| Shirvani Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Azerbaijan, Dagestan (Russia) |
| Region | Caucasus |
| Extinct | Second half of the 19th century |
| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None |
Shirvani Arabic was a dialect of Arabic that was once spoken in what is now central and northwestern Azerbaijan (historically known as Shirvan) and Dagestan (southern Russia).
Arabic had been spoken in the region since the Muslim conquest of the South Caucasus at the beginning of the 8th century. It was brought there by Arab settlers consisting mostly of military staff, merchants and craftsmen from Iraq and Syria, and was used as an official language. It experienced decline after the weakening of the Caliphate in the 13th century and was gradually replaced by Persian/Tat and Azeri. Groups of Arabs (mostly from Yemen) continued to immigrate to southern Dagestan influencing the culture and literary traditions of the local population who had already become Islamized.[1]
The latest documentation of the existence of Shirvani Arabic is attributed to the Azeri historian Abbasgulu Bakikhanov who mentioned in his 1840 historical work Golestan-i Iram that "to this day a group of Shirvan Arabs speaks an altered version of Arabic."[2] Arabic continued to be spoken in Dagestan until the 1920s mostly by upper-class feudals as a second or third language, as well as a language of literature, politics and written communication.[3]
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