“are /q / And /g / Standard Or Prestige Variants In Touat Arabic (azra)?”

Résumé: In the Touat, South of Algeria, young and old AZRA speakers do not have similar linguistic behaviour. The young show a clear tendency towards the use of uvular stop /q/; whereas, the eldest have a clear preference for velar stop /g/. Our communication is about the results obtained from several word-lists provided by Adrar university students. The informants were asked to write lists of terms they ‘think’ are their generation’s and not that of their elders. The end result is a number of ‘perceptual’ lists in which the young speakers show that their speech and that of their fathers and grandfathers are not the same. The analysis has shown that the tendencies are not only generation-based but are also sex-based. The other approach we deal with is whether the use of velar and uvular stops is linked to such notions as ‘prestige’ vs. ‘standard’ forms. As such, we verify Labov’s (1966, 1982 and 1990) theories of men’s use of standard linguistic forms in an Arabic speech community. By the same tokens, we corroborate and/or infirm that associations that exist between linguistic forms and their social correlates in the West are not the same in North Africa.

Publié dans la revue: Revue Maghrébine des Langues