In Coastal Dhofari Arabic: A Sketch Grammar, Richard Davey provides a detailed description of a hitherto neglected Arabic dialect found in southern Oman. Previously recorded by Rhodokanakis, as part of the südarabische Expedition of the Austrian Imperial Academy, the dialect presented here offers a specific account of the day-to-day language spoken by the historical sedentary, coastal community. Using data collected during 2010-2012, Richard Davey delivers an overview of the phonology, morphology and syntax of this variety. In addition to this, a lexicon of coastal Dhofari Arabic is provided, along with a discussion of its grammaticalized features. It is a timely account of a dialect that is endangered due to development, modernization, and the resulting social changes in Dhofar.

This volume brings together ten peer-reviewed articles on Arabic linguistics. The articles are distributed over three parts: phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics and pragmatics, and language acquisition. Including data from North African, Levantine, and Gulf varieties of Arabic, as well as Arabic varieties spoken in diaspora, these articles address issues that range from phonetic neutralization and diminutive formation to diglossia, dialect contact, and language acquisition in heritage speakers. The book is valuable reading for linguists in general and for those working on descriptive and theoretical aspects of Arabic linguistics in particular.

In this monograph, Roberta Morano re-examines one of the foundational works of the Omani Arabic dialectology field, Carl Reinhardt’s Ein arabischer Dialekt gesprochen in ‘Oman und Zanzibar (1894). This German-authored work was prolific in shaping our knowledge of Omani Arabic during the twentieth century, until the 1980s when more recent linguistic studies on the Arabic varieties spoken in Oman began to appear. Motivated by an urgent need to expand and reinforce our understanding of Omani Arabic, the book provides a linguistic analysis of the Omani vernacular spoken in the al-ʿAwābī district (northern Oman), based on the speech of fifteen informants recruited throughout the area. It also provides a comparative analysis of the new data with that collected by Carl Reinhardt in 1894. This comparison enables the reader to appreciate the extent of diachronic linguistic variation in the region, and also sheds light on the threats that such variation poses to Omani-specific linguistic features. Organised in four chapters, the book presents a sociolinguistic analysis of the Omani linguistic landscape followed by an examination of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the al-ʿAwābī vernacular. Each chapter contains primary data collected by the author in situ compared, when applicable, with Carl Reinhardt’s materials. The appendix includes two sample texts extrapolated from the recordings, fourteen proverbs and one traditional song. This study will be of interest to those working in the fields of Omani Arabic, historical and comparative linguistics, translation and interpretation, or those with an interest in how languages develop over time.

The book provides a comprehensive survey of the complex agreement system of Arabic, spanning from the pre-Islami era to the present age and including both the written form of the language and its spoken varieties.

This volume offers a synthesis of current expertise on contact-induced change in Arabic and its neighbours, with thirty chapters written by many of the leading experts on this topic. Its purpose is to showcase the current state of knowledge regarding the diverse outcomes of contacts between Arabic and other languages, in a format that is both accessible and useful to Arabists, historical linguists, and students of language contact.

This book is the first in English to survey indigenous knowledge of seasonal, astronomical, and agricultural information in Arab Gulf almanacs. It provides an extensive analysis of the traditional information available, based on local almanacs, Arabic texts and poetry by Gulf individuals, ethnographic interviews, and online forums. A major feature of the book is tracing the history of terms and concepts in the local seasonal knowledge of the Gulf, including an important genre about weather stars, stemming back to the ninth century CE. Also covered are pearl diving, fishing, seafaring, and pastoral activities. This book will be of interest to scholars who study the entire Arab region, since much of the lore was shared and continues through the present. It will also be of value to scholars who work on the Indian Ocean and Red Sea Trade Network, as well as the history of folk astronomy in the Arab World.

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. Oman Taxation Laws and Regulations Handbook