Shirvani Arabic

Infobox Language
name=Shirvani Arabic
nativename=
states=Azerbaijan, Dagestan (Russia)
region=Caucasus
extinct=Second half of the 19th century
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
fam2=Semitic
fam3=West Semitic
fam4=Central Semitic
fam4=Arabic

Shirvani Arabic was a dialect of Arabic that was once spoken in what is now central and northwestern Azerbaijan (historically known as Shirvan) and Dagestan (southern Russia). Arabic was spoken in this region since the Muslim conquest of the South Caucasus at the beginning of the 8th century. It was brought here by Arab settlers comprised mostly of military staff, merchants and craftsmen from Syria and Baghdad, and was used as an official language. It experienced decline after the weakening of the Caliphate in the 13th century and was gradually replaced by Persian/Tat and Azeri. Groups of Arabs (mostly from Yemen) continued to immigrate to southern Dagestan influencing the culture and literary traditions of the local population who had already become Islamized. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ih6b9iupT6oC&pg=PA89&ots=4zJYgx7ilz&dq=Anna+Zelkina&sig=bJc3Du4qtncsoaY9T2MWkkYK6ag Anna Zelkina. "The Arabic Linguistic and Cultural Tradition in Dagestan: an Historical Overview"] . "Arabic as a Minority Language" by Jonathan Owens (ed.). Walter de Gruyter Publ. Berlin: 2000. ISBN 3110165783] The latest documentation of the existence of Shirvani Arabic is attributed to the Azeri historian Abbasgulu Bakikhanov who mentioned in his 1840 historical work "Golestan-i Iram" that "to this day a group of Shirvan Arabs speaks an altered version of Arabic." [ [http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus2/Bakihanov/framevved.htm Golestan-i Iram] by Abbasgulu Bakikhanov. Translated by Ziya Bunyadov. Baku: 1991, p. 21] Arabic continued to be spoken in Dagestan until the 1920s mostly by upper-class feudals as a second or third language, as well as a language of literature, politics and written communication. [ [http://feb-web.ru/feb/ivl/vl6/vl6-4322.htm Literatures of the North Caucasus and Dagestan] by L.G.Golubeva et al.]

ee also

*Khuzestani Arabic
*Central Asian Arabic

References