Aramaic Substrate in the Arabic Dialects of Kufr-Kanna and Mishad

This paper focusses attention on the Aramaic substrate of the dialects spoken in the villages of Kufr-Kanna and Mishad, north of Nazareth (KM) i.e. lexical traces. Significantly, KM borrows vocabulary from Aramaic and also preserves features of this language. Either the candidate substrate words att...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zu'bi, Amal (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2019]
In: Journal of Semitic studies
Year: 2019, Volume: 64, Issue: 1, Pages: 251-277
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:This paper focusses attention on the Aramaic substrate of the dialects spoken in the villages of Kufr-Kanna and Mishad, north of Nazareth (KM) i.e. lexical traces. Significantly, KM borrows vocabulary from Aramaic and also preserves features of this language. Either the candidate substrate words attested in KM existed in Syriac and Neo- Aramaic dialects, but not in Classical Arabic (CA), or they differ in terms of phonology, morphology and semantics from CA. The data show that unlike CA, substrate words preserve Aramaic phonology, e.g., Aramaic s (CA s): KM sataḥ 'to go out in an open space', Syriac staḥ, CA sataḥa 'to lay down'. Despite the difficulty in determining a word as being from an earlier substrate, some words seem to qualify as substrate, e.g. Syriac slaḥ, KM siliḥ 'to take off', CA sala?. A semantic influence can also be prominent and help us to reveal the origin of the word, e.g., Syriac stal, KM satal 'to plant', while the CA ?stl occurs in place-names. Attestation and distribution in both Aramaic and Arabic are also useful, e.g., KM sataḥ, Syriac staḥ, CA sataḥa. It is interesting also that many words in KM are shared with other dialects, e.g. the Western Neo-Aramaic dialect of Ma'lūla, to which the Aramaic substrate of KM belongs. Such attestations are of particular importance in order to establish substrate influence.
ISSN:1477-8556
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Semitic studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgy052