Varieties of Arabic - Regional Varieties

Regional Varieties

The greatest variations between kinds of Arabic are those between regional language groups. These can be divided in any number of ways, but the following typology is usually used:

• Arabian Peninsula (Khaliji Arabic) group includes:

Gulf Arabic

Baharna Arabic

Najdi Arabic

Omani Arabic

Hejazi Arabic

Shihhi Arabic

Dhofari Arabic

Yemeni Arabic

• Mesopotamian group includes:

Iraqi Arabic

North Mesopotamian Arabic

Bedawa Arabic

• Syro-Palestinian group includes:

Levantine Arabic

Judeo Arabic

Mediterranean Sea or Cypriot Arabic

• Egyptian group includes

Chadic Arabic

Sudanese Arabic

Nubi Arabic

Juba Arabic

Darfuri Arabic

Sa'idi Arabic

Egyptian Arabic

• Maghrebi Arabic group includes on the North African coast of the Mediterranean sea:

Moroccan Arabic

Tunisian Arabic

Algerian Arabic

Libyan Arabic

Hassaniya Arabic

Saharan Arabic

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-`āmmiyya. Some of these varieties are mutually unintelligible from other forms of Arabic due to wide distances over time that created divergences in phonologies. Varieties west of Egypt are particularly disparate, with Egyptian Arabic speakers claiming difficulty in understanding North African Arabic speakers, while North African Arabic speakers understanding other Arabic speakers only due to the widespread popularity of Egyptian Standard and to a lesser extent, the Lebanese popular media. One factor in the differentiation of the varieties is the influence from other languages previously spoken in the regions, such as Coptic in Egypt, Berber in North Africa, and Aramaic in the Levant.

Modern languages have also typically provided a significant number of new words, and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order. Examples are Turkish and English in Egypt, French in North Africa and Syria, and English and Hebrew in Israel. However, a much more significant factor for all five dialect groups is, as Latin among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of the classical language form of Fus'ha Arabic used in the Qu'ran.