Hassaniya Arabic
Sign in to saveAlso known as Hassaniyya, Hassaniya, Hassaniyya Arabic, Klam El Bithan, Hassani, Maure
Maghrebi dialect of the Arabic language mainly spoken in Mauritania and Western Sahara
Key facts
- Native to
- Southwestern Algeria , Northwestern Mali , Mauritania , southern Morocco , Northern Niger , Western Sahara
- Ethnicity
- Arabs Arab-Berbers ( Sahrawis ; Beidane ) Haratins Nemadis Imraguen
- Speakers
- 5.6 million (2021–2023) , Arabic
- Language family
- Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Maghrebi Hilalian Hassaniya
- Dialects
- Nemadi Imraguen
- Writing system
- Arabic alphabet , Latin alphabet (in Senegal )
- Official language in
- Mali
- Recognised minority language in
- Morocco , Senegal
- Iso 639 3
- mey
- Glottolog
- hass1238
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- modern language
- Subclass of
- Maghrebi Arabic
- Country
- Morocco
Show 6 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:Hassaniya language
- writing system
- Arabic alphabet
- linguistic typology
- verb–subject–object
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 3763900
- indigenous to
- Tindouf Province
via Wikidata · CC0
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Hassaniya Arabic (Arabic: حسانية, romanized: Ḥassāniyya; also known as Hassaniyya, Klam El Bithan, Hassani, Hassaniya, and Maure) is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs, Malian Arabs and the Sahrawis. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassaniya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti.
The language has completely replaced the Berber languages that were originally spoken in this region. Although clearly a western dialect, Hassaniya is relatively distant from other Maghrebi variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga-Berber and Pulaar. There are several dialects of Hassaniya, which differ primarily phonetically. There are still traces of South Arabian in Hassaniya Arabic spoken between Rio de Oro and Timbuktu, according to G. S. Colin.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hassaniya Arabic” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.