Soqotri language

Soqotri is a South Semitic language spoken by the Soqotrans on the islands of the Socotra Archipelago in Yemen. Soqotri is one of six languages that form a group called Modern South Arabian languages (MSAL). It is also spoken by Soqotri immigrants in the Gulf Arab states.

Classification

Soqotri is often mistaken as a variety of Arabic but is typically classified as an Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, South Semitic and South Arabian language.

Scholars believe that there are no longer any grounds for associating the Modern South Arabian languages so directly with Arabic. They consider these dialects to be not Arabic, but Semitic languages in their own right.

Dialects

The Soqotri dialectology is very rich, especially considering the island's surface area and the number of inhabitants. Soqotri speakers live on their islands, but rarely on the Yemeni mainland. The language was, throughout its history, isolated from the Arabian mainland. Arabic is also spoken in a dialectal form on Socotra.

There are three main dialects of Soqotri: Eastern Soqotri Dialect, Central Soqotri

Dialect and Western Soqotri Dialect.

Geographic distribution

The total population of Soqotri users throughout Yemen is 57,000 (1990 census), and total users in all countries is 71,400.

Hence, Soqotri is regarded as a severely endangered language and a main concern toward the lack of research in Soqotri language field is not only related to the semitics, but to the Soqotri folklore heritage conservation. This isolated island has high pressures of modernization and with a rapidly changing cultural environment, there is a possibility of losing valuable strata of the Soqotran folklore heritage.

Poetry and song used to be a normal part of everyday life for people on the island, a way of communicating with others, no matter if they were human, animal, spirits of the dead, jinn sorcerers, or the divine. However, Soqotri poetry has been overlooked and the skill of the island's poets ignored.

Phonology

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|+Soqotri consonants

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! rowspan="2" |Labial

! colspan="2" |Alveolar

! rowspan="2" |Palatal

! rowspan="2" |Velar

! rowspan="2" |Pharyngeal

! rowspan="2" |Glottal

!median

!lateral

! colspan="2" |Nasal

! rowspan="3" |Plosive

!voiceless

| colspan="2" |

!Open-mid

|()

!Open

| colspan="2" |