Hejazi Arabic

Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic (HA), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken mainly in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and partially in Ta'if and another dialect by the urbanized rural and bedouin populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.
In antiquity, the Hejaz was home to the Old Hejazi dialect of Arabic recorded in the consonantal text of the Qur'an. Old Hejazi is distinct from modern Hejazi Arabic, and represents an older linguistic layer wiped out by centuries of migration, but which happens to share the imperative prefix vowel /a-/ with the modern dialect.
Classification
Also referred to as the sedentary Hejazi dialect, this is the form most commonly associated with the term "Hejazi Arabic", and is spoken in the urban centers of the region, such as Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina. With respect to the axis of bedouin versus sedentary dialects of the Arabic language, this dialect group exhibits features of both. Like other sedentary dialects, the urban Hejazi dialect is less conservative than the bedouin varieties in some aspects and has therefore shed some Classical forms and features that are still present in bedouin dialects, these include gender-number disagreement, and the feminine marker -n (see Varieties of Arabic). But in contrast to bedouin dialects, the constant use of full vowels and the absence of vowel reduction plus the distinction between the emphatic letters and is generally retained.
Innovative features
The present progressive tense is marked by the prefix or or as in or or ("he is studying").
The future tense is marked by the prefix or as in or ("he will study").
the internal passive form, which in Hejazi, is replaced by the pattern or.
Loss of the final sound in the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun . For example, ("his house"), ("I know him"), ("they said it"), ("on him") and ("we saw him") vs. ("we saw") .
loss of gender-specificity in numbers except for the number "one" which is m. and f. .
The pronunciation of the interdental letters and . (See Hejazi Arabic Phonology)
loss of gender-specificity in plural verb forms, e.g. instead of masculine and feminine .
loss of gender-specificity in plural adjectives, e.g. "bored" can be used to describe both feminine and masculine plural nouns.
The verb forms V, VI and IIQ have an additional initial , e.g. "it shattered" (V), "she worked" (VI) and "they babbled" (IIQ).
Conservative features
Hejazi Arabic does not employ double negation, nor does it append the negation particles -sh to negate verbs: Hejazi ("I don't know"), as opposed to Egyptian and Palestinian .
The habitual present tense is not marked by any prefixes as in ("he studies") and ("I love you"), as opposed to Egyptian and .
The prohibitive mood of Classical Arabic is preserved in the imperative: ("don't go").
The possessive suffixes are generally preserved in their Classical forms. For example, "your (pl) house".
The plural first person pronoun is or , as opposed to the bedouin or .
When indicating a location, the preposition (also written as a prefix ) is preferred to as in or ("in Medina").
The pronunciation of the is as in Modern Standard Arabic as in ("Riyadh").
The hamzated verbs like and keep their classical form as opposed to and .
The use of in form 1 verbs is retained as in or as opposed to and in Najdi and Gulf Arabic.
The glottal stop can be added to final syllables ending in a vowel as a way of emphasising.
the definite article is always pronounced as opposed to Egyptian or Kuwaiti and the final is always pronounced .
Compared to neighboring dialects, urban Hejazi retains most of the short vowels of Classical Arabic with no vowel reduction (ghawa syndrome), for example:
("fish"), as opposed to bedouin , and ("pronunciation"), as opposed to bedouin
("our pocket"), as opposed to bedouin and Egyptian .
("she hit him"), as opposed to bedouin .
("his son"), as opposed to bedouin .
("in your possession" pl.), as opposed to bedouin , Egyptian , and Levantine .
("on me"), as opposed to bedouin .
History
The Arabic of today is derived principally from the old dialects of Central and North Arabia which were divided by the classical Arab grammarians into three groups: Hejaz, Najd, and the language of the tribes in adjoining areas. Though the modern Hejazi dialects has developed markedly since the development of Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic is quite distinct from the modern dialect of Hejaz. Standard Arabic now differs considerably from modern Hejazi Arabic in terms of its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, such diglossia in Arabic began to emerge at the latest in the sixth century CE when oral poets recited their poetry in a proto-Classical Arabic based on archaic dialects which differed greatly from their own.
Urban Hejazi Arabic belongs to the western Peninsular Arabic branch of the Arabic language, which itself is a Semitic language. It includes features of both urban and bedouin dialects given its development in the historical cities of Jeddah, Medina and Mecca in proximity to the bedouin tribes that lived on the outskirts of these cities, in addition to a minimal influence in vocabulary from other urban Arabic dialects and Modern Standard Arabic, and more recently the influence of the other dialects of Saudi Arabia, all of which made Urban Hejazi a dialect that is distinctly unique but close to peninsular dialects on one hand and urban Arabic dialects on the other.
Historically, it is not well-known in which stage of Arabic the shift from the Proto-Semitic pair qāf and gīm came to be Hejazi gāf and jīm , although it has been attested as early as the eighth century CE, and it can be explained by a chain shift * → → that occurred in one of two ways:
Drag Chain: Proto-Semitic gīm palatalized to Hejazi jīm first, opening up a space at the position of , which qāf * then moved to fill the empty space resulting in Hejazi gāf , restoring structural symmetrical relationships present in the pre-Arabic system.
Push Chain: Proto-Semitic qāf * changed to Hejazi gāf first, which resulted in pushing the original gīm forward in articulation to become Hejazi jīm , but since most modern qāf dialects as well as standard Arabic also have jīm, then the push-chain of qāf to gāf first can be discredited, although there are good grounds for believing that old Arabic qāf had both voiced and voiceless as allophones; and later on the gīm was fronted to jīm , possibly as a result of pressure from the allophones.
* The original value of Proto-Semitic qāf was probably an emphatic not .
The development of to have also been observed in languages like Azeri in which the Old Turkic is pronounced as a velar ; e.g. قال / qal 'stay' is pronounced , rather than as in Turkish or in Bashkir, Uyghur, Kazakh, etc.
Phonology
In general, Hejazi native phonemic inventory consists of 26 (with no interdental ) to 28 consonant phonemes depending on the speaker's background and formality, in addition to the marginal phoneme . Furthermore, it has an eight-vowel system, consisting of three short and five long vowels . Consonant length and Vowel length are both distinctive and being a Semitic language the four emphatic consonants are treated as separate phonemes from their plain counterparts.
The main phonological feature that differentiates urban Hejazi from other peninsular dialects in regards to consonants; is the pronunciation of the letters and (see Hejazi Phonology) and the pronunciation of as in Standard Arabic. Another differential feature is the lack of palatalization for the letters , and , unlike in other peninsular dialects where they can be palatalized in certain positions e.g. Hejazi 'new' vs. Gulf Arabic and Hejazi 'with you' vs. traditional Najdi .
The marginal /ɫ/ is only used in the word 'God' /aɫːaːh/ (except when it follows an as in بسمِ الله ) and in words derived from it, It contrasts with /l/ in والله 'I swear' /waɫːa/ vs. ولَّا 'or' /walːa/. Unlike other neighboring dialects; is not velarized in certain positions, as in 'brain' pronounced with a light Lām in Hejazi and velarized one in other peninsular Arabic dialects. Two additional foreign phonemes ⟨پ⟩ and ⟨ڤ⟩ are used by a number of speakers while many substitute them with ⟨ب⟩ and ⟨ف⟩ respectively, in general is more integrated and used by most speakers than .
A conservative feature that Hejazi holds is the constant use of full vowels and the absence of vowel reduction, for example 'we told them', is pronounced in Hejazi with full vowels but pronounced with the reduced vowel as in Najdi and Gulf Arabic, in addition to that, the absence of initial consonant cluster (known as the ghawa syndrome) as in 'cow', 'coffee', 'we know' and 'she heard' which are pronounced and respectively in Hejazi but and in other peninsular dialects.
Consonants
Phonetic notes:
the affricate and the trill are realised as a and a tap respectively by a number of speakers or in a number of words.
the phonemes and can be realised as uvular fricatives and in few instances.
the reintroduced phoneme is partially used as an alternative phoneme, while most speakers merge it with or depending on the word.
the reintroduced phoneme is partially used as an alternative phoneme, while most speakers merge it with or depending on the word.
is an optional allophone for ⟨ظ⟩. In general, urban Hejazi speakers merge it with or pronounce it distinctly as depending on the word.
has the velar allophone , which occurs before stop velars as in ('it spilled') and ('brazier') and is an allophone before as in ('clove') which is pronounced .
due to the influence of Modern Standard Arabic in the 20th century, has been introduced as an allophone of in some words and phrases especially in the scientific and religious fields as in ('economy') which is phonemically but can be pronounced as or depending on the speaker, although older speakers prefer in all positions.
Word-Initial and other clusters like occur only in loanwords and they are not considered to be a single phoneme but a cluster of two, e.g. ⟨ت⟩ and ⟨ش⟩ as in ('Chile'). This cluster has merged with in earlier loanwords that are more integrated e.g. شَيَّك ('he checked’) from English check. The cluster also occurs phonetically in native words affected by syncope when connected, e.g. ('don't lift') pronounced or .
Vowels
Phonetic notes:
and are pronounced either as an open front vowel or an open central vowel depending on the speaker, even when adjacent to emphatic consonants, except in some words such as ('Germany'), ('Japan') and ('dad') where they are pronounced with the back vowel .
and are pronounced as true mid vowels and respectively.
short (also analyzed as ) is pronounced allophonically as or less likely in word initial or medial syllables e.g. ('Ukraine') and ('comb') and strictly as at the end of words e.g. ('they saw') or before as in ('he') or when isolate.
short (also analyzed as ) is pronounced allophonically as or less likely in word initial or medial syllables e.g. ('Islam') and ('section') and strictly as at the end of words e.g. ('I have') or before as in ('he') or when isolate.
the close vowels can be distinguished by tenseness with and being more tense in articulation than their short counterparts and , except at the end of words where they are all tense even in loanwords, e.g. ('Chicago') which is less likely to be pronounced .
The diphthongs: e.g. ('he stops') and e.g. ('he's saying') (also pronounced for emphasis) are not considered as separate phonemes.
Monophthongization
Most of the occurrences of the two diphthongs and in the Classical Arabic period underwent monophthongization in Hejazi, and are realized as the long vowels and respectively, but they are still preserved as diphthongs in a number of words which created a contrast with the long vowels and .
Not all instances of mid vowels are a result of monophthongization, some are from grammatical processes 'they said' → 'they said to her' (opposed to Classical Arabic ), and some occur in modern Portmanteau words e.g. 'why?' (from Classical Arabic 'for what' and 'thing').
Vocabulary
Hejazi vocabulary derives primarily from Arabic Semitic roots. The urban Hejazi vocabulary differs in some respect from that of other dialects in the Arabian Peninsula. For example, there are fewer specialized terms related to desert life, and more terms related to seafaring and fishing. Loanwords are uncommon and they are mainly of French, Italian, Persian, Turkish and most recently of English origins, and due to the diverse origins of the inhabitants of Hejazi cities, some loanwords are used by only some families. Some old loanwords are fading or became obsolete due to the influence of Modern Standard Arabic and their association with lower social class and education, e.g. "air conditioner" (from English Condition) was replaced by Standard Arabic .
Most of the loanwords tend to be nouns e.g. "Bicycle", "lipstick" and "shrimp", and sometimes with a change of meaning as in: "overpass" from Turkish originally meaning "bridge" and "water tanker truck" from English and "shoe" from Turkish originally meaning "boot", loaned verbs which are less common include "to hack" from English "" and "to agitate" from French "" or English "".
Words that are distinctly of Hejazi origin include or "now", "yes", "what?", "I want", "breast" (used with the more formal ), "hiccup", and or "already", Other general vocabulary includes "to leave" with its synonyms and , "to call over" with its synonym and "good luck". (see vocabulary list)
Portmanteau
A common feature in Hejazi vocabulary is portmanteau words (also called a blend in linguistics); in which parts of multiple words or their phones (sounds) are combined into a new word, it is especially innovative in making Interrogative words, examples include:
("yes"): from ("yes") and ("and") and ("god").
(is it ok?/sorry): from (nothing) and (on him) and (thing).
("what?"): from ("which") and ("thing").
("why?"): from (for what) and ("thing").
(where?): from (in) and (where).
("until"): from ("to") and ("that").
(or , "now"): from ("this") and (part of time).
(later): from (baʕd, after) and (ʔayn, part of time).
or (or , "in order to"): from ("on") and ("matter").
("also"): from ("like") and ("that").
(come on): from ("o!") and ("god").
or (not yet, still): from ("to the hour") also used as in ("he is still young")
Numerals
The Cardinal number system in Hejazi is much more simplified than the Classical Arabic
A system similar to the German numbers system is used for other numbers between 20 and above: 21 is which literally mean ('one and twenty') and 485 is which literally mean ('four hundred and five and eighty').
Unlike Classical Arabic, the only number that is gender specific in Hejazi is "one" which has two forms m. and f. as in ('one book') or ('one car'), with being a masculine noun and a feminine noun.
for 2 as in 'two cars' 'two years' 'two houses' etc. the dual form is used instead of the number with the suffix ēn or tēn (if the noun ends with a feminine ) as in ('two books') or ('two cars'), for emphasis they can be said as or .
for numbers 3 to 10 the noun following the number is in plural form as in ('4 books') or ('10 cars').
for numbers 11 and above the noun following the number is in singular form as in:-
from 11 to 19 an [ar] is added to the end of the numbers as in ('14 books') or ('11 cars').
for 100s a [t] is added to the end of the numbers before the counted nouns as in ('300 cars').
other numbers are simply added to the singular form of the noun ('21 books').
Grammar
Subject pronouns
In Hejazi Arabic, personal pronouns have eight forms. In singular, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person and plural do not. The negative articles include as in ('do not write!'), as in ('he is not talking') and as in ('not like this')
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Negative subject pronouns
! colspan="2" | Person
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! colspan="2" | 1st
| ماني/مني| colspan=2 style="text-align: center;"| محنا |-
! rowspan="2" | 2nd
! masculine
| َمنت | rowspan="2" | منتو |-
! feminine
| منتي
|-
! rowspan="2" | 3rd
! masculine
| مهو
| rowspan="2" | ماهم/مهم|-
! feminine
| مهي |}
Verbs
Hejazi Arabic verbs, as with the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of three, four, or even five consonants (but mainly three consonants) called a root (triliteral or quadriliteral according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. 'to write', 'to eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as :
Two tenses (past, present; present progressive is indicated by the prefix (bi-), future is indicated by the prefix (ħa-))
Two voices (active, passive)
Two genders (masculine, feminine)
Three persons (first, second, third)
Two numbers (singular, plural)
Hejazi has two grammatical number in verbs (Singular and Plural) instead of the Classical (Singular, Dual and Plural), in addition to a present progressive tense which was not part of the Classical Arabic grammar. In contrast to other urban dialects the prefix (b-) is used only for present continuous as in "he is writing" while the habitual tense is without a prefix as in "I love you" f. unlike in Egyptian and Levantine dialects and the future tense is indicated by the prefix (ħa-) as in "we will run".
Regular verbs
The most common verbs in Hejazi have a given vowel pattern for past (a and i) to present (a or u or i). Combinations of each exist:
According to Arab grammarians, verbs are divided into three categories; Past ماضي, Present and Imperative . An example from the root the verb katabt/ʼaktub 'i wrote/i write' (which is a regular sound verb):
While present progressive and future are indicated by adding the prefix (b-) and (ħa-) respectively to the present (indicative) :
The verbs highlighted in silver sometimes come in irregular forms e.g. حبيت (ħabbē)-t "i loved", حبينا (ħabbē)-na "we loved" but ّحب (ħabb) "he loved" and حبُّوا (ħabb)-u "they loved".
additional final ا to ـوا in all plural verbs is silent.
The Active Participles , and can be used instead of the prefix [b-] as in ('i'm writing') instead of بأكتب or بكتب ('i'm writing') without any change in the meaning. The active participles , and are used in the same way.
The past tenses of the verbs ('he sat/remained') or ('he sat') can be used before present verbs to express a past continuous tense which is similar to the English usage of "kept" as in ('he kept writing about him').
A way of emphasizing the past tense is by adding the verbs ('he stood') or ('went') and its derivatives before the past verbs which is similar to the English usage of "went", as in ('he went and ran to him') and ('he went and wrote about him').
the 3rd person past plural suffix -/u/ turns into -/oː/ (long o) instead of before pronouns, as in ('they went') → ('they went to him'), or it can be originally an -/oː/ as in ('they came') and in its homophone ('they came to him') since the word-final 3rd person masculine singular pronoun is silent.
word-final hollow verbs have a unique conjugation of either or , if a verb ends in ـي in its past simple form as in nisi 'he forgot' (present yinsa 'he forgets') it becomes nisīt 'I forgot' and nisyat 'she forgot' and nisyu 'they forgot'. While if the verb ends in ـى or ـا in its past simple form as in šawa 'he grilled' (present yišwi 'he grills') it becomes šawēt 'I grilled' and šawat 'she grilled and šawu 'they grilled'. Most of these verbs correspond to their Classical Arabic forms like and but some exceptions include biki 'he cried', jiri 'he ran', miši 'he walked' and diri 'he knew' as opposed to the Classical baka, جرى jara, maša, dara.
Example: katabt/aktub "write": non-finite forms
Active participles act as adjectives, and so they must agree with their subject. An active participle can be used in several ways:
to describe a state of being (understanding; knowing).
to describe what someone is doing right now (going, leaving) as in some verbs like ("i went") the active participle ("i'm going") is used instead of present continuous form to give the same meaning of an ongoing action.
to indicate that someone/something is in a state of having done something (having put something somewhere, having lived somewhere for a period of time).
Passive Voice
The passive voice is expressed through two patterns; or, while most verbs can take either pattern as in or "it was written" and or "it is being written", other verbs can only have one of the two patterns as in "he was stopped" and "he is being stopped".
Adjectives
In Hejazi, adjectives, demonstratives and verbs fully agree in gender and number, e.g. "big boy" and "big girl". But there are two exceptions; First, there is no agreement in dual number; e.g. "two girls" takes the plural adjective as in "two big girls". Second, and more importantly, gender agreement is syncretic in the plural, in which inanimate plural nouns take a feminine singular adjective e.g. "big cars" instead of the plural adjective, while animate plural nouns take the plural adjective as in "big girls". The plural feminine adjective can be used as well but it is rather archaic.
Pronouns
Enclitic pronouns
Enclitic forms of personal pronouns are suffixes that are affixed to various parts of speech, with varying meanings:
To the construct state of nouns, where they have the meaning of possessive demonstratives, e.g. "my, your, his".
To verbs, where they have the meaning of direct object pronouns, e.g. "me, you, him".
To verbs, where they have the meaning of indirect object pronouns, e.g. "(to/for) me,(to/for) you, (to/for) him".
To prepositions.
Unlike Egyptian Arabic, in Hejazi no more than one pronoun can be suffixed to a word.
if a noun ends with a vowel (other than the of the feminine nouns) that is or then the suffix (-ya) is used as in ('father') becomes ('my father') but if it ends with an then the suffix (-yya) is added as in ('my chair') from ('chair').
the colon between the parentheses -[ː] indicates that the final vowel of a word is lengthened as in ('chair') → ('his chair'), since the word-final [h] is silent in this position. although in general it is uncommon for Hejazi nouns to end in a vowel other than the of the feminine nouns.
The indirect object pronouns are written separately from the verbs as per Classical Arabic convention, but they are pronounced as if they are fused with the verbs. They are still written separately by many writers as in ('i wrote to him') but they can be written intact since Hejazi does not have a written standard.
General Modifications:-
When a noun ends in a feminine vowel as in ('school') : a is added before the suffixes as in → ('my school'), ('his school'), ('her school') and so on.
After a word ends in a vowel (other than the of the feminine nouns), the vowel is lengthened, and the pronouns in (vowel+) are used instead of their original counterparts :-
as in the noun ('chair') → ('his chair'), ('our chair'), ('your chair' f.) and the verb ('we followed') → ('we followed him'), ('we followed you' feminine).
the indirect object pronouns ('we went') → ('we went to him').
After a word that ends in two consonants, or which has a long vowel in the last syllable, is inserted before the 5 suffixes which begin with a consonant .
as in the noun ('book') → ('her book'), ('their book'), ('your book' plural), ('our book') or the verb ('you knew') → ('you knew me'), ('you knew us'), ('you knew her'), ('you knew them').
When a verb ends in two consonants as in ('i went' or 'you went') : an is added before the Indirect object pronoun suffixes → ('i went to him') or in ('I wrote' or 'you wrote') becomes ('i wrote to him'), ('i wrote to them').
the 3rd person past plural suffix -/u/ turns into -/oː/ (long o) before pronouns, as in ('they knew') → ('they knew me'), ('they went') → ('they went to him') or ('they wrote') → ('they wrote to me')
Hollow Verbs vowel shortening
Medial vowel shortening occurs in Hollow verbs (verbs with medial vowels ā, ū, ō, ē, ī) when added to Indirect object pronouns:
when a verb has a long vowel in the last syllable (shown in silver in the main example) as in ('I go'), (he goes) or (''we go'); the vowel is shortened before the suffixes as in (I go to him), (he goes to him) and (we go to him) with the verbs resembling the Jussive (مجزوم majzūm) mood conjugation in Classical Arabic (shown in gold in the example), original forms as in or can be used depending on the writer but the vowels are still shortened in pronunciation.
This does effect past verbs as well but the form of the word does not change, as in rāḥ ('he went') which is pronounced ('he went to him!') after adding a pronoun.
Other hollow verbs include ('I repeat') or ('say!') which become / ('I repeat for you') and / ('tell her!')
Writing system
Hejazi does not have a standardized form of writing and mostly follows Classical Arabic rules of writing. The main difference between classical Arabic and Hejazi are the alternations of the Hamza, some verb forms and the final long vowels, this alternation happened since most word-final short vowels from the classical period have been omitted and most word-final unstressed long vowel have been shortened in Hejazi. Another alternation is writing the words according to the phoneme used while pronouncing them, rather than their etymology which mainly has an effect on the three letters and , for example writing "thick, fat" instead of or "tail" instead of although this alternation in writing is not considered acceptable by many or most Hejazi speakers. The alphabet still uses the same set of letters as Classical Arabic in addition to two letters ⟨پ⟩ and ⟨ڤ⟩ which are only used in writing loanwords and they can be substituted by and respectively depending on the writer, in addition to that the vowels and which were not part of the CA phonemic inventory are represented by the letters and respectively.
Differences Between Classical and Hejazi writing
Hamza :
Initial hamza holds no phonemic value in Hejazi but it can be used as per Classical Arabic convention, e.g. "readiness" or "he took" can be written as or but long initial is more important to indicate, e.g. "sorry" to differentiate it from / "regret".
Medial hamza is merged with the semi-vowels and as in "going" from and "pearl" from , or it can be completely elided as in "she came" from or "they came" from , but other words keep the medial hamza as in "responsible" and "issues".
Final hamza is deleted in most Hejazi words as in "lunch" from , "green" from , but some words keep the final hamza as in "beginner" and "slowness".
Added medial long vowels :
some words have elongated medial vowels in Hejazi as in "with you" from , "to you, for you" which could be from the classical or , and "who" from .
2nd person masculine singular imperative in hollow verbs keep their long vowels as روح "go!" as opposed to classical and "see!" as opposed to classical .
Final added appears in:
Masculine singular imperative in final-weak verbs, as in "go!, walk!" as opposed to classical . The classical pair (feminine) and (masculine) merged into used as a masculine and feminine singular imperative verb in Hejazi.
2nd person feminine singular past verbs, as in "you forgot" as opposed to classical . The classical pair (feminine) and (masculine) became (feminine) and (masculine).
Feminine possessive and object pronoun which occurs after a long vowel, as in "he gives you" as opposed to classical . The classical pair (feminine) and (masculine) became (feminine) and (masculine).
Feminine pronouns, as in "you", as opposed to classical . The classical pair (feminine) and (masculine) became (feminine) and (masculine), but the classical form can still be used in Hejazi.
Innovative forms:
Some verb forms are innovative and differ from their classical equivalents as in the common plural verb "you saw" pl. as opposed to classical (masculine) and (feminine), or the final-weak verbs as in "they ran" as opposed to classical and the doubled verbs "I loved" opposed to classical .
The verb forms V, VI and IIQ have an additional initial before , so that Hejazi forms , and correspond to classical forms , and , e.g. "he spoke" (form V), "she worked" (form VI) and "they babbled" (form IIQ).
Portmanteau words have the most alternatives in their spelling since they did not occur in Classical Arabic, so the word for "still" can be written or depending on the writer, all of these forms stemming from the classical ("to the hour").
Loanwords can have multiple spellings as well, which is the case for the word "also" which can be written as or .
Mistakes in Hejazi spelling
Final silent :
Writing instead of final pronoun as in "his book" which is mistakenly written .
Mixing final and as in "opening" (in construct state) and "he opened it".
Missing the final masculine pronoun which often indicates a final long vowel as "you hurt" vs. "you hurt him", this can cause an ambiguity for the reader as in the homophones "he came" and "he came to him" if both were written mistakenly as .
Final :
Mixing final and as in the word "by the way" which is mistakenly written .
Mixing final and as in the word "time, once" which is mistakenly written .
Adding a final to final 1st person singular possessive pronoun as in "on me" written mistakenly written as even though Classical Arabic have the same form and pronunciation as in عَلَيَّ , other examples include "with me", "to me", "my father" and "in me".
Missing final silent in plural verbs as in "you threw" or "they hanged" even though this practice is no longer needed but it follows the Classical Arabic form.
The table below shows the Arabic alphabet letters and their corresponding phonemes in Hejazi:
Notes:
words with word-medial long vowels that are pronounced short include words before the indirect object pronouns e.g. لي ,له ,لها as in عاد "he repeated" becomes عاد لهم "he repeated to them" and "going to him" becomes with a shortened or rarely , outside of this rule only few words have vowel-shortening, e.g. جاي "I'm coming" pronounced /d͡ʒaj/ or less likely /d͡ʒaːj/ which stems from classical .
is only used at the end of words and mainly to mark feminine gender for nouns and adjectives with few exceptions (e.g. ; a male noun). phonemically it is silent indicating final /-a/, except when in construct state it is a /t/, which leads to the word-final /-at/. e.g. 'message' → 'Ahmad's message'.
is silent in word-final in 3rd person masculine singular pronouns and some words, as in "we saw him" and "he has" or the heteronym pronounced 'why?' or 'for him, but it is still maintained in most other nouns as in "fruits", "hate" and "idiot" where it is differentiated from أبلة "f. teacher". In writing the silent helps in distinguishing minimal pairs with word-final vowel length contrast 'you want f. vs. 'you want him f..
and are sometimes used to transcribe in foreign words. is especially used in city/state names as in "Belgrade" pronounced or , this ambiguity arose due to Standard Arabic not having a letter that transcribes distinctively, which created doublets like كتلوق vs. كتلوج "catalog" and قالون vs. جالون "gallon". newer terms are more likely to be transcribed using the native as in إنستقرام "Instagram" and قروب "group chat".
is pronounced only in few words from the two trilateral roots and , as in ("it worked") pronounced and not .
The interdental consonants:
represents as in ثوب & ثواب or as in ثابت , but the classical phoneme is still used as well depending on the speaker especially in words of English origin.
represents as in ذيل & ذكر or as in ذكي , but the classical phoneme is still used as well depending on the speaker especially in words of English origin.
represents as in ظفر & ظل or as in ظرف , but the classical is still used as an allophone depending on the speaker.
Rural dialects
The varieties of Arabic spoken in the smaller towns and by the bedouin tribes in the Hejaz region are relatively under-studied. However, the speech of some tribes shows much closer affinity to other bedouin dialects, particularly those of neighboring Najd, than to those of the urban Hejazi cities. The dialects of northern Hejazi tribes merge into those of Jordan and Sinai, while the dialects in the south merge with those of 'Asir and Najd. Also, not all speakers of these bedouin dialects are figuratively nomadic bedouins; some are simply sedentary sections that live in rural areas, and thus speak dialects similar to those of their bedouin neighbors.
Al-'Ula
The dialect of Al-'Ula governorate in the northern part of the Madinah region. Although understudied, it is considered to be unique among the Hejazi dialects, it is known for its pronunciation of Classical Arabic as a (e.g. becomes ), the dialect also shows a tendency to pronounce long as (e.g. Classical becomes [meːʔ]), in some instances the Classical becomes a as in becomes , also the second person singular feminine pronoun tends to be pronounced as /iʃ/ (e.g. ('your foot') becomes .
Badr
The dialect of Badr governorate in the western part of the Madinah region is mainly noted for its lengthening of word-final syllables and its alternative pronunciation of some phonemes as in which is pronounced as , it also shares some features with the general urban dialect in which modern standard Arabic is pronounced , another unique feature of the dialect is its similarity to the Arabic dialects of Bahrain.
See also
Varieties of Arabic
Peninsular Arabic
References
Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language'', NITLE Arab World Project, by the permission of Edinburgh University Press,
Bibliography
External links
Hijazi Arabic course with audio files
Arabic languages
Languages of Saudi Arabia
Languages of Eritrea
Hejaz
Mashriqi Arabic
Peninsular Arabic
Eritrea–Saudi Arabia relations