The Linguistics of Loanwords in Hadramı̄

Arabic ˙ ˙

Abdullah Hassan Al-Saqqaf

Department of English, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat
The aim of this paper is to explore loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic (Yemen). Most of
these words, which are now diminishing due˙ to˙ the social and economical
development in the region, reflect some stage of bilingualism when the Hadramı̄s
(natives of Hadramawt, Yemen) migrated to different parts of the world. The˙ ˙donor
˙ ˙ from the tongues of the Indian subcontinent to the languages of the
languages range
Malay archipelago, to Swahili and English. These loans are confined, as one would
expect, to certain registers such as food or modern technology. The language contact
resulted in different morphological and phonological processes and examples are
given on how such loanwords became integrated in the dialect to the extent that
some eminent folk-poets did not hesitate in using them in their poetry. In the
appendix, a list of loanwords is given with their meanings and origins.

Keywords: bilingualism, borrowing, codeswitching, Hadramı̄ Arabic,

˙ ˙
loanwords, Yemeni Arabic

Introduction
Hadramı̄ Arabic (HA) is an Arabic dialect spoken by the people living in the
˙ ˙
Hadramawt1 Governorate in Yemen. It is also spoken by many Yemeni
˙ ˙
emigrants who migrated from Hadramawt to East Africa (Kenya, Somalia and
˙ ˙
Tanzania), South-east Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore) and,
recently, to the Arabian Gulf countries.
The home-and-away journeys of the Hadramı̄s resulted in influence from
˙ ˙
three main cultural and linguistic sources in Hadramawt: Malaysian, East
˙ ˙
African and Indian (Khan, 1983: 17). Obviously the immigration, settlement
and
in a number of cases
return with foreign wives and children to the
homeland enriched the Hadramı̄ culture and vernacular. The children of the
˙ ˙
immigrant fathers were certainly bilingual: they spoke Arabic with their
fathers and Malay, or one of the Bantu languages
generally Swahili
or
Urdu with their mothers (Khan, 1983: 17).
Some of these bilinguals are highly motivated to become more proficient in
both Arabic and the native languages of their host countries. This is due to the
fact that they do not want themselves to be stigmatised for speaking Arabic
with a foreign accent, especially when they go to visit their place of origin,
Hadramawt (Al-Saqqaf, 2001: 173).
˙ ˙
Loanwords and borrowing in many European languages have been studied
in many linguistic settings (cf. earlier works such as Fishman & Cooper, 1971;
Haugen, 1950; Weinreich, 1964; Whiteley, 1971). Loanwords in Arabic have
been studied in many works, including Abu-Haidar (1988), which deals with
English words in Iraqi Arabic. Bahumaid (1990) is on English words in Adeni

1367-0050/06/01 075-19 $20.00/0 – 2006 A.H. Al-Saqqaf

The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 9, No. 1, 2006

75
76 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Arabic, another significant Yemeni Arabic dialect spoken at the port of Aden,
which was a British colony until 1967. Loanwords in the Arabian Gulf Region
are dealt with in Smeaton (1973) on Al-Hasā dialect and Smart (1994), which is
˙
a short review on linguistic borrowing in the dialects of the Gulf states. In the
North African countries there are Dhaouadi (1986) and Heath (1989), which
are on codeswitching and borrowing within a sociolinguistic perspective.
Dhaouadi (1996) is mainly a sociological treatment of the use of Arabic
French
codeswitching by female speakers as a protest phenomenon against social
discrimination.
The present study is data oriented in the sense that its main aim is to record
and discuss some of the loanwords in HA. It is not a study on the theory of
borrowing or codeswitching as linguistics subdisciplines. It is hoped that it
will be of some interest to researchers in different disciplines of the humanities
(including linguists and dialectologists) who want to observe diachronic and
synchronic changes in this Arabic dialect. For a more elaborate description of
the phonology, morphology and syntax of HA, see al-Saqqaf (1999).2

Geographical and Sociolinguistic Distribution

Reflecting upon Hadramı̄ Hijrah , or ‘diaspora’, one may recall Sir Richard
˙ ˙
Burton’s quote: ‘It is generally said that the sun does not rise upon a land that
does not contain a man from Hadramawt’ (Burton, 1966: 58). When the
˙ ˙
Hadramı̄s, and indeed other Yemenis, migrated to different parts of the world,
˙ ˙
language contact led to many non-Arabic words infiltrating HA vocabulary.
HA has a number of loanwords taken from different source languages (SLs).
These include English, Malay
Indonesian languages (MIL), Swahili and the
languages of the Indian subcontinent (see Map 1).

Map 1 Hadramı̄ emigration in the Indian Ocean region (after Boxberger, 2002: 46)
˙ ˙
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 77
˙ ˙
The beginning of Yemeni emigration to South-east Asia can be traced to the
16th century when a religious scholar called Sheikh Abdullah came to Kedah
Sultante (Abushouk, 2003: 55). Yemenis travelled in the Indian Ocean region
for many centuries. The rapid expansion of steam lines and telegraph lines
throughout the region enhanced travel and communication among the
Hadramı̄ emigrant communities, the trading network, and between the
˙ ˙
emigrant communities and the homeland (Boxberger, 2002: 40).
Although it is difficult to determine when and how the Hadramı̄s first came
˙ ˙
to Africa, it seems that their migrations were uninterrupted until the end of
3
WWII (le Guennec-Coppens, 1997: 156). There were at least two significant
periods in which such migrations took place, namely the first from the 13th to
the 16th century and the second from the 16th to the 18th to the 20th century
(p. 156). Most of the emigrants were illiterate workers (cf. p. 157) and did not
engage themselves in trades or big businesses. Some of them got married to
African women and brought up children there but this was on a limited scale.
This was probably due to the fact that, unlike their fellows who migrated to
South-east Asia, it was easy for many men to come back to Hadramawt now
˙ ˙
and then to visit their Hadramı̄ wives.4 The vocabulary reflected, interestingly,
˙ ˙
registers totally differently from loanwords of South-east Asian or Indian
origins.
There are words related to black magic like wgānga ‘madness’ (from Swahili
uganga ‘native medicine, black magic’), āl bā-namkūba ‘the Africans’ (from
Swahili bwana mkuba ‘the respected people, gentlemen’), bā tayyārı̄ ‘a place
name in Seiyun, after a place name in East Africa known as amba ˙ tayyari ’ (note
the use of HA prefix bā- ‘father of. . .’ in such loans from Swahili), or personal
names such as tangawı̄zı̄ (tāngā for short) (from Swahili tangawizi ‘ginger’).
Sometimes a whole phrase is borrowed, like the following, which is a
phonological and near-semantic translation between HA and Swahili:
mı̄mı̄ kama wēwe w wēwe kama mı̄mı̄
‘Mimi is like Wewe and Wewe is like Mimi’5
a (rather vulgar) proverb which means the same as the other HA inti kama
uxtiš, w uxtiš kamāš ‘you are like your sister, and your sister is like you f.
sing. (i.e. all are the same)’.6 Sometimes loanwords of Swahili origin creep into
certain HA expressions to give more irony or humour as in:

mā fı̄ ’ard̄ il-bahr yga‘ takbı̄d māhu akil mtēnda

˙ ˙
as for in land the -sea it-becomes hard not eating date
work fruit

‘As for abroad, it is hard work, not (like) eating dates’ (Swahili tende date
fruit)
English loanwords were introduced to the dialect very recently in
comparison with other foreign languages. The British (who were colonising
Aden) signed with the local rulers of the region Protection Treaties in 1939 and
Hadramawt became known as the Aden Eastern Protectorate. Unlike the
˙ ˙
language situation in Aden Colony, there were no British settlers in
Hadramawt and, therefore, there was no direct linguistic contact between
˙ ˙
78 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

HA and English. However, some English loanwords were introduced to the

dialect, but this was through a third party, i.e. the Adeni/Indian personnel of
the British administration who used to work in government offices and
agricultural projects, banks etc. There were very few English native speakers
in high-ranking positions. For example in coastal Hadramawt, there was the
˙ ˙
British Resident Advisor in Mukallā and some of his staff as well as the
personnel in Rayyān Air Base. In the Wādı̄, there used to be a British
representative for the Resident Advisor and the Manager of the Hadramawt
˙ ˙
Pump Scheme. It is clear that, with such limited contacts, English loanwords
were introduced to HA through other Arabic dialects, mainly Adeni. It is also
clear, from the examples below, that the direct SL variety in some cases was not
British but, rather, Indian or East African.

SL driver
drēwal , drēwil ‘driver, chauffeur’

SL valve
wāl ‘mechanical valve’7
SL dismiss
dı̄smı̄s ‘screwdriver’8
SL Christmas
krismis ‘New Year party’
SL goal
gōl ‘football’ (now replaced by krat il-gadam B
Standard Arabic kurat al-qadam )

Other Source Languages

By examining a number of HA words which do not sound Arabic in the
light of comparing them with other neighbouring dialects, one may come
across loanwords that were loaned to HA through such dialects. Thus there
are a few Persian words found in the dialect of Al-Hasa (Smeaton, 1973: 79)
˙
that have HA cognates. This does not mean that we assume that such words
came from an Eastern dialect like Al-Hasa’s, as Hadramawt had strong
˙ ˙ ˙
contacts with the Indian subcontinent and its linguistic surroundings (al-
Khalidi, 1986: 136). But, at the same time, this does not rule out recent loans
that were brought with the return of new emigrant workers from the Gulf
states in recent times. It is possible also that some of these words came to HA
through Adeni which had, among other loans, some Persian words like bandar
‘natural port’ and daftar ‘register’ (Bahumaid, 1990: 41). Other words from
Persian include:

(rādı̄) rummān/ ‘a variety of violet Brummāl ‘handkerchief’9

rummāl turban’
sāmān ‘furniture; tools’ Bsāmān the same meaning

Loanwords in HA are distributed geographically (interior versus coastal

Hadramawt) as well as sociolinguistically. Thus, due to contacts between
˙ ˙
Hadramawt and the Indian subcontinent, loanwords from Indian origin
˙ ˙
(mainly Urdu) are common in coastal urban centres.10 Words related to Indian
building and architecture, which was introduced by Hadramı̄ rulers (mainly
˙ ˙
the Qu‘aitı̄ family who ruled from Mukallā in coastal Hadramawt) who
˙ ˙ ˙
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 79
˙ ˙
remigrated to their homeland from India, are quite common. Thus, according
to al-Khalidi (1986: 150, which has a good bibliography on the history of the
Hadramı̄s in the Indian subcontinent), the Qu‘aitı̄ state in Hadramawt had
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
benefited a lot from the relationship between Had˙ramawt and Haidarabād:
˙ ˙ ˙
Thus, the administrative system was similar to its counterpart in
Hydarābd. The architecture of the government buildings in Mukallā
˙
was of Victorian
Indian style. Urdu language was spoken in the streets
and public places and even Hadramı̄ women used to wear Indian
˙ ˙
saris. . .
Today the HA lexicon contains loanwords like bangalih ‘bungalow’, rōšan ‘a
kind of balcony’ (BPersian adj. ‘light’), šabriyyih ‘bed seat’, brawta (interior
HA barāwtah ) ‘parata, a variety of bread like a layered pancake and ˙ bāġ ‘a
˙
palace with a park’, a word which probably came from Turkic through Persian,
which means ‘garden’ in its origin.
As for the Hadramı̄s of the Wādı̄ (interior Hadramawt) who have migrated
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
to South-east Asia since the 17th century, they introduced many MIL words
into HA. The vocabulary, too, covers a limited range of register, mainly
cookery, clothing and a few other household equipment and machinery, which
were all brought to Hadramawt by such emigrants.11 Words related to food
˙ ˙
like sambal ‘fried cooking’12 in combinations like sanbal hanı̄d ‘dried ground
˙
˙ blacan
fish fried with onions’, sanbal blāšān ‘a sanbal of [blačan] ‘‘shrimp
˙ ˙
paste’’’, sanbal hāb ‘dry sanbal ’ etc., can be heard, not only among families with
South-east˙ Asian links ˙in the big towns of the Wādı̄, but also among others
including families with no history of immigration.
The sociolinguistic distribution of loanwords can be seen in the speech
communities formed by different strata of the society. Thus wealthy families of
contacts with the Indian subcontinent or South-east Asia were well known for
using loanwords of Indian origin in the urban centres of coastal Hadramawt,
˙ ˙
or loanwords of South-east Asian origin in the Wādı̄. In some bilingual
families, codeswitching is also common.

The Linguistics of Loanwords in HA

Language contact is generally viewed inter alia in terms of differences and
dissimilarities between the languages in contact within the domains of
phonology, morphology, syntax and vocabulary. Such differences result in
the adaptation of the SL linguistic forms to the recipient language (RL)
patterns. The outcome normally results in a number of psycholinguistic
processes on the part of the RL native speaker in an effort to produce a
satisfactory reproduction of the SL form. These processes are similar to what
we have in foreign language learning and child language. Below are some of
the major processes with examples from phonology and morphology.

Underdifferentiation
In this process, a number of forms in the SL are not distinguished by the RL
speaker. Thus plural distinction in English ‘foot/feet’ is not recognised by
80 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Arabic speakers when the word ‘foot’ was loaned as fūt in different Yemeni
Arabic varieties in an example like tūluh talātih fūt ‘it measures three feet’.
¯ ¯
When European languages borrowed˙ Arabic words with the definite article
al- , this article was retained as part of the word in the RL, thus al-
jabr
‘algebra’, al-qubbah
‘alcove’ etc. English p and b are underdifferen-
tiated by the Arabs in loanwords like Adeni Arabic futbāt BEnglish ‘footpath’
and bulbēring/bulbring BEnglish ‘ball-bearing’ and bı̄bı̄ BBP (referring to Aden
Refinery owned previously by BP). The sounds f and z are not found
in Indonesian in words of native origin, but occur in many words
derived from Arabic. In some cases these sounds are actually pronounced as
normal Indonesian [p] and [ž] and thus their foreign origin is obscured
(Padmodisastro, 1962: 43).

Overdifferentiation
In this process, the RL speaker imposes a distinctive feature present in his
language that the SL lacks. Thus English has only one t phoneme in words like
‘watt’ and ‘tyre’, but when they were loaned to HA they were rendered with
two different phonemes, namely t and t in wāt and tāyir (due to the vocalic
emphatic environment in the Arabic˙ rendering˙ of the words).

Overgeneralisation
In this process, RL violates SL grammar by using a general rule as in the use
of the English past marker -ed by Arabic speakers in irregular verbs.

Overcorrection
In this process, an RL native speaker has an overawareness towards a
certain SL grammatical peculiarity. Trying to avoid a mistake in producing a
foreign language form, he overcorrects himself as in the case of Egyptian
Arabic native speakers who confuse t with s in Classical Arabic or English
¯
words like Ar. sanā’ ‘brightness; splendour’ or Eng. ‘Smith’. If the process is
exaggerated it is termed hypercorrection.
Some loans were introduced to HA through a median language. Evidence
of this is from the phonology of words like HA wāl , rēwis and drēwil , which
came from Eng. ‘valve’, ‘reverse’ and ‘driver’ respectively. According to the
type of sound replacement made by Arab students learning English, the
expected sound in Arabic which would substitute Eng. v would be f rather
than w. 13 In Indian English, w and v have both merged into a voiced
labiodental approximant [y] (cf. O’Connor, 1971: 174; Trudgill & Hannah, 1982:
105; Wells, 1983, among others), which is perceived by Arabic native speakers
as w. It is quite obvious that such English loans came to HA through Indian
English or through Arabic native speakers who spoke Indian English.
Due to the fact that many loanwords were introduced to HA through such
medians and because the SLs themselves are many, it is thought that it would
be better if we confine ourselves to one SL when attempting to explore the
major language transfer processes. The languages which are chosen for this
contrastive analysis are MIL (with their different dialects like Javaene), all
known in Hadramawt as malāyū or jāwı̄ . This choice is due to the fact, as has
˙ ˙
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 81
˙ ˙
already be stated, that Hadramawt enjoyed very good relations with South-
˙ ˙
east Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia and language contact
between HA and MIL is a first-hand contact rather than through a median
language or through a non-native speakers model. The second reason is that in
the data we have, the most common loanwords are MIL.

Loan-word Phonology
The phonological shape of loanwords in HA, like other situations of
language contacts, differs significantly from its shape in the SL. It is sometimes
very difficult to find an explanation of such sound change. As Haugen (1950):
216) rightly puts it, ‘Since we cannot follow the fate of individual words and
their expressions from their earliest introduction, we can only guess at the
factors that have influenced the form of any given word’ (my emphasis). It is
sometimes very difficult to find an explanation of such sound change. We do
not know sometimes whether such differences are due to the phonological
systems of the SL and the RL or because of some other factors like an
interlanguage phonological phase through which emigrants evolved a con-
stantly changing pronunciation.

Major phonological processes in loanword phonology14

In order to make an accurate exhaustive description of the phonology of
loanwords in HA, a detailed contrastive study should be carried out.
However, as such a study would be more appropriate for an application in
a language teaching situation or such, and not a limited scope like this, the
writer depended mainly on his native speaker’s intuition of HA and on
general phonetic knowledge of the SL. In addition to that, some references on
Malay and Indonesian were consulted and the pronunciation of SL words was
checked by native speakers. Below are some of the major types of psycho-
linguistic/phonological processes that are in the representative list of MIL
loanwords in HA:

Syllabic phonology
Gemination:
HA tends to geminate consonants as in CvCCv(C) patterns. Thus

SL petis
battēs ‘a variety of shrimp paste’

SL getah
gittih ‘rubber’
SL sepatu
sfattu ‘shoes’
SL sirkaya rebus
sirkāyih rubbus ‘steamed/boiled pudding’

Initial clustering
Initial consonant clusters are common in HA. They are realisations of
underlying forms like jCuC-j as in glūb Bjquluubj ‘hearts’ or ji /uC-C-j in
jlis Bjij-lisj and g‘ud Bjuq-‘udj ‘Sit down!’ m. sing. For such reasons, the first
two syllables in polysyllabic words in SL are reduced into one with a
consonant cluster. Thus
82 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

SL belacan
blēšān ‘shrimp paste’

SL seterika
(i)strı̄kah ‘iron (tool)’
SL kemeja
kmējih ‘shirt’ (cf. Ar. qamı̄s )
˙
SL komedi
kmı̄dı̄ ‘play’ n.
SL kereta
krētā ‘cart’
SL kerabu
krābū ‘eardrop, pendant for the ear’
SL kerupuk
krūbū ‘crackers’
SL sepatu
sfattū ‘shoes’
SL sepeda
sfēdā ‘bicycle’
SL selasar
slēsār/srēsār ‘a house with a verandas’
SL terus
trūs ‘ direct, straight away’
SL kelambu
klāmbū ‘net for protection from mosquitoes’

Final -h addition
Final -h (hā’ al-sakt ‘the ‘h’ of silence’) is common in HA as it is in many
other Arabic dialects. In Standard Arabic it is realised as -ah when it occurs as
a feminine marker, as in sanah ‘year’, qissah ‘story’ and ša‘rah ‘(single) hair’. In
HA, the first word would be realised˙ ˙ as sanih , which means that we can
generalise that final -h should always be preceded by i except in emphatic
environment (in the case of the last two examples the emphatic environment is
the s and r respectively). In loanword phonology, final -a(h) or -e of SL is
˙
normally treated as a feminine -h and thus realised as -ih , -eh or
ah ,
according to the emphatic/nonemphatic environment. Thus

SL getah
gittih ‘rubber’

SL seterika
(i)strı̄kah ‘iron (tool)’
SL kemeja
kmējih ‘shirt’
SL kaca
kāših ‘glass’
SL kue
kwēh ‘cake’
SL sirkaya
sirkāyih ‘pudding’

Vowel lengthening
Certain vowel qualities do not exist in HA except as long vowels. Thus the
vowel [e] may occur in the dialect but only as long ē as in bēt ‘house’. For this
reason, any short vowel of an [e] quality in SL may be rendered as long [e:] by
HA native speakers:

SL blek
blēg ‘big tin, bucket’

However, sometimes the syllable structure rules in HA determine that a

vowel should be lengthened. Thus when a short i , e or u occur in a SL word,
there is the possibility that they become ı̄ , ē or ū respectively according to
syllable structure rules.

SL belecan
blēšān ‘shrimp paste’

SL gudir 15
gūdı̄r ‘a variety of jelly’
SL kacang
kāšān ‘peanuts’
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 83
˙ ˙
SL kawat
kāwit ‘wire, telegram’
SL kaus
kāwis ‘socks’
SL sayur
sāyūr ‘vegetable soup’

Emphasis
Phranyngealization or emphasis in Arabic is not only segmental but it is also
a syllabic feature. Thus in words with emphatic consonants, emphasis extends
to neighbouring vowels, giving them a back and/or low (i.e. open) quality.
This one-to-one relation between emphatic consonants and back and/or low
vowels can be also seen as a phonological process in borrowing. Thus English
proper names like Thompson or Watt are rendered in Arabic with emphatic t
and s as tumsun and wātt. Similarly, when an Indonesian or Malay word has ˙
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
an a of a back quality, the tendency is for that quality to affect the
neighbouring consonants when this word is borrowed into HA. Thus:

SL smabal
sanbal ‘fried vegetable (with shrimps or the like’

˙
SL sanki’
sankı̄‘ ‘stupid person’16
˙
SL potlot
futlut ‘pencil’
˙ ˙
SL coklat
suxlat /suxlut ‘chocolate’
˙ ˙ ˙
SL sarung
sārūn ‘sarong’
˙

Segment substitution

p
f
SL putlut
futlut ‘pencil’
˙ ˙
SL sepatu
sfattu ‘shoes’
SL sepeda
sfēda ‘bicycle’
SL koper
kōfar ‘metal box’
SL piring
fı̄rı̄n ‘dish, plate’
p
b
SL tempat makan
tambat/tambat ‘a layered food container (for take
˙
mākan away)’
SL setrup
sitrub ‘a variety of fruit drink’
SL kerupuk
krūbu ‘(prawn) crackers’
[č]
š
SL kaca
kāših ‘glass’
SL kacamata
kāšamāta ‘eye-glasses’
SL kacang
kāšān ‘peanuts’
[ž]
z 17
SL jagung
zāgūm ‘corn (maize)’
[E]
ng
SL Bangil [baEil]
bāngı̄l [ba:Egi:l] ‘a town in East Java’18
SL ungu [uyu]
unyu [uygu] ‘violet’
84 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

[E]
n
SL sarung [saruE]
sārūn ‘sarong’
˙
u
w
SL tuan
twan ‘a gentleman from South-east Asia’
’
‘
SL rujak (kglottal stop)
rūja‘ ‘salad made of cucumber’

Syllable deletion
Sometimes a whole syllable of a foreign word is elided, as in the case of sulih
˙ ˙
grāmis , the Peace (Treaty) of Ingrams (Rentz, 1951: 372 sulh grams [sic]) named
after the well known British explorer and politician Harold Ingrams, who
played an important role in politics when Hadramawt was a British
˙ ˙
protectorate. Consider also the following verse of poetry when the British
bombarded al-Ghurfah, the territory of the rebel bin-‘Ibdāt (probably,
Standard Arabic, ’ibn-‘Abdāt):
raddōš ya l-ġurfah kama barlı̄n mistar grāmis w šambarlı̄n
‘Oh (town of) al-Ghurfah! Ingrams and Chamberlain made you like
Berlin (devastated, ruins)’

Morphological and syntactical integration

Morphology and syntax are the linguistic level through which we can
examine the integration of loanwords in the RL. As Bahumaid (1990: 30)
maintains:
A loan word can be said to have been fully integrated, from the
grammatical point of view, if after taking on a phonological shape
typical to the RL it acquires morphological affixes appropriate to that
language, and functions in sentences as a native word of some syntactic
category.
Thus when a word like the English ‘loafer’ is loaned to HA as rōfal , it develops
other derivations like the pl. rōfalāt ‘loafers’, v. tmarfal ‘he became a loafer’, n.
mirfālih ‘state of being loafer’ etc. Consider the following examples:

SL Indonesian terus ‘direct, straight away’

HA tarras ‘he went straight away’
HA tarrasit ‘I/you (m. sing. ) went straight away’
HA mtirris ‘he is going straight away’

Most loanwords in HA are now alternating with other forms including

Fushā, other loans from different SLs or with other forms from other Arabic
˙˙
dialects. This is determined by many sociolinguistic factors, among which
are the educational status of the speaker, the subspeech community,
family affiliation (whether speakers have links with emigrant families)
as well as register and style. As HA speakers and the Yemeni community
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 85
˙ ˙
in general have been witnessing rapid social change in the past decade,
many loanwords, especially of South-east Asian origin, are becoming
obsolete.
The integration of loanwords in HA can be attested also in HA poetry
where poets do not hesitate in using such ‘foreign’ vocabulary in their poetry.
Thus in the 1930s, when the poet ‘Umar ‘Idah visited the city of Seiyun which
˙
included Abū Bakr bin Shaikh al-Kāf’s palace, the only electricity-lit house in
the city then, he said (loanwords in bold type)19:
nahnā dxallnā dāxil is-siddih
˙
blād fı̄hā l-istrik, fı̄hā
būbakir bū sagāf luh kilmih
w il-xālig il-jabbār yahmı̄hā
˙
We entered inside (Seiyun’s) gate
A town (lit) with electricity
Where Abū Bakr (father of Saqqāf) had authority
And God almighty protects it.
Consider also the following old song in which the word sfēdā (BMIL
speda BDutch spaaider ‘cart’) is used instead of the modern sēkal ‘bicycle’.
Note also the word mawātir (sing. mōtar BEng. motor ):
sēwōn rij‘it kama jāwah
fı̄ha mawātir w tayyārah
˙
w ahl is-sfēdāt yitmaššūn
Seiyun became like Java.
There are cars and aeroplane in it.
And the riders of bicycles were strolling
Consider also the following verses by the emigrant Hadramı̄ poet Al-Ahmadı̄,
˙ ˙ ˙
which he wrote in the early 20s of the past century in Hyderabad (text
excerpted from al-Saqqāf, 1995: 22):
gāl il-g‘ēti tūl wagtı̄ mā thannēt ir-rgūd
˙ ˙
šēbih fı̄ it-tis‘ı̄n mitwijjih ila dār il-xlūd
...
wa lā ‘alai gāsir wa lā is-sirkāl yitlubnā ngūd
axbār balġat mā ˙ tsir il-galb fı̄ safh˙ in-njūd
˙
rāhat balad lahgāf lahmat fās sarhat b il-brūd
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
rāhat m‘a is-sāhib balā gı̄mih wa lā ‘sillim ngūd!’
˙ ˙
˙ ˙fı̄ha al-kanāyis w il-barākis l il-jnūd
w šayyadaw
āhin ‘ala l-awtān yā gubni ‘ala matwā l-judūd
˙

The (poet) al-Qu‘aitı̄ said: ‘I didn’t enjoy any sleep.

˙ my nineties, making myself ready to leave this
(I am) an old man, in
world.’
...
‘Nothing (I require) is unavailable, and the Government does not
claim me money.
86 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

(But) there are (bad) news that came from (home,) the plateau land.
The land of al-Ahqāf has gone with the wind, like a mouthful of
˙
meet.
It has gone with the Sahib, worthless, (even) without paying money.
They have established (in it) churches, barracks for (their) soldiers.
Oh, my homeland; what unfairness (was made) to the land of our
forefathers.’
Al-Ahmadı̄ was a poet from the tribe of Yāfi‘, to whom the Qu‘aitı̄ clan belong.
˙ ˙ sultans of
In his poem, he was criticising the Protection Treaty that the
Hadramawt had signed with the British in 1938 (al-Saqqāf, 1995). As a folk
˙ ˙
poet, it was not unusual that a few loanwords infiltrated into his poetry. These
words reflect the influence of the languages (including English) of the Indian
subcontinent such as sirkāl (Hindi: government), barākis (English: barracks)
and, interestingly enough, sāhib , an Arabic word (literally: friend) loaned to
˙ ˙
Hindi and Indian English, which is used in the speech of (Indian) Haderamis
to mean ‘Master, Landlord, Boss etc.’

Loanwords and Pseudo-codeswitching in HA

The use of loanwords in HA can depend greatly on style and register. When
a Hadramı̄ meets a muwallad , i.e. someone who was born abroad (in this case
˙ ˙
in South-east Asia) with a marked foreign accent, the tendency is to use
‘foreigner talk’ with him, using as many MIL words as possible.20 Of course,
this depends on the HA native speaker’s family affiliation, i.e. whether he
comes from a family with past links with South-east Asia. Consider the
following example (loans in bold type):
twan, šil galı̄l kurmah
‘Sir, have (i.e. eat) some dates!’
The other situation in which loanwords can be used, but this time among
native speakers of HA themselves, is when talking about something, or when
the general atmosphere is, ‘South-east Asian’ as in:
A-min d̄āk m‘a šakı̄b? šakluh twan.
‘Who is that with Shakı̄b? He looks South-east Asian.
B-n‘am, ‘āduh twan bāgus!
‘Yes. He looks a real (true) South-east Asian’
(Ind. tuan gentleman; bagus good)

Codeswitching between Arabic and Swahili can also occur in the speech of
Hadramı̄s who have migrated to East Africa, especially in quarters of towns
˙ ˙
where there were many re-emigrants from East Africa.

HA Words in Southeast Asian Languages

As a language of a Muslim nation, Malay contains many loanwords from
Arabic, which are documented in Beg (1985: 198, 203). It is interesting to note
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 87
˙ ˙
that the phonological transfer of some words reveals traces of features peculiar
to Yemeni Arabic and these include, among other things, lateralisation of d .
˙
Thus, Arabic ramadān is Malay Ramadlan ‘Ramadan’, and Arabic dab‘ is Malay
˙ ˙
Dlubu’ ‘Hyena’. This may indicate that the first Arabic
Malay contact was
through speakers of Arabic whose dialects have a lateral d (phonetically:
˙
voiced emphatic lateral fricative), a pronunciation quite common in some
21
parts of Yemen, including parts of Hadramawt.
˙ ˙
Hokkien Chinese, the language of the Chinese community in Malaysia and
Singapore, has some words from HA. The Hokkiens were mainly a trading
and pirate community, and thus tended to be present in coastal trading towns
and ports in South-east Asia
precisely where the Malay language spread and
Hadramı̄s were found too. This led to some linguistic contacts, which have not
˙ ˙
been investigated so far. Words like HA sankı̄‘ , which means ‘stupid person’,
came from the Chinese sinkheh (sin ‘new’,˙kheh ‘guest’). Hadramı̄ Arabic words
˙ ˙
were also loaned to Hokkien Chinese, e.g. Chinese geram BHA ġarām
22
‘madness’ and Chinese akai BMalay akal BArabic ‘aql ‘wisdom’ (Engseng
Ho, pers comm).

Conclusion
The effect of Hadramı̄ migration to South-east Asia, the Indian subcontinent
˙ ˙
and East Africa on HA is diminishing. With the reunification of Yemen and the
return of many Hadramı̄s from neighbouring countries to Hadramawt, HA
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
vocabulary is witnessing many changes and many of the MIL, Swahili and
English loans are disappearing, especially in the speech of young people. The
spread of literacy and media has contributed to a great extent in the
development of vocabulary, so that it is common now to find neologisms
from MSA and other neighbouring Arabic dialects in the HA present-day
lexicon that replace former loanwords. Future lexicographic and sociolinguis-
tic research on HA vocabulary would be needed to shed more light on topics
like new loans and neologism.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Dr A. Al-Saqqaf, Department of
English, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman (saqqaf@squ.edu.om).

Notes
1. The name is also spelt Hadhramawt or Hadhramout . The adjective is also spelt
Hadhrami.
2. The transliteration system of Arabic is that of Hans Wehr’s Arabic
English
Dictionary. The only departure from Wehr’s system is my use of d̄ instead of z ,
for the voiced interdental emphatic fricative. ˙ ˙
3. For the migration of Hadramı̄s to South-east Asia, especially see Boxberger (2002:
˙ ˙
39
63), Freitag and Clarence-Smith (1997) and Al-Saqqaf (2001).
4. This may reveal the fact that there are less African as opposed to South-east Asian
muwalladı̄n ‘half-castes’ in Hadramawt.
5. The Swahili phrase means ‘I˙ am ˙ like you and you are like me’. Mı̄mı̄ and Wēwā are
not personal names but its quite clear that the whole expression was borrowed
phonologically from Swahili to mean something like the HA expression ‘intı̄ kama
uxtiš w uxtiš kamāš ’ ‘you are like your sister and your sister is like you’. The
88 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

original meaning of the Swahili expression is not very much different from the HA
one, which could be described as a ‘multilevelled translation’ i.e. a translation
equivalent that happened to be at both the semantic and the phonological levels
(but, of course, not at the morphological level). By way of analogy, an example
from English and Fushāa is ‘euophoria’ and fawrat (al-hamās) .
6. Other equivalents are˙ HA ˙ subbuh, rudduh and Adeni Ar.˙‘ali bin ‘ali , all meaning the
same thing: ‘if you try to look ˙ at a certain matter from different angles or to solve a
problem by trying different approaches, you will come to the same result’.
7. An electronic valve in an old radio is called glub/lambat ir-rādyū (glub ‘bulb’).
8. The word exists also in San‘ānı̄ as dismı̄s (Watson, 1993: 21) with the same meaning.
9. This word is from Indian Persian. It is formed from ru which means ‘face’ and mal
which means ‘rub, clean’. I am indebted for this clarification to Farook Barbakazi.
10. According to al-Khalidi (1986: 136; 1997: 67), the sūfı̄ s of Hadramawt, particularly
the ā-Al‘aydarūs family, were among the first who˙ migrated ˙ India in the middle
˙ to
ages. They settled in big commercial and political centres such as Gojrat, Ahmed
Abad, Surat etc. They played a great role in the spiritual, cultural, linguistic and
political life in these regions of the Indian subcontinent. In his forthcoming
al-farazdaqiyyāt fi l-ši‘r al-hadramı̄, ‘Alı̄ b. Muhammad Al-Saqqāf makes a detailed
study of three eminent H˙ad˙ rami poets in Haidarabād,˙ namely the ‘ālim Abū-Bakr
˙ ˙
b. Shihāb, the linguist Saif b. Husein Al-Qu‘aitı̄ and the poet Al-Ahmadı̄. Al-Qu‘aitı̄
wrote a number of very important ˙ books on HA ˙
˙ which are still in manuscript ˙
form.
11. See for example an article entitled ‘al-frakı̄r ( the solicitor)’ in Majllat al-Rabitah al-
‘Alawiyyah (Anonymous, 1349 H), which lists 50 Indonesian words in the Arabic ˙ of
Hadramı̄ emigrants in Indoneisa.
12. I˙ am˙ indebted to Mrs Nuning M.K. Masjkuri, MD, MPH, DRPH, of Indonesia, who
kindly checked the spelling of the Indonesian words which were loaned into HA.
Some words are from general Ind(onesian), others are from the Jav(anese) dialect
or Malay. Words with an asterisk are now obsolete.
13. As in tilfizyōn, fidyō, fimtō , all from Eng. ‘television’, ‘video’ and ‘Vimto’ (brand
name of fruit-drink).
14. MIL is transliterated in normal orthography. The following convention should be
noted: c is [č], ng is [E] and postvocalic final k is a glottal stop. In HA, ng are a
sequence of [E] and [g].
15. HA permits CiCiC as in (the Fusha loan) gidir (qidr ) ‘sauspan’, but not CuCiC . As
elswhere mentioned, the CuCiC ˙pattern ˙ of apophonic passive is rendered as CCiC ,
thus qutil
gtil ‘he was killed’.
16. This word is from Hokkien Chinese. It means literally ‘new guest’. It has the
connotation of ‘fresh off the boat’ or ‘wet back’. It means ‘someone who doesn’t
know the ropes, needs help, is raw, gets things a little wrong’. (I am indebted for
this explanation to Enseng Ho of Harvard University.) See also the section: HA
words in Southeast Asian languages.
17. The reverse is also possible. I have heard the Hadramı̄ name bājray (Fushā bājuray
B j’abā jurayj) Bā-Juray, being pronounced by ˙
˙ Indonesians as bazri . ˙ ˙
18. Also a name of a Hadramı̄ family (āl-bāngı̄l ) who got the name after their migration
to Bangil, East Java. ˙ ˙
19. For life in Hadramawt in the 1930s, Hadramı̄ architecture and the distinguished
˙ ˙
personage Abū-Bakr bin Shaikh ak-Kāf, ˙ Boxberger (2002).
˙ see
20. cf. Heath (1989: 178) for a similar situation to some extent in Moroccan Arabic.
21. For lateral d in Yemeni Arabic, see Watson (2002: 2).
22. In Standard˙ Arabic, ġarām means ‘love, passion, fondness’.
23. stempel is the origin of šabbih according to Majallat Al-Raabitah al‘Alawiyyah
(Anonymous: 1346 H [1930 AD]: 243), but it is clear that there ˙ is very little
phonological resemblance and, therefore, it is possible that it came from a totally
different source. Dr Farook Barbakazai suggests that this word is from the Urdu
šabih (Ar. šabı̄h ‘double, duplicate, image’), which means ‘face, picture on a stamp’.
It is also possible that the word is from the Hindi word čop , which means ‘to print’.
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 89
˙ ˙
24. The form tablat makalān (Ar. roots {tbl} ‘container; drum’ and {’kl} ‘food’) also
exists. This˙ can be seen as an example˙ of ‘multi-levelled’ translation in which both
the phonological and semantic levels are nearly equivalent.
25. This word is pronounced with a d̄ rather than d on the assumption that it was
borrowed through Adeni Arabic in which d , unlike HA alveolar d , is dental. This
may explain why Adeni d is sometimes perceived by HA native speakers as d̄,
especially when it is intervocalic.

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˙ ˙
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˙ ˙
Anonymous (1349 H) al-frakı̄r. Majallat al-Rabitah al-‘Alawiyyah 1 (4), 242
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Appendix
Representative List of Loanwords in HA

Words with * are now obsolete.
MIL words: (Ind.Indonesian, Jav.Javanese)

HA word Origin Gloss

agar agar Bagar-agar (Ind.) ‘jelly (sweet)’
‘ammāri Balmari (Ind. probably ‘cupboard’
BPortuguese)
bāsi Bbasi (Jav.) ‘big dish’
battēs Bpetis (Ind./Jav.) ‘a variety of shrimp paste’
blēg Bblek (Jav.) ‘big tin, bucket’
blēšān Bbelacan (Malay) ‘shrimp paste’
bunkus Bbungkus (Ind./Jav.) ‘parcel’
fı̄rı̄n Bpiring (Ind., Jav.) ‘dish’
gittih Bgetah (Malay) ‘rubber’
gūdı̄r Bgudir (Jav.) ‘a variety of jelly’
istrı̄kah* Bseterika (Ind.) ‘iron (tool)’
kāšān Bkacang (Ind./Jav.) ‘peanut’
kāwis (kāki)* Bkaus kaki (Ind./Jav.) ‘socks’
kāwit* Bkawat (Jav./Malay) ‘wire, telegram’
kāyin Bkemeja (Ind.) ‘(underwear) vest; sweater’
kmējih* Bkemeja (Ind.) ‘shirt’
krābu Bkerabu (Malay) ‘eardrop, pendant for the ear’
krēta* Bkereta (Ind.) ‘cart’
krūbu Bkerupuk (Ind./Jav.) ‘crackers’
kāših* Bkaca (Ind) ‘mirror; glass
(substance)’
kāšamāta* Bkacamata (Ind.) ‘eye-glasses’
Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 91
˙ ˙
kōfar Bkoper (Ind., Jav.) ‘metal box’ probably from
Dutch: koffer
klāmbū? Bkelambu (Ind.) ‘net for protection from
˙
mosquitoes’
kwēh Bkue (Ind./Jav.) ‘cake’
kwēh lābis Bkue lapis (Ind./Jav) ‘a cake made of different
layers’
listrik BMIL/Dutch/English ‘electricity’
rūkū Brokok ‘tobacco’
rūja‘* Brujak (Ind./Jav.) ‘salad made of cucumber’
šabbih probablyBstempel 23 ‘stamp (mark)’
sanbal Bsambal (Ind.) ‘fried vegetable (with
˙ shrimps
or the like)’
sankı̄‘ Bsanki’ (Ind/Malay) ‘stupid’
˙ B(Chinese) sinkheh
sāyūr Bsayur (Ind.) ‘vegetable soup’
suxlat, Bcoklat (Ind.) ‘chocolate’
suxlut
˙ ˙
sārūn Bsarung (Ind., Jav.) ‘sarong’
˙
sfattū* Bsepatu (Ind./Jav.) ‘shoes’
sfēda* Bsepeda (Ind./Jav.) ‘bicycle’
sirkāyih Bsirkaya (Ind./Jav.) ‘pudding’
sirkāyih bākir Bsirkaya bakar ‘baked cake’
sirkāyih rubbus Bsirkaya rebus ‘steamed/boiled pudding’
sitrub* Bsetrup (Jav.), sirup (Ind.) ‘a variety of fruit drink’
slēsār* Bselasar (Ind.) ‘(a house with) verandas’
tēkan* Bteken (Jav. ‘signature’
probablyBDutch)
tinta* Btinta (Ind./Dutch) ‘ink’
trūs Bterus (Ind., Jav.) ‘direct, straight away’
tambat mākan/ Btempat makan (Ind.) ‘ a layered food container
makalān 24 (for take-away)’
twan Btuan (Ind.) ‘a man from Indonesian or
Malaysia’
ungu Bungu (Ind., Jav.) ‘violet’
zāgūm Bjagung (Ind., Jav.) ‘corn (maize)’

Words borrowed from English or other European languages:

Machinery

dı̄smı̄s BEng. ‘dismiss’ ‘screw-driver’

lamdih BGreek: lambda L ‘a V-shaped tool’
92 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

batrah BUrdu (sheet) ‘flat piece of metal,

blade’
sukrub BEng. ‘English spanner’ Bscrew
bānih Bspanner
kuttih BEng. ‘cut-out (electrical device in old
cars)’
bakin BEng. ‘packing’
gzēz BEng. ‘exhaust’
klēš BEng. ‘clutch’
tankı̄ BEng. ‘tank’
gēr BEng. ‘gear’
rōdih BEng. ‘rod’
(salı̄t) BEng. ‘engine oil’ (HA salı¯t oil)
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
injı̄l

Other words

lōkēt BEng. ‘locket’ ‘pendant’

šmı̄z B French ‘chemise’BArabic qamı̄s ‘shirt’
kmējih* ˙
BPortuguese ‘kamiza’ BArabic qamı̄s ‘shirt’
˙
Loans from Swahili

wgānga Bwganga (black magic) madness; mad person’

mtēnda Btenda ‘dates’ (restricted use: see
example in text above)
mhēndi Bmhindi (Indian) ‘maize, sweet corn’ (Adeni Ar.
equivalent hind )
sirkāli Bserikali ‘government’ (restricted use, in
diaspora literature)
Roads and road signs

rōn BEng. ‘round’ ‘turn’ n.

hāt BUrdu hāth ‘hand’ ‘used to mean the right direction
in a road when driving’
rēwis BEng. ‘reverse’
bolbēring BEng. ‘ball bearing’
tāyir d̄abal 25 BEng. ‘double’ (meaning transferred to mean
(hatı̄t ‘thin’/ single-sized versus
˙ ˙˙
‘arı̄d¯ ‘thick, wide’) double-sized bicycle tyre)
˙
Sports

nı̄kab BEng. ‘kneecap’

gōl BEng. ‘goal’ (meaning transferred to mean ‘score’)
 Loanwords in Hadramı̄ Arabic 93
˙ ˙
balanti BEng. ‘penalty’ (consonants metathesised)
bāskit BEng. ‘basket-ball’
˙
raf BEng. ‘rough (playing)’
fāwil BEng. ‘foul’
kōrnar/kōnih BEng. ‘corner’

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