The Arabic Language

15.6 Nigerian Arabic
One of the least known groups of speakers of Arabic is that of the Shuwa Arabs 
living in Borno State in north-east Nigeria. They are part of the string of Arabic 
varieties spoken by cattle-rearing nomads along the so-called 
Baggara 
belt, a zone 
stretching from the White Nile in the east to Lake Chad in the west (Braukämper 
1994). Their path of migration was from the east through the sub-Saharan 
savannah. The presence of Arabic in this area goes back at least to the fourteenth 
century. Similar dialects are spoken across the 
Baggara
belt in Chad, Cameroon, 
Central African Republic and Niger. Within these dialects, two groups may be 
distinguished: the dialects of Nigeria, Cameroon, and part of Chad, which Owens 
calls ‘Bagirmi Arabic’; and the urban dialects of Chad, for example, those of 
N’Djamena and Abbéché.
Because of their isolated position, and in spite of the presence of a dialect 
continuum from Nigeria to the eastern Sudan, the Shuwa Arabs in Nigeria may be 
said to constitute a linguistic enclave. According to Owens (1993: 11), they are the 
second largest group of inhabitants of Borno State (after the Kanuri), but the total 
number of speakers is not known; according to the Ethnologue there are about 
100,000 speakers, all of them bilingual in Arabic and at least one other language, 
mostly Kanuri or Fulfulde.
The features of Nigerian Arabic are those of Bedouin dialects in general. In the 
phonemic inventory, the reflex of Classical Arabic /q/ is /g/, for example, 
rágaba/
rugúbbe 
‘neck’ (Classical Arabic 
raqaba
), 
rafíig/rufugáan 
‘friend’ (Classical Arabic 
rafīq
). Classical Arabic /ġ/ corresponds to /q/, for example, 
qalíid/quláad 
‘thick’ 
(Classical Arabic 
ġalīḏ̣
), 
qazáal/quzúlle 
‘gazelle’ (Classical Arabic 
ġazal
). Classical 

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289
Arabic /ʾ/ and /ʿ/ have merged into /ʾ/, and so have /ḫ/ and /ḥ/ into /ḫ/. The 
reflex of Classical Arabic /ṭ/ is a pharyngalised dental implosive /ɗ̣/, for example, 
ʾaɗ̣ɗ̣aš 
‘to make thirsty’ (Classical Arabic 
ʿaṭṭaš
); according to Owens (1993: 19) 
those speakers with a knowledge of Classical Arabic tend to realise it as /ṭ/
The plural pattern exemplified by 
rugúbbe 
and 
quzúlle 
is quite common in 
Nigerian Arabic, compare also 
bakáan
/
bikínne 
‘place’, 
lisáan
/
lisínne 
‘tongue’, 
ḍáhar
/
ḍuhúrra
‘back’, 
naar
/
niʾrre 
‘fire’.
There are two genitive exponents, 
hana 
and 
abu
,
 
in addition to direct posses
-
sion (examples from Owens 1993: 64–9). The choice between direct possession 
and 
hana 
seems to be syntactically, rather than semantically, motivated. With 
pronominal suffixes direct possession is more frequent, for example, 
áḫu ammí 
‘my mother’s brother’. 
Hana 
(feminine 
hiil
, plural 
hinée
) may be used for all kinds 
of relations, as in (17) and (18):
(17) 
al-ʾarab 
hinée 
maqíib 
le 
maydúguri
 
ART-Arabs POSS.pl 
west 
to 
Maiduguri
 
‘the Arabs of the west of Maiduguri’
(18) 
al-béet 
aɗ̣-ɗ̣ayíil 
hána 
ar-ráajil
 
ART-house ART-tall 
POSS.ms 
ART-man
‘the tall house of the man’
The exponent 
abu 
(feminine 
am
, plural 
mahaníin
, feminine plural 
mahanáat) 
usually indicates an inherent quality of the possessor, and is further character
-
ised by the fact that the possessed noun may be followed by a linker suffix when 
it is followed by an adjective, as in (19):
(19) 
ar-ráajil 
abu 
jíld-an 
áhamar
 
ART-man 
POSS 
skin-LINK
 
red
‘the man with a reddish skin’
This suffix is related to the old 
tanwīn 
endings 
-in/-an 
that are found in Bedouin 
dialects from the Arabian peninsula (see above, Chapter 11, p. 193) and in Uzbek-
istan Arabic (above, p. 286).
In the verbal paradigm, as in the pronominal system, the third-person plural 
distinguishes between masculine and feminine (Table 15.2).
kátab 
kátabo 
búktub 
búktubu
kátabat 
kátaban 
táktub 
búktuban
katáb 
katábtu 
táktub 
táktubu
katábti 
katábtan 
táktubi 
táktuban
katáb 
katábna 
báktub 
náktub
Table 15.2 The verbal paradigm in Nigerian Arabic

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The Arabic Language
Nigerian Arabic also exhibits traits borrowed from the surrounding languages, 
which are not shared by other Arabic varieties along the 
Baggara
belt. One of the 
interesting features of this variety of Arabic is the widespread use of ideophones, 
onomatopoeic forms which express a sensory experience or an event, a class of 
words that is quite common in some of the surrounding languages. In Nigerian 
Arabic, ideophones serve as verbal modifiers, as in (20) and (21):
(20) 
bi-mšan 
cirr 
giddām-ak
 
CONT-pass.3fp IDEO 
before-2ms
 
‘They pass quickly before you’ (Owens 2004: 214)
(21) 
an-nār 
zarrag-at 
al-gidir cil
 
ART-fire
 
blacken.PERF.3fs ART-pot IDEO
‘The fire blackened the pot’ (Owens 2004: 211)
They may also serve as modifiers of adjectives, as in (22):
(22) 
al-alme 
hāmi 
co
 
ART-water 
hot 
IDEO
 
‘The water is very hot’ (Owens 2004: 209)
In these examples 
cirr
, 
cil
, 
co
have no independent meaning, but merely serve to 
express the sensation of speed, intense colour or hot temperature; most of them 
are used in fixed collocations.
Text 5 Nigerian Arabic (after Owens 1993: 256) 
1.
 ali-b-íšīil-an al-laban b-ínš-an be rījil
1. Those [women] who take the milk 
go by foot;
2.
 ammá al-hille kán mísil ind-e watíir 
t-ímši le b-ǝrkab-an al-watáayir
2. but if the village has cars that go to 
it, they travel by car;
3.
 kán al-hílle ké, ma índe-he watíir be 
rijíl-an
3. if the village does not have any cars, 
they go by foot;
4.
 ammá l-áktar ké da b-ínš-an be rijíl bas
4. mostly, however, they just go by 
foot.