Oman’s historic role in trade with India and China is part of the story of how Arabic loanwords moved into Swahili, Indonesian, Malay and other languages. Oman’s ports were key nodes in that spread. - Mackintosh-Smith
MUSCAT: Oman occupies a quiet but significant place in the history of the Arabic language, with its dialects offering valuable insights into the linguistic heritage of southern Arabia, according to British Arabist, academic and travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smith.
Mackintosh-Smith, who has lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years, said the dialects of southern Arabia, including Oman, are more significant to the history of Arabic than is often recognised.
“Oman sits on one of the oldest trade corridors in the world, and that geography meant its Arabic was shaped by merchants, sailors and poets long before modern borders existed,” he said.
The historian, best known for Travels with a Tangerine and Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires, has spent much of his career examining how Arabic evolved and spread across regions.
He argues that language, rather than ethnicity or politics, has been a key force connecting Arab peoples over centuries.
“Oman’s historic role in trade with India and China is part of the story of how Arabic loanwords moved into Swahili, Indonesian, Malay and other languages. Oman’s ports were key nodes in that spread,” said Mackintosh-Smith, who is a visiting professor of Arab Studies.
He describes language as the “hidden thread” underpinning Arab cultural unity and points to the development of classical or “high” Arabic from the traditions of tribal poets and soothsayers.
Mackintosh-Smith, who lived in Yemen for more than 30 years, refers to the country as “dictionary land”, where a single word can have multiple meanings depending on its context.
He views Oman as part of the wider linguistic history of southern Arabia, where elements of classical Arabic have survived alongside local dialects.
“Southern dialects like those in Yemen, and by extension Oman, are linguistically conservative and closer to Ancient South Arabian forms. Oman’s history is also tied to the spread of Arabic through trade across the Indian Ocean,” he said.
In Travels with a Tangerine, Mackintosh-Smith retraces the route of the famed Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah, including his journey through Oman. His work explores how Arabic travel literature has documented the region, including references to places such as Musandam in early texts.
“Oman is a good example of what I mean by mobility. People moved, goods moved, and words moved with them. But because Oman also had deep local roots, not everything got washed away,” he said.
His work on Arab history combines a broad historical narrative with an examination of the evolution and spread of the Arabic language. He traces how Arabic, after spreading beyond the Arabian Peninsula, influenced languages including Swahili, Indonesian and Malay through centuries of trade.
Omani ports such as Muscat, Suhar and Salalah played an important role in these Indian Ocean networks, connecting the Arabian Peninsula with East Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Today, as Oman continues to promote its heritage and Arabic language, Mackintosh-Smith’s perspective offers a different lens through which to view the country’s linguistic identity.
Oman’s Arabic, he suggests, is not peripheral to the history of the language but part of the story of how Arabic survived, adapted and travelled across continents.
He is currently working on a new edition of Ibn Khaldun’s autobiography, as well as a book about Gibraltar.
For Mackintosh-Smith, the lesson is straightforward: languages survive because people continue to use them in everyday life.
In Oman, he believes, that living tradition — from dhows and souqs to mountain villages — has helped preserve a remarkably old linguistic heritage.
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