Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia II - Varieties of Arabic - General varieties

Varieties of Arabic - General varieties

The main division is between the Maghreb (North Africa) varieties (characterized by a first person singular in n-) and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties. "Peripheral" varieties located in countries where Arabic is not a dominant language (e.g., Turkey, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Chad, and Nigeria) are particularly divergent in some respects, especially vocabulary, being less influenced by classical Arabic; however, historically they fall within the same dialect classifications as better-known varieties. In some areas, different religious communities spoke slightly different varieties - thus in Baghdad the Christians and Jews spoke a qeltu-variety while the Muslims spoke a gilit-variety. (Both words mean "I said". For further discussion, see Judæo-Arabic languages.)

Maltese, though descended from Arabic, is considered by its speakers to be a separate language and is in fact written with Latin letters. Probably the most divergent of non-creole Arabic varieties is Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a nearly extinct variety heavily influenced by Greek. Speakers of some of these varieties are unable to converse with speakers of another variety of Arabic; in particular, while Middle Easterners (including Egyptians) can generally understand one another, they often have difficulties understanding North Africans (excluding Egyptians) (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Egyptian films and other media.)

One factor in the differentiation of the varieties is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words, and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine and Egyptian Arabic fiih, and Maghreb Arabic kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but sound very different.

The spoken varieties of Arabic have occasionally been written, usually in the Arabic alphabet. Notably, many plays and poems, as well as a few other works (even translations of Plato) exist in Lebanese Arabic and Egyptian Arabic; books of poetry, at least, exist for most varieties. In Algeria, colloquial Maghreb Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Mizrahi Jews throughout the Arab world translated parts of their liturgy into Arabic of varying levels of colloquialness, and wrote them, as well as letters and accounts and occasionally stories, in the Hebrew alphabet. The Latin alphabet was advocated for Lebanese Arabic by Said Aql, whose supporters published several books in his transcription. Earlier, in 1994, 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 was faced with strong opposition in cultural circles.

Arabic-based pidgins, with a small largely Arabic vocabulary lacking most Arabic morphological features, are or have been widespread along the southern edge of the Sahara; the medieval geographer al-Bakri records a text in one (in a place probably corresponding to modern Mauritania) in the 11th century. In some areas, especially around the southern Sudan, these have creolized; see the list below. The resulting creoles are not mutually comprehensible with other Arabic varieties.

Classification of varieties

Classification of varieties, with some info from Versteegh [1]:

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "General varieties", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki