Arabic in Kerkennah islands
The Arabic spoken in the Kerkennah islands has not been systematically analysed. Scientific papers on these islands consist mostly of ethnographic studies or analysis of its popular folklore, i.e. the vast work produced by Louis (1963)* which also includes valuable linguistic data. More recently, Herin & Zammit (2017)* have published an ethnotext with a foreword regarding the Arabic dialect used on the islands.
Despite the archipelago’s small area and low population density an initial approach has revealed the coexistence of at least two main Arabic varieties. They typically feature the preservation of q, as in the urban varieties of the coast of Tunisia or the shift q > g, as in rural and Bedouin varieties.
The brief annotations in the work contributed by Herin and Zammit propose the existence of a third variety, though further research is required in this respect.
* See bibliography in the appropriate section below
Kerkennah Arabic: A description of the inhabitants of Kerkennah
Árabe de Kerkennah: Descripción de los habitantes de Kerkennah
Phonology and Phonetics
As for the realization of *q, the dialect of the speaker exhibits principally a voiceless uvular stop q, but some villages of the Kerkennah islands have also a voiced velar stop g (this is the case, for example, of Mellita).
The two fricative interdentals of Old Arabic are preserved in ṯ and ḏ and the two ancient emphatics *ḍ and *ḏ̣ merged in a fricative interdental phoneme ḏ̣.
Like almost all the Tunisian dialects, Kerkennah Arabic too exhibits a voiced palatal fricative ž.
As for vowels, it is worth observing that ā, in unmarked contexts, is phonetically realized with a strong imāla that gives allophones like [e] or [ε]. In marked contexts, i.e. near gutturals, ā is realized without imāla.
Words ending with -a can be affected by a vowel raising, like barša → barš[e].
Ancient diphthongs *ay and *aw are monophthongized respectively in ī and ū.
It is worth mentioning that some typical syllabic structures of Tunis Arabic, like the bḥar ‘sea’ model with a CCVC structure, have a different counterpart in Kerkennah since we find baḥ(a)r with a CVC(v)C structure.
Compared to Tunis Arabic, short vowels seem to be exposed to vowel harmony in a particular significant way if one consider, for example, the treatment of the article in lə-žwābər and la-qrāṭən.
Morphology
Like the other Tunisian sedentary dialects, the dialect represented in this short text presents weak verbs with -āw and -īw endings.
Lexicon
Typically Tunisian lexical elements are famma ‘there is/are’ (< *ṯamma ‘there’); tawwa and taw ‘now’; buqʕa pl. bqayəʕ ‘place’; hakk ‘so’; nažžəm ‘to be able’; lqa ‘to find’.
Author: Giuliano Mion
The Kerkennah islands (in Arabic قرقنة [qarqna]) are a group of islands lying 25km off the coast of Sfax, with two main islands, Gharbi and Chergui, and a few minor islets. Its name derives from Cercina, its original Roman name.
Already mentioned by Herodotus, the Kerkennah islands were known by the Romans and exploited at different times for commercial or military purposes.
After the Islamization of the north of Africa, the islands remained under the rule of several Muslim dynasties.
In modern times, Habib Bourghiba, the hero of Tunisian independence and the president-to-be of the Republic, visited the islands in 1945 before going into exile in Egypt. The following year, in 1946, an inhabitant of these islands, Farhat Hached, founded the Tunisian General Labour Union, a national trade union which supported Bourguiba’s nationalist movement.
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