Remarks on the Arabic of Dawwāda women (Gaberoun, Libya): Plankton fisherwomen of the Libyan Sahara

On 23 February 2021, an episode of the Kunūz Fazzān (Treasures of Fezzan) program, broadcast on Libya’s Channel, focused on the former inhabitants of the Gaberoun oasis, situated some 150 km west of Sebha, in the Fezzan, in southwest Libya. Particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view were the testimonies of two elderly women who recount their lives before relocating from Gaberoun to a new village, offering insights into their habits, customs, and language. This study examines excerpts from these interviews alongside human geography publications to explore the origin, lifestyle, and Arabic spoken by elderly female speakers, identified in the literature by the ethnonym Dawwāda. The analysis focuses on the affricate t s and t θ , the alveolar t, and the fricative θ pronunciations of *t; the affricate d z and apico-alveolar d̺ realizations of *d; the interdental fricatives ðˤ, ð, θ; the articulations ḵ, c ç , and t ʃ of *k, and the pronunciations g, ɟ ʝ , ʝ, and k’ of *g. Additionally, we describe elements of morphosyntax, such as genitive constructions, agreement in the feminine plural, the semantics of the preverb b-, conditional sentences, existential sentences, negation morphemes, and verbal copulas. Finally, the last section focuses on the lexicon, particularly on lexical items that describe the environment and the unique way of life of the Dawwāda, which include borrowings from Amazigh, Kanuri, Hausa, and other languages.