The Lisaan ud Da'wat language, casually spoken | Ali speaking Lisaan ud Da'wat | Wikitongues

Lisaan ud-Da'wat is the mother tongue of the Alavi Bohras and Dawoodi Bohras, two Ismai'ili Shia Muslim communities in Gujarat, India. It first emerged between the 11th and 16th centuries CE as the creolization of Arabic, Urdu, and Gujarati, as Isma'ili Muslim communities migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to India. Originally a strictly liturgical language, Lisaan ud-Da'wat grew into widespread vernacular use over time. However, since it is under-researched, the number of speakers, as well as its status as a variety of Gujarati or a language in its own right, remain unclear. Explore: wikitongues.org/languages Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-video More from Wikipedia: "Lisaan ud-Da'wat or Lisaan o Da'wat il Bohra or Lisan ud-Dawat (Arabic: لسان الدعوة‎, lit. 'language of the Da'wat', da'wat ni zabaan; abbreviated LDB) is the language of the Alavi Bohras and Dawoodi Bohras basically from Gujarat, an Isma'ili Shi'a Muslim community, following the Taiyebi doctrines and theology. Its dialect is based on a Neo-Indo-Aryan language Gujarati, but incorporates a heavy amount of Arabic, Urdu, and Persian vocabulary and is written in the Arabic script naskh style. Originally a ritual language, since the period of the missionaries-دعاۃ in Ahmedabad around 1005 AH/1597 AD it has also been propagated as the vernacular language for members of the Bohra communities, but the version used by their religious leader-Saiyedna and his assembly members or clergy still differs slightly from the Gujarati spoken by their community members. The reason is that the religious sermons is highly loaded and peppered with the inputs and sentences of Arabic language having direct references with ancient sectarian Bohra literature linked with Egyptian and Yemeni phase of Da'wah. The earliest Bohras were Indian, and they spoke Gujarati. With the continuous effort of the Taiyebi leadership (of Yemen and their representatives in India) to promote Qur'anic and Islamic learning within the community, the language of these texts has, over time, percolated Lisaan ul-Da'wat, with Arabic (and Persian) words replacing part of the Gujarati lexicon." This video was recorded by Avi Kumar in Nairobi, Kenya and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact [email protected].