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The Kumzari Dialect of the Shihuh Tribe, Arabia, and a Vocabulary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Bertram Thomas
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Extract

Kumzāri is a dialect spoken exclusively by certain coastal elements of the Shiḥuḥ tribe, the Kumāzara section, who occupy Kumzār at the head of the Musandam Peninsula of Oman, and are found at Dibah, Khasab, the coastal villages of Elphinstone and Malcolm Inlets and at Larek Island.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 1930 , pp. 785 - 854
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1930

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References

page 785 note 1 Kumzāri has not before been written up, though Lieut.-Col. Jayakar has left a slight note as an appendix to a paper “The Shihee Dialect of Arabic”, Bombay Journal R.A.S., April, 1902.

page 786 note 1 The Interior mountain Shiḥuḥ use an Arabic dialect which in this connection is anomalous, for their “alif” has a Persian value (as aw); often becomes v, and there are other sound values foreign to local or Badawin standards (see Appendix A). And this despite the facts—

(i) Arabic is their only language (see Appendix A). They know not Kumzāri or Persian and being mountain Badus are less exposed than the Kumazāra to external influences.

(ii) They are in racial appearance distinct from the Kumāzara, who are probably of South Persian origin. (The generic name Shiḥuḥ locally applied to the two elements would thus appear to be ethnologically unsatisfactory.)

(iii) They have a tradition of Sabian origin from the Yemen; and their physiognomy is Semitic. Customs of both elements, some of them unique in the Arabian peninsula, and a description of the habitat are the subject of my communication to the Journal of the Central Asian Society, vol. xv, 1928Google Scholar, “The Musandam Peninsula and its people, the Shihuh.”