DIGlossia: Egyptian Arabic between Rural and Urban Practices in Archaeological Dig Diaries from the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

In 2006, a unique collection of 73 Arabic diary volumes documenting thirty years of excavation (1913–1947) at fifteen archaeological sites in Egypt and Sudan resurfaced in the rural community of Quft (near Luxor) in the South of Egypt. They were written by two generations of archaeological foremen known as Quftis (after their town of origin) who worked with the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts (HU–MFA) Egyptian Expedition. As was common to large-scale excavations in Egypt at the time, the expedition’s head foreman, Reis Sayyid Aḥmad Sayyid Dirāz (1890–1926), and several sub-foremen from Quft, were responsible for the day-to-day running of the excavations, including the recruitment and management of local labor. But in addition to employing Quftis as field technicians, who were skilled in excavation methods and the preservation of archaeological materials, the HU–MFA Expedition was unique in introducing Arabic record-keeping and site documentation. The resulting Arabic diary corpus is thus a one-of-a-kind archive in the history of archaeology – but it is also unique and equally important from the perspective of Arabic linguistics. The texts are written in a mixture of Classical (Standard) Arabic and Egyptian dialects, and they contain features reminiscent of Middle Arabic. This article discusses fragments of the first two diary books, written at Giza (near Cairo) and Deir el-Bersha (in Upper Egypt) between November 1913 and October 1915. Here we establish a preliminary basis for the diaries’ authorship; discuss the use of colloquial and Middle Arabic in the texts; and describe some features of linguistic and lexicographical interest.