les plus châtiés des arabes
Almost every Arabic speaker will tell you that his or her dialect is the best, or the closest to the ‘eloquent Arabic Language’, the assumption being that the dialects are imperfect or degenerate forms of Classical Arabic. However, they are almost all wrong, because the Libyan dialect is actually the most eloquent and closest to the original language of al-Hariri, al-Mutanabbi, and the prophet Mo.
But don’t take my word for it, this was proved as early as the 13th century by the Andalusi-Maghrebi traveller Muḥammad al-‘Abdarī, who wrote an account (al-Riḥla al-Maġribiyya) of his travels through North Africa on the way to and and from the Hijj. Passing through Barqa (Cyrenaica, near modern-day Benghazi), he had the opportunity to chat with a few Bedouin. He instantly realized the pureness and correctness of their language, more pure than even the Arabs of the Hijaz:
و عرب برقة من افصح عرب رأيناهم و عرب الحجاز ايضاً فصحاء و لكن عرب برقت لم يكثر ورود الناس عليهم فلم يختلط كلامهم بغيره و هم الى الان على عربيتهم. لم يفسد من كلامهم الا القليل … ولا يخلون من الاعراب الا ما لا قدر له بالاضافة الى ما يعربون
“Les Arabes contemporains de Cyrénaïque sont parmi les plus châtiés des Arabes que nous ayons vus. Ceux du Hedjâz sont également châtiés, mais, chez ceux de Cyrénaïque, il vient si peu de gens que leur langage ne s’est mêlé d’aucun autre. Jusqu’à maintenant, ils maintiennent leur arabe. De leur langage, il n’est que peu qui se soit gâte et ils ne manquent à la fléxion que dans une proportion infime par rapport à ce qu’ils fléchissent.”
There you have it, and from a medieval writer, which means is it true.
Unfortunately, I think al-‘Abdarī was too concerned with seeking out purely-speaking Arabs to provide really good notes on the dialect of Cyrenaica at that time. The few things he mentions, though, accord with what is known about Eastern Libyan Arabic today, i.e. the presence of imāla (only in Bedouin dialects) and the nunation of feminine sg. and pl. imperfect verb forms. He otherwise comments on their use of rare and odd words, but doesn’t record much, lexically.
[ Larcher, P. 2001. "Le parler des Arabes de Cyrénaïque vu par un voyageur Marocain du XIIIe siècle." Arabica 48/3, pp. 368-382. ]
