Hejazi Arabic

Hejazi Arabic
Native to	western Saudi Arabia
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic South-Central Semitic Arabic Hejazi Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	acw

Hejazi Arabic is a [Varieties of Arabic|variety]] of the Arabic language spoken in the regions of western Saudi Arabia. It is also the colloquial variety of Arabic spoken in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca ,Ta'if, Rabigh, Yanbu, and Medina. It is the most widely understood dialect of Arabic in the Arabian Peninsula.

Pronunciations in Hejazi differ from other Gulf dialects in some respects. The Arabic qaaf (ق) is pronounced with a 'g' sound, as in "get." The 'j' sound for the letter jim (ج) is retained, in contrast to many dialects in the region which use "g" or "zh." Some speakers replace the interdental "th" with "t" or "s."

The Hejazi dialect also contains fairly recent borrowings from other Arabic dialects, including Levantine and Egyptian.