SHAWI is a cooperation project led by Stephan Procházka (University of Vienna). The ACDH serves as associated research partner. The project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, P-33574) started on 1 February 2021 and investigates the Arabic dialects of the so-called Shawi-type. These dialects are spoken by small cattle breeding Bedouin tribes in various regions of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. 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 language resources is new data gathered from the field.