Central Asian Arabic or Jugari Arabic () refers to a set of four closely-related varieties of

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

currently facing extinction and spoken predominantly by Arab communities living in portions of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. These varieties are Bactrian (or Bakhtāri/Baxtāri) Arabic, Bukharan (or Bukhāri/Buxāri) Arabic, Qashqa Darya (or Kashka-darya) Arabic, and Khorasani (or Xorasāni) Arabic. The Central Asian Arabic varieties are markedly different from all other

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

varieties, especially in their

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

and to a lesser extent,

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, which have been heavily influenced by the surrounding

Western Iranian The Western Iranian languages or Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southweste ...

and

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

. They are, however, relatively conservative in their lexicon and phonology. While they bear certain similarities with

North Mesopotamian Arabic North Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as Moslawi (meaning 'of Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghda ...

, they constitute an independent linguistic branch of Arabic, the Central Asian family. Along with Maltese and Cypriot Arabic, the Central Asian Arabic varieties are exceptional among Arabic-speaking communities in not being characterized by

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia ( , ) is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" v ...

with

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...

, except in religious contexts; rather, Uzbek or Persian (including

Dari Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...

and Tajik) function as the high prestige lect and

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

for these communities. Essentially all speakers are reported to be bilingual, with essentially no Jugari Arabic

monolingual Monoglottism ( Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

s remaining. Many, if not most self-identified ethnic Arabs in these communities do not speak the language at a native level, and report other languages as their mother tongues. These varieties are spoken by an estimated 6,000 people total in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

, and

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

, but declining in number; in all four of these countries, Arabic is not an official language.

History

It was once spoken among

's numerous settled and nomadic

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

communities who moved there after the fall of

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

. They inhabited areas in

Samarqand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek and Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. Samarkand is the capital of the Samarkand Region and a district-level ...

Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...

, Qashqadarya, Surkhandarya (present-day Uzbekistan), and Khatlon (present-day Tajikistan), as well as

. The first wave of Arabs migrated to this region in the 8th century during the

Muslim conquests The Muslim conquests, Muslim invasions, Islamic conquests, including Arab conquests, Arab Islamic conquests, also Iranian Muslim conquests, Turkic Muslim conquests etc. *Early Muslim conquests ** Ridda Wars **Muslim conquest of Persia *** Muslim co ...

and was later joined by groups of Arabs from

Balkh Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan. It is located approximately to the northwest of the provincial capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and approximately to the south of the Amu Darya and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border. In 2021 ...

and Andkhoy (present-day Afghanistan). According to Ibn Al-Athir, the Arabic conquerors settled about 50,000 Arabic families in to Iranian Khorasan, modern day Northern Afghanistan and southern Turkmenistan, but the number is definitely exaggerated. Owing to heavy

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic influences, Arabic quickly became the common language of science and literature of the epoch. Most Central Asian Arabs lived in isolated communities and did not favour intermarriages with the local population. This factor helped their language survive in a multilingual milieu until the 20th century. By the 1880s many Arab pastoralists had migrated to northern Afghanistan from what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan following the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n conquest of Central Asia. These Arabs nowadays speak no Arabic, having adapted to

and Uzbek. With the establishment of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

rule in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Arab communities faced major linguistic and identity changes having had to abandon nomadic lifestyles and gradually mixing with

Uzbeks The Uzbeks () are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, being among the largest Turkic ethnic groups in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakhs, Kazakh and Karakalpaks, Karakalpak ...

Tajiks Tajiks (; ; also spelled ''Tadzhiks'' or ''Tadjiks'') is the name of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term ''Tajik'' ...

and Turkmen. According to the 1959 census, only 34% of Soviet Arabs, mostly elderly, spoke their language at a native level. Others reported Uzbek or Tajik as their mother tongue.

Varieties

Giorgi Tsereteli and Isaak Natanovich Vinnikov were responsible for the first academic studies of Central Asian Arabic, which is heavily influenced by the local languages in phonetics, vocabulary and syntax. The Jugari Arabic comprises four varieties: Bakhtiari Arabic (also called Bactrian Arabic), Bukhara Arabic (also called Buxara Arabic), Kashkadarya Arabic and Khorasani Arabic. The first three have their speakers spread across Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Khorasani came to be considered by scholars as part of the Central Asian Arabic dialect family only recently. It is reported to be spoken in 5 villages of Surkhandarya, Qashqadarya and

. In Uzbekistan, there are at least two dialects of Central Asian Arabic: Bukharian (influenced by Tajik) and Qashqadaryavi (influenced by

). These dialects are not

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

. In Tajikistan, Central Asian Arabic is spoken by 35.7% of the country's Arab population, having been largely replaced by Tajik. Bakhtiari Arabic is spoken in Arab communities in northern Afghanistan. Recent studies considered Khorasani Arabic (spoken in Khorasan,

) as part of the Central Asian Arabic family, and found that it was closely related to Qashqadaryavi.Ulrich Seeger,
On the Relationship of the Central Asian Arabic Dialects
' (translated from German to English by Sarah Dickins)

Numbers

* ''wahid'' > ''fad'' * ''ithnaân'' > ''isnen'' * ''thalatha'' > ''salaâs'' * ''arba’a'' > ''orba’''

References

Bibliography

* {{Varieties of Arabic Arabic languages Languages of Afghanistan Languages of Uzbekistan Languages of Tajikistan Languages of Iran Endangered languages of Tajikistan Endangered languages of Iran Endangered languages of Asia Endangered Afroasiatic languages

History

Varieties

Numbers

See also

References

Bibliography