The Bnī ‘Addās: Language and Identity of a Peripatetic Community in Algeria

International audience The Bnī ‘Addās (or Bnī ‘dās) are an itinerant group in Algeria, attested at least since the mid-19th century yet virtually unknown in contemporary academic literature, anthropological as well as linguistic. They are stereotyped by the rest of Algerian society as practitioners of begging and fortune-telling, and are frequently likened to—or confused with—the Roma (Gypsies) of Europe. Across both the Middle East and Europe, itinerant groups typically have distinctive linguistic practices. The Banū Sāsān of medieval Iraq already had their own argot by the 10th century, facilitating secrecy in socially disapproved activities (Richardson 2017), and comparable argots are well documented for modern itinerant groups in Egypt and Sudan (Vycichl 1959). The Dom of the Levant, like the Roma of Europe, speak an Indic language of their own, documented by Matras (2012) and Herin (2012). The linguistic practices of the Bnī ‘Addās and other Algerian itinerant groups, however, have never yet been described in published literature. This presentation aims to fill this gap by analyzing some recently rediscovered unpublished documentation gathered in the early 20th century by Emile Galtier. This material includes several texts written in the argot of the Bnī ‘Addās, including tales and dialogues, alongside a lexicon and background materials. We propose to present, contextualize, and analyze this corpus, offering the first attempt at a linguistic description of the Arabic-matrix argot spoken by this community. Alongside productive word-deformation strategies ("Pig Latin"), it displays a number of unique lexical items. Despite some ambiguities and many obscure items, this material is sufficient to establish that the core of this argot comes neither from India nor from Europe, but from medieval Iraq.