# Yemeni San'ani Arabic



## Abu Fahm

Hi, I came across some good resourses in Sanaani dialect, I was wondering if onyone on this forum can tell me as to how comprehensible sanaani to people from Egypt, Saudiya, Gulf, Syria.

What I have seen of the material is that this Dialect is very similar to MSA in many aspects, what are your views on this issue?


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## LingAr

Yemeni Dialects in general and the Sanani in particular are presumably the most comprehesible and closest to Modern Standard Arabic given that they are the least contiminated by other language such english and french of all arabic dialects. Northern Yemen was not occupied so the language of north Yemen is still more like MSA.


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## the-moon-light

The countries which had occupied had a lot of change in the Arabic language.

Some had a huge change like ( Al-Magrib Al-Arabi) which you can't understand them because of the huge number of the french words in thier dialect, and some still you can understand them as in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

Other Arab countries like the Gulf had some change too because of trading with India, so you can notice some Indian words in thier Arabic language and some English words (as many Arabic dailect they have some English words).

The North Yemen is still pure comparing to others. But actuly I can't be sure if there's non-Arabic words in thier dialect because personally I'm not familier with it although I'm Yemeni


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## WadiH

Abu Fahm said:


> Hi, I came across some good resourses in Sanaani dialect, I was wondering if onyone on this forum can tell me as to how comprehensible sanaani to people from Egypt, Saudiya, Gulf, Syria.
> 
> What I have seen of the material is that this Dialect is very similar to MSA in many aspects, what are your views on this issue?



The dialect of San'a is largely comprehensible in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but people from Syria or Egypt would need a bit more time to adapt to it.  Generally, it is easier to understand than a lot of other Yemeni dialects.


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## qaqa85

the-moon-light said:


> The countries which had occupied had a lot of change in the Arabic language.
> 
> Some had a huge change like ( Al-Magrib Al-Arabi) which you can't understand them because of the huge number of the french words in thier dialect, and some still you can understand them as in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
> 
> Other Arab countries like the Gulf had some change too because of trading with India, so you can notice some Indian words in thier Arabic language and some English words (as many Arabic dailect they have some English words).
> 
> The North Yemen is still pure comparing to others. But actuly I can't be sure if there's non-Arabic words in thier dialect because personally I'm not familier with it although I'm Yemeni



Hi the moon light.

Is Yemeni dialect and Saudi dialect similar?


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## Mahaodeh

Arabic dialects are a continum, that means that the closer the geographic location the closer the dialect. This happens even within one country so the dialect near the Yemeni border is closer to Yemeni than it is to the Saudi dialect in the region near the Jordanian border, which is closer to Jordanian. Both dialects, are very close to the dialect in central Saudi Arabia.... and so on.


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## qaqa85

Thank you Mahaodeh ... I understood now


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## Ansari84

In reading this thread, it occurs to me that one doesn't often hear a lot of talk about 'Omani dialect' - at least I don't. Does that mean that it has a lot of the same features as the Yemeni dialects, in that it is still relatively close to fus7a?


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## the-moon-light

_Omani_ dialect is very close to _Yemeni_ dialect, and the _south region_ of _Saudia Arabia_ dialect is closer to Yemeni dialect too because the inhabitances of this region are originally _Yemeni tribes_.
Hope that helps : )


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## WadiH

Ansari84 said:


> In reading this thread, it occurs to me that one doesn't often hear a lot of talk about 'Omani dialect' - at least I don't. Does that mean that it has a lot of the same features as the Yemeni dialects, in that it is still relatively close to fus7a?



In their traditional form, most Peninsular dialects are conservative, whether in Oman, Yemen or Saudi Arabia.  That is, they retain a lot of features that were present in 7th or 8th century Arabic (whether you consider that "fus7a" or not is a matter of definitions, but certainly not all of those features are present in MSA or CA).

Now what you must understand is that there is no single "Yemeni dialect" or even a Yemeni "type" (same goes for "Oman").  The dialects of "South Yemen" (the region bordering the Arabian Sea) are similar to the dialects of southwestern Oman (i.e. those two areas form a continuum), while north/eastern Omani dialects are more Khaliji.

There are dialects in central Yemen that, to a non-Yemeni ear don't even sound Arabic at all, and there are Tihami dialects (the Red Sea coast) that merge into Tihami dialects in Saudi Arabia, and then you have San'a and Sa'da and the Sarat, etc., and these are all different families, not to mention the bedouin dialects that all belong to one family across the Peninsula.

I do think that Classical Arabic, and hence MSA, were based in large part (though not exclusively) on dialects starting from San'a to Mecca, approximately, excluding the Red Sea coastal area ("Tihama").


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## Ansari84

Wadi Hanifa & the-moon-light,

أشكركما جزيل شكر على أجوبتكما المفصّلة


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## Abu Fahm

كنت أستمع لمسجّلات اللهجة الصعنانية و إستعجبت كثير من كيفية كلامهم. 
إن لهجتهم تشبه الفصحى إلى ابعد حدّ لكن سرعة المحادثة و تشديد على أخير الكلمة اجدها غريبة جدّا. حساب جربتي هذه اللهجة ليست مثل غيرها من اللهجات العربية


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## L.2

I find dialect of صعده is the most beautiful of Yemeni dialects and the nearest to fus7a.


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## the-moon-light

qaqa85 said:


> Hi the moon light.
> 
> Is Yemeni dialect and Saudi dialect similar?


The south province of Saudia Arabia have similar to Yemeni dialect.


Mahaodeh said:


> .... so the dialect near the Yemeni border is closer to Yemeni than it is to the Saudi dialect in the region near the Jordanian border, which is closer to Jordanian. Both dialects, are very close to the dialect in central Saudi Arabia.... and so on.


Actuly it's not only the borders that closer to Yemen, but you can say the whole south province of Saudia Arabia have the Yemeni dialect in all of it's types, simply because the people are from the same tribes.


Wadi Hanifa said:


> .......Now what you must understand is that there is no single "Yemeni dialect" or even a Yemeni "type" (same goes for "Oman").......
> 
> There are dialects in central Yemen that, to a non-Yemeni ear don't even sound Arabic at all......
> 
> I do think that Classical Arabic, and hence MSA, were based in large part (though not exclusively) on dialects starting from San'a to Mecca, approximately, excluding the Red Sea coastal area ("Tihama").


Well, you must know that there's a Yemeni dialect and a Yemeni type too because the Yemeni dialect is the original of the other dialects like _Oman _or_ the south of Saudi_.

For  _north/eastern Omani dialects_ it's actuly similar to the south Yemen dialect because some south Yemen people ( they call them beduines) are similar to _khaliji _dialect ( even in north yemen theres a khaliji dialect for the beduine people) and I think because they are beduine tribs they are close to khaliji dialect.


Abu Fahm said:


> كنت أستمع لمسجّلات اللهجة الصعنانية و إستعجبت كثير من كيفية كلامهم.
> إن لهجتهم تشبه الفصحى إلى ابعد حدّ لكن سرعة المحادثة و تشديد على أخير الكلمة اجدها غريبة جدّا. حساب جربتي هذه اللهجة ليست مثل غيرها من اللهجات العربية


Thats true and I think it's because in Yemen they don't have many changes in their Arabic language.


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## L.2

the-moon-light said:


> Actuly it's not only the borders that closer to Yemen, but you can say the whole south province of Saudia Arabia have the Yemeni dialect in all of it's types, simply because the people are from the same tribes.


 
Not all of them from the same tribes and not all dialects of Southern province is similar to Yemeni, many dialects can be easily distinguished from Yemeni's especially those that are far from the border but as we come down to the border as the accent and dialect become stronger. This is not unique to this area it happens in any border in the world where the contact between two languages or dialects is very high.
In two small towns in the north end of red sea that are very near to Suez Canal, people speak Egyptian with a little corruption that doesn't mean those people are Egyptians, they are Saudis they are members and clans of ancient tribes and some claim they are from the same tribe prophet Muhammad belonged.


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## the-moon-light

L.2 said:


> Not all of them from the same tribes and not all dialects of Southern province is similar to Yemeni, many dialects can be easily distinguished from Yemeni's especially those that are far from the border but as we come down to the border as the accent and dialect become stronger. This is not unique to this area it happens in any border in the world where the contact between two languages or dialects is very high.
> In two small towns in the north end of red sea that are very near to Suez Canal, people speak Egyptian with a little corruption that doesn't mean those people are Egyptians, they are Saudis they are members and clans of ancient tribes and some claim they are from the same tribe prophet Muhammad belonged.


 
The _south-west of Saudi_ in particular is hestorically known as Yemen. 

And all of _this_ _region_ _tribes_ are known as a _Yemeni tribes_ and not only who are close to the border!

There dialect of _the south-west of Saudi is actuly a Yemeni_ _dialect_, as you know in Yemen (as many other Arab countries) there's no one dialect in it, but there's alot of dialects.

In Yemen there's *8 main dialects:*

1- Khiyania *خيانية*: in the middle and from Ibb to Dhamar.
2- Othria *عذرية*: in Hashid, Tuhama and part of S3dah.
3- 7imiaria *حميرية*: in the traingle between: San3a, 7udidah and Dhamar and also Raiyma, 3atma, WiSab, Yara3 and some parts of Ibb.
4- Tuhamia *تهامية*: all the west coast.
5- Badawia *بدوية*: Marib, Aljouf, east of Sa3da, Abian, Shabwa, Al-biyda and north of 7aDhramoot.
6- Al-wasaT *الوسط* : in San3a.
7- Ma3afriya *معافرية*: in Ta3iz.
8- Sawa7iliyah *سواحيلية*: in south coast.


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## L.2

Historically, the Southern province has never been part of Yemen. It has always been a state alone with an independent ruler, economy and policy. However, some got confused because yemen is an Aramaic word that simply means south(Aramaic dictionary) and from its location in the south of Arab Peninsula Yemen has taken its name and Arabs used to refer to anything south as yemen for example, the southern region of Jeddah is called الأحياء اليمانية, and also the southern corner of Ka'aba is called الركن اليماني or الركن الجنوبي so if anyone ever called the southern region yemen that doesn't necessarily mean today's state of Yemen.
about dialects it's all about borders and influence between two dialects nothing to do with tribes for example in الباحة وأبها والنماص dialects are different than Yemeni's if we go down a little to ex محايل وظهران the dialects become similar but still there are recognizable differences, if we go down further to the border ex بلجرشي جيزان شواله the dialects become the same or with very subtle differences. I don't deny there are some Yemeni clans but the way you tend to correlate dialects with Yemen is totally wrong because it's not something exclusive in the southern province this happens in all Saudi borders as you go near the border as the neighboring country's dialect becomes stronger.


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## hmichell

LingAr said:


> Yemeni Dialects in general and the Sanani in particular are presumably the most comprehesible and closest to Modern Standard Arabic given that they are the least contiminated by other language such english and french of all arabic dialects. Northern Yemen was not occupied so the language of north Yemen is still more like MSA.


I am a teacher in the US. I have a new student from Yemen whose family speaks primarily the Sananni dialect of Yemen. My student can speak broken English, but her parents speak NONE. I currently can't find any google translators that can translate letters and such to Sananni or Yemen for the family. Are the languages close enough that they will they be able to understand the Arabic translation?


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## hiba

hmichell said:


> I am a teacher in the US. I have a new student from Yemen whose family speaks primarily the Sananni dialect of Yemen. My student can speak broken English, but her parents speak NONE. I currently can't find any google translators that can translate letters and such to Sananni or Yemen for the family. Are the languages close enough that they will they be able to understand the Arabic translation?


You can translate the English to Arabic and they will understand it. Standard Arabic (what Google translate tries to give to you) is understood by Yemenis.


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