There have been a number of Arabic-based
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
s and
creoles throughout history, including a number of new ones emerging today. These share a common ancestry, and incipient immigrant pidgins. Additionally,
Maridi Arabic may have been an 11th-century pidgin.
Arabic creoles and pidgins
The Arabic creoles and pidgins are:
*
Bimbashi Arabic, a colonial-era pidgin of
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...
and the ancestor of the other Sudanic pidgins and creoles.
*
Turku Arabic, a pidgin of
colonial Chad
*
Juba Arabic
Juba Arabic (, ; ), also known since 2011 as South Sudanese Arabic, is a lingua franca spoken mainly in Equatoria Province in South Sudan, and derives its name from the South Sudanese capital, Juba. It is also spoken among communities of people ...
, spoken in
South Sudan
South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...
*
Nubi language, spoken in
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
and
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
*
Bongor Arabic, which could be a descendant of
Turku Arabic, spoken in and around the town of
Bongor,
Chad
Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...
.
** There may be other Turku-like Arabic pidgins in Chad today, but they have not been described.
Immigrant pidgins in the Arabian Peninsula
In the modern era, pidgin Arabic is most notably used by the large number of migrants to Arab countries. Examples include:
*
Gulf Pidgin Arabic, used by mostly immigrant laborers in the
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
(and not necessarily a single language variety).
*
Jordanian Bengali Pidgin Arabic, used by
Bengali immigrants in
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
.
*
Pidgin Madam, used by
Sinhalese domestic workers in
Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
.
* Romanian Pidgin Arabic, spoken by
Romanian oil-field workers in
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Due to the nature of pidgins, this list is likely incomplete. New pidgins may continue to develop and emerge due to language contact in the
Arab world
The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
.
Para-Arabic
Para-Arabic, also known as Pseudo-Arabic, is a descendant of the Arabic language that is no longer fully classified as Arabic. This is a
mixed language
A mixed language, also referred to as a hybrid language or fusion language, is a type of contact language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. ...
that undergoes a process of code mixing or code switching where Arabic vocabulary and grammar or lexicon are mixed with other languages.
*Condet dialect, a dialect of
Betawi language
Betawi, also known as Batavian, Jakartanese, is a creole language spoken by the Betawi people in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the native language of perhaps 5 million people; a precise number is difficult to determine due to the vague use of the nam ...
with a more pronounced influence of Arabic vocabulary than other dialects, as well as a slight influence of
Malay language
Malay ( , ; , Jawi alphabet, Jawi: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays (ethnic group), Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on the mainland Asia. The lang ...
.
Arabic-Malay script (Jawi) was also quite often used by the indigenous people of
Condet in
East Jakarta
East Jakarta (; ), abbreviated as Jaktim, is the largest of the five administrative cities (''kota administrasi'') which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, Indonesia, with a land area of 188.03 km2 (72.6 sq.miles). It had a population ...
, especially during the
Dutch colonial era.
can also be considered a Para-Arabic language because its vocabulary is not entirely derived from Arabic but has absorbed a lot of
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...
. But it is excluded, because its lexicon is 90% derived from Arabic.
[Ineke Wellens. ''The Nubi Language of Uganda: An Arabic Creole in Africa''. BRILL, 2005 ]
See also
*
Varieties of Arabic
Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernaculars) are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian P ...
References
Sources
*
* Manfredi, Stefano and Mauro Tosco (eds.) 2014. Arabic-based Pidgins and Creoles. Special Issue of th
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 29:2
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