Cover not available
Part of
Arabic in Contact
Edited by Stefano Manfredi and Mauro Tosco
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 6] 2018
► pp. 171–187

Phonetical and morphological remarks on the adaptation of Italian loanwords in Libyan Arabic

| The University of Mississippi

The contact between Italian and Libyan Arabic, whose earliest traces date back to the first half of the XIX century, intensified in the decades immediately preceding the Italian occupation of Libya (1911). The number of Italian loanwords in Libyan Arabic can be estimated at about 700 lexical items, although for some of them the source might be another Romance language. The present study integrates the loanwords provided by Abdu (1988) with more lexical items collected from Yoda (2005), Pereira (2010) and the author’s personal fieldwork. The data obtained are subsequently analyzed from a phonetical and morphological perspective, contributing to the knowledge of the processes of adaptation of Italian loanwords in Libyan Arabic.

Keywords: Libyan Arabic, Italian, loanwords, borrowings, Arabic dialectology, Arabic linguistics
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Phonetics
    • 1.1Consonants
      • 1.1.1Italian phonemes absent from the phonemic inventory of Libyan Arabic
        • 1.1.1.1The voiceless bilabial occlusive /p/
        • 1.1.1.2The voiced labiodental fricative /v/
        • 1.1.1.3Affricates
        • 1.1.1.4The palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ and the palatal nasal /ɲ/
      • 1.1.2Italian phonemes with possibly different Libyan outputs
    • 1.2Vowels
      • 1.2.1Stressed vowels
      • 1.2.2Unstressed vowels
    • 1.3Assimilation and dissimilation
  • 2.Morphology
    • 2.1Nouns
      • 2.1.1Deglutination of the article
        • 2.1.1.1Gender
        • 2.1.1.2Influence of Arabic nominal patterns
    • 2.2Integration of verbs
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 10 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.6.09dan
References
Abdu, H. R.
(1988) Italian loanwords in colloquial Libyan Arabic as spoken in the Tripoli region. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Airò, B.
(2007) Vecchi e nuovi italianismi nell’arabo tunisino. In M. Moriggi (ed.), XII Incontro Italiano di Linguistica Camito-semitica (Afroasiatica). Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. 169–175.Google Scholar
Bassiouney, R.
(2009) Arabic sociolinguistics. Topics in Diglossia, Gender, Identity and Politics. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Best, C. T.
(1995) A Direct Realist View of Cross-Language Speech Perception. In W. Strange (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: issues in cross-language research (pp.171–204). Baltimore: York Press.Google Scholar
Camera D’Afflitto, I.
(2007)  Letteratura araba contemporanea. Dalla naḥdah a oggi . Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Cifoletti, G.
(1994) Italianismi nel dialetto di Tunisi. In D. Caubet and M. Vanhove (eds.), Actes des premières journées internationales de dialectologie arabe de Paris. Paris: Langues’O. 451–458.Google Scholar
(2004) Il plurilinguismo a Tunisi. In Bombi, R. and Fusco, F., Città plurilingui, Lingue e culture a confronto in situazioni urbane. Udine: Forum.127–132.Google Scholar
(2008) Sur la diffusion des emprunts européens en arabe modern. In S. Procházka and V. Ritt Benmimoun (eds.). Between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Studies on Contemporary Arabic Dialects. Münster – Wien: LIT – Verlag. 125–128.Google Scholar
Marçais, P.
(1977) Esquisse Grammaticale de l’Arabe Maghrébin. Maisonneuve: Paris.Google Scholar
(2001) Parlers arabes du Fezzân, Textes, traductions et éléments de morphologie rassemblés et présentés par Dominique CAUBET, Aubert MARTIN et Laurence DENOOZ. Genève: Librairie DROZ.Google Scholar
Matras, Y.
(2009) Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mori, L.
(2007) Fonetica dell’italiano L2. Un’indagine sperimentale sulla variazione nell’interlingua dei marocchini. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Pereira, C.
(2008) Libya. In K. Versteegh (ed.), Enciclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics vol. III. Leiden – Boston: Brill. 52–58.Google Scholar
(2010) Le Parler arabe de Tripoli (Libye). Zaragoza: Istituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo.Google Scholar
Segrè, C. G.
(1974) Fourth Shore. The Italian Colonization of Libya. Chicago – London: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Triulzi, A.
(1971) Italian-speaking communities in early nineteenth century Tunis, in Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, n. 9, 153–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yoda, S.
(2005) The Arabic Dialect of the Jews of Tripoli (Libya), Grammar, Text and Glossary, Verlag-Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar