In the unaffected speech of the illiterate the dialectical element largely predominates, while the educated are inclined to eschew the homely words of the countryside…
-Sudan Arabic, Sigmar Hillelson
Reading through Hillelson’s 350 page lexicon of dialectical Sudanese Arabic is like rewatching a beloved classic film with the volume turned on for the first time. “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?” Not until now do I know that the whole time I’d not really understood their most basic words…good, samh…bad, ka’b…man, zool…camel, ga’ood. I learned them quick enough from context and inference, but my hard earned visual images of dictionary definitions never came to mind because you won’t find Sudanese vernacular in Wehr or Lane. Whenever KhairAllah would point and say something like, Qoosh samh qudaam, Good grazing ahead…or, Al-ga’ood dak ka’b, That camel is bad off, I would make a fifty-fifty bet with myself. Good or bad? Man or camel?