Central Asian Arabic

Central Asian Arabic (العربية الآسيوية الوسطى) is a severely endangered variety of Arabic historically spoken widely across Central Asia including Khorasan, but now dying out. Many are now switching to Persian or Tajik.

Central Asian Arabic
Native to	Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Native speakers	(ca. 2,000, not counting Khorasani cited 1997–2003)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic South Central Semitic Arabic Central Asian Arabic
Dialects	Bakhtiari Bukharian Kashkadarian Khorasani Chitrali
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: abh – Tajiki Arabic auz – Uzbeki Arabic
Glottolog	afgh1238
Enclaves in Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan where Central Asian Arabic is still spoken. In brackets, after the name of each region, is the number of villages with Arabic-speaking inhabitants.

History

Much of the region of Central Asia was under the rule of Islamic Arab caliphates. Many nomadic Arabs moved from Khuzestan and Oman to Samarkand and other parts of Central Asia.^[2] After Soviet forces took the region, Arabic started dying. The majority of Arabic speakers have switched to Dari in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

References

1. Tajiki Arabic at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
   Uzbeki Arabic at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
2. "Afghanistan - Arab".