Shakespeare in Juba: an analysis of “Cymbeline” in Juba Arabic

This thesis provides a brief linguistic analysis of the play “Cymbeline” by William Shakespeare, into its first translation from English into Juba Arabic. Juba Arabic is an Arabic-based pidgincreole spoken in South Sudan, in particular in area of the capital Juba and its outskirts, where it represents the lingua franca de facto for its multi-ethnic population. The translated playscript, yet unpublished, is known as “Cymbeline: li katib Shakespeare”, by Joseph Abuk (2012). The author, Joseph Abuk, is one of the two directors of the South Sudan Theatre Organization (SSTO), i.e. a young company of actors based in Juba, who currently chose Juba Arabic as the main language of production and staging. The SSTO performed their version of “Cymbeline” in London, on May 2012, specifically for the 2012 “Globe to Globe Festival”: this international event gathered round a number of no English-speaking companies from all over the wold, in order to celebrate Shakespeare's works in different languages and settings. Firstly, the thesis introduces the historic background of the Sudanese region, from the Turco-Egyptian Period to the establishment of the Republic of South Sudan in 2011. Chapter 2 provides a description of the play “Cymbeline: li katib Shakespeare”, focusing on the SSTO's performance in 2012, which represented a landmark success for the young company. The video-record of the performance (void of subtitles) is fully available online: in fact, the personal sight the video helped understanding the lines and thus, comparing the translation with the source text. Furthermore, this part comprises the roots and backgrounds of Juba Arabic as the literary language of Southerners, especially for those displaced intellectuals like Joseph Abuk in the second half of XX century. In the light of Abuk's edition, the core of the thesis (Chapter 3) is devoted to the linguistic analysis of selected extracts from the playscript., in order to study the latest evolution of Juba Arabic as a written language, rather than a variety of Arabic. As a result, “Cymbeline: li katib Shakespeare” is the first remarkable pillar in the development path of Juba Arabic in the XIX century.