North Mesopotamian Arabic

North Mesopotamian Arabic
Native to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus
Native speakers
 6.3 million (1992)[1]
Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ayp
Glottolog nort3142[2]

yellow: North Mesopotamian Arabic

North Mesopotamian Arabic (also known as Moslawi (meaning 'of Mosul') or Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken north of the Hamrin Mountains in Iraq, in western Iran, northern Syria, and in southeastern Turkey (in the eastern Mediterranean Region, Southeastern Anatolia Region, and southern Eastern Anatolia Region).[3] Like other Mesopotamian Arabics and Levantine Arabic, it shows signs of an Aramaic substrate.[4]

Cypriot Arabic shares a large number of common features with Mesopotamian Arabic;[5] particularly the northern variety, and has been reckoned as belonging to this dialect area.[6]

North Mesopotamian Arabic was once spoken in all of Mesopotamia including what is today Southern Iraq and Khuzestan in Iran (Babylon), the Mesopotamian Gelet was created because of a migration of Bedouins into south and central Mesopotamia after the Mongol invasion. Judeo-Iraqi Arabic is the only remnant of North Mesopotamian that was spoken in the south and represents the pre Mongol invasion Jewish dialects that shows more influence of Akkadian and Eastern Aramaic in them.

References

  1. ↑ North Mesopotamian Arabic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "North Mesopotamian Arabic". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. ↑ R. J. al-Mawsely, al-Athar, al-Aramiyyah fi lughat al-Mawsil al-amiyyah (Lexicon: Aramaic in the popular language of Mosul): Baghdad 1963
  5. ↑ Versteegh, Kees (2001). The Arabic Language. Edinburgh University Press. p. 212. ISBN 0-7486-1436-2.
  6. ↑ Owens, Jonathan (2006). A Linguistic History of Arabic. Oxford University Press. p. 274. ISBN 0-19-929082-2.
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