The term Hilalian dialects refer to Banu Hilal, a confederation of Arab nomadic tribes who invaded North Africa in the eleventh century. The story is documented in an epic poem called Sirat Bani Hilal. One famous man who fought against the Berber tribes of Zenata and Sanhaja and guaranteed the independence of the Hawazin tribes was Abu Zayd al-Hilali.
Along with the pre-existing sedentary pre-Hilalian Arabic dialects, they constitute the larger Maghrebi Arabic family. The Hilalian dialects hold a close resemblance to the Gulf Arabic dialect, since they both developed from tribal Arabian dialects.
Varieties and distribution
Hilalian dialects are found across North Africa, from the western plains of Morocco and the Mauritanian desert to western Egypt, including Libya, the Algerian Hautes-Plaines and coast, and Tunisia.
Recent urbanization and Amazigh migrations have significantly reduced the number of speakers of the Hilalian dialects, as generations after French colonization began to abandon these dialects in favor of either the standard dialect of their country or a pre-Hilalian dialect spoken in the cities to which they migrated.
