Browsing by Author "Annayim, Ali Goni Idris"

This study discusses different dialects of Nigerian Arabs where dialectical differences within them are obviously noted. These differences are clearly noted between the Al-Qawalme and Al-Salamat groups in the areas of phonetics, accent and iotacism or inflection and cognitive performance as well as the structure of speech and tenses, sentence construction, words and their meanings. From the Al-Qawalme emerged two new dialects named al-Kaga and Shuwanisky. Likewise, the Al-Walowgy dialect is an offshoot of Al-Salamat. The study aims to study the dialectical differences among the Nigerian Arabs from phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects. Moreover, the study analyzes the Nigerian Arabic dialects based on the phonological, morphological, grammatical and semantic areas being the four levels of language. It also examines the relationship between these Nigerian dialects and those of the ancient and contemporary Arabs. The study used the descriptive and analytical method through several means including oral direct interviews with Nigerian Arabs. The study finds that the dialects of the Nigerian Arabs are influenced by the Kanuri, Fulani and Hausa languages, being the major languages in Northern Nigeria. The dialect of the Arabs of Western Borno is of the Al-Qawalme group which is closer to the tribes of the West Arabian Peninsula and the inhabitants of the Hijaz such as Quraish, Thakeef, Sa’ad bin Bakr and Kinanah while that of the Eastern Borno is the Al-Salamat group which is closer to that of East and central Arabian Peninsula such as Tamim, Asad, Taqlib, Abdul Qays, Bakr bin Wa’il and Ðay. This study shows differences in the dialects of Nigerian Arabs; there are man differences at phonological and morphological levels, and a few in syntactic and semantic aspects. Nigerian Arabic dialects have a strong relationship with the old and classical Arabic dialects, and its relationship with modern Arabic dialects, such as Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Finally, many of the words used in Nigerian Arabic appear in the old Arabic poetry and text of the Holy Qur’an and Hadith.