Hassānīya Arabic

Hassaniyya
حسانية Ḥassānīya
Native to	south-western Algeria, Libya, north-western Mali, Mauritania, southern Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Senegal
Native speakers	(3.2 million cited 1991–2006)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Maghrebi Hassaniyya
Dialects	Nemadi Imraguen
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	hass1238
Current distribution of the Hassaniya language, alone (dark green) or alongside Tuareg (light green). It is also spoken in regions around the shaded zone.
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Hassānīya (Arabic: حسانية‎‎ Ḥassānīya; also known as Hassaniyya, Klem El Bithan, Hasanya, Hassani, Hassaniya) is the variety of Maghrebi Arabic originally spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region. Although clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is relatively distant from other North African variants of Arabic. Its geographical location exposed it to influence from Zenaga and Wolof. There are several dialects of Hassaniya which differ primarily phonetically. Today, Hassaniya is spoken in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and the Western Sahara.

The phonological system of Hassānīya is both very innovative and very conservative. All phonemes of Classical Arabic are represented in the dialect, but there are also many new phonemes. As in other Bedouin dialects, Classical /q/ corresponds mostly to dialectal /ɡ/, /dˤ/ and /ðˤ/ have merged into /ðˤ/ and the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ have been preserved. In common with most Maghrebi Arabic varieties, the equivalent of Modern Standard Arabic /d͡ʒ/ is realised as /ʒ/.