Hejazi Arabic

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]}

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]}

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

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 itfa'al"/"yitfi'il used in Egypt), 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:

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 2nd 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]}

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. Pronunciation of the letter ğim (ج), which is very close to the two sounds considered, by specialists, to be the best candidates for the way it was pronounced in Classical Arabic, namely, the voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/ and the palatalized velar stop /gʲ/.^{[citation needed]}
2. 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]}
3. 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.
4. 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]}

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]}

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.

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.

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]

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