A critical and comparative study of the dialectal speech of the Ghawarna community in the Jordan Valley in Jordan

The present study deals with the spoken dialect of the Ghawarneh community, who inhabit the Jordan Valley in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as well as presenting data concerning their history, social organization and certain of their customs. The thesis first considers the geographical location, social organization, and reputed origins of this community, and describes certain elements in their traditional way of life (customs connected with circumcision,death,marriage, etc.). It next turns to the language aspect, and offers a description of Ghawarneh speech under the headings of phonology,morphology,lexis and syntax. The dialect is thereafter compared to the neighbouring dialects of townsfolk, country people,and bedouin on the Western and Eastern side of the river Jordan, and also with Syro-Mesopotamian dialects, and the dialect of North Arabian desert tribes. This again is done under the headings of phonology, morphology and lexis, though syntax has to be omitted from the discussion for lack of suitable comparative documentation. It is found that, while Al-Ghor dialect possesses features in the realisation of the definite article /-al/, which differ from the rest of the neighbouring dialects it has otherwise a close relationship mainly with the country dialects on both the Western and Eastern side of the river Jordan, but less so with Palestinian bedouin dialects. A fairly close relationship in certain respects also exists with Syro-Mesopotamian dialects. However, except for intonation, the Ghawarneh dialect is not very similar to those of the North Arabian tribes