[Oman-l] More on languages: Luwati

[Calvin Allen]

Fellow Omanophiles,

One hopes that one of our Luwati friends on the list will respond to this as
they will obviously know the answer.  My information (cited by Joachim) came
during interviews in Mutrah during 1976-77 with a folks like Ali Sultan, Amin
Malallah, and a few other members of the community.  I suspect that my sources
just used the name of the script for the language that they spoke.  I also
suspect that Khojki (probably more properly Khwajki) is derived from Khwajah
(Khojah), one of the names used to describe the members of the community,
particularly up until the 1860s when most were followers of the Agha Khan.
There is also some debate on the origins of the name Luwatiyah (sing. Luti).
I proposed an origin in an article that I wrote many years ago linking the
community to the Panch Lotiyah nookh of the Bhattias from Sindh and Kutch.
That was wrong ( the arrogance, supreme confidence, and creativity of the
young scholar at work!).  The term was used in Iran in the 18th-19th century
to describe groups of people similar to gypsies in Europe, although I've never
seen anything about that group speaking Romani.  The Luwati explanation (see
Muhammad Taqi Hasan al-Umani, Dalil al-Sa'il) is that the community was
originally Banu Zayd Al-Lat of the Banu Kalb b. Wabra, one of whose leaders
accompanied Muhammad b. Qasim on the conquest of Sind.  Another local legend
claimed that the Luwati where Bani Lu'ay, who were expelled from Oman many
centuries ago and went to Sind before returning to Oman.  In any event, God
knows, and at this point it really is academic as the community is Omani and
has been for several hundred years.

Cal Allen

Joachim Duester wrote:

> Someone asked me to supply proverbs in several languages spoken in Oman,
> including "Luwati". Well, I do kow a bit about the Luwatiyah, i.e. the
> Khojah (or Luti) community in Oman, and everybody on the list probably has
> heard of the "Sur Luwatiyah", a walled quarter within Muttrah. But what
> language exactly do the Luwatiyah speak? I had not heard of a language
> called "Luwati" so far (my Luti friends spoke Arabic and English), but I
> found a reference to Luwati as a language in
> http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Oman.html#LUV ,
> which classifies Luwati as an Indo-Iranian language.
>
> Calvin Allen, in his 1978 diss. on "Sayyids, shets and sultans", tells us
> (p.
> 123) that the Luwatiyah speak Khojki, a mixture of Kutchi and Sindi.
> I did not find Khojki on http://www.sil.org/ethnologue (maybe a different
> spelling?) , but http://global.globale.net/~heritage/granths/script.html
> describes Khojki as a script.
>
> Who can tell us more about the Luti language? Or about Khojki?
>
> Joachim
>
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