Turku Arabic

Last updated
Turku Arabic
Native to Chad
Arabic-based creole
  • Turku Arabic
Early form
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog turk1244

Turku Arabic or simply just Turku is an extinct variant of Bimbashi Arabic that served as a lingua franca in Chad. [1] It's the ancestor to Bongor Arabic [2] and potentially other Arabic pidgins spoken in Chad today, but since they have not been described, it is unclear whether they are direct descendants of Turku. [3]

Contents

History

Turku emerged as a regional variant of Bimbashi Arabic when Bimbashi-speaking enslaved soldiers were forced to relocate from Sudan to Chad after the abolition of slavery in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1879. [2] The primary lexifier of Turku is Sudanese Arabic, and it is also heavily influenced by Sango and Sara-Bagirmi languages, from which most of its loanwords originate. [2] Although not much is known about Turku, a dictionary and a phrasebook were published in 1926. [4]

Grammar

Turku had at least 2 tense/aspect markers: gahed (a continuous aspect particle) and bi- (a future tense particle). Similar particles are also found in Juba Arabic and Nubi. [5]

Vocabulary

Turku [2] Origin [2] English
adinbangFrom Bagirmi ádim mbàŋeunuch
gaoFrom Sar gáwhunter
ngariFrom Mbay ngàrìmanioc
kayFrom Sango kâîpaddle
itenanFrom French lieutenantlieutenant
pfilFrom Arabic فيل‎fīlelephant

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Turku". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Manfredi, Stefano; Lucas, Christopher (2019). Arabic and Contact-induced Change. Language Science Press. pp. 323–325. ISBN   9783961102518.
  3. ↑ Thomason, Sarah Grey (January 1997). Contact Languages: A Wider Perspective. John Benjamins. ISBN   9027252394.
  4. ↑ Ansado, Umberto; Meyerhoff, Miriam (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages. Routledge. p. 37. ISBN   9781000221480.
  5. ↑ Sartori, Nanuel; Giolfo, Manuela E.B.; Cassuto, Phelippe (2016). Approaches to the History and Dialectology of Arabic in Honor of Pierre Larcher. Brill. p. 453. ISBN   9789004325883.
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