Shawi

The Shawi-type Arabic dialects spoken in South-eastern Anatolia and the Middle Euphrates region

The FWF financed project on the Arabic dialects of the so-called Shawi-type started on the 1st of February 2021. This type of Arabic dialects is spoken by small cattle breeding Bedouin tribes in various regions of the Fertile Crescent. Compared to the sedentary dialects of the region, the number of studies that provide linguistic data on Shawi dialects is still relatively small and there exists neither a comprehensive grammar nor a dictionary for any particular variety.  

The focus of the SHAWI-project is on the Arabic minority variety spoken in the Harran-Urfa region of Southeastern Turkey. Moreover, linguistic data from speakers in Syria and Iraq will be collected. The project aims to provide three main contributions: (1) a text corpus based on audio recordings, (2) a comprehensive grammar, and (3) a digital dictionary. The basis of all three contributions is new data gathered from the field.  

The project is lead by Stephan Procházka, Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Vienna; Karlheinz Mörth, research director of the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, acts as the national research partner.  

 

Contact

Stephan Procházka (University of Vienna, Institute for Oriental Studies)

Karlheinz Mörth (ÖAW, ACDH-CH)

Project duration

1 February 2021 - 28 February 2025

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