An Exploratory Analysis of a Small Corpus of Spoken Omani Arabic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p_lTwD67ec↩

Speaker Ḫ: Ḫalfān, who might not be very bright himself, but certainly more down-to-earth than his friend Saʿīd.↩

Speaker A: ʿAbdullah, the host.↩

See glossary.↩

The literal translation would be wide, open space and plain, easy grounds, a shorter form of the traditional Arabic greeting ahlan wa-sahlan wa-marḥaban (which adds family in the widest sense, i.e. hospitable people). The meaning of any form of the phrase can simply be translated as welcome welcome, but the usage is much more varied (cf. Elzeiny 2009, 204f.). For the purposes of this work, it shall be attempted to choose a contextually-sensitive transfer of meaning.↩

Speaker S: Saʿīd, who always has something else on his mind.↩

Documented at least twice before (Reinhardt 1894, 119; Brockett 1985, 76). Pointed out as being one of the “many lexical items which differentiate the Omani dialects as a group from the dialects of the northern Gulf and central Asia” (Holes 2013, 91). The quoted sources transcribe rbāʿa, whereas ribāʿa is audible here.↩

In some cases later on, cutting had to be done according to a visual representation of the audio, as the previously spoken line was too dominant. With lines like these, where there is overlap between speakers’ utterances, it can take several times of listening to make out the layer of sound representing the appropriate line of transcription. Another option would be to listen to the uncut video file (which is linked to from the top of each transcript.↩

It is difficult to make out exactly what stem the two instances of (√dwr) are used in. Both, forms I and II, can mean to turn—but form I is closer towards rotating oneself whereas form II can literally mean to turn one’s head (Wehr 1985). Because of this, the first instance is interpreted as a form I verb and the second instance as a form II verb. In both cases, a shadda is placed above R1 to signify the ta-prefix required for a 2nd p. sg. imp. conjugation that has been phonetically assimilated into dāl, a feature said by both informants to be common in OA.↩

An exception was made in transcribing the name Süleymān, as its first vowel sounds like a German ü the way it is pronounced by the other speakers.↩

According to informant A, the meaning of this ʾalif is that “he will do it in the future”. That could mean a future particle, a suspicion confirmed by informant B but not attested in literature.↩

The speaker mixes language registers as part of his play. An attempt was made to mirror this “crazyness” in translation. Note the combination of fully-vowelised laka, dialectal tatūn and “normal” ṣaġīr.↩

Although it is not audible without doubt whether or not there is an ʾalif after dāl, the verb must be wadʿa as both informants explain the sentence to mean “let me think!”↩

Speaker L: Süleymān, he tries to give his life meaning—somehow.↩

The original contains a very clearly audible mistake in forming the dual (nominative instead of genitive case).↩

Informant B explained the meaning of the sentence as “I’m keeping an eye on them”.↩

Some parts of the other speakers besides L are decidedly lax, which the translation is trying to reflect as well.↩

Literally: what do you stir all this stirring.↩

The traditional Arabic greeting “peace be upon you” is heard multiple times throughout the videos and can mostly be argued to include at least a highly assimilated definite article al as would be expected. In this line, the argument is more difficult to make, especially since informant A exclaimed during transcription: “lā, bidūn taʿrīf!”↩

Speaker M: Ḫamīs, just over for a visit.↩