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Hejazi Arabic is a term used to describe the variety of the Arabic language spoken in the western region of Saudi Arabia. Although, strictly speaking, there are two distinct dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the bedouins, and another by the urban population, the term most often applies to the urban variety, spoken in cities such as Jeddah, Mecca ,Ta'if, Rabigh, Yanbu, and Medina. It is the most widely understood dialect of Arabic in the Arabian Peninsula, and appears to be closely related to the Arabic dialects of Egypt and Sudan.^{[citation needed]} Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 12th century Hebrew Bible script The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of the Middle East, where they originated, and North and East Africa. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... The Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Bedouin resting at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic badawi بدوي, a generic name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the eastern coast of the Arabian desert. ... , Nickname: Location of Jeddah Coordinates: , Country Province Established 500+ BC Joint Saudi Arabia 1925 Government  - Mayor Adil Faqeeh  - City Governor Mishal Al-Saud  - Provincial Governor Khalid al Faisal Area  - Urban 1,320 km² (509. ... This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ... Taif in 1970 Taif (Arabic: ‎ transliterated: ) is a city in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia at an elevation of 1700 metres on the slopes of the Al-Sarawat mountains. ... Satellite Image of the Town by Google Earth Town Seaport Image by Google Earth Town Airport (by Google Earth) Rabigh (Arabic:رابغ) is an anchient Town on the western coast of Saudi Arabia (Red Sea). ... NASA photograph of Yanbu al Bahr Yanbu, Saudi Arabia Yanbu al Bahr (Arabic: ينبع spring by the sea), also known simply as Yanbu, Yambo, or Yenbo, is a major Red Sea port in the Al Madinah province of western Saudi Arabia. ... This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ...

Urban Hejazi Dialect

Also referred to as the sedentary Hejazi dialect, this is the form most commonly associated with the term "Hejazi Arabic", and is spoken in the urban centers of the region, such as Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina. On the axis of bedouin versus sedentary dialects of the Arabic language, this dialect group is usually placed on the sedentary side. However, it exhibits features of both.^{[citation needed]} A Bedouin man on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, (from the Arabic (), is a desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert. ...

Bedouin Features

The most prominent of these are the following^{[citation needed]}:

1. The qaaf (ق) of Standard Arabic is voiced and pronounced as /g/ (as in the English word "get").
2. Hejazi Arabic does not employ double negation, nor does it append the negation particles -sh to negate verbs (Hejazi Ma A'rif, as opposed to Egyptian Ma'rafsh and Palestinian Bi'rafish, meaning "I don't know")
3. The prohibitive mood of Classical Arabic is preserved (la truu'h, as opposed to Egyptian matruhshi, and Palestinian truhish, "don't go")
4. Pronouns that are affixed to the end of words are generally preserved in their Classical forms. For example, beitakum ("your house") rather than the Egyptian beitku and the Levantine beitkun

Modern Standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used in almost all writing and in formal spoken contexts. ... A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... Palestinian Arabic is a Levantine Arabic dialect subgroup spoken by Palestinian Arabs. ... Levantine Arabic (sometimes called Eastern Arabic) is a group of Arabic dialects spoken in the 100 km-wide eastern-Mediterranean coastal strip known as the Levant, i. ...

Sedentary Features

Like other sedentary dialects, the urban Hejazi dialect is less conservative than the bedouin varieties and has therefore shed many Classical forms and features that are still present in many bedouin dialects. These include the internal passive form (which in Hejazi, is replaced by the pattern anfa'al"/"yinfa'il), the marker for indefiniteness (tanween), gender-number disagreement, and the feminine marker -n (see Varieties of Arabic). Features that mark Hejazi Arabic as a sedentary dialect include: The Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language. ...

1. The future tense is marked by the prefix ha- as in Egyptian Arabic. For example, hamshi ("I will leave"), and hanakul ("we will eat").^{[citation needed]}
2. The present progressive tense is marked by the prefix b- (byudrus, "he is studying")^{[citation needed]}
3. The interdental /θ/ ث (as in English "three") is mostly rendered "t", while the interdental /ð/ ذ (as in English "this") is mostly rendered "d".^{[citation needed]}
4. In contrast to bedouin dialects, the distinction between the emphatic sounds /dˤ/ ض and /ðˤ/ ظ is generally preserved.
5. The final -n in present tense plural verb forms is no longer employed (e.g. yirkabu instead of yirkabun)
6. The dominant case ending before the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun is -u, rather than the -a that is prevalent in bedouin dialects. For example, beituh ("his house"), 'induh ("with him"), 'arafuh ("he knew him").
7. Possessive pronouns for the 2nd person are -ak (masculine) and -ik (feminine). In Standard Arabic, these are -ka and -ki, respectively, while in bedouin dialects they are -ik and -its or some variation thereof.^{[citation needed]}
8. 2nd and 3rd person non-enclitic pronouns end in vowels in a similar manner to that of Egyptian Arabic: huwwa ("he"), hiyya ("she"), humma ("them"), and inta (masculine "you"). Compare to bedouin hu, hiyy, hum, int / ant, respectively.^{[citation needed]}

Egyptian Arabic (Marī مصري) is part of the Arabic macrolanguage of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... In linguistics, a clitic is an element that has some of the properties of an independent word and some more typical of a bound morpheme. ...

Other Features

Other features of Hejazi Arabic are either peculiar to it or are shared only by certain other dialects (such as Egyptian or Lebanese). These include the following:

1. A consonant-vowel pattern that closely tracks that of Standard Arabic in many words^{[citation needed]}, for example:

samaka ("fish"), as opposed to bedouin smika, and Syrian samake

darabatu ضربَتو ("she hit him"), as opposed to bedouin dribtah

uktub ("write", instructive case), as opposed to bedouin iktib, and Syrian ktoub

'indakum عندَكُم ("in your [plural] possession"), as opposed to bedouin 'indikom, Egyptian 'anduku, and Lebanese 'andkun

1. The plural first person pronoun is nihna (نحنا), as opposed to the more common ihna (إحنا) or the bedouin hinna (حنّا) and inna (إنّا).^{[citation needed]}
2. When used to indicate location, the preposition fee في is preferred to b بـ (fee Makkah, meaning "in Mecca"). In bedouin dialects, the preference differs by region.
3. Demonstratives are most often placed after nouns (arrijjal da meaning "this man"). Another variety that exhibits this feature prominently is Egyptian Arabic, though this syntactical form is present to a lesser extent in many other varieties as well.^{[citation needed]}

Modern Standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used in almost all writing and in formal spoken contexts. ...

Vocabulary

The urban Hejazi vocabulary differs considerably from that of other dialects in the Arabian Peninsula.^{[citation needed]} This includes functional vocabulary, as well as vocabulary related to objects and things. For example, there are fewer specialized terms related to desert life, and more terms related to seafaring and fishing. Due to the diverse origins of the inhabitants of Hijazi cities, many borrowings from the dialects of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen exist. Five centuries of Turkish rule have also had their influence. Some common Hejazi words that are not often used elsewhere in the Peninsula but are used in Egypt include^{[citation needed]}:

• kaman meaning "as well"
• lissa meaning "till now"
• addeeni and its derivatives, generally meaning "to give"
• fein meaning "where"
• abla - a term of respect for an elder female figure, such as a schoolteacher
• abuya meaning "my father"
• akhuya meaning "my brother"
• farah meaning "wedding"

Variations

Sedentary Hejazi Arabic varies by city. The variations, however, rarely reach the level of syntax or grammar, and are usually limited to minor phonetic differences. The most obvious difference is that between the "soft" accent of Medina, and the harsher-sounding accent of Mecca.^{[citation needed]} This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ... This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ...

Bedouin Hejazi Dialects

The varieties of Arabic spoken by the bedouin tribes of the Hejaz region are relatively under-studied. They tend to differ from one tribe to another, and exhibit some features of the sedentary dialect.^{[citation needed]} However, they show much closer affinity to other bedouin dialects, particularly those of neighboring Nejd. The dialects of northern Hejazi tribes merge into those of Jordan and Sinai, while the dialects in the south merge with those of 'Asir and Nejd. It is also worth noting that many large tribal confederations in Nejd and eastern Arabia are recent migrants from the Hejaz, including the tribes of Utaybah, Mutayr, Harb, and Bani Khalid. In earlier times, many other Arab tribes that settled in Egypt and North Africa also came from the Hejaz, including Kinana, Juhayna, Banu Sulaym, and Ghatafan. Najd (Nejd) is a region in central Saudi Arabia and the location of the nations capital, Riyadh. ... Sinai Peninsula, Gulf of Suez (west), Gulf of Aqaba (east) from Space Shuttle STS-40 The Sinai Peninsula (in Arabic, Shibh Jazirat Sina) is a triangle-shaped peninsula lying between the Mediterranean Sea (to the north) and Red Sea (to the south). ... Asir(persian language)is a district in south of i. ... Najd (Nejd) is a region in central Saudi Arabia and the location of the nations capital, Riyadh. ... Najd (Nejd) is a region in central Saudi Arabia and the location of the nations capital, Riyadh. ... The Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula is a mainly desert peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia and an important part of the greater Middle East. ... Utaybah (Arabic: , also spelled Uteibah, Otaybah, and Oteibah) is a large tribe of the Arabian Peninsula. ... Mutayr (Arabic: ; also spelled Mutair and Mtayr) is a large tribe of the Arabian Peninsula. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Banu Khalid (Arabic: بنو خالد) the word Banu in Arabic means the sons of, or of the breed of, and Khalid is a name of one of the most powerful Islamic History warriors, Khalid ibn al-Walid who is said to be the great granfather of the Banu Khalid, there are other...  Northern Africa (UN subregion)  geographic, including above North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Kinana ibn al-Rabi (Arabic: ‎, also Kinana bin al-Rabi, Kinana ibn al-Rabia, Kinana ibn al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq) was a Jewish leader of seventh-century Arabia and an opponent of Muhammad; son of the poet al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq, who flourished at Medina... Juhayna is an Egyptian beverages and yoghurt giant. ... An Arab tribe that lived in Hejaz and Nejd in the rise of Islam, it will settle North Africa along with Banu Hilal in the 11th century. ... Banu Ghatafan (Arabic: بنو غطفان) are a massive ancient tribe north of Medinah and from them come the tribes of Banu Abs and Banu Motair. ...

Also, not all speakers of these bedouin dialects are literally nomadic bedouins; some are simply sedentary tribal sections that live in rural areas, and thus speak dialects similar to those of their bedouin neighbors. Communities of nomadic people move from place to place, rather than settling down in one location. ...

References

• Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language, NITLE Arab World Project, by the permission of Edinburgh University Press, [1]
• Bruce Ingham, "Some Characteristics of Meccan Speech", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 34, No. 2. (1971), pp. 273-297. [2]