The dialect of the Maʿāzah in the Egyptian Eastern Desert borders the dialect of the
ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic.[3] Research is needed to establish whether the Maʿāzah dialect is the southwestern extremity of Northwest Arabian on the Egyptian mainland.[3]
In Saudi Arabia, the dialects of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, the Hisma, and the Harrat al-Riha belong to the Northwest Arabian type, but the dialect of the
Bili to the south is not closely related.[4]
Classification
The Northwest Arabian Arabic dialects display several innovations from
Proto-Arabic:[2]
The voiced reflex of *q ([g])
The
gaháwah syndrome: insertion of /a/ after X in (C)aXC(V) sequences where X is /h/, /ʿ/, /ḥ/, /ġ/, or /ḫ/, e.g. gahwa(h) > gaháwa(h) "coffee", baġl > baġal "mule".
The definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli are stressable as an integral part of the word, e.g. álwalad, áljabal. The initial /a/ is stable enough to be preserved after -ī (-iy), which is dropped: f-albēt, rāʿ-álġanam.
A number of typical Bedouin lexical items (gōṭar "to go", sōlaf "to tell, narrate", ṭabb "to arrive", nišad ~ nišád "to ask").
Absence of final /n/ in the imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular, 2nd person masculine plural, and 3rd person masculine plural.
The pronominal suffix of the 2nd person masculine plural is -ku (-kuw).
Stressed variants -ī and -nī of the pronominal suffix in the 1st person singular.
Plural comm. forms haḏalla, haḏallāk, etc.
Initial /a/ in Forms VII, VIII, and X in the perfect, and stressed when in stressable position.
Initial /a/ in a number of irregular nouns (amm, aḫt, aḫwan, adēn, afám).
Varieties
Northwest Arabian Arabic can be divided into a western branch spoken in Sinai and the Negev, and an eastern branch spoken to the east of the
Wadi Araba.[2] Several dialects of the eastern branch, such as that of the Zalabiah and Zawaidih of
Wadi Ramm,[5] and that of the Bdul,[6] have been argued to be closely related to the western branch.
Differences between western and eastern branches:[2]
Western branch
Eastern branch
b- imperfect
in regular use
does not occur in plain colloquial
analytic genitive
šuġl, šuġlah, šuġlīn, šuġlāt as genitive markers
Form I imperfect performative
vowel harmony
generalized /a/
reflexes of *aw and *ay
partially monophthongized; monophthongs fluctuate with long phonemes /ō/ ~ /ū/, /ē/ ~/ī/.
well-established monophthongs /ō/ and /ē/
gawaha syndrome
gaháwa only
ghawa ~ gaháwa
I-w imperfect
yawṣal ~yōṣal
yāṣal
3fsg object suffix
-ha/-hiy in Negev
-ha
3msg object suffix
phonetically conditioned C-ih/-ah, C-u(h) in southern Sinai
Some varieties of Negev Arabic are characterized by word-internal imala of *-ā- to /ē/ in patterns where /i/ historically occurred in an adjacent syllable. It does not occur when one of the adjacent consonants is emphatic or a back consonant. Some of the patterns where it is found include the following:[9]
Reflexes of *CāCiC: šēyib “elder, old man”, ḥēmiy “hot”, gēyil “having said”, bēkir “morning”, wēḥid “one”, ṯēniy “second”
Reflexes of *CiCāC(ah): srēǧ “oil lamp”, ktēbih “writing”
Reflexes of *miCCāC(ah): miftēḥ “key”, miknēsih “broom”
Similar raising is found in the Bdul dialect of Jordan: minǣsif “mansaf (pl.)”, hǣḏi “this (f.)”, ḏ̣aygǣt “narrow (pl.)”, iblǣdna “our land”.[6]
Word-final imala of */-ā(ʾ)/
Some of the western dialects of Northwest Arabian Arabic (Central Sinai and Negev in particular) are characterized by an
Imala of Old Arabic word-final *-ā(ʾ) to /iy/ in certain patterns of nouns and adjectives. Emphatics seem to block the shift. The following examples are from Negev Arabic:[10]
In the dialects of southern Sinai, word-final
imala typically results in /iʾ/. Some examples are íštiʾ “winter”, ǧiʾ “he came”, ḏiʾ “this, these”, tižibhiʾ “you get it”, ifṭarniʾ “we had breakfast”. In some, but not all groups, /a/ in a previous syllable blocks this
imala. Like the dialects of central Sinai and Negev, the
imala of feminine adjectives of color and defect on the pattern CaCCāʾ results in stressed /íy/: sōdíy “black; bad”.[3]
Characteristics
The following are some archaic features retained from
Proto-Arabic:[2]
Gender distinction in the 2nd and 3rd person plural pronouns, pronominal suffixes, and finite verbal forms.
Productivity of Form IV (aC1C2aC3, yiC1C2iC3).
The initial /a/ in the definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli.
Frequent and productive use of diminutives (glayyil "a little", ḫbayz "bread").
Absence of affricated variants of /g/ (< */q/) and /k/.
The use of the locative preposition fi (fiy).
The invariable pronominal suffix -ki of the 2nd person feminine singular.
^de Jong, R. E. (1999). The Bedouin Dialects of the Northern Sinai Littoral. Bridging the Gap between the Eastern and the Western Arab World (Thesis).
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^
abShawarbah, Musa (2012). A Grammar of Negev Arabic: Comparative Studies, Texts, and Glossary in the Bedouin Dialect of the ʻAzāzmih Tribe. Harrassowitz Verlag.
ISBN978-3-447-06647-1.[page needed]
Gordon, Raymond G.. Jr., ed. (2005),
"Bedawi Arabic", Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.), Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics
Blanc, Haim (1970). "The Arabic Dialect of the Negev Bedouins". Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 4 (7): 112–150.
OCLC963504406.
Piamenta, Moshe (1996). "More on the Arabic Dialect of the Negev Bedouins". Quaderni di Studi Arabi. 14: 123–136.
JSTOR25802794.