There have been a number of Arabic-based pidgins throughout history, including a number of new ones emerging today.
The major attested historical Arabic pidgins are:
Maridi Arabic, a pidgin of ca. 1000 CE of the Upper Nile
Bimbashi Arabic, a colonial-era pidgin of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Turku Arabic, a pidgin of colonial Chad.
There are still Arabic pidgins in Chad today, but since they have not been described, it is not known if they descend from Turku.
Romanian Pidgin Arabic, spoken by Romanian oil-field workers in Iraq from the 1970s to the 1990s.[1][2]
In the modern era, pidgin Arabic is most notably used by the large number of migrants to Arab countries. Examples include:
Gulf Pidgin Arabic, used by mostly immigrant laborers in the Arabian Peninsula (and not necessarily a single language variety)[3][4]
Jordanian Bengali Pidgin Arabic, used by Bengali immigrants in Jordan[5]
Pidgin Madam, used by Sinhalese domestic workers in Lebanon[6][7]
Due to the nature of pidgins, this list is likely incomplete. New pidgins are likely to continue to develop and emerge due to language contact in the Arab world.
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Romanian Pidgin Arabic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^Avram, Andrei (2010-01-01). "An Outline of Romanian Pidgin Arabic". Journal of Language Contact. 3 (1): 20–38. doi:10.1163/000000010792317884. ISSN 1877-4091.
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Pidgin Gulf Arabic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^Bakir, Murtadha (2010). "Notes on the verbal system of Gulf Pidgin Arabic": 201–228. Retrieved 14 January 2024. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Jordanian Bengali Pidgin Arabic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Pidgin Madam". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^Fida Bizri, 2005. Le Pidgin Madam: Un nouveau pidgin arabe, La Linguistique 41, p. 54–66
Maridi Arabic, a pidgin of ca. 1000 CE of the Upper Nile Bimbashi Arabic, a colonial-era pidgin of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Turku Arabic, a pidgin of colonial...
Gulf PidginArabic is an Arabic-based pidgin which is primarily used by migrant workers in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The variety was first...
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