Central Asian Arabic: The Irano-Arabie Dynamics of a New Perfect

Central Asian Arabic is the northernmost outpost of Arabic. ¹ Once spoken in colonies throughout Central Asia, it is now reduced to a very few villages in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and probably Tajikistan (cf. references below). Groups in northeastern Iran called Arab, by themselves or by their neighbours (Ivanow 1914, 1920), may be remnants of such immigrants even though they apparently lost Arabic and essentially speak the local language (cf. Atlas Narodov Mira, 1964; maps Central Asia, 28–29, Iran and Afghanistan, 70–71; Kieffer 1983).