Soqotri, or Socotri, (autonym: méthel d-saqátri; Arabic - اللغة السقطرية) is the language of the native population of the island of Socotra, and Abd al Kuri and Samhah islands of the Socotra archipelago off the southern coast of the Republic of Yemen. It is one of the Modern South Arabian languages.
Soqotri speakers live on their island, in UAE, Oman, and other Arabian states, but rarely on the Yemeni mainland. The language was, through its history, isolated from the Arabian mainland. Arabic is also spoken in a dialectal form on Socotra.
Soqotri once had ejective stops and fricatives. However, the fricatives have become largely pharyngealized, like the Arabic emphatic consonants, and this occasionally happens to the stops as well. Given that proviso, the phonemic inventory is basically that of Mehri (see).
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)