Pidgin Arabic
Arabic-based pidgins / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.