Baghdad Jewish Arabic

Baghdad Jewish Arabic (Arabic: عربية يهودية بغدادية, עַרָבִיָּה יְהוּדִיַּה בַּגדָאדִיַּה) or autonym haki mal yihud (Jewish Speech) or el-haki malna (our speech) is the variety of Arabic spoken by the Jews of Baghdad and other towns of Lower Mesopotamia in Iraq. This dialect differs from the North Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by Jews in Upper Mesopotamian cities such as Mosul and Anah. Baghdadi and Northern Mesopotamian are subvarieties of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic.

Baghdad Jewish Arabic
Jewish Baghdadi Arabic
haki mal yihud, el-haki malna
Native to	Israel, Iraq
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Mesopotamian Qeltu Judeo-Iraqi Baghdad Jewish Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet Hebrew alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

As with most Judeo-Arabic communities, there are likely to be few, if any, speakers of the Judeo-Iraqi Arabic dialects who still reside within Iraq. Rather these dialects have been maintained or are facing critical endangerment within respective Judeo-Iraqi diasporas, namely those of Israel and the United States. In 2014, the film Farewell Baghdad (Arabic: مطير الحمام; Hebrew: מפריח היונים, lit. 'The Dove Flyer'), which is performed mostly in Jewish Baghdadi Arabic dialect, became the first film to be almost completely performed in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic.

Classification

Baghdad Jewish Arabic (and Baghdadi Christian Arabic) resembles North Mesopotamian Arabic, and more distantly Syrian Arabic, rather than the Baghdadi Arabic spoken by Baghdadi Muslims. Muslims speak a gilit dialect (from their pronunciation of the Arabic word for "I said") while the others are qeltu dialects. Another resemblance between Baghdad Jewish Arabic and North Mesopotamian Arabic is the pronunciation of ra as a uvular. This peculiarity goes back centuries: in medieval Iraqi Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts the letters ra and ghayn are frequently interchanged.

It is thought that the qeltu dialects represent the older Arabic dialect of Mesopotamia while the gilit dialect is of Bedouin origin. Another factor may be the northern origins of the Jewish community of Baghdad after 1258 (see below under History).

Like Northern Mesopotamian and Syrian Arabic, Jewish Baghdadi Arabic shows some signs of an Aramaic substrate. Violette Shamosh records that, at the Passover Seder, she could understand some of the passages in Aramaic but none of the passages in Hebrew.

History

The Mongol invasion wiped out most of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Later, the original qeltu Baghdadi dialect became extinct as a result of massive Bedouin immigrations to Lower Mesopotamia and was replaced by the Bedouin influenced gilit dialect. The Jews of Baghdad are a largely indigenous population and they also preserve the pre-Mongol invasion dialect of Baghdad in its Jewish form, which is similar but a bit different from the general pre-Mongol Baghdadi dialect due to the linguistic influences of Hebrew and Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic, instead of the general Babylonian Aramaic that existed before the Islamic invasion.

As with other respective religious and ethnic communities coexisting in Baghdad, the Jewish community had spoken as well as written almost exclusively in their distinctive dialect, largely drawing their linguistic influences from Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic languages as well as from languages such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, and Turkic. Simultaneous fluency and literacy in the Arabic used by the dominant Muslim communities had also been commonplace.

With waves of persecution and thus emigration, the dialect has been carried to and until recently used within respective Judeo-Iraqi diaspora communities, spanning Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manchester and numerous other international urban hubs. After the mass emigration of Jews from Iraq to Israel between the 1940s and 1960s, Israel came to hold the single largest linguistic community of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic speakers. With successive generations being born and raised in Israel, it is mainly the older people who still actively or passively speak Judeo-Baghdadi and other forms of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. Israelis of Iraqi descent in turn are largely unilingual Modern Hebrew speakers.

Orthography

The Jews of Baghdad also have a written Judeo-Arabic that differs from the spoken language and uses Hebrew characters. There is a sizeable published religious literature in the language, including several Bible translations and the Qanūn an-nisā' (قانون النساء) of the hakham Yosef Hayyim.

The following method of describing the letters of the Hebrew alphabet was used by teachers in Baghdad until quite recently:

Letter	Description
א	'ábu 'áġbaʿ ġūs		'alēf
	has four heads
ב	ġazūna		bē
	a niche
ג	'ábu jənḥ		gimāl
	has a wing
ד	nájaġ		dāl
	a hatchet
ה	ġə́jla məqṭūʿa		hē
	its leg is severed
ו	'ə́bġi		wāw
	a needle
ז	dəmbūs		zān
	a pin
ח	'əmm ġəjeltēn ṣāġ		ḥēṯ
	has two intact legs
ט	ġə́jla b-báṭna		ṭēṯ
	its leg is in its stomach
י	'ə́xtak lə-zġayyġi		yōd
	your young sister
כ	ġazūna mdáwwġa		kāf
	a round niche
ל	l-jámal		lamād
	the camel
מ	ġāsa zbibāyi		mīm
	its head is a raisin
נ	čəngāl		nūn
	a hook
ס	mdáwwaġ		səmmāx
	circular
ע	'ábu ġasēn		ʿān
	has two heads
פ	b-ṯə́mma zbibāyi		pē
	has a raisin in its mouth
צ	ġasēn w-mə́ḥni		ṣād
	two heads and bent
ק	ġə́jlu ṭwīli		qōf
	its leg is long
ר	məčrūx		rōš
	curved
ש	'ábu tláṯ-ġūs		šīn
	has three heads
ת	ġə́jla məʿġūja		tā
	its leg is crooked
ﭏ	sálām		'alēf-lamād
	Salaam (peace)

Phonology

Consonants

Jewish Baghdadi consonants

		Labial		Dental		Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
		plain	velarized	plain	velarized
Nasal		m	(mˠ)	n	(nˠ)
Plosive	voiceless	p		t	tˠ			k	q		ʔ
	voiced	b	(bˠ)	d				ɡ
Affricate	voiceless					t͡ʃ
	voiced					d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	f		θ				x		ħ	h
	voiced	(v)		ð	ðˠ			ɣ		ʕ
Approximant		w					j
Lateral				l	(lˠ)
Trill				r

JB is relatively conservative in preserving Classical Arabic phonemes. Classical Arabic /q/ has remained as a uvular (or post-velar) stop, like Christian Baghdad Arabic, but unlike in Muslim Baghdad Arabic where it is pronounced as [ɡ]. /k/ is retained as [k], like in Christian Baghdadi, but unlike the Muslim dialect where it is sometimes [tʃ]. Classical Arabic interdental /ð, θ, ðˠ/ are preserved, like in Muslim Baghdadi Arabic (Christian Baghdadi Arabic merges them into /d, t, dˤ/). /dˤ/ has merged into /ðˠ/.

There are a few rare minimal pairs with /lˠ, bˠ/ (e.g. wáḷḷa 'by God! (an oath)' vs. wálla 'he went away', ḅāḅa 'father, dad' vs. bāba 'her door'). In other words, there are velarized segments which cannot be demonstrated to be phonemic, but which cannot be substituted, e.g. ṃāṃa 'mother, mummy'. There is a certain degree of velarization harmony.

/r/ is one of the primary distinguishing features of Jewish (as opposed to Muslim, but not Christian) Baghdadi Arabic. Older Arabic /r/ has shifted to /ɣ/ (as in Christian, but not Muslim, Baghdadi Arabic). However /r/ has been re-introduced in non-Arabic loans (e.g. brāxa 'blessing' < Heb. ברכה, qūri 'teapot' < Pers. qūrī). Modern loan words from other Arabic dialects also have this sound; this sometimes leads to cases where the same word may have two forms depending on context, e.g. ʿáskaġ 'army' vs. ḥākəm ʿáskari 'martial law'. There are many instances where this alternation leads to a subtle change in meaning, e.g. faġġ 'he poured, served food' vs. farr 'he threw'.

The consonants /p, ɡ, tʃ/ were originally of foreign origin, but have pervaded the language to the extent that native speakers do not perceive or even realize their non-native origin.

Vowels

Jewish Baghdadi vowels

Front		Back
iː i		u uː
	ə
eː e		o oː
	a aː

Suprasegmentals

Stress is usually on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, but sometimes on the antipenultimate (mostly in loans or compound words).

Grammar

Verbs

Perfect inflectional suffixes Unstressed Stressed s. 1 -tu -tō (tū/u)1 2 m -t -t f -ti -tē (tī/i)1 3 m - - f -ət -ət pl. 1 -na -nā 2 -təm -təm 3 -u -ō (ū/u)1	Paradigm of kátab 'to write' in perfect alone and with a 3ms indirect object s. 1 ktábtu ktəbtōlu 2 m ktabt ktábtlu f ktábti ktəbtēlu 3 m kátab ktáblu f kátbət kətbə́tlu pl. 1 ktábna ktəbnālu 2 ktábtəm ktabtə́mlu 3 kátbu kətbōlu
before 3f.s. direct pronominal suffix

Imperfect inflectional affixes s. 1 'a- 2 m tə- f t- ... ēn 3 m yə-1 f tə- pl. 1 nə- 2 t- ... ōn 3 y- ... ōn1	Paradigm of kátab 'to write' in imperfect s. 1 'áktəb 2 m tə́ktəb f tkətbēn2 3 m yə́ktəb f tə́ktəb pl. 1 nə́ktəb 2 tkətbōn2 3 ykətbōn2
may be actualized as i before another consonant, e.g. yqūl > iqūl 'he'll say' n is elided when a direct or indirect object pronoun suffix is present, e.g. tkətbēla 'you (f.s.) will write to her' when the 3f.s. direct object pronoun suffix is present, ē > ī/iy and ō > ū/uw, e.g. tkətbīha/tkətbíya 'you (f.s.) will write it (f.s.)'

Direct object pronominal suffixes s. 1 ni1, (y)(y)i2 2 m ak3, k4 f ək3, ki4 3 m nu3, u4 f ha5, a3,5 pl. 1 na 2 kəm 3 həm4, əm3	Indirect object pronominal suffixes s. 1 -li 2 m -lak f -lək 3 m -lu f -la pl. 1 -lna 2 -lkəm 3 -ləm	Double object pronominal suffixes s. 1 -lyā (lyānu) 2 m -lyāk (lkyā, kəlyā) f -lyāki 3 m -lyānu (lyā) f -lyāha pl. 1 -lnyā 2 -lyākəm 3 -lyāhəm
after verbal forms (and rarely particles) after nouns and particles after a consonant after a vowel (ha and a may both occur after some vowels, and in some instances ha may become ya or wa)

See also

• Baghdadi Arabic
• Judeo-Arabic dialects
• Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
• Mesopotamian Arabic
• History of the Jews in Iraq

References

Sources

• Blanc, Haim. Communal Dialects in Baghdad: Harvard 1964.
• Kees Versteegh, et al. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics: Brill 2006.
• Mansour, Jacob. The Jewish Baghdadi Dialect: Studies and Texts in the Judaeo-Arabic Dialect of Baghdad: The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Centre 1991.
• Abū-Haidar, Farīda (1991). Christian Arabic of Baghdad. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447032094.

External links

• Jewish Baghdadi recordings
• Baghdadi Jewish Arabic-Hebrew dictionary Archived 2020-02-02 at the Wayback Machine (In Hebrew)