Central Asian Arabic

Infobox Language
name=Central Asian Arabic
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
states=Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
fam2=Semitic
fam3=West Semitic
fam4=Central Semitic
fam5=South Central Semitic
fam6=Arabic
lc1=abh|ld1=Tajiki Arabic|ll1=Tajiki Arabic
lc2=auz|ld2=Uzbeki Arabic|ll2=Uzbeki Arabic

Central Asian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and currently facing extinction. It was once spoken among Central Asia's numerous settled and nomadic Arab communities, which inhabited areas in Samarqand, Bukhara, Qashqadarya, Surkhandarya (present-day Uzbekistan), and Khatlon (present-day Tajikistan), as well as Afghanistan. The first wave of Arabs migrated to this region in the 8th century during the Muslim conquests and was later joined by groups of Arabs from Balkh and Andkhoy (present-day Afghanistan). Due to heavy Islamic influences, Arabic quickly became the common language of science and literature of the epoch. Most Central Asian Arabs lived in isolated communities and did not favour intermarriages with the local population. This factor helped their language survive in a multilingual milieu until the 20th century. By the 1880s many Arab pastoralists had migrated to northern Afghanistan from what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan following the Russian conquest of Central Asia. These Arabs nowadays speak no Arabic having adapted to Dari and Uzbek. [ [http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/44.htm Peter R. Blood, ed. Afghanistan: A Country Study] . Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 2001] With the establishment of the Soviet rule in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Arab communities faced major linguistic and identity changes having had to abandon nomadic lifestyles and gradually mixing with Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmen. According to the 1959 census, only 34% of Arabs, mostly elderly, spoke their language at a native level. Others reported Uzbek or Tajik as their mothertongue. Nowadays Central Asian Arabic (heavily influenced by the local languages in phonetics, vocabulary and syntax) is spoken in 5 villages of Surkhandarya, Qashqadarya and Bukhara. In Uzbekistan, there are at least two dialects of Central Asian Arabic: Bukharian (influenced by Tajik) and Qashqadaryavi (influenced by Turkic languages). These dialects are not mutually intelligible. [ru icon [http://diaspora.ferghana.ru/atlas/Ethnic%20minorities.pdf Ethnic Minorities of Uzbekistan: Arabs] by Olga Kobzeva] In Tajikistan, Central Asian Arabic is spoken by 35.7% of the country's Arab population having been largely replaced by Tajik. [ru icon [http://www.minority.tj/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=39 Ethnic Minorities of Tajikistan: Arabs] ]

ee also

*Khuzestani Arabic
*Shirvani Arabic
*History of Arabs in Afghanistan
*Khoja

References