16.1105, Review: Lexicography/Lang Description: Harrell & Sobelman

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1105. Thu Apr 07 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1105, Review: Lexicography/Lang Description: Harrell & Sobelman

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Collberg, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomi at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
Book Discussion Forum. We expect discussions to be informal and 
interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially 
invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book 
discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available 
for review." Then contact Sheila Collberg at collberg at linguistlist.org. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 06-Apr-2005
From: Mary Shapiro < mshapiro at truman.edu >
Subject: A Dictionary of Moroccan Arabic 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:07:33
From: Mary Shapiro < mshapiro at truman.edu >
Subject: A Dictionary of Moroccan Arabic 
 

Fund Drive 2005 is now on! Visit http://linguistlist.org/donate.html to donate now!

EDITORS: Harrell, Richard S.; Sobelman, Harvey 
TITLE: A Dictionary of Moroccan Arabic 
SUBTITLE: Moroccan-English/English-Moroccan 
SERIES: Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Linguistics 
PUBLISHER: Georgetown University Press 
YEAR: 2004 
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-3473.html


Mary Shapiro, Truman State University

Despite the unified title, this publication is actually a reprint of two 
separate dictionaries, Moroccan-Arabic-English (edited by Richard S. 
Harrell, originally published 1966) and English-Moroccan Arabic (edited by 
Harvey Sobelman, originally published 1963) -- both otherwise out of print.

The book contains preliminary materials before each of the original 
dictionaries. Before the 268-page Moroccan Arabic-English (henceforth MA-
E) dictionary may be found a Foreword to the new edition, a note on Arabic 
Research at Georgetown University, the original Introduction to the MA-E 
dictionary (including what information entries contain and how entries are 
structured, as well as notes on the transcription of MA), an explanation 
of MA pronunciation, and a list of abbreviations and symbols. The second 
section contains an almost identical note on Arabic Research at 
Georgetown, a preface, and a one-page note on "technical data," including 
abbreviations used, before the 228-page English-Moroccan Arabic 
(henceforth E-MA) dictionary.

The new (2004) Foreword boasts that the MA-E dictionary has "remained a 
standard reference work for scholars and students of Moroccan Arabic, as 
well as for students of other varieties of Arabic spoken in North Africa." 
It also notes that the dictionary was not intended to stand alone, an 
important caveat for readers not otherwise extremely familiar with MA. 
(For these, the Foreword recommends Harrell's Basic Course in Moroccan 
Arabic (1965, reissued 2003), and his Short Reference Grammar of Moroccan 
Arabic (1962, reissued 2004).) There can be no doubt that this was an 
important addition to studies in Arabic dialectology; Harrell notes in the 
Introduction to the MA-E section that, although a variety of reference 
works were consulted [...], the material presented is wholly primary." 
This was a tremendous undertaking, and it is perhaps churlish of me to 
wish that this work had continued in the 40 years since its original 
publication. A very minimal investment of time and money would have 
allowed Georgetown University Press to align the two dictionaries so that 
they agreed in their transcriptions and their word-lists. As it is, there 
are glaring discrepancies that separate the two parts of this reference 
work and cannot fail to annoy the reader who seeks to refer back and forth 
between the two sections. 

The section on "pronunciation" takes the reader through a consonant chart 
and a description of sounds which does not crucially rely on a previous 
knowledge of linguistic terminology. Discussion is divided 
into "consonants similar to English," "vowel sounds with familiar 
consonants," "emphatic consonants," "emphatic vowels," and particular, 
detailed descriptions of other non-English sounds, including "double 
consonants" and particular sequences and clusters. Unfortunately, the 
transcription used in the two sections varies, and could confuse the 
casual reader. The transcription used in the E-MA section "is that 
explained in [Harrell's 1962] A Short Reference Grammar of Moroccan 
Arabic" -- the explanation is, alas, not given here! -- while the MA-E 
section uses a slightly different system, distinguishing e and short a, 
and adding a symbol for short i. The transcription is mostly phonetic, 
with the Arabic letters Hah and Ain used for the pharyngeal fricatives. 
The Hah is described in the MA-English as "somewhat similar to an 
English 'h' pronounced in a loud stage whisper," which does not greatly 
distinguish it from the description of the "emphatic consonants"; the same 
sound is written as h with a subscript dot (parallel to the 
other 'emphatic consonants') in the E-MA section. (Thus, the entry 
for "bath" is given in the E-MA section as h-subscript-dot+emmam, but as 
Hah+a-breve+mmam in the MA-E section.) 

Moroccan Arabic is a traditionally unwritten and unstandardized language. 
A note in the Introduction explains that "[B]ecause of the limited and 
variable role they play in word formation, the glottal stop and the 
variable vowels a-breve, e, i-breve, and o have been disregarded in the 
alphabetization.[...] The secondary emphatic consonants b, l, m, r, and z 
have likewise been disregarded for purposes of alphabetization, for 
similar reasons." Although this may be grammatically motivated, it makes 
the alphabetization somewhat problematic for the average user: "dlil" 
comes before "dlek," which is before "dell," etc. Emphatic d, g, s, t have 
their own sections, but words beginning with emphatic b, l, m, r, and z 
are mixed in with words beginning with the nonemphatic counterparts.

Oddly, the two dictionaries started from different word lists, yielding 
very different information in the two sections of this book. To determine 
the entries for the MA-E dictionary, "the word list of Ferré's Lexique 
Marocain-Français was taken as a point of departure. Entries not directly 
familiar to our Moroccan staff members were deleted and various additions 
were made from their own knowledge." Entries for the E-MA section, 
however, are "based on the English-German section of the bilingual German 
and English Dictionary of Everyday Usage." So entries contained in one 
part of the dictionary are not necessarily mirrored in the other. This 
does not just apply to culturally-specific lexical items, but to a vast 
array of vocabulary. One might pick any page at random to illustrate this 
point: There are no MA-E entries for Damascus, damn, dandelion, to dare 
(all entries in the E-MA section), nor the national nouns Russia(n), 
Britain(ish), German(y), etc.; no E-MA entries for talkative, dominoes, 
anus, inaugurate/open (an admittedly odd series, taken from just one 
column of the MA-E dictionary, all MA entries starting with d-). As noted 
above, the MA-E section is 40 pages longer than the E-MA, reflecting the 
discrepancy in the selected wordlists.

Harrell's (1964) Introduction warns that the dictionary "presupposes a 
familiarity with the basic grammatical structure of Moroccan Arabic," and 
that "no attempt has been made to cover dialect variations or specialized 
vocabularies." Certainly, it would be beyond the call of this dictionary 
to cover those topics, but it seems odd to write a dictionary of MA 
without a single word (even in the Introduction or Foreword) about the 
prevalence of code-switching among Moroccans, or the preference for French 
and Classical or Modern Standard Arabic terms and phrases in certain 
particular settings or discourse situations. Even common, everyday MA 
expressions seem to be missing. While the ubiquitous "insha'llah" can be 
found in the E-MA dictionary (as an expression under "God" and represented 
quite differently in the dictionary's transcription system), there is no 
indication that this is used with every future tense statement, and it 
cannot be found in the MA-E section at all. The E-MA section gives the 
expression "baraka llahu fik" for "many thanks" (under "thanks"), but the 
MA-E section does not give this extremely common expression under "baraka" 
or "llah."

While I am sure that those who work in Arabic linguistics and dialectology 
will be delighted to see this work back in print, the dictionary in its 
current state falls rather short of Harrell's hope that it would "serve 
the practical needs of Americans whose lives bring them into contact with 
Morocco and Moroccans." More than anything, the reprint of these 
dictionaries shows the desperate need for a revival of the original Arabic 
Research Program and the continuation of the work begun here. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mary Shapiro is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Truman State 
University (Kirksville, MO). She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco in 
the mid-1980s.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1105