Najdi Arabic
Appearance
Najdi Arabic | |
---|---|
Native to | Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria |
Native speakers | (undated figure of 10 million)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Arabic alphabet | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ars |
Glottolog | najd1235 |
Najdi Arabic (Arabic: اللهجة النجدية) is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Najd region of Saudi Arabia.
There are four major dialects of Najdi Arabic.
- Northern Najdi, spoken in Ha'il Region and Al-Qassim Region in the Najd.
- Central Najdi (Urban Najdi), spoken in the city of Riyadh and surrounding towns and farming communities.
- Southern Najdi, spoken in the city of Al-Kharj and surrounding towns.
- Badawi Najdi, spoken by the nomadic bedouins of Najd. Some tribes have their own distinct accents. Badawi Najdi is also spoken in neighboring Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Iraq.[2][3]
Phonology
Consonants
Here is a table of the consonant sounds of Najdi Arabic. The phonemes /p/ ⟨پ⟩ and /v/ ⟨ڤ⟩ (not used by all speakers) are not considered to be part of the phonemic inventory, as they exist only in foreign words and can be pronounced as /b/ and /f/ respectively depending on the speaker.
Labial | Dental | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | Velar |
Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | emphatic | ||||||||
Nasal | m | n | |||||||
Plosive & Affricate |
voiceless | t | tˤ | k | ʔ | ||||
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | sˤ | ʃ | x | ħ | h |
voiced | ð | z | ðˤ | ɣ | ʕ | ||||
Trill | r | ||||||||
Approximant | l | (ɫ) | j | w |
Phonetic notes:
- The classicized [q] is an allophone for /g/ ⟨ق⟩ in few words and proper names as in القرآن [alqur'ʔaːn] ('Quran') and قانون [qaːnuːn] ('Law').[5]
- The distinction between the classical /dˤ/ ⟨ض⟩ and /ðˤ/ ⟨ظ⟩ was completely lost in Najdi Arabic, and both are realised as /ðˤ/.
- the marginal phoneme /ɫ/ only occurs in the word الله /aɫːaːh/ ('god') and words derived from it,[6] it contrasts with /l/ in والله /waɫːa/ ('i swear') vs. ولَّا /walːa/ ('or'), but it occurs as an allophone of /l/ in many other contexts, especially when neighboring the phonemes /g, x, sˤ, tˤ/ e.g. قَلَم "pencile" /galam/→[gaɫam].
- The phonemes /ɣ/ ⟨غ⟩ and /x/ ⟨خ⟩ can be realised as uvular fricatives [ʁ] and [χ] respectively.
- In the consonantal system of Najdi Arabic, there is an occurrence of the alveolar affricates [t͡s] and [d͡z] as allophonic variants of the velar stops /k/ and /g/, respectively.[7]
Footnotes
- ^ Najdi Arabic at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
- ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- ^ http://www.verbix.com/maps/language/ArabicNajdiSpoken.html
- ^ Al Motairi, Sarah Soror (2015:5)
- ^ Al Motairi, Sarah Soror (2015:6)
- ^ Watson (2002:16)
- ^ Al Motairi, Sarah Soror (2015)
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Bibliography
- P.F. Abboud. 1964. "The Syntax of Najdi Arabic", University of Texas PhD dissertation.
- Al Motairi, Sarah Soror (2015). "An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis of Syllable Structure in Qassimi Arabic".
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