An analysis of Arabic loanwords in spoken Central Kurdish with a focus on social and attitudinal factors

Abstract This thesis explores the nature of Arabic lexical borrowing in Central Kurdish (CK) from a grammatical, sociolinguistic and attitudinal perspective. The long contact between Arabic and CK has seen various degrees of intensity, reflecting the political situation, the relationships between Kurds and their Arab neighbours, and the policies of the superpowers that ruled that part of the world. Therefore, the contact situation is complex, not only because of the length of contact between the two languages, but also the nature of recent history and the relationship between the Kurds and former Iraqi governments, who adopted Arabic as the official language. The thesis draws on the theoretical literature on language contact and incorporates an analysis of linguistic, sociolinguistic and attitudinal factors. Each chapter presents a detailed analysis of a specific issue. The thesis analyses the extent of loanwords in the speech of educated CK speakers in media discourse, and the effect of social factors on the use of loanwords and their assimilation. Furthermore, this work investigates and analyses attitudes and awareness of speakers regarding the use of Arabic loanwords in CK, and how this is affected by five social factors. The results of the research suggest that social factors have shaped the use of loanwords. For example, women tend to use more assimilated loanwords than men, while men use pure loanwords more frequently. Similarly, the more assimilated loanwords have undergone greater semantic changes. In addition, the factor of education shows a higher effect on attitudes to loanwords than the factors of language skills, religion, and gender, which show different degrees of effect. The results of this study raise other questions in relation to the sociolinguistic context of CK and further studies of contact. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the notion of an integrated approach to the study of language contact as well as social, historical-political correlations in the analysis of any contact situation