Varieties of Arabic

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This article is about the extant varieties of Arabic. For the historical language family, see Classification of Arabic languages.
Colloquial Arabic
اللهجات العربية
Native toArab world
EthnicityArabs
Native speakers
383 million (2024)[1]
Afro-Asiatic
Standard forms
Dialects
Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3ara
Geographical distribution of the varieties of Arabic

Varieties of Arabic (or

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]

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,[a] 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

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

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

    • 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 الدارجة ad-dārija, and in the eastern parts, as العامية al-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

    See also: Code-switching, Koiné language, Pidgin, Creole language, Communication accommodation theory, Prestige (sociolinguistics), and Dialect levelling

    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:

    • Iraq and Kuwait: /aku/
    • Egypt, the Levant, and most of the Arabian Peninsula: /fiː/
    • Tunisia: /famːa/
    • Morocco and Algeria: /kajn/
    • Yemen: /beh/
    • Modern Standard Arabic: /hunaːk/

    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

    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

    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

    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.

    Variety I 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.
    Arabic أَنَا أُحِبُّ القِرَاءَةَ كَثِيرًا عِنْدَمَا ذَهَبْتُ إِلَى المَكْتَبَة لَمْ أَجِد سِوَى هٰذَا الكِتَابِ القَدِيم كُنْتُ 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 baṛʃa wăqtəlli mʃit l-əl-măktba ma-lqīt kān ha-lə-ktēb lə-qdīm kənt nḥəbb năqṛa ktēb ʕla tērīḵ lə-mṛa fi fṛānsa
    Algerian (Algiers) ʔāna nḥəbb nəqṛa b-ez-zaf ki rŭħt l-əl-măktaba ma-lqīt ḡīr hād lə-ktāb lə-qdīm kŭnt ḥayəb nəqṛa ktāb ʕla t-tārīḵ təʕ lə-mṛa fi fṛānsa
    Moroccan (Casablanca) ʔāna kanebɣi naqra b-ez-zāf melli mʃīt el-maktaba ma-lqīt ḡīr hād le-ktāb le-qdīm kunt bāḡi naqra ktāb ʕla tārīḵ le-mra fe-fransa
    Hassaniya (Nouakchott) ʔānə nəbqi ləgrāye ḥattə līn gəst əl-məktəbə ma jbart mahu ḏə ləktāb l-qadīm kənt ndōr nəgra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ ləmra/ləʔləyāt və vrāns
    Maltese jien inħobb naqra ħafna meta mort il-librerija sibt biss dan il-ktieb il-qadim ridt naqra ktieb dwar il-ġrajja tan-nisa fi Franza.
    Egypto-Sudanic
    Egyptian (Cairo) ʔana baḥebb el-ʔerāya awi lamma roḥt el-maktaba ma-lʔet-ʃ ʔella l-ketāb el-ʔadīm da kont ʕāyez ʔaʔra ketāb ʕan tarīḵ es-settāt fe faransa
    Levantine
    Northern Jordanian (Irbid) ʔana/ʔani kṯīr baḥebb il-qirāʔa lamma ruḥt ʕal-mektebe ma lagēteʃ ʔilla ha-l-ktāb l-gadīm kān baddi ʔagra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-faransa
    Jordanian (Amman) ʔana ktīr baḥebb il-qirāʔa lamma ruḥt ʕal-mektebe ma lagēt ʔilla hal-ktāb l-gadīm kan beddi ʔaqraʔ ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-faransa
    Lebanese (Beirut) ʔana ktīr bḥebb l-ʔ(i)rēye lamma reḥt ʕal-makt(a)be ma l(a)ʔēt ʔilla ha-le-ktēb l-ʔ(a)dīm kēn badde ʔeʔra ktēb ʕan tērīḵ l-mara b-f(a)ransa
    Syrian (Damascus) ʔana ktīr bḥebb l-ʔraye lamma reḥt ʕal-maktabe ma laʔēt ʔilla ha-l-ktāb l-ʔdīm kān biddi ʔra ktāb ʕan tārīḵ l-mara b-fransa
    Mesopotamian
    Mesopotamian (Baghdad) ʔāni kulliš ʔaḥebb lu-qrāye min reḥit lil-maktabe ma ligēt ḡīr hāḏe l-ketab el-ʕatīg redet ʔaqre ketāb ʕan tārīḵ l-imrayyāt eb-franse
    Peninsular
    Gulf (Kuwait) ʔāna wāyid ʔaḥibb il-qirāʾa lamman riḥt il-maktaba ma ligēt ʔilla ha-l-kitāb il-qadīm kint ʔabī ʔagra kitāb ʕan tārīḵ il-ḥarīm b-faransa
    Hejazi (Jeddah) ʔana marra ʔaḥubb al-girāya lamma ruħt al-maktaba ma ligīt ḡēr hāda l-kitāb al-gadīm kunt ʔabḡa ʔaɡra kitāb ʕan tārīḵ al-ḥarīm fi faransa
    Sanaani Arabic (Sanaa) ʔana bajn ʔaḥibb el-gerāje gawi ḥīn sert salā el-maktabe ma legēt-ʃ ḏajje l-ketāb l-gadīm kont 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

    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 South 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 الفصحى al-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.

    Linguistic register
    .

    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:

    • فصحى التراث fuṣḥá at-turāṯ, 'heritage classical': The Classical Arabic of Arab literary heritage and the Qur'an. This is primarily a written language, but it is heard in spoken form at the mosque or in religious programmes on television, but with a modernized pronunciation.
    • فصحى العصر fuṣḥá al-ʿaṣr, 'contemporary classical' or 'modernized classical': This is what Western linguists call Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It is a modification and simplification of Classical Arabic that was deliberately created for the modern age. Consequently, it includes many newly coined words, either adapted from Classical Arabic (much as European scholars during the Renaissance coined new English words by adapting words from Latin), or borrowed from foreign, chiefly European, languages. Although it is principally a written language, it is spoken when people read aloud from prepared texts. Highly skilled speakers can also produce it spontaneously, though this typically occurs only in the context of media broadcasts – particularly in talk and debate programs on pan-Arab television networks such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya – where the speakers want to be simultaneously understood by Arabic speakers in all the various countries where these networks' target audiences live. If highly skilled speakers use it spontaneously, it is spoken when Arabic speakers of different dialects communicate with each other. Commonly used as a written language, it is found in most books, newspapers, magazines, official documents, and reading primers for small children; it is also used as another version of literary form of the Qur'an and in modernized revisions of writings from Arab literary heritage.
    • عامية المثقفين ʿāmmiyyat al-muṯaqqafīn, 'colloquial of the cultured' (also called Educated Spoken Arabic, Formal Spoken Arabic, or Spoken MSA by other authors[29]): This is a vernacular dialect that has been heavily influenced by MSA, i.e. borrowed words from MSA (this is similar to the literary Romance languages, wherein scores of words were borrowed directly from Classical Latin); loanwords from MSA replace or are sometimes used alongside native words evolved from Classical Arabic in colloquial dialects. It tends to be used in serious discussions by well-educated people, but is generally not used in writing except informally. It includes a large number of foreign loanwords, chiefly relating to the technical and theoretical subjects it is used to discuss, sometimes used in non-intellectual topics. Because it can generally be understood by listeners who speak varieties of Arabic different from those of the speaker's country of origin, it is often used on television, and it is also becoming the language of instruction at universities.
    • عامية المتنورين ʿāmmiyyat al-mutanawwarīn 'colloquial of the basically educated': This is the everyday language that people use in informal contexts, and that is heard on television when non-intellectual topics are being discussed. It is characterized, according to Badawi, by high levels of borrowing. Educated speakers usually code-switch between ʿāmmiyyat al-muṯaqqafīn and ʿāmmiyyat al-mutanawwarīn.
    • عامية الأميين ʿāmmiyyat al-ʾummiyyīn, 'colloquial of the illiterates': This is very colloquial speech characterized by the absence of any influence from MSA and by relatively little foreign borrowing. These varieties are the almost entirely naturally evolved direct descendants of Classical Arabic.

    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

    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

    See also: Linguistic distance

    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

    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
    Israeli
    		 Iraqi Gulf
    Letters
    /ɡ/
    ڭ‎ / گ
    ‎
    ق
    ‎
    ق
    ‎
    ج‎[b]
    چ‎[c]
    چ
    ‎
    ك
    ‎
    گ
    ‎
    /d͡ʒ/ ~ /ʒ/
    ج
    ‎
    ج
    ‎
    ج
    ‎
    /t͡ʃ/[d]
    ڜ
    ‎         		تش‎
    چ
    ‎
    Foreign Phonemes[e] Letters
    /p/
    ب
    ‎
    /v/
    ف
    ‎
    ف
    ‎
    1. ^ Also spelled Ammiya, Amiyya, Ammiyya, 'Ammiyya, 'Ammiya, Amiyah, Ammiyah, Amiyyah, Ammiyyah[4][5][6]
    2. چ
      .
    3. چ‎ is also a possible alternative in Lebanon
      .
    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
    • Loss of a separately distinguished feminine plural in verbs, pronouns and demonstratives. This is usually lost in adjectives as well.
    • Development of a new indicative-subjunctive distinction.
      • The indicative is marked by a prefix, while the subjunctive lacks this.
      • The prefix is /b/ or /bi/ in Egyptian Arabic and Levantine Arabic, but /ka/ or /ta/ in Moroccan Arabic. It is not infrequent to encounter /ħa/ as an indicative prefix in some Persian Gulf states; and, in South Arabian Arabic (viz. Yemen), /ʕa/ is used in the north around the San'aa region, and /ʃa/ is used in the southwest region of Ta'iz.
      • Tunisian Arabic, Maltese and at least some varieties of Algerian and Libyan Arabic lack an indicative prefix. Rural dialects in Tunisia however, may use /ta/.
    • Loss of /h/ in the third-person masculine enclitic pronoun, when attached to a word ending in a consonant.
      • The form is usually /u/ or /o/ in sedentary dialects, but /ah/ or /ih/ in Bedouin dialects.
      • After a vowel, the bare form /h/ is used, but in many sedentary dialects the /h/ is lost here as well. In Egyptian Arabic, for example, this pronoun is marked in this case only by lengthening of the final vowel and concomitant stress shift onto it, but the "h" reappears when followed by another suffix.
        • ramā "he threw it"
        • maramahūʃ "he didn't throw it"
    The following innovations are characteristic of many or most sedentary dialects
    • Agreement (verbal, adjectival) with inanimate plurals is plural, rather than feminine singular or feminine plural, as in CA.
    • Development of a circumfix negative marker on the verb, involving a prefix /ma-/ and a suffix /-ʃ/.
      • In combination with the fusion of the indirect object and the development of new mood markers, this results in morpheme-rich verbal complexes that can approach polysynthetic languages in their complexity.
      • An example from Egyptian Arabic:
        • /ma-bi-t-ɡib-u-ha-lnaː-ʃ/
        • [negation]-[indicative]-[2nd.person.subject]-bring-[feminine.object]-to.us-[negation]
        • "You (plural) aren't bringing her (them) to us."
      • (NOTE: Versteegh glosses /bi/ as continuous.)
    • In Egyptian, Tunisian and Moroccan Arabic, the distinction between active and passive participles has disappeared except in form I and in some Classical borrowings.
      • These dialects tend to use form V and VI active participles as the passive participles of forms II and III.
    The following innovations are characteristic of Maghrebi Arabic (in North Africa, west of Egypt)
    • In the imperfect, Maghrebi Arabic has replaced first person singular /ʔ-/ with /n-/, and the first person plural, originally marked by /n-/ alone, is also marked by the /-u/ suffix of the other plural forms.
    • quadriliteral
      , each with a mediopassive variant marked by a prefixal /t-/ or /tt-/.
      • The triliteral type encompasses traditional form I verbs (strong: /ktəb/ "write"; geminate: /ʃəmm/ "smell"; hollow: /biʕ/ "sell", /qul/ "say", /xaf/ "fear"; weak /ʃri/ "buy", /ħbu/ "crawl", /bda/ "begin"; irregular: /kul/-/kla/ "eat", /ddi/ "take away", /ʒi/ "come").
      • The quadriliteral type encompasses strong [CA form II, quadriliteral form I]: /sˤrˤfəq/ "slap", /hrrəs/ "break", /hrnən/ "speak nasally"; hollow-2 [CA form III, non-CA]: /ʕajən/ "wait", /ɡufəl/ "inflate", /mixəl/ "eat" (slang); hollow-3 [CA form VIII, IX]: /xtˤarˤ/ "choose", /ħmarˤ/ "redden"; weak [CA form II weak, quadriliteral form I weak]: /wrri/ "show", /sˤqsˤi/ "inquire"; hollow-2-weak [CA form III weak, non-CA weak]: /sali/ "end", /ruli/ "roll", /tiri/ "shoot"; irregular: /sˤifətˤ/-/sˤafətˤ/ "send".
      • There are also a certain number of quinquiliteral or longer verbs, of various sorts, e.g. weak: /pidˤali/ "pedal", /blˤani/ "scheme, plan", /fanti/ "dodge, fake"; remnant CA form X: /stəʕməl/ "use", /stahəl/ "deserve"; diminutive: /t-birˤʒəz/ "act bourgeois", /t-biznəs/ "deal in drugs".
      • Those types corresponding to CA forms VIII and X are rare and completely unproductive, while some of the non-CA types are productive. At one point, form IX significantly increased in productivity over CA, and there are perhaps 50–100 of these verbs currently, mostly stative but not necessarily referring to colors or bodily defects. However, this type is no longer very productive.
      • Due to the merging of short /a/ and /i/, most of these types show no stem difference between perfect and imperfect, which is probably why the languages has incorporated new types so easily.
    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

    Letter Dialect group Levantine Peninsular Mesopotamian Nilo-Egyptian Maghrebi
    Old Arabic Modern Standard Jordanian (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] [
    t
    ]         		[
    t
    ]
    ذ
    ‎         		/ð/ [
    d],[z
    ]         		[
    d], [z], [ð
    ]         		[ð] [
    d], [z
    ]         		[ð] [
    d
    ]
    ظ
    ‎     		/ðˤ/ [dˤ], [zˤ] [dˤ], [zˤ], [ðˤ] [ðˤ] [dˤ], [zˤ] [ðˤ] [dˤ]
    ض
    ‎     		/ɮˤ/ /dˤ/ [dˤ] [dˤ]

    Most dialects of Arabic will use [

    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 ⟨

    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:

    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/
    Place Reflex /ˈqalb/ /baqara/ /ˈwaqt/ /ˈqaːl/ /ˈqamar/ /ˈqahwa/ /quddaːm/
    "heart" "cow" "time" "said" "moon" "coffee" "in front of"
    Medina, Hejazi Arabic [ɡ] galb bagara wagt gaal gamar gahwa guddaam
    Uzbeki Arabic
    (Jugari)    		 [q], occ. [ɡ] qalb baqara waqt, (waḥt) qaal qamar — giddaam
    Kuwait City, Kuwait [q] or [ɡ], occ. [d͡ʒ] gaḷb bgara wakt (sporadic) gāl gumar gahwa jiddām
    Muslim
    Baghdad Arabic
    		 [ɡ], occ. [d͡ʒ] gaḷuḅ baqare wakət gaal gumar gahwe guddaam, jiddaam
    Jewish Baghdadi Arabic
    		 [q], occ. [d͡ʒ] qalb — — qaal qamaɣ — jeddaam
    Mosul, Iraq [q] qʌləb bʌgʌɣa wʌqət qaal qʌmʌɣ qʌhwi qəddaam
    Anah, Iraq [q] or [ɡ] qaalb (bagra) waqet qaal — gahwa —
    Rural South Mesopotamian Arabic [ɡ], occ. [d͡ʒ] galub bgure, bagre wakit gaal gumar ghawe, gahwe jiddaam
    Judeo-Iraqi Arabic [q] qalb baqaṛa waqt, waxt qaal qamaṛ qahwe qǝddaam
    Mardin, Anatolia [q] qalb baqaṛe waqt, waxt qaal qumaṛ qaḥwe qǝddaam
    Sheep nomads,
    S Mesopotamia, NE Arabian Peninsula     		[ɡ], occ. [d͡ʒ] galb, galub bgara wagt, wakit gaal gamar ghawa jeddaam
    Camel nomads,
    SE Mesopotamia, NE Arabian Peninsula     		[ɡ], occ. [d͡z] galb, galub bgara wagt, wakit gaal gamar ghawa dᶻöddaam
    Aleppo, Syria [ʔ] ʾalb baʾara waʾt ʾaal ʾamar ʾahwe ʾǝddaam
    Damascus, Syria [ʔ] ʾalb baʾara waʾt ʾaal ʾamar ʾahwe ʾǝddaam
    Beirut, Lebanon [ʔ] ʾalb baʾra waʾt ʾaal ʾamar ʾahwe ʾǝddeem
    Amman, Jordan [ɡ] or [ʔ] gaḷib or ʾalib bagara or baʾ ara wagǝt or waʾǝt gaal or ʾaal gamar or ʾamar gahweh or ʾahweh giddaam or ʾiddaam
    Irbid, Jordan [ɡ] galib bagara waket gaal gamar gahwe – gahweh giddaam
    Sweida, Syria [q] qalb baqara — qaal qamar qahwe —
    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] ʾalb baʾara waʾt ʾaal ʾamar ʾahwe ʾuddaam
    Bir Zeit, West Bank
    		 [k] kalb bakara wakt kaal kamar kahwe kuddaam
    Sanaʽa, Yemen
    		 [ɡ] galb bagara wagt gaal gamar gahweh guddaam
    Cairo, Egypt [ʔ] ʾalb baʾara waʾt ʾaal ʾamar ʾahwa ʾuddaam
    Sa'idi Arabic
    		 [ɡ] galb bagara wagt gaal gamar gahwa guddaam
    Sudan [ɡ] galib bagara wagt gaal gamra gahwa, gahawa giddaam
    Ouadai, Chad
    		 [ɡ], occ. [q] — beger waqt gaal gamra gahwa —
    Benghazi, E. Libya [ɡ] gaḷǝb ǝbgǝ́ṛa wagǝt gaaḷ gǝmaṛ gahawa giddaam
    Tripoli, Libya [g] galb bugra wagǝt gaal gmar gahwa giddam
    Tunis, Tunisia [q], occ. [ɡ] qalb bagra waqt qal gamra, qamra qahwa qoddem
    El Hamma de Gabes, Tunisia [ɡ] galab bagra wagt gal gamra gahwa geddem
    Marazig, Tunisia [ɡ], occ. [q] galab bagra wagt gal gamra gahwa, qahwa qoddem, geddem
    Algiers, Algiers [q], occ. [ɡ] qǝlb bagra waqt qal qamar, gamra qahǝwa qoddam
    Sétif, Algeria [ɡ] gǝlb bagra waqt gal gmar qahwa guddam
    Jijel Arabic (Algeria) [k] kǝlb bekra wǝkt kal kmǝr kahwa kǝddam
    Rabat, Morocco [q], occ. [ɡ] qǝlb bgar waqt qal, gal qamar, gamra qahǝwa qǝddam, gǝddam
    Casablanca, Morocco [q], occ. [ɡ] qǝlb bgar waqt gal qǝmr, gamra qahǝwa qoddam
    North Tangier, Morocco [q] qǝlb bqar waqt, qal gǝmra qahǝwa qoddam
    Judeo-Arabic
    )    		 [q] qǝlb bqar wǝqt qal qmǝr qǝhwa qǝddam
    Maltese [ʔ] (written q) qalb baqra waqt qal qamar — quddiem
    Cypriot Maronite Arabic
    		 [k] occ. [x] kalp pakar oxt kal kamar — kintám
    Andalusian Arabic
    		 [q] qalb baqar waqt qal qamar — quddām

    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 /xsˤsˤk tktbi/ "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 [eː] or [e̞ː] and [oː] 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 [eː] and [oː] 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 جَبَل ǧabal "mountain" becomes [ˈʒbəl].
      • In Moroccan Arabic, phonetic stress is often not recognizable.

    See also

    References

    Citations

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    • El-Hassan, S. (1997). 'Educated Spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant: A critical review of diglossia and related concepts.' Archivum Linguisticum 8(2).
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    • Holes, C. (1983). 'Bahrain dialects: Sectarian differences exemplified through texts.' Zeitschrift fur arabische Linguistik10.
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    • Mitchell, T.F. (1986). 'What is educated spoken Arabic?' International Journal of the Sociology of Language 61.
    • Pereira, C. (2007). 'Urbanization and dialect change: The dialect of Tripoli, Libya.' in C. Miller, E. Al-Wer, D. Caubet and J.C.E. Watson (eds), Arabic in the city: Issues in dialect contact and language variation, London and New York: Routledge.
    • Suleiman, Y. (1994). Arabic sociolinguistics: Issues and perspectives, Richmond: Curzon.
    • Versteegh, K. (2001). The Arabic language, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Further reading

    External links

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