# العربية اليهودية اليمنية



## tiekey

Hello.

First post here. I need to speak in public next week to a group of Yemenite Jews. I can speak in Palestinian/Syrian Arabic, and if necessary could break my teeth on MSA, but will it be understood?

From Wikipedia it seems that in Yemen the Arabic is closer to classical Arabic, but it seems the Jewish communities have slightly different dialects. How different is it, and will I be understood if I speak Palestinian Arabic?


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## OsamaAbdullah

Perfect answer would come from a yamine who is in touch with those communities.
but I believe that Syrian and Egyptian dialects are the most understood, Syrian for how close it is to MSA and the dominance of Syrian Drama over the last ten to fifteen years and Egyptian because of their movies. So I think you are safe if you speak in Syrian, though I believe MSA is the best for speaking in public in any Arabic country.
I know Palestinian\Syrian dialect and it's not that far away from Syrian so I think you can depend on it, but again, I recommend MSA.


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## tiekey

Many thanks. If there is anyone here who speaks a Yemeni dialect, I'd be happy to hear your opinions too.


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## Schem

Depends on their level of education and socioeconomic background. Yemen is among the poorest Arab countries and I'd assume an obscure/neglected community like the Yemenite Jews may be even poorer and more secluded so dialects that are easily understandable for Arabs who have had exposure to pan-Arab media may not be as easily understandable to them. I'd say go with MSA because it's still the only official Arabic register and could indeed be closer to Yemeni than Egyptian or Syrian (especially if they didn't have exposure to those two) but if your MSA is not very good then Syrian/Palestinian might just have to do the trick.


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## إسكندراني

They should have no trouble understanding a mixture of standard and palestinian Arabic, introducing Egyptian to me is an absurd idea. But if you have time to prepare taking a look at jewish yemeni arabic is advisable, at least to get a feel for some basic words they might have. Advanced vocab is identical to standard arabic usually


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## fdb

The dialects spoken by Yemeni Jews were virtually identical to those spoken by Muslims in various parts of the Yemen (Sanaa, Taizz, etc., all rather different from each other). Virtually all the Yemeni Jews emigrated in 1948, so now only old people speak Yemeni dialects, while the young people speak Hebrew or English. I don’t really see the point of trying to talk to them in Palestinian or Egyptian Arabic, or in “MSA”, all of which are totally different from Yemeni Arabic. But you might like to look at Watson's excellent grammar of Sanaani Arabic.


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## tiekey

Thanks. The people in question left Yemen about 8 years ago, and moved to the US/England. The kids speak fluent English, but the adults don't (even though they've been living in the US for 8 years). None of them speak Hebrew.


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## fdb

In that case I suggest you look up Watson's book.


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## WannaBFluent

fdb said:


> The dialects spoken by Yemeni Jews were virtually identical to those spoken by Muslims in various parts of the Yemen (Sanaa, Taizz, etc., all rather different from each other). Virtually all the Yemeni Jews emigrated in 1948, so now only old people speak Yemeni dialects, while the young people speak Hebrew or English. I don’t really see the point of trying to talk to them in Palestinian or Egyptian Arabic, or in “MSA”, all of which are totally different from Yemeni Arabic. But you might like to look at Watson's excellent grammar of Sanaani Arabic.


You are wrong. Yemeni Arabic is closer to MSA than you think and they learn MSA at school, where the fees are really low. People in Yemen do speak MSA, no doubt. I don't know for the Jewish communities, but you know, a lot of people in Yemen speak fluent English.


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## tiekey

I'll try to get hold of it. My understanding was that Jedeo-Arabic is somewhat different from regular Arabic - they don't even write in Arabic script (they write Arabic using the Hebrew alphabet)


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## fdb

Of course. It is written with Hebrew letters, like all forms of Judaeo-Arabic.


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## fdb

WannaBFluent said:


> You are wrong. Yemeni Arabic is closer to MSA than you think and they learn MSA at school, where the fees are really low. People in Yemen do speak MSA, no doubt. I don't know for the Jewish communities, but you know, a lot of people in Yemen speak fluent English.



The people in question came from remote villages (the urban Jews of the Yemen emigrated a long time ago), they probably never went to school, and are unlikely to have learned "MSA", and certainly not English. Anyway, nobody "speaks MSA", either in the Yemen or anywhere in the world.


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## WannaBFluent

fdb said:


> The people in question came from remote villages (the urban Jews of the Yemen emigrated a long time ago), they probably never went to school, and are unlikely to have learned "MSA", and certainly not English. Anyway, nobody "speaks MSA", either in the Yemen or anywhere in the world.


When I say they do speak MSA, I meant they UNDERSTAND and are able to SPEAK it properly. I didn't say that they use it for colloquial conversation, of course not!


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## Hemza

tiekey said:


> I'll try to get hold of it. My understanding was that Jedeo-Arabic is somewhat different from regular Arabic - they don't even write in Arabic script (they write Arabic using the Hebrew alphabet)



There is no difference between Arabic of Muslims or Jews, I mean, both of us understand each other with no problem, I'm myself part Moroccan (Muslim), and I know Moroccan Jews and we understand each other with no problem. It's not like a different language, and I don't understand while it's called "judeo Arabic", I mean, we don't say "judeo-French", "judeo-English".

About the script, you can also use Arabic to write Hebrew, or even Aramaïc abjad, those languages share almost the same letters (I speak about Bliblical Hebrew, not the modern)


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## WannaBFluent

Hemza said:


> There is no difference between Arabic of Muslims or Jews, I mean, both of us understand each other with no problem, I'm myself part Moroccan (Muslim), and I know Moroccan Jews and we understand each other with no problem. It's not like a different language, and I don't understand while it's called "judeo Arabic", I mean, we don't say "judeo-French", "judeo-English".
> 
> About the script, you can also use Arabic to write Hebrew, or even Aramaïc abjad, those languages share almost the same letters (I speak about Bliblical Hebrew, not the modern)


Exactly like Urdu and Hindi. It is almost the same language but with different alphabets. But they do understand each other.


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## Hemza

WannaBFluent said:


> Exactly like Urdu and Hindi. It is almost the same language but with different alphabets. But they do understand each other.



I didn't know. Thanks


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## rayloom

I think MSA would be well understood. Old generation Yemenite jews studied the Hebrew bible, along with the Aramaic targum, and Saadia Gaon's Arabic translation/commentary of the Torah, which is in Standard Arabic (Fus7a). However, it is read in the Yemeni dialect.
You can find some samples on youtube.


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## إسكندراني

fdb said:


> Anyway, nobody "speaks MSA", either in the Yemen or anywhere in the world.


Even in the most informal Egyptian film, and amongst gatherings with friends of different backgrounds, msa sentences are intermingled with watered down dialect. - it's all good as long as one maintains the right proportion of ya3ni (or za3ma)


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## A-class-act

I have a French backround more then an Arabic one, Im not so familiar with Arabic dialects eccepte Algerian. When it comes to Arabic dialects I understand both MSA and Syrian, so For me Syrian will be perfect!


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## A-class-act

I want to know, is "Arabia Yahoudia exsiste"???????


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## akhooha

A-class-act said:


> I want to know, is "Arabia Yahoudia exsiste"???????


Yes. It does exist. Here's a very general article about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo_Arabic
The Iraqi Jewish author Sami (Shmuel) Moreh has also recently published a memoir called بغداد حبيبتي : يهود العراق، ذكريات وشجون
(http://www.worldcat.org/title/baghd...a-shujun/oclc/793922507&referer=brief_results) which has many examples of the Iraqi Jewish Arabic dialect, which he often helpfully translates into regular Iraqi dialect and into MSA. It is not all that different from the regular Iraqi dialect, but has minor differences in pronunciation and some small differences in grammar, along with some small differences in vocabulary.


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## Qureshpor

WannaBFluent said:


> Exactly like Urdu and Hindi. It is almost the same language but with different alphabets. But they do understand each other.


There is more to Urdu and Hindi than just the script!


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## Drink

Regarding the alphabet, although Hebrew is the traditional script of Judeo-Arabic, virtually all modern Arabic-speaking Jews can read and write in the Arabic alphabet.


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## WannaBFluent

Qureshpor said:


> WannaBFluent said:
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly like Urdu and Hindi. It is *almost* the same language but with different alphabets. But they do *understand each other*.
> 
> 
> 
> There is more to Urdu and Hindi than just the script!
Click to expand...

I didn't say it was exactly the same...


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## إسكندراني

I don't understand why there is a need to distinguish a 'jewish dialect' in most cases, apart from Iraq where every sect has its own dialect, was there ever a discernible difference between jews' and muslims' dialects, say, in Morocco or Yemen?

Also, for the record, the title of this thread is really odd - I doubt anyone calls dialects anything other than لهجة يهود اليمن etc.


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## WannaBFluent

In Yemen, it's the same, the jews don't have the same dialect, they don't speak like the muslims as in Iraq. Even between muslims in the same city (صنعاء) they don't speak the same dialect depending on the district and the social background!


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## إسكندراني

WannaBFluent said:


> In Yemen, it's the same, the jews don't have the same dialect, they don't speak like the muslims as in Iraq. Even between muslims in the same city (صنعاء) they don't speak the same dialect depending on the district and the social background!


What dialects are spoken in San'a?


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## Hemza

إسكندراني said:


> I don't understand why there is a need to distinguish a 'jewish dialect' in most cases, apart from Iraq where every sect has its own dialect, was there ever a discernible difference between jews' and muslims' dialects, say, in Morocco or Yemen?
> 
> Also, for the record, the title of this thread is really odd - I doubt anyone calls dialects anything other than لهجة يهود اليمن etc.



I completely agree with what you said.


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## Hemza

WannaBFluent said:


> In Yemen, it's the same, the jews don't have the same dialect, they don't speak like the muslims as in Iraq. Even between muslims in the same city (صنعاء) they don't speak the same dialect depending on the district and the social background!



I don't think it has something to do with religion (except about Iraq and ba7rain), as you said it depends more within the social background, the district, etc.


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## Drink

Hemza said:


> I don't think it has something to do with religion (except about Iraq and ba7rain), as you said it depends more within the social background, the district, etc.



It does have a little bit to do with religion. Muslim dialects are more likely to care about keeping their language "pure" and closer to Classical Arabic. Jewish and Christian dialects are less concerned with the purity of Arabic, and therefore they have less resistance to change. Jewish dialects also use more words and phrases derived from Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic. This is true about Jewish and Christian dialects in all Arab countries, not only Iraq and Bahrain.


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## Hemza

Drink said:


> It does have a little bit to do with religion. Muslim dialects are more likely to care about keeping their language "pure" and closer to Classical Arabic. Jewish and Christian dialects are less concerned with the purity of Arabic, and therefore they have less resistance to change. Jewish dialects also use more words and phrases derived from Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic. This is true about Jewish and Christian dialects in all Arab countries, not only Iraq and Bahrain.



I disagree with your statement, because even among Muslims there are differences between speech inside a country and differences about pronounciation, that's why I said that religion is not the main factor and social background has more to do with that. Also, I don't think that "purity" of Arabic is a critera for Muslims, because even among bedouin dialects of Arabia, some letters are not pronounced like in MSA, it's also the case with some Moroccan (Jews and Muslims).

Also, about this question of "purity" of Arabic, I give you another example: in Iraq, most of Muslims pronounce the letter "ق" as a "ga" while Christians and Jews pronounce it "ق".


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## WannaBFluent

Drink said:


> It does have a little bit to do with religion. Muslim dialects are more likely to care about keeping their language "pure" and closer to Classical Arabic. Jewish and Christian dialects are less concerned with the purity of Arabic, and therefore they have less resistance to change. Jewish dialects also use more words and phrases derived from Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic. This is true about Jewish and Christian dialects in all Arab countries, not only Iraq and Bahrain.


As Hemza said, I also disagree. In general, people wants to "purify" their language when there are a lot of borrowed words in it. It is not the case for Arabic. However, a lot of Pashtun say that because they have a lot of words borrowed from Dari, Persian and Urdu while they also have the equivalent in Pashto, but lots of youngs don't use them anymore.
Moreover, the Copts of Egypt, who are Christians speak the basic Egyptian Arabic of their area.



إسكندراني said:


> What dialects are spoken in San'a?


I don't know the names, but in fact, some neighborhoods have their own distinctive words which they often use. And it can vary a lot!
For example, to say "what?" some people will say "maa?" and others "mahu?". To say "where?", "2ayn?" and "faien?" etc. All in Sana'a.
But you know, even in France, the spoken vocabulary varies from a city to an other, sometime even from a district to an other (when I say spoken Freench, it's the specific language spoken by youth people in the surburbs). For example, in Clichy-Sous-Bois, we overuse "7arat" to say "a lot" or "a long time", while all the people I know from La Courneuve or Saint-Denis don't understand this word!
Another example, the word "guez" (from "merguez") means "to be happy/proud" in Clichy-Sous-Bois while in Bondy (just 2min in car to get there), it means "to be sad/weak" it is the ANTONYM! And in other regions, it basically means "to get caught". Crazy right? but I think it's quite interesting!


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## akhooha

This article may be of some interest:
http://www.jewish-languages.org/judeo-arabic.html


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## إسكندراني

There is a world of difference between *dialect* and *slang*.


WannaBFluent said:


> Dari, Persian


I have seen noone substantiate a claim that there is any discernible difference between these two. Someone was explaining to me that Afghans don't want to say they speak فارسى so they use a different word in English, but that seems no reason to call the same language by two names.


> Moreover, the Copts of Egypt, who are Christians speak the basic Egyptian Arabic of their area.


This is just untrue. Copts speak Arabic the same way all Egyptians do. An individuals social class and regional background determines their dialect.


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## Hemza

WannaBFluent said:


> I don't know the names, but in fact, some neighborhoods have their own distinctive words which they often use. And it can vary a lot!
> For example, to say "what?" some people will say "maa?" and others "mahu?". To say "where?", "2ayn?" and "faien?" etc. All in Sana'a.
> But you know, even in France, the spoken vocabulary varies from a city to an other, sometime even from a district to an other (when I say spoken Freench, it's the specific language spoken by youth people in the surburbs). For example, in Clichy-Sous-Bois, we overuse "7arat" to say "a lot" or "a long time", while all the people I know from La Courneuve or Saint-Denis don't understand this word!
> Another example, the word "guez" (from "merguez") means "to be happy/proud" in Clichy-Sous-Bois while in Bondy (just 2min in car to get there), it means "to be sad/weak" it is the ANTONYM! And in other regions, it basically means "to get caught". Crazy right? but I think it's quite interesting!



Lol, I can confirm, sometimes, I have hard time to understand suburb slangs ahahahahah!!


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## Hemza

About the difference of the script, it doesn't legitimate the fact that some people separate what they call "judeo Arabic" from "Arabic", it's the same language and should be called "Arabic" only, I NEVER heard "Judeo French" for example. Or if some disagree, we should also say "shi3i Arabic", "Sunni Arabic", "Maronite Arabic, Orthodox Arabic" etc and language take a religious dimension. And just because some jews use Hebrew abjad to write Arabic doesn't make it different from "regular" Arabic since script is not related to a language. I mean, Tadjik language is written with Persian abjad in some countries while Ciryllic alphabet is used in some other countries but the language is the same. Don't confuse script with language, English use Latin script, it doesn't make it a Romance language.

Sorry if it's confusing, I don't know how to explain correctly in English what I mean


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## WannaBFluent

إسكندراني said:


> There is a world of difference between *dialect* and *slang*.
> 
> I have seen noone substantiate a claim that there is any discernible difference between these two. Someone was explaining to me that Afghans don't want to say they speak فارسى so they use a different word in English, but that seems no reason to call the same language by two names.


 Wrong! In fact, I actually know some people who speak Farsi/Parsi (Parsi is just used by people that disagree with the Arabs invasion. The old name of the language actually was Parsi, but the Arabs changed it to Farsi as they don't have "P" sound in their alphabet) and they don't understand clearly Dari! In fact, the grammar is the same but the vocabulary is way different. Dari is way more formal than Farsi/Parsi, they use a lot of old persian words. I have a friend who said that when he heard someone speaking in Dari, it's like if he actually talk with the Queen of United Kingdom LOL! And they don't understand Dari well. Dari also use a lot of metaphors as Pashtun, for example, in Pashto, the word for "heart", can also mean, depending on the context, "your favorite" or even "whatever you like", and a lot more!
It's like someone comes to you and say "The clouds in my eyes are raining" just to say that he is crying. It's a very beautiful language though!



إسكندراني said:


> This is just untrue. Copts speak Arabic the same way all Egyptians do. An individuals social class and regional background determines their dialect.


That's exactly what I said, they do speak like the other Egyptians!


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## WannaBFluent

Hemza said:


> About the difference of the script, it doesn't legitimate the fact that some people separate what they call "judeo Arabic" from "Arabic", it's the same language and should be called "Arabic" only, I NEVER heard "Judeo French" for example. Or if some disagree, we should also say "shi3i Arabic", "Sunni Arabic", "Maronite Arabic, Orthodox Arabic" etc and language take a religious dimension. And just because some jews use Hebrew abjad to write Arabic doesn't make it different from "regular" Arabic since script is not related to a language. I mean, Tadjik language is written with Persian abjad in some countries while Ciryllic alphabet is used in some other countries. Anyways, the language is the same. Don't confuse script with language, English use Latin script, it doesn't make it a Romance language.
> 
> Sorry if it's confusing, I don't know how to explain correctly in English what I mean


You are right, Kurmanci Kurdish is actually written in Arabic script (in Syria and Iraq - more Syria because in Iraq, they mostly speak Sorani Kurdish), Cyrillic (in Transcaucasia) and Roman characters (in Turkey) while it is exactly the same language!


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## Drink

Regarding purity: I did not mean that the Muslim dialects are pure, but that they have more of a reason to try to be pure. This drive makes the language change more slowly. And note that without Islam, MSA would not exist and everyone would only speak dialects.



Hemza said:


> About the difference of the script, it doesn't legitimate the fact that some people separate "Arabic" from "judeo Arabic", it's the same language and should be called "Arabic" only, I NEVER heard "Judeo French" for example. Or if some disagree, we should also say "shi3i Arabic", "Sunni Arabic", "Maronite Arabic, Orthodox Arabic" etc and language take a religious dimension. And just because some jews use Hebrew abjad to write Arabic doesn't make it different from "regular" Arabic since script is not related to a language. I mean, Tadjik language is written with Persian abjad in some countries while Ciryllic alphabet is used in some other countries. Anyways, the language is the same. Don't confuse script with language, English use Latin script, it doesn't make it a Romance language.
> 
> Sorry if it's confusing, I don't know how to explain correctly in English what I mean



No one said it was a different language (and by the way there is an extinct Judeo-French). But I agree that the script does not make it a different language, and even the spoken differences don't make it a separate language, but a dialect, just like any other dialect.


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## Hemza

Drink said:


> And note that without Islam, MSA would not exist and everyone would only speak dialects.
> 
> No one said it was a different language (and by the way there is an extinct Judeo-French). But I agree that the script does not make it a different language, and even the spoken differences don't make it a separate language, but a dialect, just like any other dialect.



A lot of Christians took part to the rebirth of Arabic. But I agree that without Islam, it wouldn't have the influence it has today.

Sorry, I didn't mean someone said it's a different language, it's just that I don't understand why some people speak about "Arabic" and "judeo arabic" if it's the same language (and same dialects too). There is no reason to call it "judeo Arabic" rather than "Arabic" (in my point of view but I respect yours if you disagree with me  ).


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## Drink

Hemza said:


> A lot of Christians took part to the rebirth of Arabic. But I agree that without Islam, it wouldn't have the influence it has today.
> 
> Sorry, I didn't mean someone said it's a different language, it's just that I don't understand why some people speak about "Arabic" and "judeo arabic" if it's the same language (and same dialects too). There is no reason to call it "judeo Arabic" rather than "Arabic" (in my point of view but I respect yours if you disagree with me  ).



The way I see it is that "Judeo-Arabic" is just a fancy way of saying "Jewish Arabic", which is no different from saying things like "Levantine Arabic" (region) or "Moroccan Arabic" (country) or "Baghdadi Arabic" (city).


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## Hemza

Drink said:


> The way I see it is that "Judeo-Arabic" is just a fancy way of saying "Jewish Arabic", which is no different from saying things like "Levantine Arabic" (region) or "Moroccan Arabic" (country) or "Baghdadi Arabic" (city).



So we also shall hear "Christian Arabic"? I mean, why separate jews from others? Why give a religious dimension to a language?

I don't think comparing "jew" with "Moroccan, Levantine" is a good idea. The first one is a large community with dozen of dialects, like muslims and christians. "Moroccan" and "Levantine" are only locations.


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## Drink

Hemza said:


> So we also shall hear "Christian Arabic"? I mean, why separate jews from others?



Yes, there is "Christian Arabic" as well, and even "Druze Arabic". Many linguistic papers I have read refer to these different dialects and mention some of the differences from nearby Muslim Arabic.


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## dkarjala

Hemza said:


> So we also shall hear "Christian Arabic"? I mean, why separate jews from others? Why give a religious dimension to a language?
> 
> I don't think comparing "jew" with "Moroccan, Levantine" is a good idea. The first one is a large community with dozen of dialects, like muslims and christians. "Moroccan" and "Levantine" are only locations.



Well, "Christian Arabic" could mean different things. Generally, the Christian and Jewish populations are ghettoized to the point that their speech has its own characteristics. Of course, the features that their dialects display are on some level regional dialect features but because of isolation or different origin, differ from the speech of Muslims, even in the same city (Baghdad, for example). Often, they have more archaic features than other varieties.

Like Judeo-Arabic, Christian Arabic could refer to texts written by Christians or even that written in Syriac script, called Qarshuni/Garshuni, and again, having its own unique features and status. It's not really a religious dimension, but rather a genetic and communal one.


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## Drink

dkarjala said:


> Well, "Christian Arabic" could mean different things. Generally, the Christian and Jewish populations are ghettoized to the point that their speech has its own characteristics. Of course, the features that their dialects display are on some level regional dialect features but because of isolation or different origin, differ from the speech of Muslims, even in the same city (Baghdad, for example). Often, they have more archaic features than other varieties.
> 
> Like Judeo-Arabic, Christian Arabic could refer to texts written by Christians or even that written in Syriac script, called Qarshuni/Garshuni, and again, having its own unique features and status. It's not really a religious dimension, but rather a genetic and communal one.



Well I might say that the genetic, communal, and cultural dimensions are part of what is meant by Jewish and Christian.


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## A-class-act

إسكندراني said:


> I don't understand why there is a need to distinguish a 'jewish dialect' in most cases, apart from Iraq where every sect has its own dialect, was there ever a discernible difference between jews' and muslims' dialects, say, in Morocco or Yemen?
> 
> Also, for the record, the title of this thread is really odd - I doubt anyone calls dialects anything other than لهجة يهود اليمن etc.



Yes, that's what I found odd لهجة يهود اليمن would be better!


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## Bakr

إسكندراني said:


> I don't understand why there is a need to distinguish a 'jewish dialect' in most cases, apart from Iraq where every sect has its own dialect, was there ever a discernible difference between jews' and muslims' dialects, say, in Morocco or Yemen?




بالنسبة لليهود المغاربة (على الأقل القدامى منهم) سوف أسميها "لكنة" أي طريقة نطق خاصة للدارجة المغربية مختلفة عن طريقة نطق المغاربة المسلمين 
وأظن أن العامل الأساسي وراء ذلك هو أن الأطفال المسلمين يتأثرون في سن مبكرة باللغة العربية الفصحى عن طريق الكتّاب وقراءة القرآن، وبالتالي 
يتعرفون على أحد أصول الدارجة في تلك السن، بينما الأطفال اليهود يتأثرون باللغة العبرية التي يمكن اعتبارها لغتهم "الأم" قبل الدارجة ويتعرفون على 
اللغة العربية الفصحى ـ إن فعلوا ـ في سن متأخرة


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## إسكندراني

ما خصائص تلك اللكنة مثلا؟


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## Bakr

لا يمكنني شرح خصائصها لأنها تُكتشف عن طريق السماع..لحن ونبرة تختلط فيها بعض الحروف، مثل قلب السين شينا عند نطق كلمات لا يُفترض أن تنطق فيها السين شينا..ـ


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