Juba Arabic language

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Juba Arabic is a lingua franca spoken mainly in Equatoria Province in Southern Sudan, and derives its name from the town of Juba, Sudan. It is also spoken among communities of people from south Sudan living in towns in Northern Sudan. The pidgin developed in the 19th century, among descendants of Sudanese soldiers, many of whom were forcibly recruited from southern Sudan. Residents of other large towns in southern Sudan, notably Malakal and Wau, Sudan, do not generally speak Juba Arabic, tending towards the use of Arabic closer to Sudanese Arabic, in addition to local languages.

In spite of its common name, Juba Arabic is not a dialect of Arabic, but rather derives from a pidgin that differs from Sudanese Arabic (from which it is based) because of its vastly simplified grammar as well as the influence of local languages from the south of the country. DeCamp, writing in the mid 1970s, classifies Juba Arabic as a pidgin rather than a creole (meaning that it is not passed on by parents to their children as a first language), though Mahmud, writing slightly later, appears to equivocate on this issue (see references below). Mahmoud's work is politically significant as it represented the first recognition by a northern Sudanese intellectual that Juba Arabic was not merely 'Arabic spoken badly' but is a distinct dialect (Abdel Salam & De Waal, 2004, p79).

Because of the civil war in southern Sudan from 1983, more recent research on this issue has been restricted. However, the growth in the size of Juba town since the beginning of the civil war, its relative isolation from much of its hinterland during this time, together with the relative collapse of state run education systems in the government held garrison town (that would have further encouraged the use of Arabic as opposed to Juba Arabic), may have changed patterns of usage and transmission of Juba Arabic since the time of the last available research. Further research is required to determine the extent to which Juba Arabic may now be considered a creole rather than a pidgin language. The newly autonomous government of southern Sudan has nominated English as the new official language of government in southern Sudan in preference to Arabic and / or local languages such as Juba Arabic, Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk etc.

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DeCamp, D (1977). "The Development of Pidgin and Creole Studies", in Valdman, A (ed.): Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Indiana University Press.

Mahmud, Ashari Ahmed, 1983, Arabic in the southern Sudan: history and the spread of a pidgeon-creole, Khartoum.

Mahmud, Ashari Ahmed, 1979, Linguistic variation and change in the aspectual system of Juba Arabic, Ph.D Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Abdel Salam, A. H. and A. De Waal, 2004, "On the failure and persistence of Islam" in De Waal (ed.) Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, Bloomington & Indiapolis: Indiana University Press, pp21-70, isbn 0-253-34403-4.