Mashriqi Arabic

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mashriqi Arabic
ʿAmmiya, Eastern Arabic
عامية
RegionMashriq
EthnicityUsed as a first language by Arabs and as a second language by non-Arab minorities
Native speakers
300 million (2018–2022)[1]
Afro-Asiatic
  • Arabic
    • Mashriqi Arabic
Dialects
Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic
Glottolognort3191

Mashriqi Arabic, or Mashriqi ʿAmmiya, encompasses the

UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.[2][3][4][5] The variety is sometimes referred to as Eastern Arabic, as opposed to Western Arabic (Maghrebi Arabic or Darija) and includes Mesopotamian Arabic and Peninsular Arabic, along with Egyptian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, and Levantine Arabic. Speakers of Mashriqi call their language ʿAmmiya, which means "common or colloquial" in Modern Standard Arabic
.

Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى al-fuṣḥá) is the primary official language used in the government, legislation, and judiciary of countries in the Mashriq region. Mashriqi Arabic is used for almost all spoken communication, as well as in television and advertising in Egypt and Lebanon, but Modern Standard Arabic is used in written communication. In Lebanon, where Mashriqi Arabic was taught as a colloquial language as a separate subject under French colonization, some formal textbooks exist.

The varieties of Mashriqi have a high degree of mutual intelligibility, especially between geographically adjacent ones (such as Lebanese and Syrian or between Iraqi and Kuwaiti). On the contrary,

Maghrebi
dialects, especially those of Algeria and Morocco, are harder to understand for Arabic-speakers from the Mashriqi ones, as it derives from different substrata.

Varieties

References

  1. ^ Baharna Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Cypriot Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Dhofari Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Egyptian Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Gulf Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    (Additional references under 'Language codes' in the information box)
  2. ^ "Mashriq". Britannica. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  3. ^ "European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries: Enhancing Prospects for Reform". Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  4. ^ Introduction to Migration and the Mashreq Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Migrants from the Maghreb and Mashreq Countries" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2015-08-12.

Further reading

  • Singer, Hans-Rudolf (1980) “Das Westarabische oder Maghribinische” in Wolfdietrich Fischer and Otto Jastrow (eds.) Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte. Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden. 249–76.