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> Mustarabi (the working name, in direct immitation of Mozarabic) is > one of my artlang projects but when I really begin working on it, > I'll accept help from anyone who wants to help. :) Right now, I'm > mostly researching phonology. (I'll elaborate on phonology issues > below) Artlang, huh? I don't mean to pry, but are you an artist? You sound like you have excellent taste. > Dialects which turn [q] to [g] are: some dialects of Algerian, > Tripoli Arabic, Chadian Arabic, Andalusian Arabic, Yemeni Arabic and > Sudanese Arabic. I was inspired to remove [q] in the first place by > these dialects, Maltese (whose phonology I adore) and Swahili. > Under this plan, a pair like heart/dog would look like this. > Standard Arabic: kalb (dog), qalb (heart) > Maltese: kleb, qalb (/q/ = [?]) > Chadian: kalib, galib > Mustarabi: kalb, galb (or golb with vowel backing)> Sounds about right. I would love to help you in any way I can. Perhaps I can research dialects for you? > I'm aiming for as much mutual intelligibility with "real" Arabic > dialects as possible, within my aesthetic parameters and within the > design of a creole (rather than koine): the grammar will be > creolised such as Nubi Creole Arabic grammar, but not so much > reduced. I'm researching so-called "simplifications" in colloquial > Arabic(s) that might give me a clue on what direction to go in for > grammatical reduction. Okay. I just have a thought: I discovered the other day (and I never knew this before) that Arabic (and its dialects) use certain patterns of roots to mean similar things, for example, Kitab is a book, Katabit is I wrote, Maktub or something like that is a library... > Good question. I'm aiming for something that has some mutual > intelligibility and features of many different Arabic dialects, but > it's not really a koine. More, like you say, a dialect. Perhaps > a "semi-creole" such as Cape Dutch or Brazilian Vernacular > Portuguese, lying somewhere in a triangulation between Standard > Arabic, Colloquial Arabic and Creole Arabic. So what you're saying is: you want it to have Pan-Arabic features, but "officially" be an Arabic dialect. > Wow, I'm flattered by your enthusiasm for my idea. Let me know what > you think of my basic idea; I know it sounds rather nebulous right > now, as I haven't had a whole lot of time to sit down and formulate > a formal design plan. That's the first step I guess, and your input > is valuable and appreciated. I love your idea. I researched a bit on dialects on Sunday and I found an excellent piece comparing the three types: CV, VC and C. I, personally, would like Mustarabi to have features from all of these, so that, even if it is mostly based on Maltese and Moroccan, it would have some Levantine, Egyptian, and Iraqi flavoring. Nathaniel