pga ISO 639

Arabi, Arabi Juba Autonyms

Juba Arabic

  • Geography

    SS Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, and Western Equatoria states: widespread, into Northern Bahr al Ghazal, Western Bahr al Ghazal, and Upper Nile states. Likely spoken in refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya.
  • Language Cloud

A language of South Sudan

pga
Pidgin Arabic, Southern Sudan Arabic, Sudanese Arabic Creole, Sudanese Creole Arabic
Arabi, Arabi Juba
1,447,000, all users. L1 users: 247,000 (Avram 2020). With the rapidly changing demographic situation it is very difficult to know the number of L1 or L2 speakers and whether these numbers are increasing or decreasing. L2 users: 1,200,000 (2019 SIL).
Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, and Western Equatoria states: widespread, into Northern Bahr al Ghazal, Western Bahr al Ghazal, and Upper Nile states. Likely spoken in refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya.
3 (Wider communication). Juba Arabic originated as a pidgin language among southern slaves, soldiers, and servants in 19th century trading camps and Turco-Egyptian government stations. Unofficial lingua franca of local government, trade, and urban interaction.
Creole, Arabic based
The basilect is inherently intelligible with Nubi [kcn] (2000 J. Owens). Dialectal variations in different areas due to different local vernaculars. Changing rapidly. A member of macrolanguage Arabic [ara].
SVO.
Major language of communication in Greater Equatoria region, and south of Wau and Malakal. Most domains except very formal situations; also used in government. Used by all. Used as L2 by Banda-Banda [bpd], Banda-Mbrès [bqk], Banda-Ndélé [bfl], Imotong [imt], Lango [lgo], Logir [lqr], Mid-Southern Banda [bjo], Okolie [oie].
Literature. Radio. TV. Dictionary. Bible portions: 1983–1985.
Latin script [Latn].
The sociolinguistic situation is changing rapidly with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese from the North, speaking Sudanese Colloquial Arabic [apd], and others from East Africa and the rest of the world, mainly speaking English [eng].
OLAC resources in and about Juba Arabic