Janet C. E. Watson

A Syntax of San'ani Arabic

Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1993, xxi, 454 pp., ISBN 3-447-03392-4

 

Reviewed by Daniel Martin Varisco

 

[Yemen Update 35(1994):31-32]

When it comes to books on Yemen, some areinteresting, some are important and some are absolutely necessary tohave on hand. A recent example of the absolutely-necessary varietyis A Syntax of San'ani Arabic by Janet C. E. Watson(Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1993, xxi, 454 pp., ISBN 3-447-03392-4). If you intend to do any kind of research (or travel) using the majordialect of Yemen's capital, this definitive guide to the dialect mustbe in your possession. This is indeed a reference book, not a how-totrainer. For that you must wait for the author's forthcomingPedagogical Grammar of San'ani Arabic, also to be published byHarrassowitz.

When I was preparing to go to Yemen in thelate 1970s I found Ettore Rossi's L'Arabo Parlato a San'a',published in Rome in 1939. I can well remember sitting down in thevillage, with a xerox copy of Rossi in one hand and a paperbackItalian-English dictionary in the other, as I tried to fathom thedialect that I now had to function in on a daily basis -- throughfiltered Italian. At one time I thought someone should translateRossi, but despite my Sicilian ancestry this was not a task Icontemplated. Even at that time Rossi was no doubt out of date and,according to Qadi Isma'il al-Akwa', prone to errors. Someone,arguably more than one person, needed to do an in-depth study of thecontemporary dialect of the central highlands. While severalscholars have since focused on San'ani Arabic, this in-depth andinvaluable reference guide by Watson more than fulfills my wishes asI pieced my way through Rossi by lantern light.

At the very start of the book, Watsonaddresses the perennial linguistic problem: what exactly is adialect? It is common to speak of spoken Arabic in terms of broadregionally based dialects, Egyptian as opposed to Hejazi, forexample. In the not-so-remote past isolation of large segments ofthe population coupled with lack of formal education tended to thecontinuity of dialects. The Yemenis that Rossi worked with, forexample, had no systematic exposure to other ways in which Arabicmight be spoken. Watson's informants, on the other hand, haveroutinely been exposed to other dialects, especially those living inBritain. Radio and television have put a wealth of linguisticdifference in the hands of the most isolated rural Yemenis. Egyptiantroops, and later elementary teachers from Egypt and Sudan, provideda very visible contrast. Thousands of Yemeni workers in Saudi Arabiaand the Gulf brought back new words and new ideas about the old waysof saying things. I shall refrain on commenting about the possibleinfluence of Egyptian films now rampantly available on video.

Change may be the order of the day, butdialects do not simply fade away. "A dialect is a dialect, not moreor less, but discretely, because it exists as a psychological realityin the minds of its speakers and in the minds of speakers of otherdialects in relation to other dialects," argues Watson (p. 1). Shehas assembled a comprehensive guide to this surviving dialect fromfield research in Sanaa between 1985 and 1992, as well as from Yemeniinformants living in Britain. Most of the informants were adultwomen, but she also interviewed men of various ages and children. The primary data, comprising hours and hours on tape, were collectedin a variety of everyday settings &emdash; from kitchens and cabs toqat chews.

To a non-linguist, such as myself, the rangeof detail is dizzying. When is the last time you read about"cataphora"(p. 408). The information is arranged in an accessibleand orderly fashion. Of special value is the definition of syntacticterms such as morpheme, word, phrase, clause, etc. After theintroduction, the basic outline of the book covers: syntacticdefinitions, parts of speech, predication, complementation, annexion,attribution, negation, coordination, supplementation andco-referentiality in discourse. There is also an index to keygrammatical terms in English. The bibliography is quite useful,although inexplicably the various articles and major book by Rossiare missing. We can only look forward to more publications by theauthor and more works of this quality on other Yemenidialects.

To test your San'ani word power, see if youknow the English equivalent of the following phrases. The answers,taken from examples in Watson's book, are provided on p.47.

---

Return to Yemen Reviews