Aspects of the morphosyntax of the Faifa dialect of Saudi Arabic: a descriptive study

Abstract

This study considers aspects of the morphology and syntax of the dialect of Faifa, an area roughly 120 km east of the city of Jayzan, the capital of the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia. This dialect is one of the most famous complex dialects, if not the most complex dialect, in Saudi Arabia. The dialect has a considerable number of salient features that distinguish it from other Saudi dialects particularly and from other Arabic dialects generally. The population of Faifa remained isolated from other communities for a long time until about 1990, which protected their dialect from the influence of neighbouring dialects. However, with the spread of schools and government services in the Faifa Mountains, and as a consequence of factors such as the influence of the media and increasing communication with other societies, the dialect has begun to erode. Thus, the contribution of this study has been to examine and record some of the morphological and syntactic features of this dialect before it disappears. In addition, this study makes this endangered dialect accessible to future researchers in the field of linguistics and in related fields such as sociolinguistics or diachronic linguistics.

Date of Award	Apr 2016
Original language	English
Sponsors	Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia
Supervisor	Alison Henry (Supervisor), Raffaella Folli (Supervisor) & Christina Sevdali (Supervisor)