# All dialects: Verbs



## Zoghbi

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Hello everybody,

I started recently to find the way to visualize the differences/similarities between dialects and even the distance of each ever next to the MSA. 
I 've discovered that it was possible with a Multiple Analyse Correspondance (MCA) wich is available on some statistic software (r, xlstat,...). To obtein the sample of each dialects(also MSA) I've chose about 50 basics verbs, obviously it's not very representive of all the features of a dialects (including intonations, accent, grammar, syntax, etc...) but I think it can be interresting.

To participate to the study you only have to fill this excel file:
View attachment Dialects Comparative Study Arabic forum.xls

I have filled the MSA and the Algerian dialect (Algiers city), the morrocan (Fes) and tunisian (Bizerte) dialects have already been filled by forum members  but other other variants from these country are welcome. We also start to fill the 7ijazi one but it's not complete yet, maybe a speaker of this dialect can help us to finish this part.

For now we have this:


waiting for your replies

شكرا جزيلا


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## momai

وعليكم السلام
Here is The Syrian version View attachment Dialects Comparative Study Arabic forum (1).xls


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## tounsi51

I hope someone from Kuwait or UAE can fill it this because it is different from Hijazi


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## Hemza

At least if there is no khaliji person, a Najdi speaker won't have a lot of difficulties to do the "khaliji" part.


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## إسكندراني

زميلنا «زغبي» - يوجد أطلس لغوي يعرض اللهجات العربية على الخريطة نُشر بالفعل قبل سنوات وكاتبه يسمى «بيتر بينشتيت»ـ
Behnstedt - Wortatlas der Arabischen Dialekte


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## akhooha

I understand that Volume III of Behnstedt's Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte, which deals with verbs (Volumes I and II deal with nouns only), has yet to be published (expected some time this year), and will sell for around $300.
(see Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte | Brill)
  Since Zoghbi's data focuses on verbs, includes English translations, and is readily available, I think his contribution is definitely worthwhile.


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## إسكندراني

akhooha said:


> Since Zoghbi's data focuses on verbs, includes English translations, and is readily available, I think his contribution is definitely worthwhile.


It's never going to end. The word atlas is the culmination of Behnstedt's career as a distinguished linguist of Arabic; he basically dedicated his life to it judging by his previous works over the course of decades. To expect to do the same thing as an amateur is diving into the deep end and hoping to float.


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## cherine

Dear all,

After re-consideration, I'm opening the thread again. Please don't chat, go off-topic, or break any other of the forum rules. If you have a different opinion about something or want to discuss something that's posted in the file, open a new thread with a link to this one so as to not create one big messy thread here.

Regards,
Cherine
Moderator


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## Zoghbi

Hello
Thanks for the re-opening.

I add the nadjdi and the syrian dialects thanks to the participation of forumers:


more data we have more the graph's accurate is high.
For the moment, the dialect who have the most similarity with the MSA verbs of the panel is the nadjdi one.

I would say that I don't overestimate the purport of this little study, if we had to do the thing well we should take 3x more verbs and add also basic vocabulary (adjectives, nouns, some grammars terms)... It's really for fun and to improve knowleadge of other dialect that I posted it.


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## إسكندراني

لزم is good standard Arabic by the way.


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## Schem

Nice to see this thread reopened. 

This was my submission if other Najdi speakers want to add their opinions.


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## tounsi51

We need Egyptian contribution byt the way


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## إسكندراني

One of the problems is regional variation in most countries, so in Egypt the past tense of جاء is جا or جي


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## Hemza

إسكندراني said:


> One of the problems is regional variation in most countries, so in Egypt the past tense of جاء is جا or جي



If you want to participate, you just have to make the variant you speak and to specify which city at the end (I suppose it's "al iskandaria"? ^^). Or at least, the variety spoken in the capital city .


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## Izumrud

This is an excellent idea. Correspondence Analysis is a great technique for finding  underlying similarities in multi-variate datasets such as this. Here is my contribution: *Arabic spoken in Jordan* (not specific to any region within, but I would argue that these are the variants most widely understood across the country).

For what my very humble opinion is worth, it's wonderful that these large projects are being started by amateurs and continued through collaboration. With the growing interest in Arabic dialects amongst language learners, it's becoming less and less convenient to sit around and wait years for such major projects to be undertaken by the experts, because this data is needed by real people here and now. Sure, these efforts might never amount to anything grand, but if they are useful to just one person then they are worthwhile. And this is useful to me.

Having said that, a big thank you to Iskandarani for referencing Behnsedt's _Wortatlas_; I had no previous knowledge of its existence and was excited by the principle, which turned out to be warranted. While seeking it out at my library I also came across Behnstedt's _Arabische Dialektgeographie _(2005) which features very interesting maps for the verbs _to go down_ (map 97, p.205) and _to speak_ (map 98, p.209). (I suspect that these will be entries in the highly anticipated third volume of the _Wortlatlas_) I would very much like to post these two figures here but hesitate out of fear of infringing copyright. However, I would be happy to share them privately with anyone interested, such as the thread-starter, Zoghbi.


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## Zoghbi

Hello,

I actualized the graph (with some modifications on the morrocan dialect, in particuliar in the verbs lift/carry who become هزّ as in the tunisian dialect):

It move a lot every time I add a new dialect.


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## tounsi51

Thanks for the update.

Still no one from Egypt answered...


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## ahmedcowon

Egyptian dialect added


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## akhooha

ahmedcowon said:


> Egyptian dialect added


Thank you, Ahmed.


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## k8an

Great. 
Just a query - would it not be beneficial to transcribe these words into the Latin alphabet as well? That way, we would be able to learn more about the differences in accent and pronunciation (eg: most dialects have قال as "say", but in some dialects this is pronounced "gaal", in others "2al" and in others "qaal") both the length of sounds and vowels/consonants are very different, but this is not represented clearly when written in the Arabic script. In my opinion, this (or another method of illustrating the differences) would be very helpful.


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## tounsi51

I attach a revised one for Morocco, I got answers from a pure fassi 

View attachment Dialects Comparative Study Arabic forum-1.xls


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## Bakr

يجب تصحيح كلمة
Morroco to Morocco


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## Schem

I think the chart would make more sense if it was by dialect (maybe with the city specified) rather than countries. KSA for example has two different entries so I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at in the latest version.


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## Zoghbi

k8an said:


> Great.
> Just a query - would it not be beneficial to transcribe these words into the Latin alphabet as well? That way, we would be able to learn more about the differences in accent and pronunciation (eg: most dialects have قال as "say", but in some dialects this is pronounced "gaal", in others "2al" and in others "qaal") both the length of sounds and vowels/consonants are very different, but this is not represented clearly when written in the Arabic script. In my opinion, this (or another method of illustrating the differences) would be very helpful.




You right I have to clarify this point. This is how I proceed: 
The MCA program can operate the data only if he found strictly the sames respounds, for exemple in the verb بكى, the MSA prononciation is "baka" while in other dialects (maghrebis one) it's "bka", so for the same verb we have minimum two ways to prononce it, so if a pay attention at the prononciation it decreases hugely the correlation between each "languages" (and I think their's no dialect who prononce these verbs exactly as in standard arabic so we can't bring closer any one to MSA).

In Addition to that, I don't pay attention to the regional prononciation of some arabic letter, for me: تذكّر تزكّر it's the same because what's matter it's the roots of the verb (in this case a put تذكّر for the syrian تزكّر), same thing for هجم تعدّب جه ملا I considere it like هاجم تعذّب جاء ملأ. 
On the contrary: بصق =/= بزق, اتسنّى =/= استنّى.

The new version:


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## إسكندراني

Do you plan to distinguish (baka) from (biki)? Because they're spelt the same. Or are you only concerned with the root word/verb form?
Also I'm a bit concerned why جه is spelt like that, maybe if we add a column by dialect instead of by country then you'd get more accurate results.


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## Bakr

الفكرة عظيمة، ولكن من وجهة نظري كان يجب البداية باللهجة على مستوى البلد دون تحديد المنطقة..أي من العام إلى الخاص..ثم من يرى أن هناك كلمات تستعمل في منطقته أو مدينته أو أنها لا توجد على هذا المستوى العام يمكن له إضافتها..أو الإشارة إلى أنها خاصة بتلك المنطقة..أما البداية بالمدينة أو بما هو خاص، فلا أظن أن أحدا منا يمكنه أن يجزم بأن هذه الكلمة أو تلك تخص منطقته وحدها (رغم بعض الاستثناءات) ولا تستعمل في مناطق أخرى..ـ


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## Zoghbi

إسكندراني said:


> Do you plan to distinguish (baka) from (biki)? Because they're spelt the same. Or are you only concerned with the root word/verb form?
> Also I'm a bit concerned why جه is spelt like that, maybe if we add a column by dialect instead of by country then you'd get more accurate results.



I'm not sure I understand the question, what's "biki" mean ? Clearly it's not spelt like "baka" , as I said before all the different prononciation of I same verb (same roots) are considered to be identics in the study, otherwise it does not come out, too many differences.


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## إسكندراني

الفعل بكى يبكي to cry
Alexandria: baka
Cairo: biki
Although we'd probably say عيّط anyway. My question is whether you care at all about the تشكيل or just the root verb? You said the latter, so as far as you should be concerned جه=جاء, just إمالة and the همزة elided.


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## Zoghbi

So "he cried" in Cairo = biki, it's such a surprising thing, unsuspected.
Yes I don't pay attention to the "tashkil" neither to the form of the verb (scheme): هاجم = هجم, توقّف = وقّف, and as I said before neither to the regional prononciation of letters (dhal/tha prononced as dal/ta, or qaf like a hemza, ...), if the roots of the differents verbs are the same I do as if their's no differences between them.


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## إسكندراني

It's not surprising if you know that they do this with most past tense standard verbs:
wi2i3 وقع he fell
3imil عمل he did
nizil نزل he went down (or left the house)
zihi2 زهق he got bored
etc.
perhaps it's closer to an e with most people. In any case since you only care about the root verb, جه is standard arabic however it is pronounced in your methodology.


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## Sudani

Hi everyone! I just joined this forum as I was really interested in finding out all about the other arabic dialects and upon looking at the chart of verbs that you've posted here it just hit me that the Sudanese dialect is quite different from the other dialects. Obviously there are many similarities as well but I am thinking maybe it's the Nubian language that influenced the Sudanese dialect and maybe that's why there are some words like كديسة (cat) or يطْرُش (to vomit) or يتُف (to spit), that I haven't heard in other dialects. Have you heard of any such words before?


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## akhooha

I believe I've heard the word كديسة for "cat" in Egypt. 
يَطْرَشُ for "vomit" is found in MSA, as well as يَتَفُّ for "spit".

It would be great if you could add a Sudanese column to the verb chart.
Thank you.


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## Schem

يطرش is what I've listed for Najdi Arabic and يتف obviously has the same roots as يتفل. Kadisah كديسة could be of Nubian origin but idk if it is.


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## cherine

Reminder:

This thread will only accepts posts that have an attached file with the chart, or a link to another thread that is discussing something in the chart.
All other comments, discussions and/or questions will be deleted.

Thank you all for your cooperation in *not making this a multi-topic thread*.

Regards,
Cherine
Moderator


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