“Hatha nafar same same
cheko mal inta”, “Bayee, rooh yewadi hatha store” and “Rafeeq mal ana ma fee
ma’loom Arabi” are excerpts of a strange kind of language for many readers, but
an accustomed one for others. What language is that? Why was it created, and where?
This variety flowed into the Arab Gulf
Area subconsciously. Talking about its formation, narrowly in Oman, necessitates
going back thousands of years. The Indian artifacts found in Ras- Al Hadd confirmed
the deep-rooted relationship between Oman and the Indus Valley Civilization during
the Bronze Age (3500-1000 BC). Throughout the years, the indo-Oman
relationships, fed by navigation, trade, and geographical proximity, grew to a
great extent. Such a relationship secured the presence of an extensive number of
migrants from South Asian countries, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Sri Lanka. Only ten years back, the number of Indians in Oman exceeded the
number of Omanis themselves. Most of them spread in in running basic works,
like trading, manufacturing, and constructing. These circumstances imposed them
to be in touch with citizens. However, most of these laborers are from poor
backgrounds and Illiterate in their own languages, not to mention knowing other
languages. A mean of communication had to take place, but having migrants, who
neither speak the host language nor English, leads to shed light on the
citizens’ linguistic knowledge. In return, most Omanis do not speak any Indian
languages. Sharing no common language formed a barrier that cannot be
overlooked. What should be done to overcome it? How can two parties from
different backgrounds and languages with a zero common language communicate? Creating
a midway language to bridge the gap was the needed answer. To do so, they came
up with a simple means of communication. One, that sounded easier to understand
and faster to learn.
They started using what
sounds a broken kind of Arabic language when they communicate with each other.
However, this clumsy language is actually a mixture of at least three
languages. As a lot of Arabic words are included, which are mostly from Gulf
dialects, many words, like “same”, “store”, and “sorry”, are borrowed from
English. Words from Hindi take place too. Some examples of such words are:
“cheko”, “batchah”, “namoona”, and “bayee”. Moving from the lexical enrichment
that this variety enjoys to morphology shows that even though most of the verbs
are Arabic ones, they do not follow the Arabic morphological rules. Third
person singular verbs are what being used most of the times, and they are used
in a masculine mode.
Talking about this blended means of
communication from these two linguistic aspects implies that it cannot be
determined as a branch of Arabic language. Even though this variety seems to
have a lot of common features with Arabic language, most Arabic speakers from
outside the Gulf Area cannot understand it. However, it is neither English nor
one of the languages of the Indian subcontinent. Instead, it forms a primitive
language on its own, a pidgin. This pidgin, just like others, has low prestige.
However, Arabs still use it spontaneously whenever they speak to Indians.
Any pidgin, including the
one mentioned above, if enjoys certain conditions can turn into a creole. Such
a thing happens when the pidgin grows through enriching its vocabulary, building-up
its structure, and having children acquiring it at home. Some official
languages we have today were once pidgins! Haitian Creole in Haiti, Tok
Pisin in Papua New Guinea, and Swahili in Tanzania and Kenya are examples
of official languages that were initially pidgins. Will the pidgin we have in
Oman stand one day along with these official languages? Will we hold books and
dictionaries on it? If one pays a deep attention to the current situation in
Oman, and tries to throw a look to the future, it will be found that the number
of people using this variety is not going down since the Omanisation plan have
been put in 2003. Today Indians make up 15% of the total population of Oman. The
number of Omanis is increasing, but even Omani kids speak this variety in
needed situations. The role of Asian manpower might seem declining in certain
areas, but it is only going up in others, the construction sector is an example.
Yes, this variety was created to meet basic needs when communicating with Asian
expatriates, but as they started spreading in different fields, the variety has
expanded to cover new areas. What if this expanding went further? What if the
number of these migrants grew? What if they didn’t bother to learn Arabic nor
English? Would it be possible for this variety to be acquired at homes? Only
the future can answer.
Amira Al Maawali
