Varieties of Arabic

Last updated
Colloquial Arabic
اللهجات العربية
Native to Arab world
Ethnicity Arabs
Native speakers
383 million (2024) [1]
Early forms
Standard forms
Dialects
Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ara
Arabic Varieties Map-2023.svg
Geographical distribution of the varieties of Arabic

Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernacular languages) are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. [2] Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian Peninsula. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize (or distinguish) the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects as well as local native languages and dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International, consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be separate languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress, consider them all to be dialects of Arabic. [3]

Contents

In terms of sociolinguistics, a major distinction exists between the formal standardized language, found mostly in writing or in prepared speech, and the widely diverging vernaculars, used for everyday speaking situations. The latter vary from country to country, from speaker to speaker (according to personal preferences, education and culture), and depending on the topic and situation. In other words, Arabic in its natural environment usually occurs in a situation of diglossia, which means that its native speakers often learn and use two linguistic forms substantially different from each other, the Modern Standard Arabic (often called MSA in English) as the official language and a local colloquial variety (called العامية, al-ʿāmmiyya in many Arab countries, [lower-alpha 1] meaning "slang" or "colloquial"; or called الدارجة, ad-dārija, meaning "common or everyday language" in the Maghreb [7] ), in different aspects of their lives.

This situation is often compared in Western literature to the Latin language, which maintained a cultured variant and several vernacular versions for centuries, until it disappeared as a spoken language, while derived Romance languages became new languages, such as Italian, Catalan, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. The regionally prevalent variety is learned as the speaker's first language whilst the formal language is subsequently learned in school. While vernacular varieties differ substantially, Fus'ha (فصحى), the formal register, is standardized and universally understood by those literate in Arabic. [8] Western scholars make a distinction between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic while speakers of Arabic generally do not consider CA and MSA to be different varieties. [8]

The largest differences between the classical/standard and the colloquial Arabic are the loss of grammatical case; a different and strict word order; the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood, along with the evolution of a new system; the loss of the inflected passive voice, except in a few relic varieties; restriction in the use of the dual number and (for most varieties) the loss of the distinctive conjugation and agreement for feminine plurals. Many Arabic dialects, Maghrebi Arabic in particular, also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant clusters. Unlike other dialect groups, in the Maghrebi Arabic group, first-person singular verbs begin with a n- (ن). Further substantial differences exist between Bedouin and sedentary speech, the countryside and major cities, ethnic groups, religious groups, social classes, men and women, and the young and the old. These differences are to some degree bridgeable. Often, Arabic speakers can adjust their speech in a variety of ways according to the context and to their intentions—for example, to speak with people from different regions, to demonstrate their level of education or to draw on the authority of the spoken language.

In terms of typological classification, Arabic dialectologists distinguish between two basic norms: Bedouin and Sedentary. This is based on a set of phonological, morphological, and syntactic characteristics that distinguish between these two norms. However, it is not really possible to keep this classification, partly because the modern dialects, especially urban variants, typically amalgamate features from both norms. Geographically, modern Arabic varieties are classified into five groups: Maghrebi, Egyptian (including Egyptian and Sudanese), Mesopotamian, Levantine and Peninsular Arabic. [2] [9] Speakers from distant areas, across national borders, within countries and even between cities and villages, can struggle to understand each other's dialects. [10]

Classification

Geographical distribution of the varieties of Arabic (excluding Jewish Judeo-Arabic) per Ethnologue and other sources:
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1: Hassaniyya
2: Moroccan Arabic
3: Algerian Saharan Arabic
4: Algerian Arabic
5: Tunisian Arabic
6: Libyan Arabic - Western Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
7: Egyptian Arabic
8: Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
9: Saidi Arabic
10: Chadian Arabic
11: Sudanese Arabic
12: Juba Arabic
13: Najdi Arabic
14: Levantine Arabic
15: North Mesopotamian Arabic
16: Mesopotamian Arabic
17: Gulf Arabic
18: Baharna Arabic
19: Hijazi Arabic
20: Shihhi Arabic
21: Omani Arabic
22: Dhofari Arabic
23: Sanaani Arabic
24: Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic
25: Hadrami Arabic
26: Uzbeki Arabic
27: Tajiki Arabic
28: Cypriot Arabic
29: Maltese
30: Nubi
Sparsely populated area or no indigenous Arabic speakers
Solid area fill: variety natively spoken by at least 25% of the population of that area or variety indigenous to that area only
Hatched area fill: minority scattered over the area
Dotted area fill: speakers of this variety are mixed with speakers of other Arabic varieties in the area Arabic Varieties Map-2023.svg
Geographical distribution of the varieties of Arabic (excluding Jewish Judeo-Arabic) per Ethnologue and other sources:

Regional varieties

The greatest variations between kinds of Arabic are those between regional language groups. Arabic dialectologists formerly distinguished between just two groups: the Mashriqi (eastern) dialects, east of Libya which includes the dialects of Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, Sudan, and the Maghrebi (western) dialects which includes the dialects of North Africa (Maghreb) west of Egypt. [11] The mutual intelligibility is high within each of those two groups, while the intelligibility between the two groups is asymmetric: Maghrebi speakers are more likely to understand Mashriqi than vice versa.[ citation needed ]

Arab dialectologists have now adopted a more detailed classification for modern variants of the language, which is divided into five major groups: Peninsular, Mesopotamian, Levantine, Egypto-Sudanic (including Egyptian and Sudanese), and Maghrebi. [2] [10]

These large regional groups do not correspond to borders of modern states. In the western parts of the Arab world, varieties are referred to as الدارجةad-dārija, and in the eastern parts, as العاميةal-ʿāmmiyya. Nearby varieties of Arabic are mostly mutually intelligible, but faraway varieties tend not to be. Varieties west of Egypt are particularly disparate, with Egyptian Arabic speakers claiming difficulty in understanding North African Arabic speakers, while North African Arabic speakers' ability to understand other Arabic speakers is mostly due to the widespread popularity of Egyptian Standard and to a lesser extent, the Levantine popular media, for example Syrian or Lebanese TV shows (this phenomenon is called asymmetric intelligibility). One factor in the differentiation of the varieties is the influence from other languages previously spoken or still presently spoken in the regions, such as Coptic, Greek and English in Egypt; French, Ottoman Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Berber, Punic or Phoenician in North Africa and the Levant; [12] Himyaritic, Modern South Arabian and Old South Arabian in Yemen; and Syriac Aramaic, Akkadian, Babylonian and Sumerian in Mesopotamia (Iraq). [13] [14] and Persian in the Middle East.

Maghrebi group

Western varieties are influenced by the Berber languages, Punic and by Romance languages.

Sudanese group

Sudanese varieties are influenced by the Nubian languages.

Egyptian group

Egyptian varieties are influenced by the Coptic language.

Mesopotamian group

Mesopotamian varieties are influenced by the Mesopotamian languages (Sumerian, Akkadian, Mandaic, Eastern Aramaic), Turkish language, and Iranian languages.

Levantine group

Levantine varieties (ISO 639–3: apc) are influenced by the Canaanite languages, Western Aramaic languages, and to a lesser extent, the Turkish language and Greek and Persian and Ancient Egyptian language:

Peninsular group

Some peninsular varieties are influenced by South Arabian Languages.

Peripheries

Jewish varieties

Jewish varieties are influenced by the Hebrew and Aramaic languages. Though they have features similar to each other, they are not a homogeneous unit and still belong philologically to the same family groupings as their non-Judeo counterpart varieties.

Creoles

Pidgins

Diglossic variety

Language mixing and change

Arabic is characterized by a wide number of varieties; however, Arabic speakers are often able to manipulate the way they speak based on the circumstances. There can be a number of motives for changing one's speech: the formality of a situation, the need to communicate with people with different dialects, to get social approval, to differentiate oneself from the listener, when citing a written text to differentiate between personal and professional or general matters, to clarify a point, and to shift to a new topic. [15]

An important factor in the mixing or changing of Arabic is the concept of a prestige dialect. This refers to the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect within a speech community. The formal Arabic language carries a considerable prestige in most Arabic-speaking communities, depending on the context. This is not the only source of prestige, though. [16] Many studies have shown that for most speakers, there is a prestige variety of vernacular Arabic. In Egypt, for non-Cairenes, the prestige dialect is Cairo Arabic. For Jordanian women from Bedouin or rural background, it may be the urban dialects of the big cities, especially including the capital Amman. [17] Moreover, in certain contexts, a dialect relatively different from formal Arabic may carry more prestige than a dialect closer to the formal language—this is the case in Bahrain, for example. [18]

Language mixes and changes in different ways. Arabic speakers often use more than one variety of Arabic within a conversation or even a sentence. This process is referred to as code-switching. For example, a woman on a TV program could appeal to the authority of the formal language by using elements of it in her speech in order to prevent other speakers from cutting her off. Another process at work is "leveling", the "elimination of very localised dialectical features in favour of more regionally general ones." This can affect all linguistic levels—semantic, syntactic, phonological, etc. [19] The change can be temporary, as when a group of speakers with substantially different Arabics communicate, or it can be permanent, as often happens when people from the countryside move to the city and adopt the more prestigious urban dialect, possibly over a couple of generations.

This process of accommodation sometimes appeals to the formal language, but often does not. For example, villagers in central Palestine may try to use the dialect of Jerusalem rather than their own when speaking with people with substantially different dialects, particularly since they may have a very weak grasp of the formal language. [20] In another example, groups of educated speakers from different regions will often use dialectical forms that represent a middle ground between their dialects rather than trying to use the formal language, to make communication easier and more comprehensible. For example, to express the existential "there is" (as in, "there is a place where..."), Arabic speakers have access to many different words:

In this case, /fiː/ is most likely to be used as it is not associated with a particular region and is the closest to a dialectical middle ground for this group of speakers. Moreover, given the prevalence of movies and TV shows in Egyptian Arabic, the speakers are all likely to be familiar with it. [21] Iraqi/Kuwaiti aku, Levantine fīh and North African kayn all evolve from Classical Arabic forms (yakūn, fīhi, kā'in respectively), but now sound different.

Sometimes a certain dialect may be associated with backwardness and does not carry mainstream prestige—yet it will continue to be used as it carries a kind of covert prestige and serves to differentiate one group from another when necessary.

Typological differences

A basic distinction that cuts across the entire geography of the Arabic-speaking world is between sedentary and nomadic varieties (often misleadingly called Bedouin). The distinction stems from the settlement patterns in the wake of the Arab conquests. As regions were conquered, army camps were set up that eventually grew into cities, and settlement of the rural areas by nomadic Arabs gradually followed thereafter. In some areas, sedentary dialects are divided further into urban and rural variants.[ citation needed ]

The most obvious phonetic difference between the two groups is the pronunciation of the letter ق qaf , which is pronounced as a voiced /ɡ/ in the urban varieties of the Arabian Peninsula (e.g. the Hejazi dialect in the ancient cities of Mecca and Medina) as well as in the Bedouin dialects across all Arabic-speaking countries, but is voiceless mainly in post-Arabized urban centers as either /q/ (with [ɡ] being an allophone in a few words mostly in North African cities) or /ʔ/ (merging ق with ء ) in the urban centers of Egypt and the Levant. The latter were mostly Arabized after the Islamic Conquests.

The other major phonetic difference is that the rural varieties preserve the Classical Arabic (CA) interdentals /θ/ ث and /ð/ ذ,[ citation needed ] and merge the CA emphatic sounds /ɮˤ/ ض and /ðˤ/ ظ into /ðˤ/ rather than sedentary /dˤ/.[ citation needed ]

The most significant differences between rural Arabic and non-rural Arabic are in syntax. The sedentary varieties in particular share a number of common innovations from CA.[ specify ] This has led to the suggestion, first articulated by Charles Ferguson, that a simplified koiné language developed in the army staging camps in Iraq, whence the remaining parts of the modern Arab world were conquered.[ citation needed ]

In general the rural varieties are more conservative than the sedentary varieties and the rural varieties within the Arabian peninsula are even more conservative than those elsewhere. Within the sedentary varieties, the western varieties (particularly, Moroccan Arabic) are less conservative than the eastern varieties.[ citation needed ]

A number of cities in the Arabic world speak a "Bedouin" variety, which acquires prestige in that context.[ citation needed ]

Examples of major regional differences

The following example illustrates similarities and differences between the literary, standardized varieties, and major urban dialects of Arabic. Maltese, a highly divergent Siculo-Arabic language descended from Maghrebi Arabic is also provided.

True pronunciations differ; transliterations used approach an approximate demonstration. Also, the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic differs significantly from region to region.

VarietyI love reading a lot.When I went to the library,I only found this old book.I wanted to read a book about the history of women in France.
Arabicأَنَا أُحِبُّ القِرَاءَةَ كَثِيرًاعِنْدَمَا ذَهَبْتُ إِلَى المَكْتَبَةلَمْ أَجِد سِوَى هٰذَا الكِتَابِ القَدِيمكُنْتُ أُرِيدُ أَنْ أَقْرَأَ كِتَابًا عَن تَارِيخِ المَرأَةِ فِي فَرَنسَا
Modern Standard Arabic ʾana ʾuḥibbu‿l-qirāʾata kaṯīran

ʔana: ʔuħibːu‿lqiraːʔata kaθiːran
ʿindamā ḏahabtu ʾila‿l-maktabah

ʕindamaː ðahabtu ʔila‿lmaktabah
lam ʾaǧid siwā hāḏa‿l-kitābi‿l-qadīm

lam ʔad͡ʒid siwaː haːða‿lkitaːbi‿lqadiːm
kuntu ʾurīdu an ʾaqraʾa kitāban ʿan tārīḫi‿l-marʾati fī faransā

kuntu ʔuriːdu ʔan ʔaqraʔa kitaːban ʕan taːriːχi‿lmarʔati fiː faransaː
Maghrebi
Tunisian (Tunis) nḥəbb năqṛa baṛʃawăqtəlli mʃit l-əl-măktbama-lqīt kān ha-lə-ktēb lə-qdīmkənt nḥəbb năqṛa ktēb ʕla tērīḵ lə-mṛa fi fṛānsa
Algerian (Algiers) ʔāna nḥəbb nəqṛa b-ez-zafki rŭħt l-əl-măktabama-lqīt ḡīr hād lə-ktāb lə-qdīmkŭnt ḥayəb nəqṛa ktāb ʕla t-tārīḵ təʕ lə-mṛa fi fṛānsa
Moroccan (Casablanca) ʔāna kanebɣi naqra b-ez-zāfmelli mʃīt el-maktabama-lqīt ḡīr hād le-ktāb le-qdīmkunt bāḡi naqra ktāb ʕla tārīḵ le-mra fe-fransa
Hassaniya (Nouakchott) ʔānə nəbqi ləgrāye ḥattəlīn gəst əl-məktəbəma jbart mahu ḏə ləktāb l-qadīmkənt ndōr nəgra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ ləmra/ləʔləyāt və vrāns
Maltese jien inħobb naqra ħafnameta mort il-librerijasibt biss dan il-ktieb il-qadimridt naqra ktieb dwar il-ġrajja tan-nisa fi Franza.
Egypto-Sudanic
Egyptian (Cairo) ʔana baḥebb el-ʔerāya awilamma roḥt el-maktabama-lʔet-ʃ ʔella l-ketāb el-ʔadīm dakont ʕāyez ʔaʔra ketāb ʕan tarīḵ es-settāt fe faransa
Levantine
Northern Jordanian (Irbid) ʔana/ʔani kṯīr baḥebb il-qirāʔalamma ruḥt ʕal-mektebema lagēteʃ ʔilla ha-l-ktāb l-gadīmkān baddi ʔagra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-faransa
Jordanian (Amman) ʔana ktīr baḥebb il-qirāʔalamma ruḥt ʕal-mektebema lagēt ʔilla hal-ktāb l-gadīmkan beddi ʔaqraʔ ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-faransa
Lebanese (Beirut) ʔana ktīr bḥebb l-ʔ(i)rēyelamma reḥt ʕal-makt(a)bema l(a)ʔēt ʔilla ha-le-ktēb l-ʔ(a)dīmkēn badde ʔeʔra ktēb ʕan tērīḵ l-mara b-f(a)ransa
Syrian (Damascus) ʔana ktīr bḥebb l-ʔrayelamma reḥt ʕal-maktabema laʔēt ʔilla ha-l-ktāb l-ʔdīmkān biddi ʔra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-fransa
Mesopotamian
Mesopotamian (Baghdad) ʔāni kulliš ʔaḥebb lu-qrāyemin reḥit lil-maktabema ligēt ḡīr hāḏe l-ketab el-ʕatīgredet ʔaqre ketāb ʕan tārīḵ l-imrayyāt eb-franse
Peninsular
Gulf (Kuwait) ʔāna wāyid ʔaḥibb il-qirāʾalamman riḥt il-maktabama ligēt ʔilla ha-l-kitāb il-qadīmkint ʔabī ʔagra kitāb ʕan tārīḵ il-ḥarīm b-faransa
Hejazi (Jeddah) ʔana marra ʔaḥubb al-girāyalamma ruħt al-maktabama ligīt ḡēr hāda l-kitāb al-gadīmkunt ʔabḡa ʔaɡra kitāb ʕan tārīḵ al-ḥarīm fi faransa
Sanaani Arabic (Sanaa) ʔana bajn ʔaḥibb el-gerāje gawiḥīn sert salā el-maktabema legēt-ʃ ḏajje l-ketāb l-gadīmkont aʃti ʔagra ketāb ʕan tarīḵ l-mare beh farānsa

Other regional differences

"Peripheral" varieties of Arabic – that is, varieties spoken in countries where Arabic is not a dominant language and a lingua franca (e.g., Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Chad, Nigeria and Eritrea)– are particularly divergent in some respects, especially in their vocabularies, since they are less influenced by classical Arabic. However, historically they fall within the same dialect classifications as the varieties that are spoken in countries where Arabic is the dominant language. Because most of these peripheral dialects are located in Muslim majority countries, they are now influenced by Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, the Arabic varieties of the Qur'an and their Arabic-speaking neighbours, respectively.

Probably the most divergent non-creole Arabic variety is Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a nearly extinct variety that has been heavily influenced by Greek, and written in Greek and Latin alphabets.

Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic. Its vocabulary has acquired a large number of loanwords from Sicilian, Italian and more recently English, and it uses only a Latin-based alphabet. It is the only Semitic language among the official languages of the European Union.

Arabic-based pidgins (which have a limited vocabulary consisting mostly of Arabic words, but lack most Arabic morphological features) are in widespread use along the southern edge of the Sahara, and have been for a long time. In the eleventh century, the medieval geographer al-Bakri records a text in an Arabic-based pidgin, probably one that was spoken in the region corresponding to modern Mauritania. In some regions, particularly around the southern Sudan, the pidgins have creolized (see the list below).

Immigrant speakers of Arabic often incorporate a significant amount of vocabulary from the host-country language in their speech, in a situation analogous to Spanglish in the United States.

Even within countries where the official language is Arabic, different varieties of Arabic are spoken. For example, within Syria, the Arabic spoken in Homs is recognized as different from the Arabic spoken in Damascus, but both are considered to be varieties of "Levantine" Arabic. And within Morocco, the Arabic of the city of Fes is considered different from the Arabic spoken elsewhere in the country.

Mutual intelligibility

Geographically distant colloquial varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages. [22] However, research by Trentman & Shiri indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. [23]

Egyptian Arabic is one of the most widely understood Arabic dialects due to a thriving Egyptian television and movie industry, and Egypt's highly influential role in the region for much of the 20th century. [24] [25] [26]

Formal and vernacular differences

Another way that varieties of Arabic differ is that some are formal and others are colloquial (that is, vernacular). There are two formal varieties, or اللغة الفصحىal-lugha(t) al-fuṣḥá, One of these, known in English as Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), is used in contexts such as writing, broadcasting, interviewing, and speechmaking. The other, Classical Arabic, is the language of the Qur'an. It is rarely used except in reciting the Qur'an or quoting older classical texts. [27] (Arabic speakers typically do not make an explicit distinction between MSA and Classical Arabic.) Modern Standard Arabic was deliberately developed in the early part of the 19th century as a modernized version of Classical Arabic.

People often use a mixture of both colloquial and formal Arabic. For example, interviewers or speechmakers generally use MSA in asking prepared questions or making prepared remarks, then switch to a colloquial variety to add a spontaneous comment or respond to a question. The ratio of MSA to colloquial varieties depends on the speaker, the topic, and the situation—amongst other factors. Today even the least educated citizens are exposed to MSA through public education and exposure to mass media, and so tend to use elements of it in speaking to others. [28] This is an example of what linguistics researchers call diglossia . See Linguistic register.

Arabic diglossia diagram according to El-Said Badawi
a-b: fusha end
c-d: colloquial ('ammiyya) end
a-g-e and e-h-b: pure fusha
c-g-f and f-h-d: pure colloquial
e-g-f-h: overlap of fusha and colloquial
a-g-c and b-h-d: foreign (dakhil) influence Arabic diglossia diagram Badawi.svg
Arabic diglossia diagram according to El-Said Badawi
a-b: fuṣḥā end
c-d: colloquial (‘āmmiyya) end
a-g-e and e-h-b: pure fuṣḥā
c-g-f and f-h-d: pure colloquial
e-g-f-h: overlap of fuṣḥā and colloquial
a-g-c and b-h-d: foreign (dakhīl) influence

Egyptian linguist Al-Said Badawi proposed the following distinctions between the different "levels of speech" involved when speakers of Egyptian Arabic switch between vernacular and formal Arabic varieties:

Almost everyone in Egypt is able to use more than one of these levels of speech, and people often switch between them, sometimes within the same sentence. This is generally true in other Arabic-speaking countries as well. [30]

The spoken dialects of Arabic have occasionally been written, usually in the Arabic alphabet. Vernacular Arabic was first recognized as a written language distinct from Classical Arabic in 17th century Ottoman Egypt, when the Cairo elite began to trend towards colloquial writing. A record of the Cairo vernacular of the time is found in the dictionary compiled by Yusuf al-Maghribi. More recently, many plays and poems, as well as a few other works exist in Lebanese Arabic and Egyptian Arabic; books of poetry, at least, exist for most varieties. In Algeria, colloquial Maghrebi Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Mizrahi Jews throughout the Arab world who spoke Judeo-Arabic dialects rendered newspapers, letters, accounts, stories, and translations of some parts of their liturgy in the Hebrew alphabet, adding diacritics and other conventions for letters that exist in Judeo-Arabic but not Hebrew. The Latin alphabet was advocated for Lebanese Arabic by Said Aql, whose supporters published several books in his transcription. In 1944, Abdelaziz Pasha Fahmi, a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Egypt proposed the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. His proposal was discussed in two sessions in the communion but was rejected, and faced strong opposition in cultural circles. [31] The Latin alphabet (as "Arabizi") is used by Arabic speakers over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the Arabic alphabet is unavailable or difficult to use for technical reasons; [32] this is also used in Modern Standard Arabic when Arabic speakers of different dialects communicate each other.

Linguistic distance to MSA

Three scientific papers concluded, using various natural language processing techniques, that Levantine dialects (and especially Palestinian) were the closest colloquial varieties, in terms of lexical similarity, to Modern Standard Arabic: Harrat et al. (2015, comparing MSA to two Algerian dialects, Tunisian, Palestinian, and Syrian), [33] El-Haj et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and North African Arabic), [34] and Abu Kwaik et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Algerian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Egyptian). [35]

Sociolinguistic variables

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language usage is affected by societal factors, e.g., cultural norms and contexts (see also pragmatics). The following sections examine some of the ways that modern Arab societies influence how Arabic is spoken.

Religion

The religion of Arabic speakers is sometimes involved in shaping how they speak Arabic. As is the case with other variables, religion cannot be seen in isolation. It is generally connected with the political systems in the different countries. Religion in the Arab world is not usually seen as an individual choice. Rather, it is matter of group affiliation: one is born a Muslim (and even either Sunni or Shiite among them), Christian, Druze or Jew, and this becomes a bit like one's ethnicity. Religion as a sociolinguistic variable should be understood in this context. [36]

Bahrain provides an excellent illustration. A major distinction can be made between the Shiite Bahraini, who are the oldest population of Bahrain, and the Sunni population that began to immigrate to Bahrain in the 18th century. The Sunni form a minority of the population but the ruling family of Bahrain is Sunni and the colloquial language represented on TV is almost invariably that of the Sunni population. Therefore, power, prestige and financial control are associated with the Sunni Arabs. This is having a major effect on the direction of language change in Bahrain. [37]

The case of Iraq also illustrates how there can be significant differences in how Arabic is spoken on the basis of religion. The study referred to here was conducted before the Iraq War. In Baghdad, there are significant linguistic differences between Arabic Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the city. The Christians of Baghdad are a well-established community, and their dialect has evolved from the sedentary vernacular of urban medieval Iraq. The typical Muslim dialect of Baghdad is a more recent arrival in the city and comes from Bedouin speech instead. In Baghdad, as elsewhere in the Arab world, the various communities share MSA as a prestige dialect, but the Muslim colloquial dialect is associated with power and money, given that that community is the more dominant. Therefore, the Christian population of the city learns to use the Muslim dialect in more formal situations, for example, when a Christian school teacher is trying to call students in the class to order. [38]

Variation

Writing system

Different regional representations for some phonemes
Native Phonemes Moroccan Tunisian Algerian Hejazi Najdi Egyptian Levantine Iraqi Gulf
Letters
/ɡ/ ڭ / گ ڨ / ڧـ ـڧـ ـٯ / ق ق ج [lower-alpha 2] غ / ج [lower-alpha 3] گ / ك ق / گ
/d͡ʒ/ ~ /ʒ/ ج چ / ج ج
/t͡ʃ/ [lower-alpha 4] ڜ تش چ
Foreign Phonemes [lower-alpha 5] Letters
/p/ پ / ب
/v/ ڥ / ڢ / ف ڤ / ف
  1. Also spelled Ammiya, Amiyya, Ammiyya, 'Ammiyya, 'Ammiya, Amiyah, Ammiyah, Amiyyah, Ammiyyah [4] [5] [6]
  2. In Egypt, when there is a need to transcribe /ʒ/ or (also a reduction of /d͡ʒ/), is approximated to [ʒ] using چ.
  3. /g/ is not part of the phonemic inventory of urban Levantine dialects.
  4. /t͡ʃ/ is a native phoneme/allophone only in Iraqi, Gulf and some rural Levantine dialects.
  5. /p/ and /v/ never natively appear as phonemes in Arabic dialects, and they are always restricted to loanwords, with their usage depending on the speaker and they can be pronounced /b/ and /f/. In general; most speakers can pronounce /v/, but cannot pronounce /p/.

Morphology and syntax

All varieties, sedentary and nomadic, differ in the following ways from Classical Arabic (CA)
All dialects except some Bedouin dialects of the Arabian peninsula share the following innovations from CA
All sedentary dialects share the following additional innovations
The following innovations are characteristic of many or most sedentary dialects
The following innovations are characteristic of Maghrebi Arabic (in North Africa, west of Egypt)
The following innovations are characteristic of Egyptian Arabic

Phonetics

When it comes to phonetics the Arabic dialects differ in the pronunciation of the short vowels (/a/, /u/ and /i/) and a number of selected consonants, mainly ق/q/, ج/d͡ʒ/ and the interdental consonants ث/θ/, ذ/ð/ and ظ/ðˤ/, in addition to the dental ض/dˤ/.

Emphasis spreading

Emphasis spreading is a phenomenon where /a/ is backed to [ɑ] in the vicinity of emphatic consonants. The domain of emphasis spreading is potentially unbounded; in Egyptian Arabic, the entire word is usually affected, although in Levantine Arabic and some other varieties, it is blocked by /i/ or /j/ (and sometimes /ʃ/). It is associated with a concomitant decrease in the amount of pharyngealization of emphatic consonants, so that in some dialects emphasis spreading is the only way to distinguish emphatic consonants from their plain counterparts. It also pharyngealizes consonants between the source consonant and affected vowels, although the effects are much less noticeable than for vowels. Emphasis spreading does not affect the affrication of non-emphatic /t/ in Moroccan Arabic, with the result that these two phonemes are always distinguishable regardless of the nearby presence of other emphatic phonemes.

Consonants

LetterDialect groupLevantinePeninsularMesopotamianNilo-EgyptianMaghrebi
Old ArabicModern StandardJordanian (Western Amman) [40] Syrian (Damascus)Lebanese (Beirut)Palestinian (Jerusalem)Hejazi (Urban)Najdi

(Riyadh)

Kuwaiti (Kuwait)(Baghdad)(Mosul)Lower Egyptian (Cairo)Upper Egyptian (Sohag)Tunisian (Tunis)Algerian (Algiers)Algierian ( Oran)Moroccan (Urban)
ق /kʼ//q/[ ɡ ], [ ʔ ][ ʔ ][ ɡ ][ ɡ ], [ d͡ʒ ][ ʔ ][ ɡ ][ q ]
ج /g//(d)ʒ~ɡ/[ d͡ʒ ][ ʒ ][ d͡ʒ ][ d͡ʒ ], [ j ][ ɡ ][ d͡ʒ ][ ʒ ][ d͡ʒ ][ ʒ ]
ث /θ/[ t ],[ s ][ t ], [ s ], [ θ ][ θ ][ t ], [ s ][ θ ][ θ ], [ t ][ t ]
ذ /ð/[ d ],[ z ][ d ], [ z ], [ ð ][ ð ][ d ], [ z ][ ð ][ d ]
ظ /ðˤ/[ ], [ ][ ], [ ], [ ðˤ ][ ðˤ ][ ], [ ][ ðˤ ][ ]
ض /ɮˤ//dˤ/[ ][ ]

Most dialects of Arabic will use [ q ] for ق in learned words that are borrowed from Standard Arabic into the respective dialect or when Arabs speak Modern Standard Arabic.

The main dialectal variations in Arabic consonants revolve around the six consonants ج , ق , ث , ذ , ض and ظ .

Classical Arabic ق/q/ varies widely from a dialect to another with [ ɡ ], [ q ] and [ ʔ ] being the most common:

  • [ ɡ ] in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Northern and Eastern Yemen and parts of Oman, Southern Iraq, some parts of the Levant, Upper Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Mauritania and to lesser extent in some parts (mostly rural) of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, but it is also used partially across those countries in some words.
  • [ q ] in most of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Southern and Western Yemen and parts of Oman, Northern Iraq, parts of the Levant, especially Druze dialects. However, most other dialects of Arabic will use this pronunciation in learned words that are borrowed from Standard Arabic into the respective dialect.
  • [ ʔ ] in most of the Levant and Lower Egypt, as well as some North African towns such as Tlemcen and Fez.
  • other variations include [ ɢ ] in Sudanese and some forms of Yemeni, [ k ] In rural Palestinian, [ d͡ʒ ] in some positions in Iraqi and Gulf Arabic, [ ɣ ] or [ ʁ ] in some positions in Sudanese and consonantally in the Yemeni dialect of Yafi', [ d͡z ] in some positions in Najdi, though this pronunciation is fading in favor of [ ɡ ].

Classical Arabic ج/ɟ/ (Modern Standard /d͡ʒ/) varies widely from a dialect to another with [ d͡ʒ ], [ ʒ ] and [ ɡ ] being the most common:

Classical interdental consonants ث/θ/ and ذ/ð/ become /t,d/ or /s,z/ in some words in Egypt, Sudan, most of the Levant, parts of the Arabian peninsula (urban Hejaz and parts of Yemen). In Morocco, Algeria and other parts of North Africa they are consistently /t,d/. They remain /θ/ and /ð/ in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Tunisia, parts of Yemen, rural Palestinian, Eastern Libyan, and some rural Algerian dialects. In Arabic-speaking towns of Eastern Turkey (Urfa, Siirt and Mardin), they respectively become /f,v/.

Reflexes of Classical /q/
PlaceReflex/ˈqalb//baqara//ˈwaqt//ˈqaːl//ˈqamar//ˈqahwa//quddaːm/
"heart""cow""time""said""moon""coffee""in front of"
Medina, Hejazi Arabic [ ɡ ]galbbagarawagtgaalgamargahwaguddaam
Uzbeki Arabic (Jugari)[ q ], occ. [ ɡ ]qalbbaqarawaqt, (waḥt)qaalqamargiddaam
Kuwait City, Kuwait [ q ] or [ ɡ ], occ. [ d͡ʒ ]gaḷbbgarawakt (sporadic)gālgumargahwajiddām
Muslim Baghdad Arabic [ ɡ ], occ. [ d͡ʒ ]gaḷuḅbaqarewakətgaalgumargahweguddaam, jiddaam
Jewish Baghdadi Arabic [ q ], occ. [ d͡ʒ ]qalbqaalqamaɣjeddaam
Mosul, Iraq [ q ]qʌləbbʌgʌɣawʌqətqaalqʌmʌɣqʌhwiqəddaam
Anah, Iraq [ q ] or [ ɡ ]qaalb(bagra)waqetqaalgahwa
Rural South Mesopotamian Arabic [ ɡ ], occ. [ d͡ʒ ]galubbgure, bagrewakitgaalgumarghawe, gahwejiddaam
Judeo-Iraqi Arabic [ q ]qalbbaqaṛawaqt, waxtqaalqamaṛqahweqǝddaam
Mardin, Anatolia [ q ]qalbbaqaṛewaqt, waxtqaalqumaṛqaḥweqǝddaam
Sheep nomads,
S Mesopotamia, NE Arabian Peninsula
[ ɡ ], occ. [ d͡ʒ ]galb, galubbgarawagt, wakitgaalgamarghawajeddaam
Camel nomads,
SE Mesopotamia, NE Arabian Peninsula
[ ɡ ], occ. [ d͡z ]galb, galubbgarawagt, wakitgaalgamarghawadᶻöddaam
Aleppo, Syria [ ʔ ]ʾalbbaʾarawaʾtʾaalʾamarʾahweʾǝddaam
Damascus, Syria [ ʔ ]ʾalbbaʾarawaʾtʾaalʾamarʾahweʾǝddaam
Beirut, Lebanon [ ʔ ]ʾalbbaʾrawaʾtʾaalʾamarʾahweʾǝddeem
Amman, Jordan [ ɡ ] or [ ʔ ]gaḷib or ʾalibbagara or baʾ arawagǝt or waʾǝtgaal or ʾaalgamar or ʾamargahweh or ʾahwehgiddaam or ʾiddaam
Irbid, Jordan [ ɡ ]galibbagarawaketgaalgamargahwe – gahwehgiddaam
Sweida, Syria [ q ]qalbbaqaraqaalqamarqahwe
Nazareth, Israel [ ʔ ] or [ k ]ʾalb (or kalb)baʾara (or bakara)waʾt (or wakt)ʾaal (or kaal)ʾamar (or kamar)ʾahwe (or kahwe)ʾuddaam (or kuddaam)
Jerusalem (urban Palestinian Arabic)[ ʔ ]ʾalbbaʾarawaʾtʾaalʾamarʾahweʾuddaam
Bir Zeit, West Bank [ k ]kalbbakarawaktkaalkamarkahwekuddaam
Sanaʽa, Yemen [ ɡ ]galbbagarawagtgaalgamargahwehguddaam
Cairo, Egypt [ ʔ ]ʾalbbaʾarawaʾtʾaalʾamarʾahwaʾuddaam
Upper Egypt, Sa'idi Arabic [ ɡ ]galbbagarawagtgaalgamargahwaguddaam
Sudan [ ɡ ]galibbagarawagtgaalgamragahwa, gahawagiddaam
Ouadai, Chad [ ɡ ], occ. [ q ]begerwaqtgaalgamragahwa
Benghazi, E. Libya [ ɡ ]gaḷǝbǝbgǝ́ṛawagǝtgaaḷgǝmaṛgahawagiddaam
Tripoli, Libya [ g]galbbugrawagǝtgaalgmargahwagiddam
Tunis, Tunisia [ q ], occ. [ ɡ ]qalbbagrawaqtqalgamra, qamraqahwaqoddem
El Hamma de Gabes, Tunisia [ ɡ ]galabbagrawagtgalgamragahwageddem
Marazig, Tunisia [ ɡ ], occ. [ q ]galabbagrawagtgalgamragahwa, qahwaqoddem, geddem
Algiers, Algiers [ q ], occ. [ ɡ ]qǝlbbagrawaqtqalqamar, gamraqahǝwaqoddam
Sétif, Algeria [ ɡ ]gǝlbbagrawaqtgalgmarqahwaguddam
Jijel Arabic (Algeria)[ k ]kǝlbbekrawǝktkalkmǝrkahwakǝddam
Rabat, Morocco [ q ], occ. [ ɡ ]qǝlbbgarwaqtqal, galqamar, gamraqahǝwaqǝddam, gǝddam
Casablanca, Morocco [ q ], occ. [ ɡ ]qǝlbbgarwaqtgalqǝmr, gamraqahǝwaqoddam
North Tangier, Morocco [ q ]qǝlbbqarwaqt,qalgǝmraqahǝwaqoddam
Jewish Moroccans (Judeo-Arabic)[ q ]qǝlbbqarwǝqtqalqmǝrqǝhwaqǝddam
Maltese [ ʔ ](written q)qalbbaqrawaqtqalqamarquddiem
Cypriot Maronite Arabic [ k ] occ. [ x ]kalppakaroxtkalkamarkintám
Andalusian Arabic [ q ]qalbbaqarwaqtqalqamarquddām
  • CA /ʔ/ is lost.
    • When adjacent to vowels, the following simplifications take place, in order:
      • V1ʔV2 → V̄ when V1 = V2
      • aʔi aʔw → aj aw
      • iʔV uʔV → ijV uwV
      • VʔC → V̄C
      • Elsewhere, /ʔ/ is simply lost.
    • In CA and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), /ʔ/ is still pronounced.
    • Because this change had already happened in Meccan Arabic at the time the Qur'an was written, it is reflected in the orthography of written Arabic, where a diacritic known as hamzah is inserted either above an ʾalif, wāw or yāʾ, or "on the line" (between characters); or in certain cases, a diacritic ʾalif maddah (" ʾalif") is inserted over an ʾalif. (As a result, proper spelling of words involving /ʔ/ is probably one of the most difficult issues in Arabic orthography
    • Modern dialects have smoothed out the morphophonemic variations, typically by losing the associated verbs or moving them into another paradigm (for example, /qaraʔ/ "read" becomes /qara/ or /ʔara/, a third-weak verb).
    • /ʔ/ has reappeared medially in various words due to borrowing from CA. (In addition, /q/ has become [ ʔ ] in many dialects, although the two are marginally distinguishable in Egyptian Arabic, since words beginning with original /ʔ/ can elide this sound, whereas words beginning with original /q/ cannot.)
  • CA /k/ often becomes [ t͡ʃ ] in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, some Rural Palestinian dialects and in some Bedouin dialects when adjacent to an original /i/, particularly in the second singular feminine enclitic pronoun, where [ t͡ʃ ] replaces Classical /ik/ or /ki/). In a very few Moroccan varieties, it affricates to /k͡ʃ/. Elsewhere, it remains [ k ].
  • CA /r/ is pronounced [ ʀ ] in a few areas: Mosul, for instance, and the Jewish variety in Algiers. In all of northern Africa, a phonemic distinction has emerged between plain [ r ] and emphatic [rˤ], thanks to the merging of short vowels.
  • CA /t/ (but not emphatic CA /tˤ/) is affricated to [ t͡s ] in Moroccan Arabic; this is still distinguishable from the sequence [ts].
  • CA /ʕ/) is pronounced in Iraqi Arabic and Kuwaiti Arabic with glottal closure: [ʔˤ]. In some varieties /ʕ/ is devoiced to [ ħ ] before /h/, for some speakers of Cairene Arabic /bitaʕha//bitaħħa/ (or /bitaʕ̞ħa/) "hers". The residue of this rule applies also in the Maltese language, where neither etymological /h/ nor /ʕ/ are pronounced as such, but give [ ħ ] in this context: tagħha[taħħa] "hers".
  • The nature of "emphasis" differs somewhat from variety to variety. It is usually described as a concomitant pharyngealization, but in most sedentary varieties is actually velarization, or a combination of the two. (The phonetic effects of the two are only minimally different from each other.) Usually there is some associated lip rounding; in addition, the stop consonants /t/ and /d/ are dental and lightly aspirated when non-emphatic, but alveolar and completely unaspirated when emphatic.
  • CA /r/ is also in the process of splitting into emphatic and non-emphatic varieties, with the former causing emphasis spreading, just like other emphatic consonants. Originally, non-emphatic [ r ] occurred before /i/ or between /i/ and a following consonant, while emphatic [rˤ] occurred mostly near [ ɑ ].
    • To a large extent, Western Arabic dialects reflect this, while the situation is rather more complicated in Egyptian Arabic. (The allophonic distribution still exists to a large extent, although not in any predictable fashion; nor is one or the other variety used consistently in different words derived from the same root. Furthermore, although derivational suffixes (in particular, relational /-i/ and /-ijja/) affect a preceding /r/ in the expected fashion, inflectional suffixes do not).
  • Certain other consonants, depending on the dialect, also cause pharyngealization of adjacent sounds, although the effect is typically weaker than full emphasis spreading and usually has no effect on more distant vowels.
    • The velar fricative /x/ and the uvular consonant /q/ often cause partial backing of adjacent /a/ (and of /u/ and /i/ in Moroccan Arabic). For Moroccan Arabic, the effect is sometimes described as half as powerful as an emphatic consonant, as a vowel with uvular consonants on both sides is affected similarly to having an emphatic consonant on one side.
    • The pharyngeal consonants /ħ/ and /ʕ/ cause no emphasis spreading and may have little or no effect on adjacent vowels. In Egyptian Arabic, for example, /a/ adjacent to either sound is a fully front [ æ ]. In other dialects, /ʕ/ is more likely to have an effect than /ħ/.
    • In some Gulf Arabic dialects, /w/ and/or /l/ causes backing.
    • In some dialects, words such as الله/aɫɫaː/Allāh has backed [ ɑ ]'s and in some dialects also velarized /l/.

Vowels

  • Classical Arabic short vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ undergo various changes.
    • Original final short vowels are mostly deleted.
    • Many Levantine Arabic dialects merge /i/ and /u/ into a phonemic /ə/ except when directly followed by a single consonant; this sound may appear allophonically as /i/ or /u/ in certain phonetic environments.
    • Maghreb dialects merge /a/ and /i/ into /ə/, which is deleted when unstressed. Tunisian maintains this distinction, but deletes these vowels in non-final open syllables.
    • Moroccan Arabic, under the strong influence of Berber, goes even further. Short /u/ is converted to labialization of an adjacent velar, or is merged with /ə/. This schwa then deletes everywhere except in certain words ending /-CCəC/.
      • The result is that there is no distinction between short and long vowels; borrowings from CA have "long" vowels (now pronounced half-long) uniformly substituted for original short and long vowels.
      • This also results in consonant clusters of great length, which are (more or less) syllabified according to a sonority hierarchy. For some subdialects, in practice, it is very difficult to tell where, if anywhere, there are syllabic peaks in long consonant clusters in a phrase such as /xsˤsˤktktbi/ "you (fem.) must write". Other dialects, in the North, make a clear distinction; they say /xəssək təktəb/ "you want to write", and not */xəssk ətkətb/.
      • In Moroccan Arabic, short /a/ and /i/ have merged, obscuring the original distribution. In this dialect, the two varieties have completely split into separate phonemes, with one or the other used consistently across all words derived from a particular root except in a few situations.
        • In Moroccan Arabic, the allophonic effect of emphatic consonants is more pronounced than elsewhere.
        • Full /a/ is affected as above, but /i/ and /u/ are also affected, and are to [ e ] and [ o ], respectively.
        • In some varieties, such as in Marrakesh, the effects are even more extreme (and complex), where both high-mid and low-mid allophones exist ([ e ] and [ ɛ ], [ o ] and [ ɔ ]), in addition to front-rounded allophones of original /u/ ([ y ], [ ø ], [ œ ]), all depending on adjacent phonemes.
        • On the other hand, emphasis spreading in Moroccan Arabic is less pronounced than elsewhere; usually it only spreads to the nearest full vowel on either side, although with some additional complications.
    • /i~ɪ/ and /u~ʊ/ in CA completely become /e/ and /o/ respectively in some other particular dialects.
    • In Egyptian Arabic and Levantine Arabic, short /i/ and /u/ are elided in various circumstances in unstressed syllables (typically, in open syllables; for example, in Egyptian Arabic, this occurs only in the middle vowel of a VCVCV sequence, ignoring word boundaries). In Levantine, however, clusters of three consonants are almost never permitted. If such a cluster would occur, it is broken up through the insertion of /ə/ between the second and third consonants in Egyptian Arabic, and between the first and second in Levantine Arabic.
  • CA long vowels are shortened in some circumstances.
    • Original final long vowels are shortened in all dialects.
    • In Egyptian Arabic and Levantine Arabic, unstressed long vowels are shortened.
    • Egyptian Arabic also cannot tolerate long vowels followed by two consonants, and shortens them. (Such an occurrence was rare in CA, but often occurs in modern dialects as a result of elision of a short vowel.)
  • In most dialects, particularly sedentary ones, CA /a/ and /aː/ have two strongly divergent allophones, depending on the phonetic context.
    • Adjacent to an emphatic consonant and to /q/ (but not usually to other sounds derived from this, such as /ɡ/ or /ʔ/), a back variant [ ɑ ] occurs; elsewhere, a strongly fronted variant [ æ ]~[ ɛ ] is used.
    • The two allophones are in the process of splitting phonemically in some dialects, as [ ɑ ] occurs in some words (particularly foreign borrowings) even in the absence of any emphatic consonants anywhere in the word. (Some linguists have postulated additional emphatic phonemes in an attempt to handle these circumstances; in the extreme case, this requires assuming that every phoneme occurs doubled, in emphatic and non-emphatic varieties. Some have attempted to make the vowel allophones autonomous and eliminate the emphatic consonants as phonemes. Others have asserted that emphasis is actually a property of syllables or whole words rather than of individual vowels or consonants. None of these proposals seems particularly tenable, however, given the variable and unpredictable nature of emphasis spreading.)
    • Unlike other Arabic varieties, Hejazi Arabic did not develop allophones of the vowels /a/ and /aː/, and both are pronounced as [ a ] or [ ä ].
  • CA diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ have become [ ] or [ e̞ː ] and [ ] or [ o̞ː ] (but merge with original /iː/ and /uː/ in Maghreb dialects, which is probably a secondary development). The diphthongs are maintained in the Maltese language and some urban Tunisian dialects, particularly that of Sfax, while [ ] and [ ] also occur in some other Tunisian dialects, such as Monastir.
  • The placement of the stress accent is extremely variable between varieties; nowhere is it phonemic.
    • Most commonly, it falls on the last syllable containing a long vowel, or a short vowel followed by two consonants; but never farther from the end than the third-to-last syllable. This maintains the presumed stress pattern in CA (although there is some disagreement over whether stress could move farther back than the third-to-last syllable), and is also used in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).
      • In CA and MSA, stress cannot occur on a final long vowel; however, this does not result in different stress patterns on any words, because CA final long vowels are shortened in all modern dialects, and any current final long vowels are secondary developments from words containing a long vowel followed by a consonant.
    • In Egyptian Arabic, the rule is similar, but stress falls on the second-to-last syllable in words of the form ...VCCVCV, as in /makˈtaba/.
    • In Maghrebi Arabic, stress is final in words of the (original) form CaCaC, after which the first /a/ is elided. Hence جَبَلǧabal "mountain" becomes [ˈʒbəl].
    • In Moroccan Arabic, phonetic stress is often not recognizable.

See also

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Bedouin Arabic refers to a typological group of Arabic dialects historically linked to Bedouin tribes, that has spread among both nomadic and sedentary groups across the Arab World. The group of dialects originate from Arabian tribes in Najd and the Hejaz that have spread since the 10th century until modern day. Bedouin dialects vary by region and tribe, but they typically share a set of features which distinguish them from sedentary-type dialects in each region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jordanian Arabic</span> Variety of Levantine Arabic spoken in the Kingdom of Jordan

Jordanian Arabic is a dialect continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Arabic spoken by the population of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moroccan Arabic</span> Vernacular Arabic spoken in Morocco

Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija, is the dialectal, vernacular form or forms of Arabic spoken in Morocco. It is part of the Maghrebi Arabic dialect continuum and as such is mutually intelligible to some extent with Algerian Arabic and to a lesser extent with Tunisian Arabic. It is spoken by 90.9% of the population of Morocco. While Modern Standard Arabic is used to varying degrees in formal situations such as religious sermons, books, newspapers, government communications, news broadcasts and political talk shows, Moroccan Arabic is the predominant spoken language of the country and has a strong presence in Moroccan television entertainment, cinema and commercial advertising. Moroccan Arabic has many regional dialects and accents as well, with its mainstream dialect being the one used in Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Marrakesh and Fez, and therefore it dominates the media and eclipses most of the other regional accents.

This article is about the phonology of Egyptian Arabic, also known as Cairene Arabic or Masri. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Egyptian Arabic as well as the phonological development of child native speakers of the dialect. To varying degrees, it affects the pronunciation of Literary Arabic by native Egyptian Arabic speakers, as is the case for speakers of all other varieties of Arabic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palestinian Arabic</span> Dialect of Arabic spoken in the State of Palestine

Palestinian Arabic is a dialect continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by most Palestinians in Palestine, Israel and in the Palestinian diaspora.

This article is about the phonology of Levantine Arabic also known as Shāmi Arabic, and its sub-dialects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damascus Arabic</span> Arabic dialect of Damascus

Damascus Arabic or Damascus Dialect is a North Levantine Arabic spoken dialect, indigenous to and spoken primarily in Damascus. As the dialect of the capital city of Syria, and due to its use in the Syrian broadcast media, it is prestigious and widely recognized by speakers of other Syrian dialects, as well as in Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. Accordingly, in modern times it is sometimes known as Syrian Arabic or the Syrian Dialect; however, the former term may also be used to refer to the group of similar urban sedentary dialects of the Levant, or to mean Levantine Arabic in general.

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Further reading