Pidgin Arabic

There have been a number of Arabic-based pidgins throughout history, including a number of new ones emerging today.

The major attested historical Arabic pidgins are:

• Maridi Arabic, a pidgin of ca. 1000 CE of the Upper Nile
• Bimbashi Arabic, a colonial-era pidgin of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
• Turku Arabic, a pidgin of colonial Chad.
• There are still Arabic pidgins in Chad today, but since they have not been described, it is not known if they descend from Turku.
• Romanian Pidgin Arabic, spoken by Romanian oil-field workers in Iraq from the 1970s to the 1990s.[1][2]

In the modern era, pidgin Arabic is most notably used by the large number of South Asian migrants to Arab countries. Examples include:

• Pidgin Gulf Arabic, used by mostly Asian immigrant laborers in the Persian Gulf region (and not necessarily a single language variety)[3]
• Jordanian Bengali Pidgin Arabic, used by Bengali immigrants in Jordan[4]
• Pidgin Madam, used by Sinhalese domestic workers in Lebanon[5][6]

Due to the nature of pidgins, this list is likely incomplete. New pidgins are likely to continue to develop and emerge due to language contact in the Arab world.