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SICULO ARABIC. By DIONISIUS A. AGIus. London, Kegan Paul, 1996. 542 pp + 10 pp in Arabic. L65.00.
This is Monograph No. 12 in the well-known Library of Arabic Linguistics series edited by Muhammad Hasan Bakalla, Bruce Ingham and Clive Holes. It is the first major treatise to deal with all the varieties of Siculo Arabic from 827 to 1091, the Islamic period, and from 1091 to 1282, the Norman. The nomenclature of all the languages, dialects, and varieties encountered in this meaty tome is cumbersome and somewhat confusing because of the complicated history of Sicily during the aforementioned periods. This contention may be illustrated by considering the very title of the book. Siculo Arabic (without hyphen) contains three varieties: (1) Siculo-Arabic (with hyphen), the intertwined Arabic and Romance Mischsprache coupled with Greek influence, a pidgin Arabic which eventually creolized; (2) Siculo-Lahn Arabic, containing two registers, ;amma ('commoners') and xassa `the literate elite', the division between which is based on data presented in the Tathqif al-Lisan by Ibn Makki (d. 1107), a treatise of errors in the speech of Sicilian Arabic speakers.); (3) Siculo-Middle Arabic (SMA), an admixture of formal and informal styles incorporating both Classical and colloquial features (with considerable Romance elements exhibiting Norman Christian culture). This latter variety is somewhat reminiscent of today's al-lugha al-wus.ta, the so-called 'middle' language, an ill-defined continuum between Modern Standard/Classical Arabic on the one hand, and various styles of colloquial Arabic on the other.
The linguistic facts concerning the development of Siculo Arabic are as...