Sudanese Arabic, as spoken throughout much of northern Sudan, is the result of a mixing of Egyptian Arabic and Arabic from the Arabian peninsula with local languages (El Rutana). This has resulted in a variety of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the way in which the country has been influenced by both African and Arabian cultures. Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 12th century Hebrew Bible script The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of the Middle East, where they originated, and North and East Africa. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing Arabic and various other languages, together with various closely related scripts that typically differ in the presence or absence of a few letters. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Egyptian Arabic (Marī مصري) is part of the Arabic macrolanguage of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... The Arabian Peninsula Emirets towers in United Arab Emirates; the eastern part of Arabian Penisula The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية, or جزيرة العرب) is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia consisting mainly of desert. ...

Sudanese versus Egyptian Arabic

In contrast to northern Egyptian Arabic, the letter (ج) in Sudanese Arabic (and as in standard Arabic) is pronounced similar to the English letter "j" and not like "g". Hence the Sudanese Arabic "jellabiyya" (the traditional garb worn by men in Egypt and Sudan) is used as opposed to "gellabiyya" in Egypt. The word is ultimately derived from Egyptian galba. Similarly, the common Egyptian word for camel (gamal), in Sudanese Arabic is pronounced jamal. Sudanese Arabic tends to pronounce the 'jim' somewhat further back in the mouth than English 'J' and does not pronounce it as a diconsonantal affricate. An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ...

Sudanese Arabic pronounces the qaf as "G" (voiced uvular) while Egyptian renders it as ʔ

In addition to differences in pronunciation, Sudanese Arabic also uses different words when compared to Egyptian Arabic. For example, the word for water in Sudan is moya (or moyah), rather than mai with a silent a. In addition, Sudanese do not commonly use the words ma', meiah → meh, alma

The influence of Nubian languages

In northern and central parts of Sudan, Sudanese colloquial Arabic has been influenced by the Nubian language, which in ancient times was the dominant language in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan. Many of the agricultural and farming terms in Sudanese Arabic were adopted from Nubian. Nobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. ...

• Sudanese Arabic: angareb < Nobiin: àngàréé "wooden bed"
• Sudanese Arabic: kadēsa < Nobiin: kàdíís "cat". The Arabic word for cat is qitt.

Regional variation

Because of the varying influence of local languages in different parts of Sudan, there is considerable regional variation in Arabic spoken throughout the country. Sudanese Arabic typically refers to Arabic spoken mostly in northern parts of Sudan. The other most commonly mentioned derviate of Arabic in Sudan is Juba Arabic, a pidgin of Arabic, which is much more heavily influenced by other local languages. Juba Arabic is a lingua franca spoken mainly in Equatoria Province in Southern Sudan, and derives its name from the town of Juba, Sudan. ... A pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of two or more languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues, and usually a simplified form of one of the languages. ...

Greetings in Sudanese Arabic

In northern Sudan, greetings are typically extended, and involve multiple questions about the other persons health, their family etc. When greeting someone you know, it is common to begin with the word oh, followed by the person's first name, as in Oh... Babiker....or alternatively, Oh...kef ya Babiker (see below)

Formal greetings often begin with the universal Assalaamu Alaikum / Wa Alaikum Assalaam (Peace to you / and to you) exchange common to Muslims everywhere. However, other greetings typical to Sudan include: Izzeeyak / Izzeeyik (m/f) (How are you), Inta / Inti shadiid(a)? (Are you well?), the response to which is usually Al-hamdu lillah (Praise be to God), assuming you are indeed feeling well, ma batal (not bad) or nos-nos (literally half-half) if feeling only ok (nos-nos being slightly worse), or perhaps ta'ban shwaiyya (a little tired) if not so well.

Other everyday greetings include kwaiyis(a) (Literally "Good"—it can be a question or an answer, kef al usra? (how is the family) or kef al awlaad? (literally how are the children, though it generally refers to both wife and children). For friends, the question kef? can also be formed using the person's first name, pre-fixed by ya, for example; kef ya Yousef? (How are you Joseph?). Another standard response in addition to Al hamdu lilla is Allai barik fique (God's blessing upon you).

Additional greetings are appropriate for particular times—either times of the day, such as Sabah el kheir / Sabah el Nur and Mesa el Kheir / Mesa el Nur (call and response for mornings and evenings respectively) or particular times of the year, such as Ramadan Kareem (A Generous Ramadan) during Ramadan, Kullu senna wa inta (inti) taiyib(a) (May you be well every year) at the beginning of the year, and Nye-man to a (male) friend who had a new haircut.

Sudanese that know each other well will often use many of these greetings together, sometimes repeating themselves. It is also common to shake hands on first meeting, sometimes simultaneously slapping or tapping each other on the left shoulder before the handshake (particularly for good friends). Handshakes in Sudan can often last as long as greetings.

Assenting - saying yes

The Sudanese Arabic word for yes is typically Aye, pronounced similarly to the Scots-English word meaning the same thing, though Aiwa or Na'am are also sometimes used. Some people (often those from southern Sudan) will also click their tongue when assenting (sometimes more than once) to something rather than using a particular word. Clicking, depending on the tone, can also be used when expressing sympathy with some (usually minor) problem a person has.

See also

• Nubi language
• Juba Arabic language
• Naffir

The Nubi language (also called Ki-Nubi) is a Sudanese Arabic-based creole language spoken in Uganda around Bombo and Kenya around Kibera by the descendants of Emin Pashas Sudanese soldiers, settled there by the British. ... Juba Arabic is a lingua franca spoken mainly in Southern Sudan, and in communities of people from south Sudan living in towns in Northern Sudan. ... Naffir () is an Arabic word used in parts of Sudan (including Kordofan, Darfur, parts of the Nuba mountains and Kassala) to describe particular types of communal work undertakings. ...

References

In English

• Victoria Bernal, 1991, Cultivating Workers, Peasants and Capitalism in a Sudanese Village, New York: Colombia University Press, see glossary of Sudanese Arabic words pp 203-206.

• Abdel-Hadi Mohammed Omer, 1984, Arabic in the Sudanese setting: A Sociolinguistic study (Language Planning, Diglossia, Standardisation), Unpublished dissertation, Indiana University (available on Proquest).

• Andrew and Janet Persson with Ahmad Hussein, 1979, Sudanese Colloquial Arabic for beginners, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, United Kingdom: This book is a good introduction to Sudanese colloquial Arabic as spoken in Khartoum. Text is in both Arabic and Latin scripts, making it accessible to those that do not read Arabic but want basic conversational skills.

• Alan S. Kaye, 1976, Chadian and Sudanese Arabic in the light of comparative Arabic dialectology, Mouton: The Hague, ISBN 90-279-3324-3.

• El Rashid Abubakr, 1970, The noun phrase in the spoken Arabic of Sudan, Unpublished dissertation, University of London, UK.

• J. Spenser Trimmingham, 1946, Sudan Colloquial Arabic, London, Oxford University Press, G. Cumberlege.

• Vincent Llewllyn Grifiths & Abdel Rahman Ali Taha, 1936, Sudan courtesy customs; a foreigner's guide to polite phrases in common use among sophisticated Arabic speaking population of Northern Sudan, Khartoum, published by the Sudan Government.

• S. Hillelson, 1935, Sudan Arabic texts, Cambridge, UK: The University Press.

In French

• Michel Baumer, 1968, Les noms vernaculaires soudanais utiles a l'ecologiste, Unpublished dissertation, Universite de Montpelier, France.

In English and French

• Arlette Roth, 1969-1972, Lexique des parlers arabes tchado-soudanais. An Arabic-English-French lexicon of dialects spoken in the Chad-Sudan area compiled by Arlette Roth-Laly, Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de la recherche scientifique.

In German

• Randolph Galla, 1997, Kauderwelsch, Sudanesisch-Arabisch Wort für Wort, Reise Know How Verlag, Bielefeld, 1. Auflage, 1997, ISBN 3-89416-302-X

• Stefan Reichmuth, 1983, Der arabische Dialekt der Sukriyya in Ostsudan, Hildsheim, New York: G. Olms (originally authors thesis Freie Universitat, Berlin), ISBN 3-487-07457-5.

Online references

• Aramati – Sudanese Arabic

• www.ethnologue.com Sudanese Colloquial Arabic