Juba Arabic expanded pidgin also called Arabic Sudanese Creole

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Juba Arabic(expanded pidgin)also calledArabic
Sudanese Creole

• Billy Evalt

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Juba Arabic

• Population 20,000 first language speakers 44,000
  second language speakers.
• Related to KiNubi Same parent pidgin
• Wide variety in JA yet all JA speakers are
  mutually intelligible while being, for the most
  part, mutually unintelligible with Sudanese
  Arabic.
• Most Sudanese fluent in 2 or more languages.
• JA spoken mostly as a first language or a lingua
  franca in southern Sudan.

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Sudan
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Sociolinguistic History

• Formed in latter half of 19th century as a trade
  language between trading camps.
• Descendents of Sudanese soldiers in the Egyptian
  army.
• Egyptian officers in charge of Sudanese soldiers
  and slaves.
• Arabic is the language of the Quran.
• Possible substrate languages Bari, Dinka, Nuer,
  and Shillah.

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Equatoria
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Linguistic Features

• SVO Language
• Morphologically simpler than Sudanese Colloquial
  Arabic. Lack of number marking, gender suffix,
  and pronominal suffix.
• JA only marked for plural with final stressed a
  while SCA marks for dual and plural
• JA Subject and object pronouns identical but
  possessive is distinct while Arabic object and
  possessive enclitics are identical but subject
  pronoun is distinct
• JA uses fi to mean both to or at while SCA
  uses fi for at and le for to

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Linguistic Features Continued

• JA phonologically simplified as well compared to
  SCA
• Similar vowel inventory, three pairs of vowels,
  short and long.
• i and e, u and o, ? and ?
• No stressed consonants in JA
• Consonant types are CV and CVC
• Vowel harmony within a word
• Does not include a word final vowel
• Words can have only front vowels i and e or
  back vowels u and o while ? occurs in both
  contexts

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Decreolization

• Current influence of MSA and SCA increasing
• Lending to arguments against status as a creole
  or a pidgin
• Media and travel/trade influx
• Some groups want to keep JA as a symbol of
  Southern Sudanese nationality