| Soqoṭri | |
|---|---|
| ماتڸ دسقطري | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈmɛtalˠdisaˈk’ɔtˤri][1] |
| Region | Socotra Archipelago,Yemen |
| Ethnicity | Soqotri |
Native speakers | 110,000 (2020)[2] |
| Dialects |
|
| Modified version of theArabic script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sqt |
| Glottolog | soqo1240 |
| ELP | Soqoṭri |
 | |
 Soqotri is classified as "severely endangered" by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger[3] | |
Soqotri (autonym:ماتڸ دسقطري,romanized: mɛ́taḷ di-saḳɔ́ṭri;Arabic:اللغة السقطرية,romanized: al-luḡah al-suquṭriyyah) is aSouth Semitic language spoken by theSoqotri people on the island ofSocotra and the two nearby islands ofAbd al Kuri andSamhah, in the Socotra archipelago, in theGuardafui Channel. Soqotri is one of six languages that form a group calledModern South Arabian languages (MSAL). These additional languages includeMehri,Shehri,Bathari,Harsusi, andHobyot. All are spoken in different regions ofSouth Arabia.
Soqotri is often mistaken as avariety of Arabic but is typically classified as anAfro-Asiatic,Semitic, South Semitic and South Arabian language.[4]
Scholars believe there are no longer any grounds for associating the Modern South Arabian languages so directly with Arabic. They consider these dialects to be not Arabic, but Semitic languages in their own right.[5]
The Soqotri dialectology is very rich, especially considering the surface of the island and number of inhabitants. Soqotri speakers live on their islands, but rarely on the Yemeni mainland. The language was, through its history, isolated from the Arabian mainland.Arabic is also spoken in a dialectal form on Socotra.[6]
There are four dialect groups: the dialects spoken on the north coast, the dialects spoken on the south coast, the dialects spoken by Bedouins in the mountains in the centre of the island and the dialect spoken on Abd al Kuri. The dialect that is spoken on this island Samhah appears to be the same as the one spoken on the west coast of Socotra.[7]
These dialects include Abd Al-Kuri, Southern Soqotri, Northern Soqotri, Central Soqotri, and Western Soqotri.[4]
The total population of Soqotri users throughout Yemen is 57,000 (1990 census) and total users in all countries is 71,400.[4]
Soqotri has no official status. It is a language of Yemen where it is spoken mainly on the islands of theSocotra Governorate: 'Abd al Kuri, Darsah, Samha, and Soqotra islands in the Gulf of Aden.[4]
The language is under immense influence of the dominant Arabic language and culture because many Arabic-speakingYemenis have settled in the Soqotri region permanently, resulting in Arabic becoming the official language of the island. Soqotri is now replaced with Arabic as a means of education in schools. Students are prohibited from using their mother tongue while at school and job seeking Soqotrans must be able to speak Arabic before getting employed.[citation needed] Young Soqotrans even prefer Arabic to Soqotri and now have a difficult time learning it. Oftentimes they mix Arabic in it and cannot recite or understand any piece of Soqotri oral literature.[citation needed]
Arabic is now the symbolic, or more ideological, articulation of the nation's identity, making it the privileged lingua franca of the nation. The government has also taken up an inclination of neglect toward the Soqotri language. This seems to based on the view that Soqotri is only a dialect rather than a language itself. There is also no cultural policy on what should be done about the remaining oral non-Arabic languages of Yemen, include Soqotri andMehri. The language is seen as an impediment to progress because of the new generation's judgement of it as being irrelevant in helping to improve the socio-economic status of the island. Limitations to Soqotri, such as not being able to communicate through writing, are also viewed as obstacles by the youth that makes up 60% of the population. There seems to be cultural sentiments toward the language but yet an indifference due to neglect and the notion of hindrance associated with it.[8]
Hence, Soqotri is regarded as a severely endangered language and a main concern toward the lack of research in Soqotri language field is not only related to the semitics, but to the Soqotri folklore heritage conservation. This isolated island has high pressures of modernization and with a rapidly changing cultural environment, there is a possibility of losing valuable strata of the Soqotran folklore heritage.[9]
Poetry and song used to be a normal part of everyday life for people on the island, a way of communicating with others, no matter if they were human, animal, spirits of the dead, jinn sorcerers, or the divine. However, Soqotri poetry has been overlooked and the skill of the island's poets ignored.[10]
The European Union has also expressed serious concerns on the issue of preserving cultural precepts of the archipelago's population.[11]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i[a] | u[b] |
| Close-mid | e[c] ø[d] | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | (ɔ)[e] |
| Open | a[f] | |
| Nasal | ã ẽ[g] | |
The isolation of the island of Socotra has led to the Soqotri language independently developing certain phonetic characteristics absent in even the closely related languages of the mainland. Soqotri lost interdentalsθ,ð, andθʼ and merged them witht,d andtˤ: e.g. Soqotri hasdor "blood" whereShehri hasðɔhr andMehri hasðōrə; Soqotri hastˤarb (a piece of wood), whereShehri andMehri haveθʼarb; Soqotritri/trɔ (two) whereShehri hasθroh andMehri hasθərō.[13]
Soqotri emphatics (except /lˠ/) used to beejective consonants. However, ejectives have largely becomepharyngealized consonants as inArabic, with the exception of /kʼ/.[1]
A writing system for the Soqotri language was developed in 2014 by a Russian team led by Dr.Vitaly Naumkin following five years of work. This writing system can be read in his book Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature. The script is Arabic-based and transcriptions of the text appear in translated English and Arabic. This Arabic based orthography has helped passive narrators of oral lore collaborate with researchers in order to compose literature truthful to its origins.[14]
| Romanization | IPA | Additional / Modified Soqotri Letter |
|---|---|---|
| ḷ | lˠ | ڸ |
| ŝ | ɬ | ڛ |
| ṣ̌ | ʃˤ | ڞ |
| ž | ʒ | چ |
| g | ɡ | ﺝ |
Soqotri grammar and vocabulary is very poorly documented and distributed.[citation needed] There have been many proposals on the collection of linguistic data.[citation needed] This will allow a deeper understanding of the Soqotran scientific, literary, spiritual, and so on, culture native speakers. Preservation of the Soqotri language will give future generations access to this education as well.
Independent personal pronouns for the 2nd person singular, ē (m.) and ī (f.), are more widespread thanhet andhit. In research done by Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle,het andhit actually specific to some of the dialects spoken in Diksam, and the far-western areas of Qalansiya, Qafiz. She found that in other places, the 2nd singular m. and f., are ē and ī. In the latest system, the subject pronouns are the full form.[citation needed]
Another linguistic uniqueness in the far-western dialect of Qafiz is the possessive construction. This dialect, like all other Soqotri dialects, is based in the connectived-, followed by a pronoun. However, in this dialect, the connective is variable (like the relative pronoun):d- with a singular, andl- with a plural:
dihet férham/ girl>'your (msg.) girl',des 'her'..., butlḥan, 'our',ltan 'your (pl.)',lyihan 'their (m.)',lisan 'their (f.)'.
This variation highlights the link between connective, deictic and relative pronoun. In other dialects, a grammaticalization process took place and the singular form was frozen as a connecting invariable particled-.[citation needed]
In some dialects, the relative pronoun does not agree with plural:
le-ēfœ
izeˤem
sit/
b-fídəhɔn
in-mountain
le-ēfœ d- izeˤem b-fídəhɔn
DEI(PL)-people/ REL(SG)-that sit/ in-mountain
'this people that stay in the mountain' (Rujed).
In remote places, old people use the verbal, nominal and pronominal dual:
eṭahérö
we
ho
w-d-ho
younger
ḳaḳa
brother/
ḳalansíye
Qalansiya
eṭahérö ho w-d-ho ḳaḳa ḳalansíye
we {go (1DU)/I-and-of-me/} younger brother/ Qalansiya
'I and my younger brother, we two go to Qalansiya'
but many native speakers (young people or people in contact with Arabic) do not use verbal dual regularly:
ˤeğébö
they want (3DU)
(fortəṭhárö)
ˤeğébö təṭhár
{they want (3DU)} {go (SUBJ.3F.SG)}
'They (both) want to go'
and they use plural pronouns instead of the dual form:
tten férhem <of-your (pl.)/girl>'your girl' for /tti férhem/ 'your girl' (to you both).
Many people in contact with Arabic tend to use plural in all cases (verb or pronoun).[citation needed] Only the nominal dual occurs regularly.
Cf. above, about the phono-morphological explanation for the two forms of negation. In many dialects, the verbal negation is the same with indicative and prohibitive.
Lieutenant Wellstedt, who was part of a surveying mission in 1835, was the first to collect toponyms, tribe names, plant names, figures, and in total was able to put together a list of 236 Soqotri words. The words have no characteristics of the Western dialects and 41 words out of the 236 were noted as Arabic loans by Wellstedt. Some are really Arabic asbeïdh (bayḍ) 'eggs' (ḳehélihen in Soqotri) orˤajúz 'old woman' (Soqotri śíbīb),thob (tob) 'a shirt' (with interdental, absent from the Soqotri consonant system;tob in Soqotri means 'cloth'); many words belong to the old common Semitic vocabulary and are attested in both Arabic and Soqotri:edahn 'ears' (exactlyˤídəhen),ˤaṣábi 'fingers' (ˤəṣābe) etc. Religious poems show influence of Arabic with borrowings from classical Arabic vocabulary and Quranic expressions.[citation needed]
The following examples are couplets, which is the basic building block of Soqotri poetry and song. This is a straightforward humorous piece about a stingy fisherman with easy language usage that anyone on the island could easily understand.[10]
Translation:
The next example is a line that most Soqotrans would not find too difficult to understand either:
Literal translation:
In order to understand this piece however, the listener has to know of the significance of the šeber plants. These plants, part of the Euphorbia plant group, survive long months of dry seasons and have a milky latex which goats often feed on in times of shortage. There is no nutritious benefit to it but, it helps rid of the goats' thirst. However, when goats feed on the latex from damaged plants, it stains their muzzles and causes sores in and around the mouth. The lines were made by a woman who had found out that her lover was bragging to others of his victories (he is being compared to the feeding goats). She is calling this out and warning other women to be careful of men of his like.[10]
