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From Rajjal to Rayyal
Ideologies and shift among young Bedouins in Qatar
Heba and Rizwan Ahmad1
Introduction
Identity has emerged as one of the important pillars in recent works in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, so much so that many scholars argue that a large body of work in linguistic anthropology is the study of language and identity (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004). Many recent studies have further shown that language ideologies play a critical role in the construction of social identities and different subject positions (Irvine & Gal, 2000). However, there has not been much research examining language and identity in the Arabian Gulf. This study fills this gap by examining language identity and change in the context of 21st-century Qatar, which is experiencing extraordinary social changes including opportunities for language contact between Hadharis and Bedouins.
Recent studies on the sociolinguistics of Arabic dialects have demonstrated that in addition to the Standard Arabic that holds prestige and power across the Arab World, there exists, in all Arabic-speaking countries, at least one additional supra-local or regional variety, generally spoken in the capital cities, that holds considerable prestige for ordinary Arabic speakers (see e.g. Abd-El-Jawad, 1987; Abu-Haidar, 1989; Al-Amadidhi, 1985; Al-Rojaie, 2013; Bassiouney, 2017; Holes, 1995). These studies have shown that speakers speaking local varieties tend to shift to the non-standard supra-local variety be it the dialect of Cairo, Baghdad, Amman, or Manama, perhaps because it is more accessible to speakers than the Standard Arabic.
In a pioneering sociolinguistic study of the Qatari dialects, Al-Amadidhi (1985) discussed two key linguistic variables (q) and (dʒ) and their distribution across social categories such as Bedouin, Hadhari, Howala, ‘Ajam, age, and education. He also examined the variation in relation to four lexical categories and different speaking styles. With regard to the correlation between age and variants, among all social groups, he mentions, “The younger generation has a higher level of the [dʒ] variant in their linguistic output than the other group has” (p 243). Al-Amadidhi explains this as a classicizing influence of the spread of literacy among the young group, which meant a greater exposure to Standard Arabic forms. At the same time, with regard to the Bedouin group, he reported, “while the sedentary [Hadhari] groups are moving away from the colloquialization rule, the Bedouin group has just started to move in the opposite direction, having begun to use the [y] variant [associated with the Hadhari dialect]” (p 262). He concludes, “what in these histograms appear like small percentages of the [y] variant in the speech of the Bedouin dialect are in fact an indication of sound change in progress” (p 262). Our results show that the shift from the Bedouin variant [dʒ] to the Hadhari variant [y] among Bedouins first reported in Al-Amadidhi (1985) has gathered more momentum and has become more robust over the last three decades. We further show that the shift from Bedouin to Hadhari features is not confined to this variable alone; in fact, our data shows that it is evidenced in other lexical and syntactic variables as well.
Our findings are based on an examination of recorded sociolinguistic interviews and questionnaires designed to elicit speakers’ ideologies. We examine the following:
- 1Two phonological variables: /k/ and /dʒ/
- 2One morpho-phonological variable: the 2nd person feminine singular possessive/accusative pronoun (2ndPFSA/P)
- 3Five lexical variables: 1st and 3rd person personal pronouns
- 4Two syntactic variables: abbi, ‘I want’ and ashuf, ‘I see’.
The interview data was used for two purposes. First, we examined the use of the variants in the speech of the young and old generation to see if there was any shift. Second, we also examined the participants’ ideologies about the Bedouin and Hadhari dialects to study if the shift is being fueled by speakers’ perceptions about the two dialects. The language ideology data from the interview was further supplemented with data from a survey aimed at understanding ideologies among a broader sample of young Qatar University students belonging to both Bedouin and Hadhari groups.
Sociolinguistic background
Qatar is a small peninsula, with a population of 2.6 million, located on the western side of the Arabian Gulf. Sixty-five percent of its population lives in Doha, the capital. The official language of Qatar is Arabic. However, English is widely used in addition to a number of South and South-East Asian languages, such as Urdu, Hindi, Nepali, Malayalam, Singhalese, Tamil, and Tagalog which are widely used by expatriates.2
Qatar used to be inhabited by several tribes that were independent from one another. After Qatar became a state, all tribes were unified under one administration. However, tribal tendencies still govern the society (Al-Amadidhi, 1985). The local Qatari population consists of four major social groups: Badu (Bedouins/nomads), Qabayil (Hadharis/sedentary), Howala (people who returned to the area after having migrated out of it due to economic difficulties), and ‘Ajam (people of Iranian origin) (Al-Amadidhi, 1985). In this study, we focus on the dialects of the Bedouins and Hadharis as they form the two major social groups in the Qatari society. There are many differences in their dialects including the alternation in the pronunciation of Standard Arabic (dʒ) which is pronounced as [dʒ] in the Bedouin dialect and /y/ in the Hadhari one.3
Both Al-Amadidhi (1985) and Holes (1995) argue that the sociolinguistic factors that have contributed to the linguistic change are the result of urbanization and spread of literacy in the Arab World. Urbanization has resulted in people moving from rural areas to the cities and thereby bringing rural dialects in contact with urban ones. To this can be added that the contact among different social groups has also reconfigured language ideologies of the speakers whereby speakers of rural and Bedouin dialects have found themselves surrounded by Hadhari dialect that holds more prestige and power. The social transformation of Qatar is similar to many other countries in the region. In fact, Qatar has experienced urbanization even more robustly with about 99% of its population living in urban areas (Hamoda, 2017). The urbanization has brought the Bedouin dialect in close contact with the Hadhari one. The spread of education has further brought the younger generation of Bedouins in contact with Hadharis at schools, universities, and work places. The shift we report is the result of dialect contact due to migration more broadly and the spread of education. Our study documents the shift among young Bedouins studying at Qatar University.
Theoretical framework
This research combines theoretical and methodological insights from the variationist sociolinguistic and language ideology frameworks. While the language variation framework makes it possible to study change in progress quantitatively, the qualitative insights helps understand the ideologies and motivations behind the change. The former model, pioneered by Labov (1963) has been extensively used to study language change in progress in a range of social contexts including the Arab World. In a recent article using this model, Al-Rojaie (2013) shows that young men and women in Saudi Arabia are shifting from the affricated variant [ts], indexical of a local Bedouin identity, to the stop variant [k] associated with a supra-local variety.
According to Silverstein (1979), language ideology refers to common-sense ideas that speakers have about the structure and use of their language. Language ideology is seen as a mediating link between linguistic forms and social structure. Woolard & Schieffelin (1994) emphasize this relationship by noting that,
ideologies of language are significant for social as well as linguistic analyses because they are not only about language. Rather, such ideologies envision and enact links of language to group and personal identity, to aesthetics, to morality, and to epistemology.
(pp 55–56)
A key concept in a language ideology framework is the notion of indexicality. The term indexicality is most commonly used to refer to links that speakers establish between linguistic units such as phonemes and morphemes and social meanings. Speakers conceptualize such links through ideologies about particular speakers who produce particular kinds of language (e.g. Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). For example, the use of multiple-negation in English indexes an uneducated identity. In the Arab World, while the use of the standard Arabic negation particle lam, in lam aqul, ‘I didn’t say’ indexes an educated identity, the use of ma in ma qult, ‘I didn’t say’ may not.
A language ideology framework is relevant in understanding the construction of social identities through the process of linguistic differentiation (Irvine & Gal, 2000; Kroskrity, 1998). The framework also sheds light on the process of language change and results of language contact such as language maintenance and shift (e.g. Kulick, 1992). Irvine and Gal stress that ideology is often a motivating factor behind language change. They argue, “the direction and motivation of linguistic change can be illuminated if we attend to the ideologizing of a sociolinguistic field and the consequent reconfiguration of its varieties through processes of iconization, recursive projection, and erasure” (ibid. p 77).
The notion of prestige associated with languages and dialects is part of speakers’ language ideologies. Given the diglossic situation, the Standard Arabic enjoys high prestige across the Arab World (Ferguson, 1959). But recent studies have shown that Standard and prestige do not always cohere in the same code in the Arabic-speaking world. Regional or supra-local dialects command prestige as well.
Data and variables
Our data consists of a total of eight recorded sociolinguistic interviews with four males and four females belonging to two age groups; young between the ages of 18–30 and old between the ages of 50 and above. We made sure that parents of the participants are also Bedouin to ensure that the use of Hadhari features does not come from the parents. The interviews were conducted by three female interviewers in their twenties, one Qatari, who was Bedouin-Hadhari, and two Palestinians. The interviewers used their own dialects during the interviews t...
