Mehri language: Difference between revisions
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== Dialects == |
== Dialects == |
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Hamdani (d. 334 / 946) noted that "the Mahra speak a barbarous tongue like foreigners", that is - he knew that Mehri was not intelligible as northwest Semitic.<ref>Abu Muhammad al-Hasan Hamdani, Sifat Jazirat al-'Arab (probably ed. 1884), 134 tr. {{cite book|title=Ancient West-Arabian | author=Chaim Rabin | publisher=Taylor's Foreign Press | city=London | | year=1951 |page=43}}</ref> |
[[Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani|Hamdani]] (d. 334 / 946) noted that "the Mahra speak a barbarous tongue like foreigners", that is - he knew that Mehri was not intelligible as northwest Semitic.<ref>Abu Muhammad al-Hasan Hamdani, Sifat Jazirat al-'Arab (probably ed. 1884), 134 tr. {{cite book|title=Ancient West-Arabian | author=Chaim Rabin | publisher=Taylor's Foreign Press | city=London | | year=1951 |page=43}}</ref> |
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Today Mehri exists in two main dialects, Yemeni Mehri (also known as Southern Mehri) and Omani Mehri (also known as Dhofari Mehri and Nagd Mehri). Omani Mehri is spoken by a smaller population and shows no significant variation within itself, while Yemeni Mehri is further divided into western and eastern dialects.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rubin|first1=Aaron|title=The Mehri Language of Oman|date=2010|publisher=BRILL|isbn=9789004182639|pages=1-2|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=duzh7t5wL7sC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|accessdate=24 March 2015}}</ref> |
Today Mehri exists in two main dialects, Yemeni Mehri (also known as Southern Mehri) and Omani Mehri (also known as Dhofari Mehri and Nagd Mehri). Omani Mehri is spoken by a smaller population and shows no significant variation within itself, while Yemeni Mehri is further divided into western and eastern dialects.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rubin|first1=Aaron|title=The Mehri Language of Oman|date=2010|publisher=BRILL|isbn=9789004182639|pages=1-2|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=duzh7t5wL7sC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|accessdate=24 March 2015}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 18:28, 19 December 2015
| Mehri | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [mɛhri] |
| Native to | Yemen, Oman |
Native speakers | ca. 120,000 (2000–2011)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gdq |
| Glottolog | mehr1241 |
| ELP | Mehri |
 | |
Mehri or Mahri is a member of the Modern South Arabian languages, a subgroup of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is spoken by the Mehri people, who inhabit isolated areas of the eastern part of Yemen and western Oman, particularly the Al Mahrah Governorate.
Mehri and its sister Modern South Arabian languages were spoken in the southern Arabian Peninsula before the spread of Arabic along with Islam in the 7th century CE. It is today also spoken by Mehri residents in Qatar, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as in Kuwait by guest workers originally from South Arabia.
Given the dominance of Arabic in the region over the past 1400 years and the frequent bilingualism with Arabic among Mehri speakers, Mehri is at some risk of extinction. It is primarily a spoken language, with little existing vernacular literature and almost no literacy in the written form among native speakers.
Dialects
Hamdani (d. 334 / 946) noted that "the Mahra speak a barbarous tongue like foreigners", that is - he knew that Mehri was not intelligible as northwest Semitic.[2]
Today Mehri exists in two main dialects, Yemeni Mehri (also known as Southern Mehri) and Omani Mehri (also known as Dhofari Mehri and Nagd Mehri). Omani Mehri is spoken by a smaller population and shows no significant variation within itself, while Yemeni Mehri is further divided into western and eastern dialects.[3]
Phonology
Unlike other South Arabian languages, in Mehri the 'emphatic' consonants are not simply ejectives, but may also be pharyngealized as in Arabic. It is possible therefore that Mehri attests to a transition from proto-Semitic ejective consonants to the pharyngealized emphatics found in many of the Semitic languages.[4]
The consonant inventory is as follows:
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Radical | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| laminal | lateral | sibilant | palatal | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Occlusive | voiced | b~pʼ | d~tʼ | (dʒ~tʃʼ) | ɡ | ||||
| emphatic | tˁ~tʼ | kʼ | |||||||
| voiceless | tʰ | kʰ | ʔ | ||||||
| Continuant | voiced | ð | l | z | ʁ~q | ʕ | |||
| emphatic | θ̬ˁ~θʼ | ɬ̬ˁ~ɬ̠ʼ | s̬ˁ~sʼ | ʃ̬ˁ~ʃʼ | |||||
| voiceless | f | θ | ɬ̠ | s | ʃ | χ | ħ | h | |
| Rhotic | r~ɾ | ||||||||
| Semivowel | w | j | |||||||
Voiced obstruents, or at least voiced stops, devoice in pausa. In this position, both the voiced and emphatic stops are ejective, losing the three-way contrast (/kʼ/ is ejective in all positions). Elsewhere, the emphatic and (optionally) the voiced stops are pharyngealized. Emphatic (but not voiced) fricatives have a similar pattern, and in non-pre-pausal position they are partially voiced.
The difference in place of the laterals is not clear. It may be that the approximant is denti-alveolar, like the alveolar occlusives, and the lateral fricatives apical, or it may be that the latter are palato-alveolar / alveolo-palatal. These fricatives are typically transcribed ś etc.
/dʒ/ is only found in Arabic loans. It is not clear if the rhotic is a trill or a tap.
Grammar
The following are the personal pronouns of Mahri:[5]
| independent | possessive suffix | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st sg. "I" | hōh | -ī |
| 2nd sg. masc. "you" | hēt | -(a)k |
| 2nd sg. fem. "you" | hīt | -(a)š |
| 3rd sg. masc. "he" | hēh | -(a)h |
| 3rd sg. fem. "she" | sēh | -(a)s |
| 1st du. "the two of us" | kīh | -kī |
| 2nd du. "you two" | tīh | -kī |
| 3rd du. "both of them" | hīh | -hī |
| 1st pl. "we" | nḥah | -(a)n |
| 2nd pl. masc. "you" | tām | -kam |
| 2nd pl. fem. "you" | tān | -kan |
| 3rd pl. masc. "they" | hām | -ham |
| 3rd pl. fem. "they" | sān | -san |
The independent pronouns can also be placed after the genitive exponent (ð-) to convert them into possessive pronouns ("mine" etc).[6]
See also
Notes
- ^ Mehri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Abu Muhammad al-Hasan Hamdani, Sifat Jazirat al-'Arab (probably ed. 1884), 134 tr. Chaim Rabin (1951). Ancient West-Arabian. Taylor's Foreign Press. p. 43.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help); Unknown parameter|city=ignored (|location=suggested) (help) - ^ Rubin, Aaron (2010). The Mehri Language of Oman. BRILL. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9789004182639. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
- ^ Watson & Bellem, "Glottalisation and neutralisation", in Hassan & Heselwood, eds, Instrumental Studies in Arabic Phonetics, 2011.
- ^ Rubin 2010, 31.
- ^ Rubin 2010, 33.
References
Rubin, Aaron. 2010. The Mehri Language of Oman. Leiden: Brill.
External links
- Examples of Mehri poetry from Hadramut forum
| Official language | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main foreign language | ||
| Minority languages | ||
| Varieties of Arabic | ||
| Sign languages | ||
