Arabic-L:LING:l to n change response

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Sat 17 Aug 2008
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:l to n change response

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1)
Date: 17 Aug 2008
From:Manfred Woidich <m.a.woidich at uva.nl>
Subject:l to n change response

I hate to quote myself, but in my Cairo grammar (Harrassowitz 2006) on
page 15 you will find some more examples, as well as in nearly all
older grammars of Egyptian Arabic such as Spitta §8 p.26 (as well as
for /r/ Ù /l/, Vollers-Burkitt §3 p.17, Willmore p.27, Karl Vollers,
Beiträge zur Kenntnis der lebenden arabischen Sprache (ZDMG XLI (1887)
p.376  and so on. In Dakhla Oasis, in the village al-QaSr, all /l/
developped into /n/, anwuniyya wuneedit = ilwiliyya wildit, see my "Zum
Dialekt von al-QaSr in der Oase Dakhla (Ägypten)", in: Werner Arnold
and Hartmut Bobzin (eds.) "Sprich doch mit deinen Knechten aramäisch,
wir verstehen es!" (Festschrift für Otto Jastrow, Wiesbaden 2002)
821–840.

Best,

Manfred Woidich

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2)
Date: 17 Aug 2008
From:Uri Horesh <uri.horesh at fandm.edu>
Subject:l to n change response

In addition to the examples mentioned by Munther and others, it is  
notable that the other non-nasal sonorant, /r/, also alternates with / 
n/ in some cases, particularly between Aramaic and the other Semitic  
languages. The two examples that come to mind are the following:

Aramaic          Arabic          Hebrew
-------          ------          ------
bar              (i)bn           ben     'son'
tre:             thnay           shne:   'two' (masc.)

I seem to think there are others, so if there any Aramaic scholars in  
the room, please feel free to chime in.

Note, however, that this is not a complete historical shift, as /r/  
and /n/ also occur in Aramaic as reflexes of their proto-Semitic  
ancestors, and examples abound.

In addition, I believe we have alternations such as /yil3an/ ~ / 
yin3al/ 'may it be cursed'. The latter is certainly used as a loanword  
in Israeli Hebrew, but I believe to have heard that some Araic  
dialects have it as well. Of course, in this case it may be construed  
as simple intra-word metathesis, but one wonders whether the phonetic  
similarity has served as a catalyst for this particular exchange.
--
Uri Horesh
Director, Arabic Language Program

Modern Languages
Franklin & Marshall College
PO Box 3003
Lancaster, PA 17604-3003

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