Ḥarsūsī () or Ḥersīyet (pronunciation in Harsusi: ) is a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

, spoken by the Harasis people. It is classified as a

moribund language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

,Morris, M. 2007.
The pre-literate, non-Arabic languages of Oman and Yemen.
" Lecture conducted from Anglo-Omani and British-Yemeni Societies. with an estimated 600-1000 speakers in Jiddat al-Harasis, a stony desert in south-central

. It is closely related to Mehri.Peterson, J.E.
Oman's Diverse Society: Southern Oman.
" In: ''Middle East Journal'' 58.2, 254-269.

General information

Harsusi first came to the attention of outside scholars in 1937, when it was mentioned by Bertram Thomas in his book ''Four Strange Tongues of South Arabia.'' While certain scholars have claimed that Harsusi is a dialect of the more widely spoken Mehri language, most maintain that they are mutually intelligible but separate languages. Harsusi, like all the Modern South Arabian languages, is unwritten, though there have been recent efforts to create a written form using an

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

-based script.Eades, D.
The documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of Modern South Arabian: Harsusi.
" ''Endangered Languages Archive''. Because the Harasis people were for centuries the only human inhabitants of Jiddat al-Harasis, the language developed in relative isolation. However, as most Harasis children now attend Arabic-language schools and are literate in Arabic, Harsusi is spoken less in the home, meaning that it is not being passed down to future generations. Though the discovery of oil in the area and the conservation project for the re-introduced

oryx ''Oryx'' ( ) is a genus consisting of four large antelope species called oryxes. Their pelage is pale with contrasting dark markings in the face and on the legs, and their long horns are almost straight and annulated. The exception is the sci ...

herd have provided many job opportunities for Harsusi men, these factors have also caused many Harasis to speak Arabic and Mehri in addition to or in place of Harsusi. Harry Stroomer wrote that it was "probably extinct" These pressures led one researcher to conclude in 1981 that "within a few generations Harsusi will be replaced by Arabic, more specifically by the Omani Arabic standard dialect"Swiggers, P. 1981. "A Phonological Analysis of the Ḥarsūsi Consonants." In: ''Arabica'' 28.2/3, 358-361. though this has not yet materialized.

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

has categorised Harsusi as a language that is "definitely endangered".United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO),
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
pp. 186–7, 2010.

Phonology

Consonants

The pharyngeal consonant // only exists possibly because of the influence of Omani Arabic. /ɬˤ/ may frequently be voiced as �ˤwhen in intervocalic positions. The voiceless palato-alveolar emphatic fricative /ʃˤ/ does not occur in many words in Harsusi.

Vowels

In prominent open syllables or after a

guttural Guttural Phone (phonetics), speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity, where it is difficult to distinguish a sound's place of articulation and its phonation. In popular usage it is an imprecise t ...

(such as //, //, // and //), // is realized as []. After a glottalized or lateral fricative consonant, // is realized as []. Diphthongs may be realized as ''ay'' // and ''aw'' //.

References

External links

Ethnologue
* ELAR archive o
Harsusi language documentation materials
{{Authority control Languages of Oman Endangered Afroasiatic languages Modern South Arabian languages