For the past ten years, Dr Marie- Claude Simeone-Senelle, who is director of research at the French national center for scientific research, CNRS (Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique), has been studying Dahalik, a language spoken on the Dahlak islands and nowhere else in the world. Dr Simeone-Senelle, who is also the director at the institute of language, is devoted to studying modern, spoken and written languages descending from Southern Arabia.

In the pursuit of her research on South Arabian languages, Dr. Simeone-Senelle decided to do a survey on the Arabic and Afar spoken on Dahlak Kebir in 1996. Back then, she recalls that some of the people she interviewed informed her that their mother tongue was different from the two languages that she was interested in. Their answer was quite a surprising discovery for her as they told her that their mother tongue has for generations been what they named Dahalik. This unexpected discovery led her to probe into a full-fledged research on Dahalik, which went on for a decade. On Tuesday April 4, 2006, she gave a lecture on the essentials of her findings at the Alliance Française d’Asmara. This interesting lecture attracted quite a number of participants.

The Dahlak archipelago consists of more than 200 islands and islets. Found at a certain distance off the coast of Massawa, for the most part, they have a desert-like terrain; with a barren landscape and thorny shrubs and bushes for vegetation. Nothing could have described the forbidding climate better than the name of the islands, believed to have been derived from an Arabic word, Dah’ala, whose translation is the “gates of hell”. However, most of the islands are blessed with beautiful mangrove-lined beaches. The unmatched beauty of the coral reefs and the impressive marine biodiversity make the sea around the Dahlak archipelago nothing short of a diver’s paradise. The two largest islands are Dahlak Kebir and Nora. For the most part, the small islets are uninhabited because of the harshness of the climate.

Various tombs, monuments and other remains on the islands bear testimony to the fact that the history of the islanders goes very far back in history. The Dahlak people still practice their long-established pastoralist and fisherman’s way of life. Moreover, collecting shells has been adopted as one lucrative means of living amongst the inhabitants. Most people think that the islanders speak Afar, Tigre or Arabic. An interesting discovery however has made known the existence of a mysterious tongue, spoken exclusively on these islands, which the speakers call Dahalik.

There is no agreed time as to when Dahalik appeared. The people that Dr. Simeone-Seneelle interviewed affirm the oldness of their language, by tracing it to the time when their ancestors settled there, 2000 years ago.

Although the question as to when the Dahalik appeared cannot be ascertained, the question as to why it appeared is probably due to the separation of the islanders from the mainlanders by the sea. Simeone-Senelle attributes the strong resemblance with Tigre to the fact that 2000 years ago settlers came from the Zula peninsula to settle on the island, bringing their language along with them. Isolation has been responsible for the formation of a number of languages, case in point Afrikaans in South Africa. This language came into existence because of the fact that the native Dutch speakers living in South Africa were separated from their country of origin by such a great distance and they lived in isolation for such a long time.

A survey that ran from 2002-2006 led her to come up with the conjecture that it belongs to the Afro-Semetic group. Dahalik is spoken on the islands of Dahlak Kebir, Nora and Dehil. According to Dr. Simeone-Senelle, there are a number of factors justifying the recognition of Dahalik as a language separate from Tigre.

For one thing, the Dahalik speakers have a strong sense of identity, purporting to differ from all other ethnic groups, based in originality of their traditions. Although they are unhappy about the fact that they remain unrecognized as a separate language and people, they give emphasis to the originality of their traditions. Moreover, making reference to Dahalik texts, both literary and non-literary and the oral traditions, one can see that the people have a distinct culture. The oral traditions are passed on to the younger generation. Dr. Simeone-Senelle presented an excerpt of a recording of a young Dahlak girl telling a folk tale in Dahalik.

Dr. Simeone-Senelle’s study reveals that from the linguistic perspective, Dahalik is endowed with a number of features that make it distinct from other closely related languages. Its lexicon and its grammar, along with the dialectical differences between the different islands could probably justify its being classified as a distinct language.

After making the first records of the vocabulary and some excerpts of stories Dr. Simeone-Seneelle tried to test it on a native Tigre speaker to see how far it is related to Tigre. Dr. Simeone-Senelle recalls that although the man was able to point out certain words that are similar to Tigre, could not figure out what the passages meant. Ato Saleh Mahmud, a linguist at the Ministry of Education, also involved in research of Dahalik, argued that although there might be differences between Dahalik and Tigre, they are not sufficient to classify it as a language. In contrast, another participant at the conference, Emily, who can speak fluent Dahalik and Tigre strengthened Dr. Senelle’s finding by saying that every time she tried to speak to her Tigre relatives in Dahalik, they failed to understand what she was trying to say. Thus arguably, had the distinction between Dahalik and Tigre been just a dialectical difference, it would not have resulted in such a great dissimilarity.

In conclusion, Dr. Simeone-Senelle declared her conviction that, although some have suggested Dahalik to be some form of a Creole, she wishes to differ. Based on her finding of the complexity of the verbal system, the nominal and pronominal morpho-syntax and the syntax of complex sentences, she states, “Dahalik in its modern form cannot be considered as a Tigre-based Creole, although there is data suggesting a close relation between Dahalik and Tigre, and similarities with Tigrinya and Arabic, the divergences are too important to consider Dahalik as a dialect of Tigre.”

Dr. Simeone-Senelle’s plans for the future include making an exhaustive description of Dahalik and producing a multilingual dictionary in partnership with Saleh Mahmud, a linguist from the Ministry of Education.

Whether or not Dahalik can be called a language is not of significance. What is important is our willingness to accept its uniqueness and to do all we can to preserve such a unique heritage. In the words of Dr. Simeone-Senelle, “linguistic research contributes to spreading and safeguarding a part of Eritrean patrimony and, on a larger scale, to have a better knowledge of humanity’s heritage.”