The Arabic Language: Dialects and Variants | Part 1

Do you know some interesting facts about the Arabic language? Do you understand the difference between الفصحي (Al-Fusha) and العامية (Al-Ammiyya)?

In this post, we will explore the Arabic language and its various dialects in brief. To learn about the historical background of the Arabic language including its emergence and contemporary form, kindly check out our post The Arabic Language: History and Development

You might probably know that Arabic is the 5th most widely spoken language in the world with 293 million native speakers and 422 million in total. Arabic is an official language of 26 countries as well as one disputed territory. It is also one of the 6th official languages of the United Nations. Also, according to a study, Arabic is the 4th widely used language on the internet.

The Arabic language interestingly is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and it is a liturgical language of around 1.9 billion Muslims around the world. Most of the people though don’t understand Arabic but they have the reading and reciting knowledge of the language.

Varieties

The Arabic language has many varieties that can make one confusing. Among Arabic speakers, Classical Arabic is one of the main varieties which is also the Quranic Arabic and considered as the most perfect form of Arabic even it is called the only true Arabic in which God revealed the Quran.

Another variety is the Modern Standard Arabic which is used as an official language today and it is a modern form of literary Arabic that is taken from Classical Arabic with some extension and adaption of modern times. Modern Standard Arabic is not exactly the same as Classical Arabic, but both are referred to as الفصحي (Al-Fusha). Modern Standard Arabic is the language of media, education, formal talks but it is quite different from colloquial Arabic.

Al-Fusha refers to the eloquent speech used by the Arabic speakers for formal as well as literary purposes.

Also Read: the Arabic influence on Spanish language

Arabic Dialects

As usual, Arabic also has a variety of local dialects that varies from country to country even within one country it has several variants.

As the variations of Arabic dialects are numerous, so, how well two speakers understand each other depends on the geographic distance of the dialects as well as the exposure. According to many native speakers, middle eastern speakers don’t have trouble in understanding each other, instead, the main trouble is in understanding the Maghrebi dialects especially Moroccan. Hence, in the era of TV cables and the internet, people have the opportunity to exposure to the several dialects of Arabic as well as variants which helps them understand varieties of the language spoken in the Arab world.

Some of the Arabic dialects are as follows:

1. Gulf Arabic
2. Bahrani
3. Najdi
4. Omani
5. Hijazi & Rashaida
6. Shihhi
7. Dhofari
8. Yemeni & Somali
9. Chadic & Shuwa
10. Sudanese
11. Sa’idi
12. Egyptian
13. Judeo Arabic
14. Nubi
15. Cypriot Arabic
16. Juba
17. Iraqi
18. Levantine
19. North Mesopotamian
20. Badawi
21. Moroccan
22. Tunisian
23. Algerian
24. Libyan
25. Hassaniya
26. Saharans

Diglossia

Arabic is well known for its state of diglossia. Arabic speakers use two distinct forms of the language in parallel for different purposes.

Modern Standard Arabic is not learned by anyone as a standard language, but it is used in reading and writing in media, children’s TV shows, and formal speeches. It is referred to as Al-Fusha.

Al-Fusha is used when people from significantly different dialects come to interact with each other, so, they switch to Al-Fusha (aka Modern Standard Arabic) or they try to speak more formal and literary as just Modern Standard Arabic, yet not exactly but very closed to.

The colloquial dialogue is used almost used universally for daily conversation and is referred to as العامية(Al-Ammiyya).

Al-Ammiyya is another way to bridge the various dialects spoken by the Arabs. It is also known as the White dialect which is a more formal version of dialect for speech that contains the features which are common in most dialects while it leaves the features which are limited to specific dialects. The White dialect is essentially a modern Arabic koine.

Script

In terms of script, Arabic is written from right to left consisting of letters that imitate handwriting and most letters join another that follow them; however, the few letters remain disjoined.

While the joining letters have two forms:

1. Short-form letters: they come at the beginning of the word or in the middle
2. Long-form letters: they join the end of the word or come itself i.e., isolated

The Arabic script is abjad which means each letter represents a consonant; the short vowels are not written; the long vowels and diphthongs can be ambiguous.

One can wonder how a language can be read without vowels, so the answer is that the Arabic script can be written withحركات (Harakat), though a person who is proficient in Arabic doesn’t need Harakat.

Harakat are the extra diacritics that give the short vowel sound. These are used only in texts which are important to perfectly pronounce such as in the Qur’an, poetry, materials for children, for Arabic learners, and so on.

Phonology

Arabic has a number of consonant sounds that are surprising and challenging for speakers of many other languages like خ(kha), ق (qaf), ح(ha), غ(ghain).

Arabic also has a number of emphatic consonants for example,

ص(sa’d) an emphatic S sound; ط(ta) an emphatic T sound; ض(z’ad) an emphatic D sound; ظ(z’a) an emphatic Z sound and so on.

Part 2:

To learn about the history of the Arabic language and its various forms before and after the emergence of Islam, kindly check out our part 2 The Arabic Language: History and Development.

Read more: The Maltese Language - A Variant of Arabic