# Formal Spoken Arabic (FSA), "Middle Arabic"



## Anatoli

The University of Georgetown teaches a version of Arabic, which is neither MSA, nor a specific colloquial dialect. It is claimed to be the "Middle Arabic" - "lugha wasta". It's also mentioned that it is only an attempt to produce something that is close to what educated urban Arabs use when speaking to other dialect speakers.



> Formal Spoken Arabic (FSA) or Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) A pragmatic option for teaching generalized Arabic speaking skills is to use the kind of Arabic spoken by native speakers with each other when they come from different dialect areas, or when they elevate their everyday colloquial language to a higher level (in speaking with a professor, for example, or a dignitary on an official occasion). This type of Arabic has been documented by both western and Arab authors, and it is the choice for spoken language instruction at certain government schools, and at Georgetown University.





> A branch of MSA detected by linguists has been called Formal Spoken Arabic (FSA).  It basically MSA debased and made more ready for verbal communication, by doing away with complex ending vowels to words; including of colloquial forms for certain prepositions, conjunctions and negators; permitting forms and structures, briefer, more direct, and quicker out of the mouth than MSA; and using certain terms that are normally associated with regional colloquial dialects.



I even got a book describing this form. From the first look it seems like an MSA book but there are a lot of common dialectal spoken forms here and there. FSA uses the shared features of the various urban colloquial dialects, defaulting to Levantive where the spoken dialects diverge. There is some attention to divergences of certain Arabic dialects. The author claims this form will be generally understood by most Arabs, still. Sometimes, they introduce both MSA word/form - as literary and a dialectal one as colloquial, for example verbs "to work and "to go" The pronunciation of sounds chosen for courses teaching FSA is that of MSA, grammar is more of that of dialects.

I see pros and cons in this approach. Well, it would be ideal if this was the answer, which form of spoken Arabic to learn, especially, if you are not targeting a specific dialect. However, this approach only helps to get your message across but won't help you to understand e.g. Egyptian movies or what is spoken in the streets of Riyadh.

This  form  wasn't discussed in the Arabic forum and I hope to get some feedback on this quite fresh approach on so much discussed question of what Arabic to learn.

Interesting that is now a recommended spoken form of Arabic taught to American diplomats, military personnel and other people who wish to need to speak Arabic but don't know in advance where their assignment is going to be. It is offered in Dartmouth Uni after one year of MSA.

What is your opinion? Would you say it's a waste of time? Should Arabic learners concentrate on MSA + a concrete dialect instead? You'll find some links if you start searching "Formal Spoken Arabic" to get more info.

I might type in a couple of examples of speech from my book to get your feedback, if this is acceptable. I am not in the position to judge but the dialogues didn't seem very different from other texts I read in MSA, I could follow and understand them, so it means they are closer to MSA, than dialects.


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## Abu Rashid

I've seen a few pages from Karyn Ryding's book about this new "hybrid" dialect. It does as you mention appear to be pretty much MSA (from the pages I saw anyway). Strange that they chose to default to Levantine dialect though, when the Egyptian dialect is much more widely understood.

I think it's definitely a good idea to have something like this, especially for people who only need to use the language for something like business, but don't want to necessarily tie themselves to one particular region.

I'd be interested to see some examples from the book, especially when they begin weaving in colloquial stuff. As I mentioned the first few pages, seem pretty much MSA.


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## Anatoli

Abu Rashid said:


> ...
> 
> I'd be interested to see some examples from the book, especially when they begin weaving in colloquial stuff. As I mentioned the first few pages, seem pretty much MSA.



Following the forum rules, posting 4 lines out of a dialogue. Transliteration is not exact, for ع another symbol is used, which I don't know how to enter.



> _biddi aruuH_ ila haadha l-2inwaan.
> ...
> _qaddeesh laazim_ adfa2?
> _qadarma biddik_, tafaDDali.
> awwalan _biddi_ a2rif _qaddeesh_ _laazim_ adfa2.


You see, it's quite colloquial, question is how "universally" understood it is.

As for the choice of whatever dialect or MSA, I see some inconsistencies - both "eish" and "shu" (=what), "feen" and "ween" (=where) are used. As I said before "na2am" and "aywa" and some other words are both introduced.


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## Abu Rashid

> You see, it's quite colloquial, question is how "universally" understood it is



Well I understand most of what you posted (with the exception of one word: qadarma), but I have had some exposure to Levantine dialect, so that's probably why.

I think aysh (eish) would probably be the best choice for "what" as it seems to almost be like a contraction of the Egyptian & Levantine words for "what" (Egyptian "eh" + Levantine "sh[ou]"). As for fayn and wayn, I think they should've just left it at MSA ayna. It seems these colloquial forms are just a persistent contraction of the particles "wa" and "fa" with "ayna" anyway.

na3am isused in almost all dialects anyway, so aywa shouldn't really be necessary, although I guess you'd definitely need to know it to comprehend others.


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## GDAN

I have purchased this book as well.  If someone actually learned this "hybrid dialect" would this person be able to understand what is being said as well as communicate ideas?  Also, is the book correct in stating "this is how Arabs from different dialect locals communicate with each other"?, or is this an unnatural way of speaking to Arabs?


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## clevermizo

I've seen the book. I'm pretty sure it was invented for foreigners and is barely natural. However, when Arabs of different dialects which are less intelligible have to communicate, they usually resort to a sort of "levelling" where less regionally specific, and more fus7a words can be used. That is an issue of lexicon. The core grammar will probably remain that of their own dialect though, so obviously misunderstandings can still arise. This has been discussed here before.

The nature of this process is dynamic and situation-specific. Because of that, there can be no monolithic "Formal Spoken Arabic" that is the koine of all Arabs. There is perhaps such a koine, but it is not static. So the book's language is inherently artificial.

But as to this book, I mean, I think if you learn what all is in it, you will be completely intelligible to an Arabic native speaker. So, as far as that goes, I guess it is pragmatic. It's less like fus7a, so it doesn't seem as strange or pedantic. The core grammar is obviously based on Levantine varieties of Arabic. My question is, why not just learn Syrian? That's basically what the book is, maybe with some more qaafs in place, and the verb paradigms seem to retain the fus7a vowellings. My question, in other words, is why make this book, when resources for learning other dialects which are essentially this book already exist?


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## GDAN

Thank you for your reply, but I'm a little confused by your response. Are you saying that the Syrian dialect already does what Karyn Ryding is trying to get"formal spoken arabic" to do, bridge dialects? Or is it by studying the Syrian dialect you'll be able to understand and be understood by speakers of other dialects?


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## WadiH

We had a thread a few months ago about little things you can do to make your "MSA" sound a little bit less formal.  Someone pointed out that our suggestions were very similar to what the FSA's proponents were teaching.  I can't locate that thread anymore, unfortunately, but hopefully somebody else will be able to.


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## Andrew___

The thread is here: Changing FuS7a/MSA to sound like 3ammeyya

Cheers,
Andrew


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## Djamel24

Why to teach this hybrid language while every living Arab already understands Formal Arabic?!


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## Abu Rashid

Personally I think they should focus on one of the existing dialects for this purpose. I've been listening to some "Urban Hijazi" tapes recently, and I think it's a very good match for a fairly neutral spoken dialect. It contains a lot of features that seem drawn from Shaami, Khaleeji and Masri.


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## Ustaath

clevermizo said:


> The nature of this process is dynamic and situation-specific. Because of that, there can be no monolithic "Formal Spoken Arabic" that is the koine of all Arabs. There is perhaps such a koine, but it is not static. So the book's language is inherently artificial.


I agree. There is ultimately no easy solution to this problem. Though to  be honest, MSA is probably easier to learn because its grammar is more predictable and IF - as they claim, it's the language of choice to communicate among the more educated, then why not just stick to media Arabic MSA ... 
In both cases it is going to sound artificial, and though no Arabs will speak MSA naturally, we do understand and make allowances and make an extra effort when non-natives communicate to us in that way.
One potential pitfall I can think of is that as  native, if _I_ hear FSA, it might put my guards down and start speaking in a more colloquial manner.


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## Tracer

Anatoli said:


> You see, it's quite colloquial, question is how "universally" understood it is.


_*I question the validity and reliability of this “mixing” approach and disagree with it. What this approach does is pretend that the diglossia present in Arabic doesn't exist.....but....it does.*_


1. The "mixing" approach exemplifies a “culture of denial” in an effort to recruit and retain students because, as I’ve said on several occasion, when students find out that the MSA they’re learning is not what’s used in daily life, they become discouraged.

This approach takes the attitude that:_ *See? All you have to do is kinda mix MSA and “a” dialect, and every one will understand you.*_ Balderdash. 

*It’s the “greening of Arabic”…….water it down and it becomes more palatable [fun, easy, transparent, accountable, sustainable, (have a I left any “green word” out?)] and you can all “pass”. *

_*Even native speakers recognize this diglossia because they study MSA for years in opposition to their “at home” dialect.* _

2. The example quoted above can hardly be described as an example of “educated speech”. The guy is talking to a taxi driver, for Pete’s sake.

3. The real problem with “communicating” in Arabic is not that no one will understand what you say……Everybody in the Arabic world will understand the above drill……*Qaddeesh?….. biddi aruuh*…… etc. even if they themselves would not use such words. 

They would also understand the Egyptian equivalents: *Kaam?……ayez aruuh*……etc. Every speaker of Arabic knows what *Tarabeza* is, what *Ezzayyak* means, what *Shismak* means, etc. etc. even if they don’t use those terms themselves.

*---> The problem is not that they won’t understand you, it’s that YOU won’t understand their response, because they’re going to use their own dialect to respond to you and not the one that you’re using. Then what? Then nothing, back to square one.*

The best way to learn Arabic realistically is to learn both MSA and a dialect. That method is so obvious to me I’m amazed I have to point it out.

Arabic (and all languages) should really be taught differently. Everyone’s going to understand you…..the problem is you understanding them….therefore the emphasis from day one is to hear responses……how people actually respond.

If you’re a native English speaker, I’m sure you’ve had the same experience talking with a non-native. His English may appear impeccable……. until you answer him…….then you realize his understanding is minimal and anything beyond a basic thought it totally lost.

The best way to learn Arabic realistically is to learn both MSA and a dialect. That method is so obvious to me I’m astonished I have to point it out.


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## Ustaath

I agree with Tracer, that's exactly how I do it, I teach both


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## Abu Rashid

'a' dialect is a very vague term.

So if one learn Uzbek Arabic, then they should get by? Or how about Moroccan? I hardly think so.

I think there's definitely a case for finding a dialect which is really 'neutral' and making it the standard for non-native learners. As I said above, I think Urban Hijazi would have to be the best dialect I've come across for this purpose, and perhaps it developed that way due to Arabs from all over the Muslim world converging during hajj time, and contributing to the dialect (just my guess).

Creating a synthetic dialect is obviously not the most sensible way to go, as K. Ryding seems to have attempted to do.


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## Tracer

Abu Rashid said:


> As I said above, I think Urban Hijazi would have to be the best dialect I've come across for this purpose, and perhaps it developed that way due to Arabs from all over the Muslim world converging during hajj time, and contributing to the dialect (just my guess).


I have nothing against "Urban Hijazi Arabic" (if there really is such a thing) except for one very important weakness that comes with it.

And that is this: You simply can't enter "the Hijaz" or Saudi Arabia and just sort of lounge around in your shorts and T shirts and "soak up the culture". There is no "Riviera" or a Costa Brava where you could do this and thereby really pick up the "local dialect". There isn't even a "Sharm al-Sheikh" or Petra.

In fact, you can't even enter the Kingdom except on "official" business and then you can't just wander around looking at old antique shops like you could in Perpignan or Zurich.

Therefore, for all intents and purposes, Urban Hijazi is a dialect that is not accessible.

That being the case, you'd have to choose another dialect....probably Egyptian or Lebanese.


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## Abu Rashid

Tracer said:
			
		

> You simply can't enter "the Hijaz" or Saudi Arabia and just sort of  lounge around in your shorts and T shirts and "soak up the culture".



My guess is that you are trying to have more of a stab at the local culture/laws here than you are discuss the suitability of the dialect. Such a discussion doesn't belong here.



			
				Tracer said:
			
		

> Therefore, for all intents and purposes, Urban Hijazi is a dialect that is not accessible.



Well it's one of the courses the FSI offers. The course is available online here. It is not inaccessible at all. Unless of course you're insisting that one must actually travel to the region that a dialect is spoken, in order to learn it.

Likewise one cannot travel to the imaginary world in which Karyn Ryding's synthetic dialect exists in, yet people are still learning it.


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## إسكندراني

Tracer said:


> There isn't even a "Sharm al-Sheikh" or Petra.


Sharm el Sheikh is a bad place to go if you want to learn Arabic!


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## Abu Rashid

Akh Iskandrani, I don't think Tracer is too concerned really about the ability to learn an Arabic dialect, he's merely trying to take a swipe at Arabic countries/culture.

Besides, there's a few cities where Urban Hijazi are spoken like Jeddah which are quite open to foreigners to visit.


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## إسكندراني

Anyway...
Eastern Libya has a really nice dialect close to fusHa. Not commonly used but a good neutral dialect in my opinion.


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## Ayazid

إسكندراني said:


> Anyway...
> Eastern Libya has a really nice dialect close to fusHa. Not commonly used but a good neutral dialect in my opinion.



Indeed, Hejazi Urban and Libyan dialects are probably the most "universal" out of all Arabic varieties.


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## Serafín33

إسكندراني said:


> Anyway...
> Eastern Libya has a really nice dialect close to fusHa. Not commonly used but a good neutral dialect in my opinion.





Ayazid said:


> Indeed, Hejazi Urban and Libyan dialects are  probably the most "universal" out of all Arabic varieties.


What particular details of those dialects make you guys say that?


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## إسكندراني

Close to fusHa, many features shared by many other dialects (not that many difficult 'peculiarities'), limited number of obscure loanwords.


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## Serafín33

Hmm... That is still too vague. Do they use conjugations for أنتن/‎هن that are different from those of أنتم/‎هم? Do they use all that number inflection for الذي/التي/‎اللذان/‎etc.? Do they use أفعل conjugations separate from فعل? Any instances of final vowels (cases or the mood vowels in verbs أفعلُ/‎أفعلَ/‎أفعلْ)? This is more like what I was asking about.


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## إسكندراني

We chose dialects we thought were _easy_ to learn and understood universally; no need to start talking about that kind of thing!
No dialect I'm aware of declines هن أنتن
As for eastern Libya they use زوج or a similar word for dual nouns, like all magharebi dialects.
Similarly they use نـ not أ for the first person like all magharebi dialects.
And nothing complicated like mood vowels...
I think we've lost the point a little bit; the point is to find and _easy effective spoken dialect_. And I think we've found two which are middle-grounds; universal if you will, which are not that widely used and in my opinion deserve to be learned just as much as lebanese.


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## WadiH

Tracer said:


> And that is this: You simply can't enter "the Hijaz" or Saudi Arabia and just sort of lounge around in your shorts and T shirts and "soak up the culture". There is no "Riviera" or a Costa Brava where you could do this and thereby really pick up the "local dialect". There isn't even a "Sharm al-Sheikh" or Petra.
> 
> In fact, you can't even enter the Kingdom except on "official" business and then you can't just wander around looking at old antique shops like you could in Perpignan or Zurich.



Actually, none of what you said above is true, except for the fact that you cannot get in on a tourist visa unless you are part of an organized tour.  Of course, the visa issue means that you're conclusion below is basically correct:



> Therefore, for all intents and purposes, Urban Hijazi is a dialect that is not accessible.
> 
> That being the case, you'd have to choose another dialect....probably Egyptian or Lebanese.


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## Bruss04

إسكندراني said:


> We chose dialects we thought were _easy_ to learn and understood universally; no need to start talking about that kind of thing!
> No dialect I'm aware of declines هن أنتن
> As for eastern Libya they use زوج or a similar word for dual nouns, like all magharebi dialects.
> Similarly they use نـ not أ for the first person like all magharebi dialects.
> And nothing complicated like mood vowels...
> I think we've lost the point a little bit; the point is to find and _easy effective spoken dialect_. And I think we've found two which are middle-grounds; universal if you will, which are not that widely used and in my opinion deserve to be learned just as much as lebanese.



So you're saying that Eastern Libyan is one of the most universally understood dialects in the Arab World?

I'm curious though, do you think that learning the Eastern Libyan dialect would make it easier for one to comprehend other dialects than if one learned for instance Levantine?

I think the main point of this thread was that one also needs to be able to understand the other and thus which dialect would be best for that purpose.

I hope my 'tone' is not coming across as critique  I'm just interested in your idea.


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## Ustaath

إسكندراني said:


> No dialect I'm aware of declines هن أنتن


  Most of the more conservative Gulf Bedouin Dialects do 

I believe that when it comes to the way vowels are pronounced, Levantine Syrian is probably closer to MSA than Lebanese. So I would say the Levantine Arabic of choice would best be Syrian rather than Lebanese. And by the way ,I'm not Syrian.

Regarding Mutual legibility, it is sometimes not a case of which dialect is closest to MSA, but which is most widely understood, by the majority of Arabs, and though the following is a fact not many people would like to acknowledge, placing prejudices and National pride aside, Egyptian in that case would be the most widely understood, followed by Syrian, and possibly Kuwaiti.


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## Muwahid

Is it fair to say one who learns Egyptian will be able to communicate _best_ with Arabs in general? The way I've seen it, yes Egyptian is the tongue of ~80 million Arabs. But this is mostly confined to the country of Egypt. Where as fuS7a is understood by the majority of the ~350 million Arabs worldwide. So if a dialects lexicon contains many words directly from fuS7a with only slight variations, don't you think this would be more understood in a _general_ basis.

The reason I find this important, is the Middle East is quite mixed I've lived in the same neighborhood in Jordan as Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, people from the gulf always coming for vacation or business. So sure population wise Egyptian may be a huge dialect but it's concentrated in one region.

I could be wrong though because media wise Egyptians do produce a lot of films in their own dialect making it more intelligible to people.


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## Ustaath

My point Muwahid, is due to the vast influence of Media.
If, and only if, a person wants to learn a dialect in which they can communicate best with different Arabs, then Egyptian would probably be the best one.
But I agree absolutely, as I already said in a previous post, that if the people you will be communicating with are educated Arab's, then why not simply study MSA وبلا وجع راس


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## Masjeen

إسكندراني said:


> No dialect I'm aware of declines هن أنتن.



أنا شخصيا استخدمها


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## i_guess_i_am_a_genius

I didn't really pay much attention to the discussion, but I have heard native arabs use fo97a words with colloquial grammar... My parents used to talk to me like that when i didnt listen, and my brother used to do that with me when he tried to spite me or sound condescending...


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## Abu Rashid

Muwahid said:
			
		

> So if a dialects lexicon contains many words directly from fuS7a with  only slight variations, don't you think this would be more understood in  a _general_ basis.



The issue is not whether they'll understand you, it's how you'll understand them when they talk back to you in their dialect.



			
				Ustaath said:
			
		

> If, and only if, a person wants to learn a dialect in which they can  communicate best with different Arabs, then Egyptian would probably be  the best one.



I'd say not. This might have been true in the past, thanks to Egyptian TV, but that's becoming less and less so. Speaking from my own experience, I've had a lot of exposure to Egyptian and Levantine dialects, and when listening to the Urban Hijazi dialect, I found it to almost be a perfect mix between the two, with a few elements of Khaleeji thrown in. For that reason I think it'd be a much better dialect to learn, as it would expose you to a lot of elements that would be helpful when listening to Egyptian, Levantine, and Gulf speakers.

If you learnt Egyptian, you'd have little chance of understanding Levantine or Gulf speakers, and would again be stuck with the same situation of Fus7a, people understand you, but you don't understand them... just stick with Fus7a in that case.


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## Muwahid

> The issue is not whether they'll understand you, it's how you'll understand them when they talk back to you in their dialect.



I see what you mean, so we're operating under the basis that they'll definitely understand you. At the end of the day though, dialects differ so much on the most basic of words like demonstrative pronouns. هدا هذه هاي هذا هاظ هيدا ده دي ect, every time I hear a new variation I rack my brain for hours to just realize it means "this"  If you're going to learn a dialect to understand other dialects why does it matter how close it is to fuS7a? 

I study daily MSA and Levantine and listening to those links you posted I found it very easy to understand.. but lets say you learn that and go to Egypt, I don't think you'll feel at home, the same way you go to Egypt and go to the Hijaaz you might be lost, in my opinion the only solution is learning MSA and a common dialect that shares similarities with other dialects even if it's not so close to fuS7a. Hijaazi might be good for that but when you encounter 2aala instead of Gaala you might be confused, but if you know MSA and hear Gaala, it's not really hard to get. I really had to adjust my ears to hear the /ء/ in Levantine words. So I would think staying away from a dialect that's very close to fuS7a if you know fuS7a, would be a better solution, no? Get the best of both worlds.


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## Abu Rashid

Muwahid said:
			
		

> I see what you mean, so we're operating under the basis that they'll definitely understand you.



In most cases they will understand you, if you speak fush7a.



			
				Muwahid said:
			
		

> At the end of the day though, dialects differ so much on the most basic  of words like demonstrative pronouns. هدا هذه هاي هذا هاظ هيدا ده دي  ect, every time I hear a new variation I rack my brain for hours to just  realize it means "this"



Actually it's not so bad. If you know fus7a then you would recognise most of those variations.



			
				Muwahid said:
			
		

> If you're going to learn a dialect to understand other dialects why does it matter how close it is to fuS7a?



Well I suggested Urban Hijazi because of its closeness to a wide range of dialects, not because of its closeness to fus7a.



			
				Muwahid said:
			
		

> I study daily MSA and Levantine and listening to those links you posted I  found it very easy to understand.. but lets say you learn that and go  to Egypt, I don't think you'll feel at home



Actually I think it sounds very much like Egyptian, probably more so than any other dialect. See, it's proved itself worthy already, since as someone familiar with Levantine, you found it familiar, yet I've played those tapes to people only familiar with Egyptian (with even no knowledge of Fus7a), and they said it was very understandable.



			
				Muwahid said:
			
		

> Hijaazi might be good for that but when you encounter 2aala instead of  Gaala you might be confused, but if you know MSA and hear Gaala, it's  not really hard to get. I really had to adjust my ears to hear the /ء/  in Levantine words.



Well there's always going to be caveats like that. Btw, it's not 2aala nor gaala, it's 2al and gal, the long alef is lost, as is the final vowel, I was actually confused for a second there what word you were referring to when I read that, then I realised you'd written them in the Fus7a form.

I think the problem with the ق->ء transition is that it sounds like the letter has almost disappeared, since in English a stop would be considered no letter at all. One word that really bothered me when pronounced this way was دقيقة since the majority of the word seems to disappear.


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## إسكندراني

Bruss04 said:


> So you're saying that Eastern Libyan is one of the most universally understood dialects in the Arab World?
> 
> I'm curious though, do you think that learning the Eastern Libyan dialect would make it easier for one to comprehend other dialects than if one learned for instance Levantine?
> 
> I think the main point of this thread was that one also needs to be able to understand the other and thus which dialect would be best for that purpose.
> 
> I hope my 'tone' is not coming across as critique  I'm just interested in your idea.


I think it would be easier for everyone to understand you. 

When I was in Morocco, Egyptian was next to useless (some women understood but men almost never) - me and my friend (both egyptians) had to really formalise our speech for them to understand us. Libyan as a dialect is close in pronunciation and lexicon to fusHa and - in my opinion - is much easier on the tongue than bedawi or khaliiji.
As for a dialect which allows you to understand everyone, that doesn't exist. But once my ears got used to Moroccan (along with my native Egyptian and TV levantine) I found no problem understanding most other dialects. I think 2 or 3 dialects allows you to understand the rest almost completely.


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## thestandard

I think an even better bet would be to learn Fus7a, one dialect and then look up differences in each dialect. After doing this, listen to some colloquial conversations in various dialects and talk to native speakers. You will soon learn to tweak your dialect to be compatible with that of the speaker. Understand specific contrast between dialects and you'll be sweet. I cannot say for Arabic (because I don't speak it) but after learning French I had difficulty understanding Canadian French and more particularly Creole. I remedied this simply by finding resources showing the differences between the dialects/similar languages and listening to and practicing with speakers of those variants.

This is my approach for learning Arabic; I'm learning MSA and Levantine Arabic (Comparing Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian arabic when I can) and making sure I expose myself to all forms of Arabic; that is looking up the differences, talking to friends, asking them questions, and exposing myself to Media from different Arabic nations. Easy peasy


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## ajamiyya عجمية

thestandard said:


> This is my approach for learning Arabic; I'm learning MSA and Levantine Arabic (Comparing Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian arabic when I can) and making sure I expose myself to all forms of Arabic; that is looking up the differences, talking to friends, asking them questions, and exposing myself to Media from different Arabic nations. Easy peasy



Hello there thestandard.  What method do you use for looking up dialectal differences?


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## thestandard

I tend to go the extra mile. I find comparative study texts, normally theses. This generally isn't available for the general public but if you are a student of a Uni, you can find plenty of things in the university database. Also, when I was learning Canadian French, there were a lot of things that books/theses didn't explain which I had to find out for myself. I pretty much found a book outlining Canadian French phonology and compared it to my knowledge of metropolitan French (European).

I take a very linguistic approach when learning a language. Y'know that even Wikipedia have good articles on the differences between arabic dialects (normally from MSA) so if you're learning Fus7a, there shouldn't be a problem. Also, it's as simple as talking to people; for example, I am learning Levantine Arabic and MSA, so I would instinctively know as I progress the differences between Levantine and MSA,  I would then find any resources I can that outlines the differences between MSA and Egyptian Arabic. I would then speak to an Egyptian, not necessarily speaking their form of arabic, but customizing mine to make myself more comprehensible. The more people you talk to, the better at it you will become.


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## Hemza

إسكندراني said:


> Anyway...
> Eastern Libya has a really nice dialect close to fusHa. Not commonly used but a good neutral dialect in my opinion.



I know this is old thread and I hope you see my message some day. I made my Egyptian friend listening to some Eastern Libyan songs, he asked me which language it was . Joking a part, Eastern Libyan is not very different from bedouin dialects of the rest of the Maghreb (and Western Egypt as well) but it does use some words one may hear only in some places in Arabia or other bedouin speaking places of the Maghreb .


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## She'lock Holmes

[Moderator's Note:Merged with a previous thread]
I've read years ago about prescriptive attempts to create a 'middle Arabic' between the vernaculars (also called _aammiyyah_) and Classical Arabic (also called _Fusha_), but what is exactly meant by this?
For example, how would these two sentences be written according to the view of a 'middle' Arabic (doesn't mean a lot though)? This is in the Levantine vernacular and Classical Arabic.

نحنا عندنا سيارات كتير من اللي ببيعوها بسعر رخيص
نحن لدينا الكثيرُ منَ السياراتِ بِسبَبِ الذينَ يبيعونها بسعرٍ رخيص


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## fufuswaffles

Is this the same as الهجة البيضاء while dialect?


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## She'lock Holmes

fufuswaffles said:


> الهجة البيضاء


I think it's one view of this 'Middle Arabic' when used by someone without an influential dialect in the media.


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## emanko

Hi
I have heard about this concept in relation to the Arabic used on TV. In fact, if you watch any serious  talk show or interviews with politicians/writers...etc., you will hear a mixture of MSA and vernacular. I don't think there are rules governing that kind of usage, as it's not an actual dialect; it's a style. You say one or two sentences in MSA and one or two in vernacular and you go on like that. Of course, there will be some expressions that would sound better in this context. 
So, I don't  actually have an answer to your question, since as I said; it's a style of mixing two dialects, not an established dialect on its own.


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