Maridi Arabic was a possible Arabic

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 ...

apparently spoken in the upper Nile valley around 1000 CE. If legitimate, it would be the oldest record of a pidgin. It is known from just fifty words in an 11th-century text. In 1068, Andalusī geographer Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī published the words of a traveler from

Aswan Aswan (, also ; ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city ha ...

, who had complained to the Caliph in Egypt that in the town of "

Maridi Maridi is a town in South Sudan. Location Maridi is located in Maridi County, Western Equatoria, near the international border between South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This location lies approximately , by road, west of Jub ...

", black Africans had "mutilated" the

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 ...

. It appears that the text may be a caricature of an actual pidgin, or at least of partially acquired Arabic. It shares several features with

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 ...

and Nubi Creole: a complete lack of inflection, including articles, possessive markers, and agreement; a single negative marker; ''ʔmny'' for the third-person dual pronoun, and perhaps the use of ''jaʿal'' 'make' rather than colloquial ''qaʿad'' 'stay' for the progressive. It is not known where "Maridi" was. It has been concluded that it was in Mauritania, with the single non-Arabic word in the text (below), ''kyk'' (people?), hypothesized to be from Songhai ''-koi'' 'people who' plus the Arabic plural ''-k.'' However, there are also indications that it was located in Upper Egypt or northern Sudan, as several of its features are found today only in that region. Specifically, Classical ''q'' has become ''ʿ'' (''ʿayn''), ''fwq'' "on" has become ''fwʾ'', and ''j'' has become ''d''. The last is a sound correspondence found today only in Upper Egypt.

Text

The only account of the language is the following text. :One day there was a man whose name was Jumuʿa. :He had a camel and a son. :They were going to stay in a place. :People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian! :Your son should not walk, you barbarian, seat him!" :They were on the camel. :People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian!" :The son sat and Jumuʿa walked. :People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian!" :Jumuʿa said, "People(?) are neither good nor important."

References

{{Varieties of Arabic Arabic-based pidgins and creoles Sudanese Arabs Medieval languages Languages attested from the 11th century Extinct dialects of Arabic

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References