An Exploratory Analysis of a Small Corpus of Spoken Omani Arabic

Predominantly used in the imperative.↩

Found outside of most houses; nowadays rarely also made from natural materials.↩

The word was transcribed with yāʾ and later edited to contain a ǧīm under the impression that a phonetic change had taken place. Informant B, when looking at the transcript of text I at a later date, disagreed and offered that the word might not be of Arabic origin.↩

Said by informant B to be “a very old Omani word”. (Behnstedt and Woidich 2011, 43) knows the plural to be tatūnīn and suspects it to be children’s language.↩

Used for intensification, to make one’s point, or as a question to confirm the receiving part has understood.↩

According to both informants, almost exclusively used in the imperative. The other common usage though, as part of religious phrases, is also present in the corpus.↩

Used as a day-to-day word and not in a derogatory manner.↩

Can be to let s.th. (happen) or, when used as an imperative, also let me (alone) or also let us (do s.th./go), either used together with another verb or alone.↩

QO: “الرباعة : المجموعة أو القبيلة”.↩

QO: “ربش : الربشة : الفوضى وعدم النظام”↩

The English Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rustaq claims for the name to be derived from New Persian rusta, Middle Persian rustag (rustāg?) meaning large village.↩

Said to be of Persian origin.↩

Independently supported by both informants but not in any of the consulted dictionaries. It shares a root with نسولف.↩

The MSA meaning is to level. QO: “سوا : يسوّي : يفعل”.↩

A large metal plate filled with rice and usually meat or fish on top of it, around which everybody squats and eats from.↩

The word might be an interjection. More data would be needed to determine how it is used.↩

The writing was suggested by informant B who pointed out that this is the commonly used orthography for the word in day-to-day communication.↩

English term used in car advertisements. Not part of OA.↩

A possible source could be the root روح which, in its II^nd and VIII^th stems holds the meaning to relax, refreshen.↩

Imaginably from MSA سوي I, to be even.↩

Informant B pointed miš out not to be an Omani word.↩

QO knows two meanings: “يدفع بشيء أو يرسل أحدا”. The example given is “يحتاج أطرش حد يروح يناديه”. Interestingly, the relationship with MSA is explained as “العلاقة: المطابقة مع إبدال الزاي شينا”, but MSA (√ṭrz) does not explain the meaning in text II either.↩

Including the SPP, the verb is pronounced nigrak in text I. Informant B used a different variant, nāgirnak, when discussing the term.↩

Quadriliteral.↩

Different meaning to MSA, and can neither be found in (Ḥabsī 2007) nor in (l-Ǧāmiʿī 2005) but is independently supported by both informants.↩

The word only occurs in text VII and was explained as to bring by both informants. When asked directly, informant B was sure of it being < (√wdy). As two of the four occurrences can be argued to be spoken with a šadda on R2, (√wdd) was considered, but none of its meanings seem to fit and the long vowel in all four occurrences would be difficult to explain as well. There is an entry for “وده : يودِ : يوصل” (QO), regrettably lacking full vowelisation. The example reads: “أسير أود الكتاب إلى المكتبة”. An explanation is given which is mostly a copy of the (√wdh) entry in (Manẓūr 1290), but then it is written: “العلاقة: […] أو كأنه يسوق الشيء ويقوده باتجاه شيء ما”. (Hava 1951) contains a similar entry (“وَدَه يَدِه وَدْهًا ه عَن”) with the translation being [t]o prevent, to remove a. o. from. As any of these is closer to the usage in text VII than to pay blood money, (√wdh) was chosen over (√wdy).↩

II^nd-stem derivation from IV^th-stem given by informant B and mentioned here because both stems share an MSA meaning.↩

Informant B was well aware of the fact that a phonetic change was taking place and explained it as “normal in OA”.↩