ABSTRACT
When dealing with dialects, a fundamental question is how they should be defined. Exactly which and how many features are sufficient for a language's many subsystems to be described as distinct dialects or languages? Occasionally, when languages are in contact, they diverge through pidginization and creolization as, e.g., creole Arabic in East Africa, Ki-Nubi, and Juba Arabic of the southern Sudan. According to Versteegh (1984), all the modem Arabic sedentary dialects stem from pidgin Arabic.
