Gulf Pidgin Arabic as a communication tool of migrant workers in the ARAB countries of the Persian gulf

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Abstract

As a result of the "oil boom" of the mid-20th century, significant flows of labor migrants from Africa, South and Southeast Asia headed to the Persian Gulf region. Not speaking Arabic, these migrant workers were forced to interact with the local Arab population, which led to the emergence of a contact language - Gulf Arabic pidgin. This study is relevant in view of the growing number of labor migrants in the region, as well as the widening social gap between the local Arabic-speaking population and pidgin-speaking labor migrants. The study analyzes the lexical material of Gulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA), as well as sociological surveys regarding the attitude towards GPA both from the indigenous Arab population and from pidgin speakers. During the work, the following conclusions were made. Firstly, GPA is characterized by noticeable variability in the lexical, phonetic and syntactic aspects of the language, which indicates the instability of this pidgin. Secondly, the native Arab population perceives GPA as a means of social distancing from unskilled migrants, while migrant workers themselves perceive pidgin positively, considering it a significant advantage for working in Arab countries. This work will contribute to further research on Arabic pidgins and will be useful to Arabists and specialists in the field of sociolinguistics.

About the authors

Ilya A. Savvin

RUDN University

Author for correspondence.
Email: ilyasavvin.2000@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0009-0009-4801-2426

received a bachelor’s degree in Oriental Studies from the National Research University "Higher School of Economics" (Moscow). He is an associate lecturer at the School of Oriental Studies, National Research University "Higher School of Economics", a second-year Master’s student in the Faculty of Philology, an assistant lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology, RUDN University

Moscow, Russian Federation

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Copyright (c) 2024 Savvin I.A.

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