| Farasani is the speech form originating from the small archipelago of coral islands in the Red Sea known as the Farasan Islands, belonging to the country of Saudi Arabia. Farasani is spoken by roughly 20,000 people. This study presents the beginnings of the first detailed documentary of Farasani includes a brief history of the islands, the sociolinguistic factors affecting the Farasani speaking community, the phonological system, and the morphosyntactic patterns.;The first portion of this research study introduces a concise description of the Farasani people and history of the islands in regards to its occupation by the Ottoman Empire and contact with Yemen and other countries. It also touches upon the stigmas held by those of other Arabic speakers on the mainland of Saudi Arabia and the current perception of the younger generation of Farasani speakers who largely undervalue their dialect. The second portion of this study incorporates a detailed description of Farasani phonology collected from data from native speakers, including detailing the allowable syllable structures, consonant clusters, and sonority sequencing in Farasani. Finally, this study provides a description of selected aspects of Farasani morphosyntax, including a discussion of major word classes, morphological typology, selected verb phrase operations, word order, the alignment system, and multi-clause constructions. |
