason’ and . ‘because’. Elsewhere in the same volume (p. 259) he compares this with the (rare) Cl. Ar. usage of (variant ) to mean ‘because’.

^{page 277 note 2} Post-vocalic.

^{page 277 note 3} Post-consonantal or initial.

^{page 277 note 4} 2 m.s. ma'ak and post-vocalically m'āk.

^{page 278 note 1} This list excludes some Kuwaiti adverbs occasionally used like kullish ‘quite’ and wājid ‘much’.

^{page 278 note 2} 'ād cannot be considered a verb in D. On the other hand 'asā ‘it is to be hoped’may still be an impersonal verb.

^{page 278 note 3} If a conclusion can be drawn, it seems that the pronominal suffixes are used only where the non-suffixed form is disyllabic and could not be used enclitically ('inti, 'ana, 'intu).

^{page 278 note 4} This word is characteristic of this dialect and is never used in Kuwaiti.

^{page 279 note 1} cf. also conditional and time sentences (sect. 5.2).

^{page 279 note 2} This is presumably the sh of wēsh ‘what’ but compare Hebrew she- and Bab. sha. My main informant avoided using it because it was ‘'Ajmi’.

^{page 280 note 1} Less common is mēr ‘but’ which is also Nejdi, cf. Socin, Diwan, glossary.

^{page 280 note 2} See appended text.

^{page 281 note 1} This complex one can reasonably presume has arisen from , ete. (cf. Wright, , Ar. gr., II, p. 158 D)Google Scholar. However, the second element (-hōb, -hīb, etc.) is now regarded as a single word by speakers of this and related dialects, at least in so far as the 3 m. and f.s. and 1 c.s. are concerned. The sound change in 3 m.s. hū b- > hōb and some usages where the b can hardly be considered a separate element lead one to believe that the native speakers are right in this respect. Compare the sentence: ma-nib min shmi'a ‘I am not from a bush (I am well-born)’, where b-min shmi'a can hardly stand. Socin, , Diwan, part in, p. 236Google Scholar, says ‘Die Construction mit b ist sogar so tief eingewurzelt, dass sie selbst vor Pradicaten, die aus einer Präposition mit ihrem Casus bestehen, eintritt’, etc.

There is, moreover, a literary tradition which supports taking -hōb, etc. as one word, cf. 'Abdallah al-Khālid al-Hātim, op. cit., II, 198 (, 217 , etc.

In some dialects of the Persian Gulf this complex has evolved further, into mub (written ) in Bahraini and Qatari, and mub and hub in the dialect of Buraimi. In Buraimi mub and hub may be used with any person, as 'ana hub sāyr, 'ana mub sāyr ‘I am not going’.

^{page 282 note 1} wle (and variants) is equivalent to Cl. Ar. both as a conditional and as a demonstrative particle.

^{page 282 note 2} 'idha is not a dialect word (cf. n. 1 above). The examples where it occurs are not collected from texts, and the speaker may be presumed to be classicizing. These examples are still useful, however, to show the sequence of tenses.

^{page 282 note 3} These examples were not marked for stress when they were collected, and they have been left as they were.

^{page 289 note 1} The second element is the word usually meaning ‘here’.

^{page 284 note 1} Written without a definite article and pronounced without any noticeable initial gemination. Note too the absence of wi- in the response.

^{page 289 note 2} Apparently III with elision of the long vowel of the first syllable.

^{page 289 note 3} Compare wi-nkhalliha twajjih ‘and we let them go’. Other intransitive verbs of this type are: haddar ‘go down’, gayyal ‘have a siesta’, and 'awwad ‘come back, return’.

^{page 289 note 4} For hayyākum. Changes of person are not uncommon (iltifāt).

^{page 289 note 5} Note sing. verb. Similar lack of concord is not uncommon, cf. hum yitīh, hum yitkassar ‘they will fall, they will get (bones) broken’.

^{page 289 note 6} viz. with loss of gemination (cf. sect. 1.3).

^{page 289 note 7} viz. with lengthening of first vowel, cf. sect. 1.1 (under ā).

^{page 290 note 1} viz. , cf. p. 257 (imperatives).

^{page 290 note 2} .

^{page 290 note 3} Cl. Ar. , cf. sār , sidir et al. l

^{page 290 note 4} .

^{page 290 note 5} Act. Part. f.pl.; cf. Lane, , An English-Arabic lexicon, London, 1863–1893, s.vGoogle Scholar.

^{page 290 note 6} shi- is the 'Ajmi word for 'inn.

^{page 290 note 7} , cf. ‘ayyenna lēlin khēr ‘we saw (viz. spent) a good night’.

^{page 290 note 8} .

^{page 290 note 9} cf. Lane, Lexicon, s.v.

^{page 290 note 10} The bracketed b- is not pronounced, nor was it written. I have amended the text and transcription.

^{page 290 note 11} This clause should be introduced by fa- (after lamma), cf. sect. 5.2.

^{page 291 note 1} viz. This is a Kuwaiti form (g > j).

^{page 291 note 2} kān is frequently used as a particle indicating that the following sentence is the past.

^{page 291 note 3} Here the tanwîn seems to precede the sound plural ending, viz. hāllin-īn.

^{page 291 note 4} min here seems to lose any significance in this usage.

^{page 291 note 5} This may be a Dōsiri form rejected by A (the elder brother).

^{page 291 note 6} cf. wish-gāyl ‘how ?’. This complex (as: sh-gāyl) occurs also in Trucial Oman Arabic.

^{page 291 note 7} Kuwaiti.

^{page 291 note 8} For (cf. p. 295, n. 3).

^{page 292 note 1} p. 296, n. 2. The following word seems to me to be a gloss added to explain a difficult word. The gemination (-bb-) is a function of the stress pattern only, -hum is less usual than -ha in this context.

^{page 292 note 2} cf. sanni' (Cl. Ar. , cf. supra).

^{page 292 note 3} rafīg(at)ha would be the expected form.

^{page 292 note 4} viz. lengthening of first vowel of sarrafy, cf. sect. 1.1.

^{page 292 note 5} Or perhaps la'ma ‘blame’? This sentence is very indistinct.

^{page 292 note 6} Since -dha is used only adjectivally in this dialect, it may be that this is the demonstrative gad-dha (which is common in 'Utaybi as spoken in Kuwait) with an interpolated pronominal suffix, gad-dha is used in 'Utaybi as a pronoun, apparently not as a demonstrative adjective. For its use in Jewish Yemeni cf. Fischer, W., Die demonstrativen Eildungen der neuarabischen Dialekte, The Hague, 1959, 184Google Scholar.

^{page 292 note 7} Imperf. of .

^{page 292 note 8} Pronounced māstagbal hat-táyyib.

^{page 292 note 9} The Kuwaiti word for ‘13’.

^{page 293 note 1} sic; ef. sect. 1.1.

^{page 293 note 2} .

^{page 293 note 3} Musil, A., The manners and customs of the Swala Bedouins, New York, 1928, 78Google Scholar, describes a farīg as a camp with less than ten tents. Jmā'a means the people inhabiting a camp.

^{page 294 note 1} In order to save their mothers' milk; cf. Lane, Lexicon, sub, .

^{page 295 note 1} dhmā is the interval between two waterings, cf. Lane, Lexicon, sub .

^{page 295 note 2} cf. roghrwa, orgkra in Doughty, C. M., Travels in Arabia Deserta, London, 1923, I, 263Google Scholar.

^{page 295 note 3} viz. , with metathesis of the first and second radicals.

^{page 296 note 1} A generic name for saline plants.

^{page 296 note 2} cf. Lane, Lexicon, sub .

^{page 296 note 3} hal-ibinna: a doubly defined noun, (ha- means ‘this’: Kuwaiti word). Presumably the speaker changed his mind about what he was going to say.

Article contents

Some characteristics of the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests