Dictionary of Melhoun Poets’ Language

The language of Melhoun’s poets, has been variously appreciated by those who have studied its texts: it combines in it the paradox of being a popular language while it looks difficult to access at first, it means that it presents the aspect of the sought-after language and the elevated speech, while being popular and dialectal. Others spoke about a "mixed language between dialectal and classical". In short, we can define it as a popular literary dialect that is rooted in the substratum of dialectal Arabic while opening up widely to classical Arabic without ever being confused with it, in a borrowing-adaptation movement to the classical language, a movement that reflects a strong lexical demand driven by the needs of creation and innovation. The result of this constant contribution to the Melhoun language has made it a lexical reservoir of remarkable richness. The other phenomenon which constitutes the first source of lexical input, outside of classical Arabic, is this movement which aims deeply explore the hidden resources of the Arabic dialect.