# Dialect Closest to Standard/Classical Arabic?



## haddad

Grewing up in Beirut I often see signs at Language centers that says " Lebanese the closest to Standard Arabic" and I found the same thing in Syria *Syria the closest to standard* , Jordan, Saudi etc etc. Every country and people in the Arab world are proud of their colloquial.

But some say Yemeni are the closest, but which Yemeni? San'ani dialect? Taizz? Southern like Hadrami's or mahric?
Even Yemeni has terrifying different accent and dialects and distinct from each other and you cant compare it like damascus or beirut, the differencess between Mahric, Hadramic and San'ani are so distinct!

I have met Gulf people from Kuwait and Saudi who cant understand a Yemeni Southernern Hadrami old woman.

Lets not compare Dariija, its even far off, but then again all these colloquial are very close to Standard ( in their own forms )and that includes Darija Margrebi;s.

But what do guys think? Anyone here knows which colloquial is the nearest to Standard? or Classical?

I narrowed it to Sana'ani ( North Yemen), Bedoin ( North Saudi/Jordan/Syrian desert) and possibly Meccan/Hijaz?

I am pretty sure thats theres one which can claimed the closest

Any say?

Warmest regards
Khatrak!

Michael Haddad


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## f3rooha

in my opinion i think Hijazi dialect is the closest


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## al-Thawrii

Which dialect do you think Modern Standard Arabic is closest to?

I have heard both Yemeni and Iraqi Arabic described as the "purest" forms of Arabic by some, and are considered the closest to _Classical_ Arabic... and someone told me that Yemeni and Gulf Arabic are very very close to MSA, but I have not heard enough of either dialect to really know...

What would you consider to be the dialect to be closest to MSA?


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## toolmanUF

Every Arab that you ask will give you the same response: "Well, MY dialect is the closest to fusha!"

Serisouly, I have had Moroccans, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Saudis all tell me that their dialect is the closest to standard. The truth is, not a SINGLE one is. They are all different dialects and share their own history, and if you only speak Modern Standard you will probably not be able to understand any of them.

One thing that really bothers me is how people act like the North African dialects are not even remotely related to Arabic. (And I'm not even an Arab or North African.) I have studied a bit of the Jordanian, Egyptian, and Moroccan dialects. I know the most about the Jordanian dialect, and just the basics about the Egyptian and Moroccan ones.

From what I've seen, if you haven't studied any of the three and only know Fusha, then they are all pretty much incomprehensible to you. However, if you have a good understanding of literary and less frequent Fusha words, you can easily see how all three are derived from classical Arabic.

For example: In the Jordanian dialect if you want to say "I want to go" you say "biddi arooh". Of course, this is different from classical which would be "ureedu an athhab." However, the "biddi" comes from "b-widdi" (which is kind of like "in my desire") and the "arooh" is the colloquial way to say "to go." You can see the connection to classical.

However, in Moroccan, I believe it would go as follows: "bghii namshi." It's completely different, but it is still derived from classical! The bgii comes from form VII of the verb "b gh a" and the "masha" in formal Arabic means "to walk" and thus has acquired the colloquial meaning "to go."

In short, I feel like it really isn't possible to say that one dialect is so much more like classical than the others. The truth is that none of them is classical Arabic, but they are all based on classical Arabic. I find that learning one dialect will make it much easier to pick up and understand the others.


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## Palcan

I'm not really sure which dialect is the closest to Standard Arabic. I would personally say the Bedoin. As for the North African dialects (Maghrebi Arabic), they are varieties of Arabic but they're not usually comprehended by the 'Asian' Arabs mainly because they have borrowed lots of words from many languages such as French, Berber, and Spanish.

I agree with toolmanUF that not a single dialect represents the classical Arabic. However, I believe there are some that are very close to the Standard Arabic (mind you..not the classical arabic) like the ones listed by haddad. I guess those dialects haven't evolved much due to many factors such as geographical, social, etc..


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## WadiH

Personally, I've found the opposite of what the original poster is saying. I find most Arabs _underestimate_ how close their dialect is to Classical Arabic, and regularly dismiss colloquial words and expressions as incorrect "3ammiyyah" even though they are often perfectly correct in CA. I also have found it common for people to believe the Yemeni dialect to be the closest to CA based on the widespread myth that Yemen is the "origin of the Arabs" or of the Arabic language.

Every dialect of Arabic retains certain elements from CA that are not present in others. For example, the Lebanese dialect uses dipthongs ("3ayn" instead of "3ein", "3awn" instead of "3on"), some Yemeni dialects use the word "lays ليس" ("lasni a7ubboh" meaning "I don't like it"), the Hejazi dialect uses the cannonical form of past tense verbs ("fa3al" instead of the "f3al" of Nejd). However, that does not mean that any of these dialects is necessarily closer to CA than others.

The bedouin dialects of the Arabian Peninsula (Hejaz, Najd, and Asir) and the related sedentary dialects of Najd and Asir are the closest to Classical Arabic (but not the urban dialect of Hejaz!). This is not an idiosyncratic opinion; it's been widely recognized and written about by Western travellers and linguists in the area. A good resource on this is _Najdi Arabic_ by Bruce Ingham. If you were to write out a dialogue in Najdi Arabic, for example, you would find that only some very slight and occasional modifications would have to be made to make it indistinguishable from a text written in Standard Arabic. There are of course pronunciations that are not in Standard Arabic (such as q=g, and the "kaskasah" and "taltalah" phenomena), but these are well-attested to from the pre-Islamic period and are therefore Classical, and in any case are undetectable in writing. In all likelihood, other non-Standard characteristics such as the so-called "ghawa syndrome" are old as well.

The dialects of Najd are also the least affected by other languages; though many loanwords exist, none reach the level of disturbing the traditional grammar and structure (for example, Najdi Arabic does not use words such as "khosh" as in the Gulf, or "kaman" as in the Hejaz). Najdi Arabic also is not affected by a substratum, unlike Yemen where there is the substratum of the old South Arabian languages.

People mention Iraqi Arabic, but Iraqi Arabic is heavily influenced by Turkish and Persian, and the characteristics that make Iraqi Arabic close to Classical Arabic are only present because of the heavy migration and settlement in Iraq by bedouin tribes from Najd in the last 500 years. Same goes for the Gulf, where a "Najdi-based" dialect is spoken.

Here are some examples of archaic characteristics found in Najdi, bedouin, and Asiri Arabic:

(1) The "true" passive voice is still employed, whereas in most other dialects it's been replaced by the pseudo-passive forms "infa3al" and "itfa3al".

(2) نون النسوة is still employed (this is also present in southern Iraq).

(3) The construction "ما أنا بفاعل". For example, Muhammad's words to Gabriel "ما أنا بقارئ" can still be heard in Najd, though the pronounciation would be something like "Manib Gari".

(4) The imperative form for "weak roots" (الأفعال الجوفاء) is still rendered the same way as in CA: قم شف رح جب در نم, which in most other Arabic dialects would be قوم شوف روح دور نوم, etc. Najdis would also say ارم امش ابد, which is the correct CA form. Other dialects would say ارمي امشي ابدا

(5) The diminutive form is still alive and constructed in the same way as in CA in order to color meaning. In most Arabic dialects, diminutive words are lexicalized and not normally generated.

(6) The "tanween" is still used to mark indefiniteness: جاني واحدن, معه سيارتن قديمة - though because there is no longer any declensional marking in Arabic, the tanween is always "kasr".

(7) The plural present form is still the same as in CA for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person: نروح يروحون تروحون. In most other dialects, the "n" is omitted.

(8) There is still gender agreement between the adjective and the word that it modifies: قهوة عربية, whereas it's common in other dialects to say قهوة عربي

(9) There is still gender disagreement with numbers just as in CA: أربعة أشهر, ثلاث بنات

(10) Contractions such "kaman" and "mesh/mosh" have not been lexicalized in Najd, unlike elsewhere. This is one of the most important features that help Najdi Arabic retain much of the "spirit" of Classical Arabic. For example, in Najd, you don't hear expressions like "أنا كمان" (i.e. أنا كما أنّ, which makes no sense in CA), or "مش رايح" (i.e. ما هو شيء رايح, again makes no sense). Rather, you would hear "مانيب رايح" (i.e. ما أنا برايح).

(11) Najdi doesn't negate verbs by appending ش to the end (ما اعرفش ما بتفهمش etc.), which is a common deviation from CA in many dialects.

(12) In central Najd (Riyadh, and its immediate environs), the "taa" for the 2nd person تاء المخاطب was until very recently distinguished from the "taa" for the 1st person تاء المتكلم in that the 2nd person was pronounced with a long fat7a (similar to CA): for example ما رحتا و لا جيتا "you did not come or go" as opposed to "ما رحت و لا جيت" ("I did not come or go"). This is totally absent even in bedouin Arabic and I have no doubt that it is an ancient vestige of the Classical era.

Of course I've only touched here on grammar and structure, but entire books can be written on bedouin and Najdi vocabulary.

Another testament to the idea that these Arabian dialects are the direct descendants of Classical Arabic is the way Classical Arabic poetry seamlessly evolved into bedouin and Najdi vernacular poetry; the only significant difference between the two being the absence of declensional markings in the latter.


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## WadiH

By the way, since more than one person has mentioned it, the urban Hejazi dialect (Mecca, Jeddah, Medina) is certainly not the closest to CA, as these cities have been continuously settled by immigrants from non-Arab countries, and were also ruled by the Turks for centuries.  They also have many Egyptian influences as well.

The _bedouin_ dialect of Hejaz is of course another matter; it is however almost indistinguishable to the foreigner from other bedouin dialects and is therefore part of that same group.


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## Josh_

In this thread (post #8) I linked to a discussion of the "MSA/Dialect issue" by a prominent Arabic linguist. I suppose it is worth mentioning again in this thread:

http://arabworld.nitle.org/audiovisual.php?module_id=1
Go to "Presentation by Kristen Brustad (Part 2)."

I am of the same opinion in that no Arabic dialect is any closer than the other to MSA.


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## suma

In my experience after studying to beginner/intermediate level in my home country, I began to take trips to ME. The first country being Egypt where I spent 10 consecutive months. I could not understand a thing of Egyptian speech and it seemed vastly different from what I had studied and practiced in class.

Sometime later I made my way to Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and even Amman Jordan, Jerusalem and the Syrian border. Granted my language study had progressed somewhat by this time, but I did notice a marked difference in the speech of the average person I came across in these countries. It was defineatley closer to what I had heard and studied in the classroom.

Now I recognize that for some reason the folks in SA, Jordan, and Syria are more willing and capable of switching to a reasonably good MSA when conversing with a foreigner such as myself. Whereas in Egypt none but the most experienced language teacher seemed to be able or willing to do so.


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## Mahaodeh

I dare to disagree with your points as follows:



Wadi Hanifa said:


> (1) The "true" passive voice is still employed, whereas in most other dialects it's been replaced by the pseudo-passive forms "infa3al" and "itfa3al".
> 
> Ok, maybe, but to tell you the truth I have not heard it, ever, and my mum is Saudi from Najd.
> 
> (2) نون النسوة is still employed (this is also present in southern Iraq).
> 
> And northern and central Iraq, it's also used in Palestine, especially the countryside: "خليهن يجين" and "ليش ما قالن"
> 
> (3) The construction "ما أنا بفاعل". For example, Muhammad's words to Gabriel "ما أنا بقارئ" can still be heard in Najd, though the pronounciation would be something like "Manib Gari".
> 
> It's also used in Iraq, Palestine and Jordan: "ماني سامع"
> 
> (4) The imperative form for "weak roots" (الأفعال الجوفاء) is still rendered the same way as in CA: قم شف رح جب در نم, which in most other Arabic dialects would be قوم شوف روح دور نوم, etc. Najdis would also say ارم امش ابد, which is the correct CA form. Other dialects would say ارمي امشي ابدا
> 
> This I agree with.
> 
> (5) The diminutive form is still alive and constructed in the same way as in CA in order to color meaning. In most Arabic dialects, diminutive words are lexicalized and not normally generated.
> 
> I think it would be better to state which dialects DO NOT use the diminitive form. They all do, or at least most (to be frank, I havent heard it in Egyptian Arabic).
> 
> (6) The "tanween" is still used to mark indefiniteness: جاني واحدن, معه سيارتن قديمة - though because there is no longer any declensional marking in Arabic, the tanween is always "kasr".
> 
> Although it's not used in Iraq or Palestine, but I've heard it in other places, specifically Jordan and the GCC states.
> 
> (7) The plural present form is still the same as in CA for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person: نروح يروحون تروحون. In most other dialects, the "n" is omitted.
> 
> It's present in Iraq, parts of Syria, GCC and parts of Jordan.
> 
> (8) There is still gender agreement between the adjective and the word that it modifies: قهوة عربية, whereas it's common in other dialects to say قهوة عربي
> 
> This is also still prevelent despite the example. Actually, I've only heard that phrase from Egyptians and not always plus, only a few specific phrases do that not all. Have you ever heard anyone say "سيارة أحمر" or "بيت مسكونة"? Well, except maybe from foreigners who don't master Arabic.
> 
> (9) There is still gender disagreement with numbers just as in CA: أربعة أشهر, ثلاث بنات
> 
> Actually, this is still used in Iraqi (all dialects in Iraq), GCC and parts of Jordan and Palestine. Don't know about the rest.
> 
> (10) Contractions such "kaman" and "mesh/mosh" have not been lexicalized in Najd, unlike elsewhere. This is one of the most important features that help Najdi Arabic retain much of the "spirit" of Classical Arabic. For example, in Najd, you don't hear expressions like "أنا كمان" (i.e. أنا كما أنّ, which makes no sense in CA), or "مش رايح" (i.e. ما هو شيء رايح, again makes no sense). Rather, you would hear "مانيب رايح" (i.e. ما أنا برايح).
> 
> Are you sure the contractions are as you described? That does not make sense to me. Anyway, I can't disagree.
> 
> (11) Najdi doesn't negate verbs by appending ش to the end (ما اعرفش ما بتفهمش etc.), which is a common deviation from CA in many dialects.
> 
> Yep, but not all.
> 
> (12) In central Najd (Riyadh, and its immediate environs), the "taa" for the 2nd person تاء المخاطب was until very recently distinguished from the "taa" for the 1st person تاء المتكلم in that the 2nd person was pronounced with a long fat7a (similar to CA): for example ما رحتا و لا جيتا "you did not come or go" as opposed to "ما رحت و لا جيت" ("I did not come or go"). This is totally absent even in bedouin Arabic and I have no doubt that it is an ancient vestige of the Classical era.
> 
> Agree.


 
On the other hand, I'm quite sure that other notes can be given for the other dialects. Not to defend any since I prefer CA nor to claim Najdi is not the closest. However, I do think that they are equal in terms of closeness.


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## elroy

Welcome to the forums, Mahaodeh. 


> (1) The "true" passive voice is still employed, whereas in most other dialects it's been replaced by the pseudo-passive forms "infa3al" and "itfa3al".
> 
> Ok, maybe, but to tell you the truth I have not heard it, ever, and my mum is Saudi from Najd.


I haven't either. Do people from Najd say "kutiba" and "Duriba"? 


> (2) نون النسوة is still employed (this is also present in southern Iraq).
> 
> And northern and central Iraq, it's also used in Palestine, especially the countryside: "خليهن يجين" and "ليش ما قالن"


 This would be marked as extremely dialectal in Palestinian Arabic. I've personally never heard it. 



> (3) The construction "ما أنا بفاعل". For example, Muhammad's words to Gabriel "ما أنا بقارئ" can still be heard in Najd, though the pronounciation would be something like "Manib Gari".
> 
> It's also used in Iraq, Palestine and Jordan: "ماني سامع"


 No, we do not say ماني سامع in Palestinian Arabic - at least I've never heard it, and it sounds Syrian to me. We say مش سامع.

However, I have to wonder why ماني سامع should be considered closer to CA/MSA than مش سامع. They are both derivations; it's just that they correspond to different original structures. 



> (4) The imperative form for "weak roots" (الأفعال الجوفاء) is still rendered the same way as in CA: قم شف رح جب در نم, which in most other Arabic dialects would be قوم شوف روح دور نوم, etc. Najdis would also say ارم امش ابد, which is the correct CA form. Other dialects would say ارمي امشي ابدا
> 
> This I agree with.


 I'm a little confused. How are ارم and امش and ابد pronounced? We pronounce them with a short vowel at the end, i.e. ارمِ، امشِ، ابدَ (we might write them with long vowels, but I'm interested in pronunciation here), which corresponds to الجزم in MSA. If they're also pronounced like that in Najd, then there's no difference between our dialects here. If you pronounce them without a vowel at the end, then our pronunciation is closer to MSA.



> (5) The diminutive form is still alive and constructed in the same way as in CA in order to color meaning. In most Arabic dialects, diminutive words are lexicalized and not normally generated.
> 
> I think it would be better to state which dialects DO NOT use the diminitive form. They all do, or at least most (to be frank, I havent heard it in Egyptian Arabic).


 Yes, we use the diminituve in Palestinian Arabic, at least assuming we're talking about the same thing (بنوتة as a diminutive of بنت, for example). In fact, my own last name is a diminutive. If you're talking about something else, examples would be appreciated. 



> (8) There is still gender agreement between the adjective and the word that it modifies: قهوة عربية, whereas it's common in other dialects to say قهوة عربي
> 
> This is also still prevelent despite the example. Actually, I've only heard that phrase from Egyptians and not always plus, only a few specific phrases do that not all. Have you ever heard anyone say "سيارة أحمر" or "بيت مسكونة"? Well, except maybe from foreigners who don't master Arabic.


 I agree. We usually say قهوة عربية. If someone were to say فهوة عربي, it would be a way to identify which kind of coffee as opposed to describing the coffee (so it's a different in nuance that usually doesn't make a practical difference), but قهوة عربي sounds strange to me and furthermore, this is not a generalizable case. There may be a few others like it, but you can say that we have gender agreement 99% of the time. 


> (9) There is still gender disagreement with numbers just as in CA: أربعة أشهر, ثلاث بنات
> 
> Actually, this is still used in Iraqi (all dialects in Iraq), GCC and parts of Jordan and Palestine. Don't know about the rest.


 I don't think this is the case in Palestinian Arabic. We say أربع كتب، أربع ولاد، أربع أسابيع، أربع كلاب، إلخ. We do say أربع تشهر (although you also hearأربع شهور), which may have originated from أربعة أشهر, but in this case I think you can consider تشهر a word in its own right.

***

In general, I tend to agree with Josh and Mahaodeh. I'm sure I could come up with a list of features of Palestinian Arabic in which it resembles MSA/CA more than Najdi Arabic , but my utter lack of familiarity with Najdi Arabic puts me at a disadvantage.


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## clevermizo

Mahaodeh said:


> (10) Contractions such "kaman" and "mesh/mosh" have not been lexicalized in Najd, unlike elsewhere. This is one of the most important features that help Najdi Arabic retain much of the "spirit" of Classical Arabic. For example, in Najd, you don't hear expressions like "أنا كمان" (i.e. أنا كما أنّ, which makes no sense in CA), or "مش رايح" (i.e. ما هو شيء رايح, again makes no sense). Rather, you would hear "مانيب رايح" (i.e. ما أنا برايح).
> 
> Are you sure the contractions are as you described? That does not make sense to me. Anyway, I can't disagree.


I don't know about كمان< كما أنّ, however مُش or مِش does come, I believe, as a contraction of ما هوش. I disagree that this is a contraction of ما هو شيء for which I will explain below. The evidence for this is in Maltese actually (and maybe some other dialects of Arabic), where "to not be" is still "conjugated" for each person:

'I'    jien (pronounced يِين), 'I am not'  majiniex (مايِنيش)
'You'   int (إِنت)                 'You are not' mintix (مِنتِش)
'He'     hu (هو)                  'He's not'  mhux (مهوش)
'She'    hi  (هي)                  'She's not' mhix (مهيش)
'We'     ahna (أحنا)             'We're not' mahniex (محنيش)
etc.

The reason why I do not believe this to be from ما هو شيء or ما أنا شيء is because personally I think ما...ش was lexicalized as a negation procedure in some dialects _first_, in which case it existed as a separated entity. "Mush" is the negation of هو by applying ما....ش, however by this point in history I don't know if people thought of it as "شيء" anymore ... just as a negation mechanism. (Of course now, in many dialects, مش is the general negative copula for all persons, and not just هو).

The moral is ما هو... and مش share the same origin, depending on your preference for negation (ما .... ش or just ما).

Either way the spirit of Wadi Hanifa's example remains the same. But one might say any dialect that does not negate by ما....ش is in some way closer to فصحى, but that is general and not restricted to the pronouns.

Personally I agree with those who contend that you might find similar things to فصحى in any dialect, whether those similarities be lexical, phonological or grammatical. You might find dialects with more grammatical similarities, but less lexical similarities, etc. The question "How is dialect X close to CA/MSA?" might be more fruitful than the contrast/comparison question.


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## knowledge seeker

I enjoy this thread guys 


> Here are some examples of archaic characteristics found in Najdi, bedouin, and Asiri Arabic:
> 
> (1) The "true" passive voice is still employed, whereas in most other dialects it's been replaced by the pseudo-passive forms "infa3al" and "itfa3al".
> 
> (2) نون النسوة is still employed (this is also present in southern Iraq).
> 
> (3) The construction "ما أنا بفاعل". For example, Muhammad's words to Gabriel "ما أنا بقارئ" can still be heard in Najd, though the pronounciation would be something like "Manib Gari".
> 
> (4) The imperative form for "weak roots" (الأفعال الجوفاء) is still rendered the same way as in CA: قم شف رح جب در نم, which in most other Arabic dialects would be قوم شوف روح دور نوم, etc. Najdis would also say ارم امش ابد, which is the correct CA form. Other dialects would say ارمي امشي ابدا
> 
> (5) The diminutive form is still alive and constructed in the same way as in CA in order to color meaning. In most Arabic dialects, diminutive words are lexicalized and not normally generated.
> 
> (6) The "tanween" is still used to mark indefiniteness: جاني واحدن, معه سيارتن قديمة - though because there is no longer any declensional marking in Arabic, the tanween is always "kasr".
> 
> (7) The plural present form is still the same as in CA for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person: نروح يروحون تروحون. In most other dialects, the "n" is omitted.
> 
> (8) There is still gender agreement between the adjective and the word that it modifies: قهوة عربية, whereas it's common in other dialects to say قهوة عربي
> 
> (9) There is still gender disagreement with numbers just as in CA: أربعة أشهر, ثلاث بنات
> 
> (10) Contractions such "kaman" and "mesh/mosh" have not been lexicalized in Najd, unlike elsewhere. This is one of the most important features that help Najdi Arabic retain much of the "spirit" of Classical Arabic. For example, in Najd, you don't hear expressions like "أنا كمان" (i.e. أنا كما أنّ, which makes no sense in CA), or "مش رايح" (i.e. ما هو شيء رايح, again makes no sense). Rather, you would hear "مانيب رايح" (i.e. ما أنا برايح).
> 
> (11) Najdi doesn't negate verbs by appending ش to the end (ما اعرفش ما بتفهمش etc.), which is a common deviation from CA in many dialects.
> 
> (12) In central Najd (Riyadh, and its immediate environs), the "taa" for the 2nd person تاء المخاطب was until very recently distinguished from the "taa" for the 1st person تاء المتكلم in that the 2nd person was pronounced with a long fat7a (similar to CA): for example ما رحتا و لا جيتا "you did not come or go" as opposed to "ما رحت و لا جيت" ("I did not come or go"). This is totally absent even in bedouin Arabic and I have no doubt that it is an ancient vestige of the Classical era


very useful information , I badly need it for my research 
what are ur resources , u would do me a great favor if u kindly guide me in this case .
Regards,


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## abu l-bisse

The famous linguist Charles Ferguson wrote once (I forgot where and don't remember the words exactly): If I meet an Arab at a party and want to know from where he is, I don't ask "Where do you come from" but "In which region of the Arabic world is a dialect spoken that is nearest to Standard or Classical Arabic".


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## abayd718

Interesting discussion.

I have found some Shammar bedouin do use "mish", however, including some old men from Leenah in North Saudi Arabia. Shammar is what I call a cosmopolitan tribe, however, since their territory extends deep into Syria and Iraq and have much contact with the settled people of those countries.


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## HIJAZI ARABIC IS THE BEST

I've personally found HIJAZI to be closest to MSA or FUSHA....Its pronunciation more similar and its words more similar to MSA or FUSHA.....Besides HIJAZI, ...other dialects perhaps have a lot of variation when compared with FUSHA...specially in respect to their pronunciation and accent...... eg..the egyptian dialect almost silences 'ق' and 'ج' becomes "g" as in "girl" ..............and besides HIJAZI ...I think the NEJDI or the NAJDI dialect to be more conservative....and closer.... 

Lastly I think that the dialects spoken within the arabian peninsula are the closest to FUSHA or MSA....

Well these are my views......but i can be wrong.....


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## Serafín33

Wadi Hanifa said:


> (6) The "tanween" is still used to mark  indefiniteness: جاني واحدن, معه سيارتن قديمة - though because there is  no longer any declensional marking in Arabic, the tanween is always  "kasr".





			
				Mahaodeh said:
			
		

> Although it's not  used in Iraq or Palestine, but I've heard it in other places,  specifically Jordan and the GCC states.


Owens in _A Linguistic History of Arabic_ mentions the following dialects as having Tanween (with the comment that it "is dialectally more widespread than often assumed", pag. 102):


Najdi Arabic in Saudi Arabia, as "-in", citing Ingham 1994a: 47 ff.
Andalusian Arabic, as "-an", citing Corriente 1977: 122; Ferrando 2000
Some Sudanic dialects, as "-an", citing Owens 1993a: 111, 140, 144; Reichmuth 1983: on Shukriyya in eastern Sudan
Tihama Arabic in Yemen, as "-u, -un", citing Behnstedt 1985: 60
Uzbekistan/Afghanistan Arabic, as "-in", citing Ingham 1994b: 47; Fischer 1961 on Uzb

The citations, if it's of anybody's interest:
Behnstedt. 1985. _Die nordjemenitischen Dialekte_, i. Atlas. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Corriente. 1977. _A Grammatical Sketch of the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle._ Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura.
Ferrando. 2000. _Introducción a la Historia de la Lengua Árabe_. Zaragoza: Navarro & Navarro
Fiescher. 1961. "Die Sprache der arabischen Sprachinsel in Uzbekistan", _Der Islam_, 36: 232-263.
Inham. 1994a. _Najdi Arabic, Central Arabian_. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ingham. 1994b. "The Effect of Language Contact on the Arabic Dialect of Afghanistan", in Aguadé et al's (eds.) _Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre Interferencias Lingüísticas Árabo-Romances y Paralelos Extra-Íberos_ (Zaragoza: Navarro & Navarro).
Reichmuth. 1983. _Der arabische Dialekt der Shukriyya im Ostsudan_. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.


Josh_ said:


> In this  thread (post #8) I linked to a discussion of the "MSA/Dialect issue" by  a prominent Arabic linguist. I suppose it is worth mentioning again in  this thread:
> 
> http://arabworld.nitle.org/audiovisual.php?module_id=1
> Go to "Presentation by Kristen Brustad (Part 2)."
> 
> I am of the same opinion in that no Arabic dialect is any closer than the other to MSA.


I'm afraid all the presentations at the "arabworld" server of nitle.org have been erased. Perhaps you have a copy of it lying somewhere?


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## Moseley

What would the most untouched dialect then?

Moderator note: This part of the discussion is moved from here.


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## Hemza

Thank you Iskandari and Wadi Hanifa for your replies.

For Moseley: it's a question which is often asked, I would say that there is NO "pure dialect". Like Wadi Hanifa said, there is conservative dialects, but no one is very close to Classical Arabic, because all have been influenced by other languages and don't pronounce letters exactly like in MSA. But for the more conservative, I'm not sure, I would say Yemeni dialects (don't know which ones exactly), Najdi and bedouin 7ejazi (I'm a speaker of the last, beside Moroccan)


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## Moseley

Yemeni always struck me as sounding a lot like Classical Arabic, not sure why though.


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## Hemza

Because Yemeni use some features of classical Arabic which are not used by other, but also has features which doesn't exist in Classical Arabic: the one I know, is about the pronounciation of the letter "ج" (jim) which is, in some Yemeni areas, pronounced like Urban Egyptian, as a "gim".


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## WadiH

There is no such thing as an "untouched" Arabic dialect.  Also, languages evolve over time independently of the influence of other languages, though perhaps not at the same rate. The Bedouin and tribal dialects of Najd and Hejaz (including the mountains between Mecca and Yemen) are probably the most conservative, and some northern Yemeni dialects as well.  I tend to think that the old tribal dialects of the southern Hejaz around Taif bear the closest resemblance to the Arabic of the Quran, but those dialects are basically extinct now (or at least have changed dramatically in recent years).  Here are some recordings:

http://saadsowayan.com/swf/Rd-B/index.html
http://saadsowayan.com/swf/Rd-C/index.html
http://saadsowayan.com/swf/Rd-D/index.html
http://saadsowayan.com/swf/Rd-E/index.html


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## Hemza

I don't know about Southern 7ejazi dialects, in fact, I was thinking it was the same as Northern (I speak the Yanbu3 dialect). Thank you for teaching me this . Between, I have a friend from Jeddah (Urban 7ejazi), and when she speaks, she pronounce every vowel in the word. Compared to her Qatari friend, it's completely different, for example, the expression "shut up":

-my friend says: "uskut/uskuti" (I say like her)
-her Qatari friend says "skut/suktey"


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## vinyljunkie619

Some dialects drifted in certain ways others have not. Example, in KSA, grammatical structures similar to classical Arabic still exist, but in some ways some vocabulary has shifted. In Yemen, certain villages say "am-" instead of "al-" for the definite article. 
Alot of dialects have done away with Af3ala verbs, but it still exists productively in Yemeni, and lexically in Gulf/Saudi dialects.
Bidwi dialects of KSA still use the vowelized passive, and faa3ala and tafaa3ala verbs are fully productive as well.
Gulf Arabic still uses nunnation.
Algerian Arabic/Moroccan Arabic only hava a handful of Istaf3ala verbs, but have a lot of classical words not retained by other dialects and their grammar is all over the place.
Urban Hijazi sounds like a mix of Cairo and Khartoum Arabic.
Etc etc etc.


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## WadiH

Am- is a pre-Islamic feature, though.


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## vinyljunkie619

That, I did NOT know... I learned something new today.


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## Hemza

vinyljunkie619 said:


> That, I did NOT know... I learned something new today.



I learnt three things in five minutes ahahahah thanks to this post ^^


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## إسكندراني

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Am- is a pre-Islamic feature, though.


ألهذا نقول امبارح في وادي النيل، حتى انهم في تشاد يقولون امبكرة؟ هل من كلمات اخرى بها هذه الظاهرة؟


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## WadiH

إسكندراني said:


> ألهذا نقول امبارح في وادي النيل، حتى انهم في تشاد يقولون امبكرة؟ هل من كلمات اخرى بها هذه الظاهرة؟



قد تكون نشأت لأسباب مشابهة لكنها مستقلة عن أم للتعريف اليمنية القديمة وليست سليلة لها
السوريون يقولون مبلى بنفس الطريقة​


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## vinyljunkie619

I think Chadians say Ambaker because they say Ambarih... Kind of a way of leveling out the paradigm.


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## Moseley

Tracer said:


> When someone asks me about my opinion regarding how close one or the other dialect is from classical, my reply has always been that it’s a moot question – it can’t be answered because the question assumes that dialects “came from” or “were derived from” or “developed from” an ideal classical.
> 
> But if you believe like I do, that there has ALWAYS been a separation between an “ideal” classical (which no one ever spoke on a daily basis) and a/the dialects, then the question makes no sense.  There is no “closer than” among the dialects and the classical because they were never one….they were always separated and distinct….they were always a dual manifestation of the same language.
> 
> In fact, I take the extreme view (o_f course, I don’t think it’s extreme…..I think it’s as plain as the nose on the fac_e) that the derivation occurred in the opposite direction….c’est a dire, the classical was derived as an ideal FROM the spoken dialects – fusHa, that is to say, is a derivative and invented language –  the language of poets and high culture -
> an ideal never to be mastered.
> 
> Another way to put it:  On that very first day when “Arabic” was originally spoken as an acknowledged separate language from an “Ur” Semitic parent, what was spoken was not fusHa but was already a “dialect”…..or to put it another way, spoken came first, fusHa came later.



That's a good way of looking at it, to be fair might explain why some Arabic words don't have concrete root words, maybe they were part of certain dialects that died out or terms that just became obsolete?


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## Aloulu

Tracer said:


> In fact, I take the extreme view (o_f course, I don’t think it’s extreme…..I think it’s as plain as the nose on the fac_e) that the derivation occurred in the opposite direction….c’est a dire, the classical was derived as an ideal FROM the spoken dialects – fusHa, that is to say, is a derivative and invented language –  the language of poets and high culture -
> an ideal never to be mastered.
> 
> Another way to put it:  On that very first day when “Arabic” was originally spoken as an acknowledged separate language from an “Ur” Semitic parent, what was spoken was not fusHa but was already a “dialect”…..or to put it another way, spoken came first, fusHa came later.



I share your view a 100%. In that sense you could easily say that the amount of Arabs that do speak one and the same Fusha language nowadays is actually quite extraordinary compared to the past. Often you hear the complaint "we do not speak Arabic (meaning Fusha) anymore...just our dialects", based on the assumption that somewhere down in history the Arab spoke one and the same Fusha language. But if - like in our  view - you do not believe this you can easily say that today because of the mass media and increasing influence of Fusha more Arabs than ever before speak this "made up" language. Of course, this is often for the more educated Arabs, not the general Arab on the street. But we are still talking about millions of Arab.


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## MarcB

vinyljunkie619 said:


> I think Chadians say Ambaker because they say Ambarih... Kind of a way of leveling out the paradigm.


See Chadi ambakir here http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1953354


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