Chadian Arabic in Sudan and South Sudan
PrintChadian Arabic in Sudan and South Sudan
According to "Map 11.2 Arab tribes in the central African Baggara belt (after Owens 1993: 17)" in The Arabic Language, Versteegh, 2014, p. 206, Chadian Arabic (Baggara Arabic) is spoken in Sudan (in the South) and in South Sudan (in the North, along the border with Sudan).
This is confirmed by this source: THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATION OF SOUTH SUDAN, p.5, https://portal.arid.my/Publications/7853db3e-71af-4d00-a42d-74b75b7ad35d...
"There are great regional variations in the Sudanese Arabic because it is spoken by people whose native language is not Arabic; therefore, it is greatly influenced by the Sudanese local languages. Sudanese Arabic can be regionally divided into four dialects; Northern dialects spoken by different groups like Shaygiyya, Rubᾱṭᾱb, etc., Eastern dialects spoken by Shukriyya, Rufᾱc a, etc., Western dialects spoken by Baggara is closely akin to the colloquial Arabic spoken in Chad and is known as "Shuwa Arabic" and lastly, the Central dialect, spoken mainly by Jac aliyyῑn, is referred to as Khartoum dialect or Sudanese Colloquial Arabic (SCA). It is the main and standardized dialect that is used in broadcasting; TV and radio (Abu-Manga and Abu Bakr 2006). The number of the speakers of Sudanese Arabic is difficult to determine since there are no sufficient studies and the number of people who speak Arabic as L1 or L2 is increasing."
We will add Western Sudanic Arabic [shu] as a language of Sudan, for inclusion in the next edition of the Ethnologue.
Comments
Dear Antoine,
Thanks for this information on Chadian Spoken Arabic [shu], possibly also spoken in Sudan.
I will take this into consideration.
Best regards,
Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue
Dear Antoine,
Based on the feedback I have received from SIL linguists who have worked with Sudanese Spoken Arabic [apd] in western Sudan (and South Sudan), I will not be adding Chadian Spoken Arabic (Shuwa) [shu] to Sudan or South Sudan.
Regards,
Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue
Hi Chuck,
Got it. What is their reasoning? According to this 2021 source (Inalco & University of Amsterdam): https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/6/3/146
"Thanks to a number of comparative works, there is broad agreement on the inclusion of Baggara dialects within West Sudanic Arabic [WSA]."
"Regardless of their different approaches, the previously mentioned scholars agree in identifying two main dialect sub-types within Sudanic Arabic: West Sudanic Arabic (henceforth ‘WSA’) and East Sudanic Arabic (henceforth ‘ESA’). WSA encompasses the dialects spoken in Nigeria (Lethem 1920; Owens 1993a, 1993b), Cameroon (Owens 1993a), and Chad (Carbou 1913; Roth-Laly 1972, 1979; Hagège 1973; Decobert 1985; Zeltner and Tourneux 1986; Abu-Absi 1995; Jullien de Pommerol 1999a, 1999b) as well as in the western Sudanese provinces of Darfur and Kordofan (Manfredi 2010, 2012, 2013; Roset 2018). ESA covers the remaining parts of the Sudanic dialect area (i.e., the central and eastern part of Sudan) and it includes the koine of the capital Khartoum (i.e., Khartoum or Sudanese Arabic, Bergman 2002; Dickins 2011) and the rural dialects spoken in the Gezira and Butana regions (Reichmuth 1983). Even if this geographical split between WSA and ESA is supported by strong linguistic evidence, it hardly reflects the high degree of diatopic and eco-linguistic variation affecting Sudanic Arabic."
"As a final remark, it is without doubt that Baggara Arabic as a whole represents a WSA dialect sub-type."
And according to Ethnologue ( https://www.ethnologue.com/language/shu ): "Western Sudanic Arabic" is an alternate name for Chadian Arabic.
What do SIL linguists think about these high-quality sources? Have these linguists worked with nomadic tribes in Sudan such as the Baggara or mostly with city-dwelling people?
Regards,
Antoine
According to the Joshua Project: https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/14926/SU
"The Baggara tribes are of Arab descent and mainly speak the Shuwa dialect of the Arabic language."
And according to Ethnologue, Shuwa = Chadian Arabic.
According to Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcrip...
"The Baggara speak a dialect of Arabic that is distinct from classical Arabic and from the Sudanese dialect, although the dialects are mutually intelligible."
I don't know how reliable this website is but they also include Chadian Arabic along the Baggara belt in Sudan: https://industryarabic.com/arabic-dialects/
Dear Antoine,
My source for Sudan has written back and, based on the information from Manfredi and Roset, [shu] should be added to Sudan as a language. He recommends that the name for the language in Sudan be "Western Sudanic Arabic" (names with "Shuwa" or "Chadian" would not work).
Other than this, there is very little information to put in for [shu] in Sudan.
My source has worked "on the ground" within the Arabic groups, mostly with Sudanese Spoken Arabic [apd], in Sudan.
Best,
Chuck
Thanks Chuck.
What about South Sudan, by the way? I assume nomadic Shuwa speakers don't stop at the border. Manfredi and Roset also show that the Baggara Belt expands to the North of South Sudan
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