DIALECTS IN TURKEY AND NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES BETWEEN ROOTS AND BRANCHES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN THE LIGHT OF THE ARABIC LINGUISTIC HERITAGE AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

Abstract

This study compares the Arabic dialects of Southeastern Turkey (Anatolian Arabic) with the neighbouring Arabic dialects of Syria and Iraq in terms of their linguistic relationship. These varieties, which have been lying on the periphery of Arabic and have been cut off from the Arabic heartlands since 1923, are identified with the sedentary Mesopotamian (qəltu) branch and their contact-induced changes under intensive contact with Turkish and Kurdish are investigated. The data collected in the field are compared to the well-known corpora of Syria and Iraq in Mardin, Hatay, Urfa and Siirt. The results reveal that the Anatolian Arabic still has some archaic features (like the voiceless uvular stop [q] and the perfective suffix –tu) which are not present in neighbouring dialects, and some new features (like the SOV word order and the gender neutralisation). The sociolinguistic analysis shows that remote dialects like Tillo are facing a serious language shift by the younger generation. The results of this study, when considered in the light of the Arabic linguistic heritage (al-turāth al-lughawī), reveal that the preserved features come under the rubric of the articulatory categories central to the Qurʾānic recitation (tajwīd), while the religious field has been one of the means of their preservation. It concludes that Anatolian Arabic is a unique peripheral Arabic and that the documentation of the same preserves a common Islamic linguistic heritage.