Orthographic and Morphological Variation of Loanwords in the Arabic Vernaculars

Abstract

The present article discusses the key orthographic and morphological modifications that Anglicisms and Gallicisms undergo beyond their adaptation in various Arabic vernaculars. At the level of orthography, the spelling of words with a two-consonant beginning, compound nouns and abbreviations is analyzed. The range of analyzed morphological categories includes gender and number for nouns, voice and mood for verbs. The need for a study is due to insufficient information about the above aspects of the adaptation of borrowings in Arabic dialects. For a detailed comparative analysis of various approaches to spelling and morphological adaptation, the author uses a questionnaire targeted for the dialect speakers. Based on the answers of 206 respondents from 18 Arab countries, it is concluded that the loanwords introduced via Arabic script preserve the source-language orthography. Borrowed abbreviations in participants’ answers mostly become acronyms. As for the gender of nouns, the participants tend to determine this morphological category relying on semantic analogy and phonetic similarity of endings. In matters of plural formation, suffixation remains the most popular way. However, in the case of inanimate nouns, up to a third of participants’ responses contain broken plurals. An analysis of borrowed verbs showed differences in the approaches of Arabic speakers from the Arab West and East in the adaptation of English and French lemmas and their subsequent conjugation. This circumstance allows us to conclude that the variability in adaptation is related to extralinguistic factors inherent in certain Arabic-speaking communities.

Keywords:

lexical borrowing, Arabic dialectology, linguistic variation, Arabization, sociolinguistics, lexicography, contact linguistics