Nowadays, Northwest Arabian Arabic is a topic that has captured the attention of many people around the world. With a significant impact on various areas of life, Northwest Arabian Arabic has generated unprecedented debate, attracting supporters and critics alike. As Northwest Arabian Arabic continues to loom large in the collective consciousness, his influence extends across multiple sectors, from politics to entertainment, and from technology to society at large. In this article, we will explore the various facets of Northwest Arabian Arabic, examining its current relevance and potential future impact.
Variety of the Arabic language
Not to be confused with the Beja language, also called Bedawi.
Northwest Arabian Arabic (also called Levantine Bedawi Arabic or Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic) is a proposedsubfamily of Arabic encompassing the traditional Bedouin dialects of the Sinai Peninsula, the Negev, Gaza Strip, southern Jordan, and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia.
The dialect of the Maʿāzah in the Egyptian Eastern Desert borders the dialect of the ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic. Research is needed to establish whether the Maʿāzah dialect is the southwestern extremity of Northwest Arabian on the Egyptian mainland.
In Saudi Arabia, the dialects of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, the Hisma, and the Harrat al-Riha belong to the Northwest Arabian type, but the dialect of the Bili to the south is not closely related.
Classification
The Northwest Arabian Arabic dialects display several innovations from Proto-Arabic:
The voiced reflex of *q ()
The gaháwah syndrome: insertion of /a/ after X in (C)aXC(V) sequences where X is /h/, /ʿ/, /ḥ/, /ġ/, or /ḫ/, e.g. gahwa(h) > gaháwa(h) "coffee", baġl > baġal "mule".
The definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli are stressable as an integral part of the word, e.g. álwalad, áljabal. The initial /a/ is stable enough to be preserved after -ī (-iy), which is dropped: f-albēt, rāʿ-álġanam.
A number of typical Bedouin lexical items (gōṭar "to go", sōlaf "to tell, narrate", ṭabb "to arrive", nišad ~ nišád "to ask").
Absence of final /n/ in the imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular, 2nd person masculine plural, and 3rd person masculine plural.
The pronominal suffix of the 2nd person masculine plural is -ku (-kuw).
Stressed variants -ī and -nī of the pronominal suffix in the 1st person singular.
Plural comm. forms haḏalla, haḏallāk, etc.
Initial /a/ in Forms VII, VIII, and X in the perfect, and stressed when in stressable position.
Initial /a/ in a number of irregular nouns (amm, aḫt, aḫwan, adēn, afám).
Varieties
Northwest Arabian Arabic can be divided into a western branch spoken in Sinai and the Negev, and an eastern branch spoken to the east of the Wadi Araba. Several dialects of the eastern branch, such as that of the Zalabiah and Zawaidih of Wadi Ramm, and that of the Bdul, have been argued to be closely related to the western branch.
Differences between western and eastern branches:
Western branch
Eastern branch
b- imperfect
in regular use
does not occur in plain colloquial
analytic genitive
šuġl, šuġlah, šuġlīn, šuġlāt as genitive markers
Form I imperfect performative
vowel harmony
generalized /a/
reflexes of *aw and *ay
partially monophthongized; monophthongs fluctuate with long phonemes /ō/ ~ /ū/, /ē/ ~/ī/.
well-established monophthongs /ō/ and /ē/
gawaha syndrome
gaháwa only
ghawa ~ gaháwa
I-w imperfect
yawṣal ~yōṣal
yāṣal
3fsg object suffix
-ha/-hiy in Negev
-ha
3msg object suffix
phonetically conditioned C-ih/-ah, C-u(h) in southern Sinai
Some varieties of Negev Arabic are characterized by word-internal imala of *-ā- to /ē/ in patterns where /i/ historically occurred in an adjacent syllable. It does not occur when one of the adjacent consonants is emphatic or a back consonant. Some of the patterns where it is found include the following:
Reflexes of *CāCiC: šēyib “elder, old man”, ḥēmiy “hot”, gēyil “having said”, bēkir “morning”, wēḥid “one”, ṯēniy “second”
Reflexes of *CiCāC(ah): srēǧ “oil lamp”, ktēbih “writing”
Reflexes of *miCCāC(ah): miftēḥ “key”, miknēsih “broom”
Similar raising is found in the Bdul dialect of Jordan: minǣsif “mansaf (pl.)”, hǣḏi “this (f.)”, ḏ̣aygǣt “narrow (pl.)”, iblǣdna “our land”.
Word-final imala of */-ā(ʾ)/
Some of the western dialects of Northwest Arabian Arabic (Central Sinai and Negev in particular) are characterized by an Imala of Old Arabic word-final *-ā(ʾ) to /iy/ in certain patterns of nouns and adjectives. Emphatics seem to block the shift. The following examples are from Negev Arabic:
In the dialects of southern Sinai, word-final imala typically results in /iʾ/. Some examples are íštiʾ “winter”, ǧiʾ “he came”, ḏiʾ “this, these”, tižibhiʾ “you get it”, ifṭarniʾ “we had breakfast”. In some, but not all groups, /a/ in a previous syllable blocks this imala. Like the dialects of central Sinai and Negev, the imala of feminine adjectives of color and defect on the pattern CaCCāʾ results in stressed /íy/: sōdíy “black; bad”.
Characteristics
The following are some archaic features retained from Proto-Arabic:
Gender distinction in the 2nd and 3rd person plural pronouns, pronominal suffixes, and finite verbal forms.
Productivity of Form IV (aC1C2aC3, yiC1C2iC3).
The initial /a/ in the definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli.
Frequent and productive use of diminutives (glayyil "a little", ḫbayz "bread").
Absence of affricated variants of /g/ (< */q/) and /k/.
The use of the locative preposition fi (fiy).
The invariable pronominal suffix -ki of the 2nd person feminine singular.
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