The Death of the Jabbali Language in the South of Oman - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal Dissertation, MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. “The Death of the Jabbali Language in the South of Oman” “… when we lose a language, we lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art, it is like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre….. Language disappearing is an erosion or extinction of ideas, of ways of knowing and ways of talking about the world and human experience.” Harrison (2007: 7) Introduction Jabbali is a language used in the south of Oman. Dhofar “Salalah” are the names for the regions where the Jibbali language exists in Oman, though there are some other names for the Jibbali language also. It can be variously referred to as “Shehri”, “Jibblat” or “Jabbali”. The number of speakers has declined in recent times which is largely due to the fact that it is not a written language and so vocabulary and language usage has increasingly disappeared. According to the World Atlas 2011, where all the languages around the world are listed in terms of the level of endangerment, the Jabbali language is listed as “definitely endangered” which means that the children are no longer learning the language as a mother tongue. This information is also supported by other researchers such as Johnstone (1975). In other words, this evidence is taken from more than 30 years ago, therefore, the Jibbali language has changed since. There is no doubt that this change will result in the reduction of opportunities to use the language. For the reasons outlined by Harrison, above, it is important to take a step in trying to revive the language. Romaine and Nettle (2000: 8) have assured that “the pulse of the language clearly lies in the youngest generation. Languages are at risk when they are no longer transmitted naturally to children in the home by parents or other caretakers.” Literature Review The Jibbali language is discussed in some books without raising the issue that it is a dying language. Makhashen (2009: 10), in his thesis, looked at the origin of the language and the speakers including where they have came from. Also, Johnstone (1972) studied the poetry in Dhofar –south of Oman- comparing it to other languages in the same area. The poetry of Jibbali is very difficult even for the people from Salalah, the capital city in the South of Oman, and this what makes it a special case (Johnstone, 1972: 1). Moreover, Johnstone (1980) also studied the verbal sounds of the Jabbali language. Hayward et. al. (1988: 1) affirmed that “a case in point is the Jibbali language of Dhofar, whose extreme phonetic and phonological complexity should arouse the interest of the general linguist as well as of the Semitic specialist.” The Dhofari researchers Al-Shahri (2000) published a book with both an Arabic and English translation, aiming to hinder the cultural heritage of south of Oman. In terms of previous research of the preservation of the Jibbali language, Al-Shahri (2000: 9) listed 10 letters of the Jibbali language with some referencing to the Jibbali alphabet, but it was not the main issue for him. This was reflected in his introduction (1994) when he asserted that “a real interest in the cultural area of Dhofar must consist of three main steps: first, the collection of any type of information like: Stories, folk tales, and novels. Then, the researcher look for the endangered things in the Dhofari culture in order to list the important things first to preserve. Finally, studying and coding what have been found academically.” All these studies could have proved that the Jibbali language contains a large amount of issues that might be investigated. In other words, such studies show that the language is very rich in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and sound system. Meanwhile, a huge amount of changes happened to Dhofar after the rule of Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1970. The building of new schools all over Oman and opening Literacy Centres to encourage an educated generation was prevalent. This resulted in abandoning everything else such as people’s languages, towns and diverse cultures in order to catch up with the new civilian world. A clear reflection of this is the number of schools in Salalah. Before 1970 there was only one school with three rooms, but now the number is 921 governmental schools, and 16 private schools. All of those schools used Arabic language in the teaching process due to the language of the country and the language of the teachers who came to teach in Oman at the time. Looking at the history of the Jabbali language shows us that it was very rich and that it may have been one of the more powerful languages in the Middle East. The history and the educational level of the people of Dhofar has resulted in them leaving their language and switching to Arabic as it is the only source of education, otherwise it would be difficult for them to live and find in modern society. Recently, the Jabbali language is under the threat of disappearance. None of the Jabbali speakers take the opportunity to write and study which is a reason for the reduction in speakers of the language. Some scholars have written books on the language structure such as Testen (1992), Johnstone (1972; 1980), Hofstede (1998), Al Hakli (2008) and Al Darodi (2008). However, none of them raise the issue of the problematic changes in the language, though perhaps this is because the issue was not as evident. Also, because most of the previous studies happened in a time when the language was spoken by a large group, it may have been difficult to observe and predict these changes. It could also be considered a waste of time to study the features of a dying language rather than helping the language to survive. Research Hypothesis The Jabbali “Shehri” language in the south of Oman is spoken by many tribes and people who live in the mountains of Dhofar. The language is at risk of disappearing due to the civilization movement in the south. There are two issues raised in this research: One reason given for the death of Jabbali is that Jabbali is incapable of being written which results in losing the relevant vocabulary and terms. Some researchers believe that “most of the world’s languages have never been written down anywhere or scientifically describe. We do not even know what exactly we stand to lose-science, for humanity, for posterity- when languages die” Harrison (2007: 3). But this assumption tends to be rejected in the Jabbali context because the written dictionary published by Al Hakli (2008) contradicts with this idea. Another possible reason for the death of Jabbali is that because of the civilization movement in the south of Oman after the 1970s, the Jabbali language has been ignored and insufficient attention was given to it. For that reason, the natives tried to shift toward the Arabic language. According to Romine and Nettle (2000:7) “language shift and death occur as a response to pressures of various types-social, cultural, economic, and even military-on a community”. Thus, it is clearly seen that the use of the language has declined in recent years. The new generations of natives are no longer living in the mountains, which offers less chances to practice the language. Harrison (2007: 8) stresses that “language death typically begins with political or social discrimination against a language or its speakers. This may take the form of official state politicise to suppress speech, or it may be benign neglect”. There has been no decisions made by the government to make the people stop or continue using the language. However, there is no future for those people who are not able to speak Arabic. This leads the natives to feel that they are low status; therefore, they are trying to avoid using Jibbali and replacing it with Arabic. If the language is to be preserved then some might argue that first there is a need to provide dictionaries, bring the language into the schools, and use the language to write books. In addition, we must look for existing written forms of the language which are not in use. In addition to investigating the reasons for the decline of Jabbali, a further aim of this research is to investigate what might be done in the future to help the language. More importantly, to show the reasons why people think it is a low state language, and why people are not more willing to help with the survival of their native language. Methodology The study will use both qualitative and quantitative data. It will target the Jibbali native speakers in Dhofar. The numerical part of it will be taken from questionnaires given to the adult group of the Jibbali. Ages from 20-30 will be researched to see to what extent do they use their language and in what situations. Possible language replacement or language shifts will also be investigated. The second part of the methodology will be survey-based interviews with the older people to investigate how often they use the language and how they feel about seeing the changes in their language. It will not be valid to use questionnaires because they are not familiar with them and most of the older people do not speak Arabic fluently. Moreover, Byren (2004: 181) argued that “such types of interviews rely more on close questions which follow a structured format of questionnaire and are designed to elicit specific information or facts from the interview”. Therefore, it will be more appropriate to use their own language in the interview as well. The study will involve both females and males at all stages of collecting data. Labov (1992: 21) declared that “we also need them to map the interaction of sex and social class, because the behavior of men and women in these various social groups has been found quite different in almost every case that has been studied”. Furthermore, his assumption draws the attention to the importance of using females participants in exploring this topic. This study is expected to come to some conclusions, addressing what might be done to encourage people to keep using the language and if it is actually worth saving. Ethical Issues This research might face some ethical issues according to some cultural diversities. One of them is the difficulty of women in talking to strangers in Dhofar. Therefore, the research might target the Jibbali Females (20-25) studying at the University of Dhofar, Sultan Qaboos University, and Salalah College of Technology as they are educated and more accustomed to such studies and could represent the population. Another solution for this might be to ask adult and educated females in Dhofar. For example: Jibbali females who are working high professional positions such as managers. Also, in the context of Dhofar it will be more appropriate if the researcher informs the government of Dhofar about the research in order to protect his rights and to keep them informed about what is going on. Moreover, members of “Shora” the Omani Counsel, might help in supporting the research as well, especially those who are from the Jibbali tribes. Indeed, a research study based on gathering social information is sensitive; therefore, the research must be focused on the study aims in order to avoid being biased to his own ideas and beliefs. To conclude, the researcher needs to follow a well-formulated plan which tells him what to do in each step in order to avoid biases in gathering and analyzing the information. Otherwise, the researcher may find his data compromised. Also, it is essential to inform the authorities in the government of Dhofar of the study, so that they can ask the tribes and the local people to collaborate with the research. References AL Darodi, A. (2008). Vocabulary of the Arabic Shehri in the Holy Quran. Dhofar: Dhofar National Printing. Al Hakli, M. (2008). Learn and Speak the Jibbali Dialect: The Language of Aad. Doha: Cultural House for Printing, Publishing and Distribution. Al-Shahri, A.A. (1994). How we started to raise the Human Civilization of the Arabian Peninsula. Dhofar: Writings and Carvings. Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing House. Al-Shahri, A.A. (2000). The Language of Aad. National Packaging and Printing Est. Byrne, B. (2004). Qualitative interviews. Reviewed in researching Society and Culture. 2nd ed. SAGE Publications Ltd. Crystal, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge University Press. Donohue, M. ‘The Languages of Wasur: Archivists and Activists’. [Online] Available from: http://www.ogmios.org/ogmios_files/105.htm [Accessed 25 April 2012] Goldenberg, G. (1977). The Modern South Arabian Prefix-Conjugation: Addendum to Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 42: pp 541-545. Harrison, H.D. (2007). When Languages Die. Oxford University Press. Harrison, H.D. (2010). The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the Worlds Most Endangered Languages. National Geographic Society. Hayward, K. M., R. J. Sālim, and Bakhīt Al-Tabūki.(1988). ‘Vowels in Jibbāli Verbs’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 51 (2): 240-250. Hofstede, A. I. (1998). Syntax of Jibbali. Ph. D Dissertation: University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Johnstone, T. M. (1927). ‘The Language of Poetry in Dhofar’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 35 (1): 1-17. Johnstone, T. M. (1980a). ‘Gemination in the Jibbali Language of Dhofar’, ZAL, (4): 61-71. Johnstone, T. M. (1980b). ‘The Non-Occurrence of a T-Prefix in Certain Jibbali Verbal Forms’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XLIII (3): 466-470. Johnstone, T. M. (1981). Jibbāli Lexicon. London: Oxford University Press. Labov, W. (1990). ‘The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change’, Language Variation and Change, 2. University of Pennsylvania. MacCoun, R. J. (1998). ‘Biases in the interpretation and use of research results’. Annual Review of Psychology, 49: 259-87. Romaine, S. & Nettle, D (2000). Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford University Press Testen, D. (1992). ‘The Loss of the Person-Marker "t-" in Jibbali and Socotri’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 55 (3): 445-450. Trudggill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. Penguin. UNESCO. (2011). Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Read More