ABSTRACT

Soqotri is spoken by the inhabitants of the island of Soqotra, roughly estimated as 100,000 people. Soqotri is the mother tongue of all native Soqotrans. Since the number of immigrants is quite insignificant, one can safely conclude that the number of Soqotri speakers practically coincides with that of the island’s inhabitants. Due to the spread of schooling, religious institutions and media, almost all male speakers of young and middle generations are to some extent bilingual with Arabic, which is widely used for external communication. The same is true of many younger women, whereas preschool children, elderly persons and female population in general are still often monolingual. A regular and consistent system of Arabic-based writing for Soqotri is been implemented in numerous recent publications by the Russian-Yemeni research team. Practically all autochthonous Soqotri words and forms are stressed on the penultimate syllable.