Mehri Lexicon and Mehri-English word list

INTRODUCTION

Mehri is spoken by many thousands of speakers both in Dhofar,
in the high desert plateau area called Nagd by Arabs and Mehris (and
Fagr by Jibbalis) , and in the adjacent area of South Yemen, as far to
the south-west as Mukalla, the port on the Indian Ocean. In Mukalla
itself the Mehris have lost their native language and speak only
Arabic. Many Mukalla Mehri families, however, have, or had, a great
deal of political influence in Mehri lands. The dialect of this
south-western area was the one studied by the Austrian South Arabian
Expedition (SAE) . It is different from the dialect of Nagd (NM)
principally in that NM preserves many features of phonology,
morphology and lexicon lost in SM. In some of the dialects (such as
that of Ghay<Ja) it is possible to find in the SAE texts certain
phonological features closer to NM. On the whole, however, the SAE
publications aitre concerned mainly with the dialects further to the
South West. The material while much better transcribed and
analysed than that for JibbSli (Skhawri) is still rather deficient in
many ways, as will be seen from the comparative material cited.
Comparative dialect material for the south-western area is given from
the fairly limited texts I have recorded in Dubai (SM) and from Jahn's
word-list in SAE (Jahn) . It is possible that the speech of the
Za*b©not of the strip of coast immediately adjacent to S. Yemen is of
the south-western type, and it is likely that the Bedouin Mahrah in
that part of S. Yemen bordering on Nagd speak a dialect very like NM.

Beside Mehri proper there are many languages or dialects
closely related to it spoken within this area. A small number of
people on both sides of the border speak Hobyot. Hobyot appears to
be most closely related to Mehri but certain aspects of phonology and
many lexical items can only be related to Jibbali. It is not,
however, a mixed language, such as that in which the Jibbalis usually
compose their poetry. The few comparative items appearing in the
body of this bcok are all from the field-notes of Mrs. Miranda Morris -

Ba^tyari, which is spoken mainly in Shuwaimiyya on the coast to
the east of Salala, is the speech of a community dispossessed by the
Mahrah at the time of the great tribal invasions of Dhofar and re-
settling on the coast as cave-dwelling fisherfolk and acquiring the
language of their conquerors. Formerly in client status to the
Mahrah they are now fairly prosperous and aggressive in their social
attitudes towards their former overlords. Although I collected
forty or fifty Ba^hari words in Shuwaimiyya and Sharbithat, most of
the comparative material cited comes from the field-notes of Mrs.
Miranda Morris.

© Bernice Johnstone 1987

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Johnstone, T. M.

Mehri lexicon and English-Mehri word list.

1. Mehri language — Dictionaries — English

2. English language — Dictionaries — Mehri
I. Title II. Smith, G. R. (Gerald Rex)
492'. 9 PJ7113

ISBN 0-7286-01374)