Degemination in Emirati Pidgin Arabic: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh,Abdul-Salam Al-Namer,Sulafah Alnamer

doi:10.3390/languages7010008

Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh, Abdul-Salam Al-Namer + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010008

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Abstract

This study examines the production of geminates in Emirati Pidgin Arabic (EPA) spoken by blue-collar workers in the United Arab Emirates. A simple naming test was designed to test the production of geminates to determine whether the EPA speakers would produce a geminated or degeminated phoneme. Following that, a semi-structured interview was conducted with a subset of the study cohort to obtain the participants’ own explanation of where they degeminated the consonants. Our findings suggest that the exercising of this choice functions as a sociolinguistic strategy, akin to the one observed by Labov in his study of Martha’s Vineyard. In particular, our findings show that speakers of EPA are inclined to degeminate consonantal geminates to establish themselves as members of a particular social group. The reasons for wanting to achieve this aim were given as follows: to claim privileges only available to members of this group (such as employment); and to distinguish themselves from the dominant cultural group. The study concludes that degemination in EPA has developed into a sociolinguistic solidarity marker.

Highlights

The organization of this paper is as follows: in Section 2, we provide a general background of the study including key concepts, the theoretical framework adopted in this study, and previous studies on pidgins spoken in the Gulf area
We propose that Emirati Pidgin Arabic (EPA) speakers wish to emphasize identification with one linguistic community whilst, at the same time distancing themselves from another
The current study investigated Emirati Pidgin Arabic (EPA) as spoken by unskilled migrant workers of various nationalities in the UAE

Summary

Introduction

The movement of people across the world for employment, trade or other reasons is known to give rise to what have been termed ‘contact languages’ where there is a pragmatic need for people from diverse language backgrounds to communicate with one another. Gulf countries currently attract significant cohorts of unskilled or semi-skilled migrant workers, who reside in the region on a temporary, and sometimes long-term, basis. These workers come primarily from Asian and South Asian countries including India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, and speak a number of languages such as Hindi, Pashto and Tagalog. The need for a lingua franca amongst these linguistically diverse communities has given rise to several pidgin languages. In the Arabian Gulf area, these pidgins are collectively known as Gulf Pidgin Arabic, and can be further broken down into distinct varieties

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Conclusion