Salalah - Against the backdrop of lush mountains, men in traditional attire chant ancient poems in an ancient language, fighting to keep alive a spoken tradition used by just two percent of the population.
Sitting under a tent, poet Khalid Ahmed al-Kathiri recites the verses, while men clad in robes and headdresses echo back his words in the vast expanse."
Jibbali poetry is a means for us to preserve the language and teach it to the new generation," Kathiri, 41, told AFP.
The overwhelming majority of Omanis speak Arabic, but in the mountainous coastal region of Dhofar bordering Yemen, people speak Jibbali, also known as Shehri.
Researcher Ali Almashani described it as an "endangered language" spoken by no more than 120,000 people in a country of over five million.
- 'Protected by isolation'
-While AFP was interviewing the poet, a heated debate broke out among the men over whether the language should be called Jibbali -- meaning "of the mountains" -- or Shehri, and whether it was an Arabic dialect.
Almashani said it was a fully fledged language with its syntax and grammar, historically used for composing poetry and proverbs, and recounting legends.
The language predates Arabic and has origins in South Arabian languages, he said.
He combined both names in his research to find a middle ground.
"It's a very old language, deeply rooted in history," Almashani said, adding that it was "protected by the isolation of Dhofar".
"The mountains protected it from the west, the Empty Quarter from the north, and the Indian Ocean from the south.
This isolation built an ancient barrier around it," he said.
But remoteness is no guarantee for survival.
Other languages originating from Dhofar, like Bathari, are nearly extinct, "spoken only by three or four people," he said.
Some fear Jibbali could meet the same fate.
Thirty-five-year-old Saeed Shamas, a social media advocate for Dhofari heritage, said it was vital for him to raise his children in a Jibbali-speaking environment to help keep the language alive.
Children in Dhofar grow up speaking the mother-tongue of their ancestors, singing along to folk songs and memorising ancient poems.
"If everyone around you speaks Jibbali, from your father, to your grandfather, and mother, then this is the dialect or language you will speak," he said.
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