10.2307@41223879

The language of Jabal Rāziḥ: Arabic or something else?Author(s): Janet C.E. Watson, Bonnie Glover Stalls, Khalid Al-razihi and Shelagh WeirSource: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 36, Papers from the thirty-ninth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in London, 21-23 July 2005 (2006),pp. 35-41Published by: ArchaeopressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41223879 .

Accessed: 22/06/2014 15:36

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Archaeopress is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of theSeminar for Arabian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 130.239.116.185 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 15:36:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=archaeopress

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41223879?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 36 (2006): 35-41

The language of Jabal Razih: Arabic or something else?

Janet C.E. Watson, Bonnie Glover Stalls, Khalid al-Razihi & Shelagh Weir

Summary This paper considers the Yemeni language variety of Jabal Rãzih, henceforth Razihï. Jabal Razih is located to the north-west of Sacdah on a westward-facing escarpment at an altitude of c. 2000 m. Razihï exhibits features of ASA and ancient Arabia, and is spoken within a wider area whose dialects were described by the tenth-century polymath al-Hamdãni as gutm "incomprehensible". One interpretation of this variety is that it is a dialect of Arabic which is particularly heavily influenced by Ancient South Arabian; an alternative interpretation is that it is a modern descendant of an ASA language and that the Arabic elements it exhibits are to be regarded as abstraie rather than as indigenous features of the language. Bearing these two possibilities in mind, we consider the views of native speakers together with phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features exhibited by Razihï.

Keywords: Arabic, Ancient South Arabian, Ancient North Arabian, Yemen, dialect

A number of scholars have remarked that many varieties of Yemeni Arabic, particularly those spoken in the western highlands, are heavily influenced by Ancient South Arabian languages (ASA) (Rossi 1938; 1940; Diem 1973; Behnstedt 1987a; 19870; 1988; 1997; Testen 1992 for ̂-dialects; Simeone-Senelle, Vanhove & Lonnet 1994 for Tihãmah dialects; Contini 1994 in response to Testen 1992; Retsö 2000). This paper considers the language variety of Jabal Rãzih, a rugged massif (alt. 2000 m) which forms part of the western escarpment of the Yemeni highlands in the far north- west of Yemen (see Fig. 1). Its language, Razihï, exhibits features of ASA and ancient Arabia, and is spoken within a wider area whose dialects were described by the tenth-century polymath al-Hamdanï as gutm "incomprehensible" (Robin 1991: 83, cited in Behnstedt and Woidich 2005: 157).

One interpretation of the historical features of this variety is that it is a dialect of Arabic which is particularly heavily influenced by ASA; however, an alternative interpretation is that it is a modern descendant of an ASA language and that the Arabic elements in it are to be regarded as abstraie rather than as indigenous features of the language.

With these two possibilities in mind, this paper considers the following features: 1 . The views of native speakers and native speakers of

language varieties spoken in surrounding regions. 2. Phonological features, including laterality in the

reflexes of Arabic sin (*š)] and dad (*(/), some evidence of an affricative realization of emphasis, and the anticipatory assimilation of consonants, particularly /n/.

3. Morphological features, including ^-perfect endings, allomorphy in the feminine singular noun and perfect verb, and the behaviour of feminine adjectives.

4. Syntactic features, including the double marking of deflniteness, the use of particles fa and hã + active participle to express continuous aspect, and referent/addressee agreement in the distal demonstrative pronouns.

5. Lexical features, particularly the presence of a large number of non- Arabic function words.

1. Dialect versus language Razihi is famously incomprehensible to speakers of Yemeni Arabic. Razihïs enjoy mystifying other Yem- enis with their distinctive speech, of which they are proud. Once, for example, a Yemeni taxi driver was almost driven to tears and refused to carry on until his Razihï passengers told him what language they were speaking, a language he neither recognized nor understood. However, incomprehensibility is not reason enough to determine that a speech variety is not a dialect of a particular language. Several dialects of northern mainland English are not comprehensible to speakers of southern varieties of mainland English, and dia-



36 Janet C.E. Watson, Bonnie Glover Stalls, Khalid al-Razihi & Shelagh Weir

FIGURE 1. A map of Arabia showing the location ofJabalRãzih in the north-west of Yemen (from Weir 2007).

lects of the Austrian Burgenland and the Steiermark are incomprehensible to speakers of German in Germany. Inversely, mutual comprehensibility does not imply that two speech varieties are dialects of one language: a speaker of standard Danish, for example, does not need to speak Norwegian in Norway or Swedish in Sweden to understand or to make him- or herself understood.

Whether a spoken variety is a language in its own right or a dialect of a mother language depends on a mixture of subjective and objective factors: speakers of the variety must feel that their variety is a variant of a mother language, just as speakers of surrounding varieties must acknowledge that this variety is a variant of their language. Conversely, if the variety is a dialect of another language - or a language in its own right - this must be believed by a significant majority of both native speakers and speakers of (the) surrounding lan-

guage^) (cf. Watson 1994). There are several possible reasons for maintaining a

separate language. These include a lack of contact with surrounding language(s), maintenance or establishment of identity, commercial/economic reasons, or a desire to maintain political autonomy. In certain societies, where the trader and client share a language, secret codes may be used for trading. In the old city of SancäD, Turkish numbers are still used when trading (Watson 2004: 408), and are said to have once been used "in order to confuse the gabïlïs" (tribes people).

Access to Jabal Räzih has always been difficult be- cause of its steep and rugged terrain. It is also distant from major centres - before the completion of the first motor tracks in the late 1970s, it was two or three days' travel on foot from the nearest main towns of Sacdah or Jïzân, and over a week from SancaD (Weir, 2007). De-



The language of J abai Rãzih: Arabic or something else? 37

spite this, its people have always been in contact with speakers of different Yemeni speech varieties: its strate- gic position coupled with relatively high rainfall and agricultural productivity has meant that Rãzih has always come under some kind of local or central "state" (dawlah), and hence outsiders have maintained contact with the region. Through a long history of trade, Razihïs have also maintained voluntary contact with outside areas. As a result, Razihï men, and to a far lesser extent women, understand Yemeni Arabic varieties spoken in adjacent areas and in key market centres. Comprehensi- bility is not mutual, however, as demonstrated by the taxi incident. The incomprehensibility of Razihï to outside speakers cannot be due solely to geographical isola- tion, since the relative inaccessibility of the area has neither prevented Razihïs from contact with other areas, nor deterred non-Razihïs from access to Jabal Rãzih. The pride Razihïs show in their language suggests that they maintain their speech distinctness voluntarily, and probably for reasons of political and social identity and commerce. The belief that their variety has a separate language status from surrounding language varieties is reflected linguistically in the use of the term rãzihl, vQmrah rãzihJt or simply is-samrit, which contrasts for Razihï speakers with yamanl, the language spoken outside the area. According to Khalid al-Razihi, the most important shibboleth distinguishing Razihï from Ya- manï is the independent pronoun ak/ant(a) "you m.s." People of the region also refer to Razihïs using two words peculiar to Razihï, hës u-tãl, lit. "up and down".

Subjective reasons for suggesting separateness of language need to be backed up by objective linguistic reasons, which we consider here under the headings of phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.

2. Phonology

The reflex of Classical/Standard Arabic šin (*š) is a slightly lateral fricative; Classical/Standard Arabic dãd (*(/) has two reflexes, depending on the lexeme in which it falls: either a voiced interdental fricative, as in the vast majority of Yemeni speech varieties (Behnstedt 1985) or, in older terms including ciris "molar", cãwí "mutual help", and names of terraces, a voiceless lateral affricate, transcribed here as c. The lateral realisation of both *š and *d is certainly ancient and is in all probabil- ity an archaic feature in those varieties which currently have lateral *d and/or *i (Steiner 1977; Macdonald 2004: 500). Descriptions given by the eighth-century grammarian of Arabic, Sïbawayhi, for *d suggest a lateral articulation for early Classical Arabic (Watson 2002: 13). There is also considerable evidence from root

patterning in early Classical Arabic that d was the emphatic correlate of i (Steiner 1977: 103-105), as seems to be the case today in Razihï. Indeed, in speech varieties spoken near Razihï, including the large tribal region of Minabbih north of Jabal Räzih, affrication appears to be the standard correlate of emphasis in the reflexes of Classical/Standard Arabic emphatic fricatives. In these varieties *s is realized in all phonological environments as [st],3 as in stay fin "summer", giřsteh "ant" and mast - yamist "to suck" (Behnstedt 19870: 95).

In common with a number of western mountain varieties of Yemeni Arabic (cf. Watson 1989), Razihï exhibits regular total assimilation of coronal stops, as in gi ggatalõh "he killed him" from /gid + gatalõh. However, with the odd lexical and probably historical exception in certain Arabic dialects (most notably bitt "girl" and kutt "I was/you m.s. were" as in Cairene), Razihï differs from Arabic (Macdonald 2004: 501) in exhibiting regular total assimilation of /«/to following obstruents, as in našar - yuššur "to go out in the evening", našad -

yiššud "to ask", nagal - yiggul "to extract, transpose". Similarly, the Razihï words ssãn "man", ssãnah "woman" (in indefinite form) must be cognate with Arabic 4nsan "person" (Behnstedt 1987a: 98). Nasal assimilation is a well-documented feature of both An- cient North Arabian (Macdonald 2004: 501) and ASA, with words sometimes inscribed with /n/, and sometimes without (Beeston 1984: 11), but of no recorded Arabic dialect.

3. Morphology

3.1 Nominal morphology

In terms of the independent pronouns, Razihï is, to our knowledge, the only Semitic language variety in which the second person independent pronouns are practically identical with the dependent forms: thus, ak "you m.s.", ac "you f.s.", akkum "you m.pl.", akkun "you f.pl.", kãnak "you m.s. were", kãnic "you f.s. were", rõkic "I saw you f.s.".

The feminine singular noun has two complementary endings: when indefinite either null or, more commonly, -ah, and when definite -it, even if the word does not end normally in -ah. When words are loaned out of Arabic, however, they not only take the al- definite article (see 4. 1 below) but also, if feminine, do not take -/, e.g. al- jumhuriyyah "the republic".

Adjectives are more complicated than nouns. Femi- nine singular adjectives fall into one of four categories: active participles show no gender inflection, thus dãri "sowing" and sãmir "speaking" may take a masculine or




feminine singular subject; adjectives ending in -I take final -t irrespective of their definiteness, thus ariïh rãzihJt "I f. am Razihï", zannah jësJt "military (colour) dress"; the majority of non-participle adjectives exhibit the same allomorphy as feminine nouns, as in (awïlah "tall f.s. (indef.)", it-lawTlit "the tall f.s. one"; and finally, a few (probably closed-class) non-participle adjectives show no gender inflection, as in mabruk "blessed", bďJd "far", malí "full", garib "near".

3.2 Verbal morphology

As in ASA and Himyaritic as well as Modern South Arabian, Ethiopie Semitic and Yemeni dialects spoken in the western mountain range (Behnstedt 1985), the first singular and second person verbal inflectional suffixes take initial -к- as opposed to initial -t- in Razihï, as in katabuk "I wrote", sumruk "I spoke" (cp. Sancânï katabt "I wrote", thãkayt "I spoke").

The apparent allomorphy described above for the feminine noun mirrors that of the third feminine singular inflection of the perfect verb, which ends in -ď word- finally, as in fihmď "she understood", sinfď "she heard", but in -att- when »n object pronoun is suffixed, as in fihmattak "she understood you m.s.", sinfattak "she heard you m.s."

4. Syntax 4.1 Definiteness

In contrast to all recorded dialects of Arabic, Razihï exhibits double marking of definiteness: gemination of the initial consonant of the noun or adjective, as in some dialects spoken to the south of Ibb, coupled with aspiration of the final consonant. Indefiniteness is marked by lack of initial gemination and, more saliently, glottaliza- tion of the final consonant. Thus, ib-bef1 "the house" contrasts with béf "house". Since, in many languages, function words result from the grammaticalization of content words or semantically fuller function words, final aspiration here could have resulted from the phonological contraction and semantic bleaching of the third masculine singular pronoun (õh) (Jan Retsö, personal communication); this is analogous to Amharic where the definite article has emerged from semantic bleaching of the third masculine dependent pronoun, as in betu = "his house" or "the house".

Since the prefixai element of definite marking in- volves gemination of the initial consonant of the noun or adjective, irrespective of the identity of the consonant, the starred form of the definite article can only be

hypothesized. Behnstedt (1987a: 85) proposes an original definite marker of *//-. However, the fact that words borrowed from Yemeni or Standard Arabic invariably take the article al-, unless the initial consonant is a coronal, as in al-jumhuriyyah "the republic" and at-tõrah "the revolution", coupled with the Razihï phenomenon of total assimilation of /«/(see 3.2 above) and the presence of Yemeni varieties around Sacdah to the east of Jabal Räzih with the definite article in-Zan- (Behnstedt 1987«: 85; 19876: 98) leads us to posit an original article form *w-. This suggests a connection between Razihï and Ancient North Arabian, rather than Old Ara- bic, since one of the major differences between Ancient North Arabian and Old Arabic is recorded to have been the hn-fh- versus al- definite article (Macdonald 2000: 49ff; 2004: 517).

4.2 Grammaticalization and particles

Grammaticalization has led to the use of a large number of particles in Razihï and consequent deverbalization. Thus, кап "was" does not inflect but functions as a particle, which takes pronoun suffixes, as in kãnic "you f.s. were", kãnõh "he was" etc. The continuous aspect is expressed not by an imperfect verb or by an imperfect verb prefixed by bi- or a reflex of bayn-, but rather by the active participle prefixed by β, by men, or by ho, by children and women. Examples include hohß-dägg cal- b-bãbh "he is knocking on the door", and the example from a story innãm ß-mäkulm ij-jahhãt "they m. are eating children". This use of particle + active participle has an interesting parallel in the archaic English struc- ture a + active participle, where a has the sense of "in the act or process of1, as in come α-running, go a- hunting (Collins English Dictionary). This use of β or β resembles that of ß- in Ancient South Arabian (Stefan Weninger, personal communication), and ha, as we shall see below (section 6), has the basic preposi- tional sense of "in" in dialects spoken in al-Hugariyyah.

4.3 Agreement

A distinctive feature of Razihï, known also occasionally in early Classical Arabic (Fischer 2002:146), is the systematic agreement of distal demonstratives not only with the referent but also with the addressee. Thus, "that m.s." is realized as dak when the addressee is male, dãc when the addressee is female, dãkum when the addressees are male, and dãkun when the addressees are female. The paradigm for "that f.s." is similarly tãk, tãc, tãkum, and tãkun. Examples of addressee agreement in the distal demonstratives from early Classical Arabic,



The language ofJabal Razih: Arabic or something else? 39

although attested, are rare and certainly not as systematic as in Razihï. The most common involve plural male addressees, as in dãlikum hayrun lakum "that is best for you" in the Qur'an (chapter 24, al-Nur) and dãkum sãhibukum "here is your companion" (Fischer 2002: 146). There are occasional examples of agreement with a feminine addressee, as in ka-dãliki "allãhu yahlaqu mã yasä'u "thus God creates what He will" where Maryam is addressed in the Qur'an (chapter 3, Ãl "irnrãn). Ad- dressee agreement in the distal demonstratives is not attested in Modern Standard Arabic or in the majority of recorded modern dialects of Arabic.

5. Lexicon

In addition to a high percentage of basic words that have no direct correspondence in northern Arabic dialects,5 Razihï has a large proportion of non-Arabic function words. These include the prepositions sl/sã "to, until",6 ta "between", Ъп "in", the relative pronoun dJ, the ad- verbs heš "up" and tal "down", and the particles Ja or hã, which precede an active participle to indicate continuous aspect (see 4.2 above). In terms of the seman- tics, Razihï has a substantial number of terms which are phonologically similar but semantically different to those in northern Arabic and Yemeni Arabic dialects, as in cindi "maybe" (in Arabic cind means "with, at the house of), camal "to plough" (in Arabic camila "to make, do"), nahã "at, near" (Hnd in Yemeni Arabic).

6. Relationship to varieties spoken in other parts of Yemen

Razihï shows some similarities to Yemeni varieties spoken in isolated areas in the south of the western mountain range, which cannot be due to recent contact. In addition to ̂ -perfect attested through most of the western mountain range, Dï Sufal (south of Ibb and west of al-Qãcidah) shares with Razihï C-gemination for definite - e.g. i°-4dn "the ear" - and -Vh/-t allomorphy in the third feminine singular perfect verb (in Dï Sufal this is realized as -ih after -/- stem vowels, -ah after -a- stem vowels, and non-geminate -t- before object suffixes). The dialect of al-Hugariyyah (south of Tacizz and north of Aden) shares with Razihï a particle hã' this intro- duces the active participle in Razihï (see 4.2). In al- Hugariyyah, however, hä functions as a preposition "in", as in ha m-gibãl "in the mountains" (Procházka 1993: 225). Although these varieties do not have the same richness of non-Arabic features as Razihï, their data suggest a retraction of the ancient languages of

southern Arabia in the early centuries AD with their maintenance within isolated enclaves or amongst people who wished to retain the language as a symbol of political and/or social identity.

7. Conclusion

In this paper, we have examined a number of features of Razihï. Some appear to be Arabic and even ancient features of Arabic or common Semitic, such as lateralized fricatives, and referent/addressee distal demonstratives, while others do not seem to be Arabic at all. At this stage, we leave open the question as to whether Razihï is a dialect of Arabic or is better regarded as another language with certain features derived from a common Semitic source and others adopted from Arabic. Razihï also raises more general theoretical issues of what is involved in assigning a particular speech variety to one language or another. These are all matters we intend to pursue in our future study of Razihï.

Acknowledgements

This paper is a product of a collaborative project to study the language of Jabal Rãzih. The authors wish to thank the British Academy for funding this preliminary phase of the Jabal Räzih Language project through a small research grant.

Notes

1 Given by Behnstedt (19876: 94) for the region as retroflex; according to our analysis, the sound is somewhat lateral. We do not believe Behnstedťs interpretation to be an error, but it may have been due to a speech impediment on the part of his main in- formant (Behnstedt did not, to our knowledge, man- age to visit Rãzih). Cf. Khalid al-Razihi's translation of kanãm yamaniy- yïn as "they were from outside the governorate of Sacdah" and not as "they were Yemenis". According to Weir (2007), Rãzihis refer to the region which ex- tends south of Jabal Rãzih as al-yaman. 3 Interpreted by Behnstedt (19876: 95) as resulting from metathesis of an affricate ts. The singular feminine marker -/ is also most commonly attested in nisbas in Ancient South Arabian (Kogan & Korotayev 1997: 230). Which holds for a large number of Yemeni varieties,




as demonstrated by Behnstedťs (1997: 10) findings that only 30-60 % of words relating to the face in Yemeni varieties correspond to words relating to the face in northern Arabic dialects. A similar statistical analysis between two such distinct languages as

German and English in this semantic field results in 40 % correspondence. 6 Otherwise attested in this sense in Maltese (Pro- cházka 1993: 239).

References

Beeston A.F.L. 1984. Sabaic grammar. (Journal of Semitic Studies. Monograph, 6). Manchester: Journal of Semitic

Studies. Behnstedt P.

1985. Die nordjemenitischen Dialekte: Teil 1. Atlas. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1987tf. Die Dialekte der Gebend von Sďdah (Nord-Jemen). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1987e. Anmerkungen zu den Dialekten der Gegend von Sacdah. Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 16:

93-107. 1988. Lexikalisches aus dem Jemen. Welt des Orients 19: 142-155. 1997. Anmerkungen zum Jemenitisch- Arabischen. Pages 5-18 in R.G. Stiegner (ed.), Aktualisierte Bei-

träge zum 1. Internationalen Symposion Südarabien interdisziplinär an der Universität Graz mit kurzen Einführungen zu Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte: in memoriam Maria Höfher. Graz: Leykam.

Behnstedt P. & Woidich M. 2005. Arabische Dialektgeographie: Eine Einführung. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Contini R. 1994. I suffisi in velare del perfetto in arabo yemenita (Riassunto). Pages 77-93 in V. Brugnatelli (ed.),

Sem Cam lafet: Atti delia 7a Giornata di Studi Camito-Semitici e Indeuropei (Milano, lo giugno 1993). Milano: Centro Studi Camito-Semitici.

Diem W. 1973. Skizzen jemenitischer Dialekte. Beirut: Franz Steiner.

Fischer W. /transi. J. Rodgers 2002. A grammar of Classical Arabic. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.

Kogan L.E. & Korotayev A.V. 1997. Sayhadic (Epigraphic South Arabian). Pages 220-241 in R. Hetzron (ed.), The Semitic languages.

London: Routledge. Macdonald M.C.A.

2000. Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 1 1 : 28-79.

2004. Ancient North Arabian. Pages 488-533 in R.D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Procházka S. 1993. Die Präpositionen in den neuarabischen Dialekten. Wien: VWGÖ.

Retsö J. 2000. Kashkasha, t-passives and the ancient dialects in Arabia. Pages 111-118 in L. Bettini (ed.), Ori-

ente Moderno XIX (LXXX): Studie di dialettologia araba. Rome: Instituto per l'Oriente. Robin C.J.

1991. La pénétration des Arabes nomades au Yemen. Pages 71-88 in C.J. Robin, L'Arabie antique de KaribDïl à Mahomet. Nouvelles données sur l'histoire des Arabes grâce aux inscriptions. Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 61/3.

Rossi E. 1938. Appunti di dialettologia del Yemen. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 17: 230-265.



The language ofJabal Razih: Arabic or something else? 41

1940. Vocaboli sud-arabici nelle odierne parlate arabe del Yemen. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 18: 299- 314.

Simeone-Senelle M-C, Vanhove M. & Lonnet A. 1994. Les dialectes arabes de la Tihama du Yémen: Diversité et caractéristiques. Pages 217-231 in D.

Caubet & M. Vanhove (eds.), Actes des Premières Journées Internationales de Dialectologie Arabe de Paris. Paris: Inalco.

Steiner R.C. 1977. The case for fricative-laterals in Proto-Semitic. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.

Testen D. 1992. Extra-Arabic affiliations of ̂-Yemeni. Pages 77-89 in E. Broselow, M. Eid & J. McCarthy, Per-

spectives on Arabic Linguistics IV: papers from the fourth annual Symposium on Arabic Linguis- tics. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Watson J.C.E. 1989. Aspects of the phonology and morphology of three Yemeni dialects. PhD thesis, School of Oriental

and African Studies, University of London. [Unpublished]. 1994. On the definition of dialect with reference to modern dialects of Yemeni Arabic. Pages 237-250 in

Y. Suleiman (ed.), Arabic Sociolinguistics: Issues & Perspectives. Richmond: Curzon Press. 2002. The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. On the linguistic archaeology of Sancani Arabic. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies

34:405-412. Weir S.

(2007). A tribal order: Politics and law in the mountains of Yemen. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

A uthnrs ' addresses Janet С Ε. Watson, Professor of Arabic and Linguistics, School of Languages, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK. e-mail [email protected] Bonnie Glover Stalls, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-163, USA. e-mail [email protected] Khalid Abdo al-Razihi, School Inspector, Governorate of Sacdah, Yemen. e-mail [email protected] Shelagh Weir, Research Associate: Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, Flat 2, 4 Acol Rd, London NW6 3 AH, UK. e-mail [email protected]



10.2307@41223879

Documents

arabian studies

language of jabal razih

asa language

ancient north arabian

language of jabal rzi

ancient arabia

features of asa

dialect of arabic