Saʽidi Arabic

Sa'idi Arabic
Native to	Egypt
Native speakers	19 million (2006)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Central Sa'idi Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aec
Glottolog	said1239
Linguasphere	12-AAC-eb

Ṣa‘īdi Arabic (Sa'idi Arabic: صعيدى, locally: [sˤɑˈʕiːdi], Egyptian Arabic: [sˤeˈʕiːdi]; also known as Saidi Arabic and Upper Egypt Arabic) is the variety of Arabic spoken by Ṣa‘īdis south of Cairo, Egypt to the border of Sudan. It shares linguistic features both with Egyptian Arabic, as well as Sudanese Arabic. Dialects include Middle and Upper Egyptian Arabic. Speakers of Egyptian Arabic do not always understand more conservative varieties of Ṣa‘īdi Arabic.

Ṣa‘īdi Arabic carries little prestige nationally though it continues to be widely spoken, including in the north by rural migrants who have partially adapted to Egyptian Arabic. For example, the Ṣa‘īdi genitive exponent is usually replaced with Egyptian bitāʿ, but the realization of /q/ as [ɡ] is retained (normally realized in Egyptian Arabic as [ʔ]). Second and third-generation Ṣa‘īdi migrants are monolingual in Egyptian Arabic, but maintain cultural and family ties to the south.

Ṣa‘īdi consonants

Ṣa‘īdi Arabic has these consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiceless		t		k			ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ		χ	ħ	h
	voiced		z			ʁ	ʕ
Affricate	voiceless			t͡ʃ
	voiced			d͡ʒ *
Trill			r
Approximant		w	l	j

• ^* /d͡ʒ/ may also be realized as [ʒ] or [d]. For the latter case, it collapses with /d/.

References

• Khalafallah, Abdelghany A. 1969. A Descriptive Grammar of Sa'i:di Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 32. The Hague: Mouton.
• Versteegh, Kees (2001). The Arabic Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1436-2.